Good thing I did the practice post...

I just realized the "Feds want Google to turn over its trade secrets" story is big stuff.

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search and advertising giant opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort ``vigorously.''

``Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,'' Wong said.

The case worries privacy advocates, given the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users.

``This is exactly the kind of case that privacy advocates have long feared,'' said Ray Everett-Church, a South Bay privacy consultant. ``The idea that these massive databases are being thrown open to anyone with a court document is the worst-case scenario. If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives.''

Everett-Church, who has consulted with Internet companies facing subpoenas, said Google could argue that releasing the information causes undue harm to its users' privacy.

``The government can't even claim that it's for national security,'' Everett-Church said. ``They're just using it to get the search engines to do their research for them in a way that compromises the civil liberties of other people.''

The government argues that it needs the information as it prepares to once again defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act in a federal court in Pennsylvania. The law was struck down in 2004 because it was too broad and could prevent adults from accessing legal porn sites.

We need a right to privacy in this country. Explictly, and enforced.

And Google has a good few products. This action by the Bush regime is simply indefensible.

HT: Netromancer @ Kos.

Why I'm a Buddhist: Practice...

Looking around for some story that would need to be remembered today, I couldn't actually find any.

So it's probably a good idea to have a word on practice.

There are many types of Buddhist practices; it's a pretty old religion, older than Christianity. My practice is Zen.

Shokai recently had a post on this, from his Soto Zen perspective. While I largely agree with his points there, I would shade things a bit differently in my Rinzai Zen perspective. To wit:

Everything we practice is a way of practicing MU. We practice not to cultivate mindfulness, although mindfulness is cultivated. We practice not to practice MU better, but each mindful practice enables us to practice MU better. Our practice is an expression of ourselves, but strictly speaking, there is nothing we cannot do except practice, either mindfully or not.

As Mumon - the original one, so to speak- is translated:

To realize Zen one has to pass through the barrier of the patriachs. Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked. If you do not pass the barrier of the patriachs or if your thinking road is not blocked, whatever you think, whatever you do, is like a tangling ghost. You may ask: What is a barrier of a patriach? This one word, Mu, is it.

This is the barrier of Zen. If you pass through it you will see Joshu face to face. Then you can work hand in hand with the whole line of patriachs. Is this not a pleasant thing to do?

If you want to pass this barrier, you must work through every bone in your body, through ever pore in your skin, filled with this question: What is Mu? and carry it day and night. Do not believe it is the common negative symbol meaning nothing. It is not nothingness, the opposite of existence. If you really want to pass this barrier, you should feel like drinking a hot iron ball that you can neither swallor nor spit out.

Then your previous lesser knowledge disappears. As a fruit ripening in season, your subjectivity and objectivity naturally become one. It is like a dumb man who has had a dream. He knows about it but cannot tell it.

When he enters this condition his ego-shell is crushed and he can shake the heaven and move the earth. He is like a great warrior with a sharp sword. If a Buddha stands in his way, he will cut him down; if a patriach offers him any obstacle, he will kill him; and he will be free in this way of birth and death. He can enter any world as if it were his own playground.

Breaking that down a bit...

Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked.

Not "when" the road of thinking is block, but after.


If you do not pass the barrier of the patriachs or if your thinking road is not blocked, whatever you think, whatever you do, is like a tangling ghost.

This I think is one of the differences in Shokai's practice and mine.

Tangling ghosts ain't generally useful. Being free of what we think and what we do, and being able to act despite that or because of that, with choice is being free. Ultimately, this path is about transcendance of suffering. "You" have to be in a place to a) see that freedom, and b) to be able to skillfully act when you see that.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not 10,000 lifetimes from now. But also maybe in the next whatever the inverse time unit of an eon is...From the right vantage point, we now can see this. Listen to this. Accept and hold this.

And engage this.

But we have to get to that vantage point, and we have to learn how to function at that vantage point.



When Shokai says:

First, to approach zazen correctly, one must enter this training practice with no expectations of results.

This is the practice-enlightenment of which Dogen speaks; in a seriously disturbed state it is nigh impossible to do this. "No expectation of results" I take to mean: Don't expect a magic want to be waved and all your problems will go away, even after sitting 10,000 times.

But that's not the point; the point is that there is a point at which the suffering permeating our problems like an indelible dye is transcended. Problem and suffering are still present, but we are different, and in a less painful way to ourselves and others.

Mumon adds;

Is this not a pleasant thing to do?

That's wallowing in understatement.

Free speech in the United States?

Permit me to challenge that...

Oh Shit...

Meltodwn in Japan markets.

Might be an interesting day...

Poverty is ours or our descendents' destiny....and of course death certainly is

The likelihood that we are at peak oil, with global warming, in a country poised on a banana peel about to slip and lose its imperial status makes me think the above. The fact that we are a society in a global arena in which economic gladiators are competing, in which anybody can pretty much do anything anywhere cheaper than you with the possible exceptions of personal grooming and gravedigging makes me think the above.

The fact that we are always trying to deny what is immediately in front of us makes me think the above.

The samurai turned Zen teacher Shosan mentioned living fully as though we were warriors in battle, that only then can we act with enlightened mind.

Outside of such courage, how can we get up every morning?

Poverty is our progeny's destiny for sure, and might be ours.

Death is surely our destiny.

It may not sound happy smiley shiny but this is what the grin hides.

This is what conservatives hide.

This is what some liberals hide.

And so in that knowledge we can have a smidgen of compassion for those in denial, and joy in that even though it's probably hopeless, a salmon still manages to get upstream and spawn, albeit with Herculean effort.

Have a nice day!

Yep. The NSA was spying on innocent Americans...

From today's NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

As the bureau was running down those leads, its director, Robert S. Mueller III, raised concerns about the legal rationale for a program of eavesdropping without warrants, one government official said. Mr. Mueller asked senior administration officials about "whether the program had a proper legal foundation," but deferred to Justice Department legal opinions, the official said.

President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program as a "vital tool" against terrorism; Vice President Dick Cheney has said it has saved "thousands of lives."

But the results of the program look very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

Intelligence officials disagree with any characterization of the program's results as modest, said Judith A. Emmel, a spokeswoman for the office of the director of national intelligence. Ms. Emmel cited a statement at a briefing last month by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the country's second-ranking intelligence official and the director of the N.S.A. when the program was started.

"I can say unequivocally that we have gotten information through this program that would not otherwise have been available," General Hayden said. The White House and the F.B.I. declined to comment on the program or its results.

Notice the operative word "useful" missing in the last sentence.

HT: Atrios.

Paul Hackett Nails it:

It takes forever to load, but here's the link on Kos.

So I'll just reproduce the quotes here; here's Hackett's original shot across the bow:

"The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world," he said. "The challenge is for the rest of us moderate Americans and citizens of the world to put down the fork and spoon, turn off the TV, and participate in the process and try to push back on these radical nuts - and they are nuts."

The Ohio Repubs didn't like that:

"Paul Hackett's attempt to compare Christian conservatives to terrorists is abhorrent and completely inappropriate. These intolerant views have no place in the public debate, and I hope his fellow Democrats reject this divisive hate speech. Hackett has shown repeatedly that he will say or do anything to get attention, and it's unfortunate that views like his are embraced by the Democratic Party. I think, Mr. Hackett, you've once again proven who real `radical nut' is."

But Paul Hacket isn't milquetoast:

"I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it. Equal justice under the law for all regardless of who they are and how they were born is fundamental to our American spirit and our American freedoms. Any person or group that argues that the law should not apply equally to all Americans is, frankly, un-American."

"The Republican Party has been hijacked by religious fanatics, who are out of touch with mainstream America. Think of the recent comments by Pat Robertson - a religious fanatic by any measure - that the United States should assassinate a democratically elected leader in Venezuela, and that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment because Sharon wished to trade land for peace."

"Since the Republican Party has been utterly unable to stand for something positive, they have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and have pandered to religious fanatics not to vote for something they believe in, but to vote against their fellow Americans with whom they disagree. Those among us who would use religion and politics to divide rather than unite Americans should be ashamed."

Indeed.

The oil drum

Via, of course, Kevin Drum, here it is: the oil drum.

If the clowns in Washington attack Iran, expect oil prices to skyrocket.

It'll make last years' price rise look like a picnic.

Chavez an anti-semite? Probably not...

Powerline is breathlessly trying to throw Venezuela into the recent brouhaha over nuclear Iran...(see here and here).

Now the military thing is understandable, but of course unfortunate; it's the "the enemy of my enemy" thing. The US has already tried to overthrow Chavez once.

But the anti-semitism thing?

From the Wall Street Journal article quoted on the first link:

With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chávez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.

In September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency offered a resolution condemning Iran for its "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with its treaty commitments, Venezuela was the only country that voted "no." Ahmadinejad congratulated the Venezuelan government, calling the vote "brave and judicious."

Three months later, in a Christmas Eve TV broadcast, Chávez declared that "minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ, have taken over the riches of the world." That ugly anti-Semitic swipe was of a piece with an insidious assault over the past several years on the country's Jewish community. In 2004, heavily armed Chávez commandos raided a Caracas Jewish school, terrifying children and parents. The government's claim that it had reason to believe that the school was storing arms was never supported. A more reasonable explanation is that the raid was part of the Chávez political strategy of fomenting class hatred--an agenda that finds a vulnerable target in the country's Jewish minority--and as a way to show Tehran that Venezuela is on board. Ahmadinejad rivals Hitler in his hatred for the Jewish people.

Well, wait a minute...

The Venezuelan Jewish community leadership and several major American Jewish groups are accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center of rushing to judgment by charging Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, with making antisemitic remarks.

Officials of the leading organization of Venezuelan Jewry were preparing a letter this week to the center, complaining that it had misinterpreted Chavez's words and had failed to consult with them before attacking the Venezuelan president.

"You have interfered in the political status, in the security, and in the well-being of our community. You have acted on your own, without consulting us, on issues that you don't know or understand," states a draft of the letter obtained by the Forward. Copies of the letter are also to be sent to the heads of the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee, among other Jewish groups.

"We believe the president was not talking about Jews and that the Jewish world must learn to work together," said Fred Pressner, president of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela. The confederation is known by its Spanish acronym, CAIV. He added that this was the third time in recent years that the Wiesenthal center had publicly criticized Chavez without first consulting the local community.

Last week the Wiesenthal Center wrote to Chavez, demanding that he apologize for what the center said was a negative reference to Jews during a Christmas Eve speech. The center also asked the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay to "freeze the process" of incorporating Venezuela into Mercosur, a regional trade bloc, unless the Venezuelan president publicly apologizes.

In his speech, Chavez lamented that while the world had enough resources for all, "some minorities, the descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones who threw out [South American liberator Simon] Bolivar from here and also crucified him in a way in Santa Marta, over there in Colombia — a minority took possession of all the planet's gold, of the silver, the minerals, the waters, the good land, the oil, the riches, and they have concentrated the riches in a few hands. Less than 10% of the world's population possesses over half of the world's riches, and more than half of the planet's population is poor, and every day there are more poor in the world."

Both the AJCommittee and the American Jewish Congress seconded the Venezuelan community's view that Chavez's comments were not aimed at Jews. All three groups said he was aiming his barbs at the white oligarchy that has dominated the region since the colonial era, pointing to his reference to Bolivar as the clearest evidence of his intent.

One official noted that Latin America's so-called Liberation Theology has long depicted Jesus as a socialist and consequently speaks of gentile business elites as "Christ-killers."

And there you have it: it just isn't a "swipe at the Jews," but a critique of those who basically want to steal oil from Venezuelans.

More info about Venezuela here.

And, if you read through the Journal propaganda piece, you wouldn't know that Venezuelans feel like they're living in a free country.

And here's a pretty balanced news site on Venezuela in English.

"He is a bad version of us! No more money for him."

Look, we always knew Ralph Reed was not exactly a friend of freedom and democracy, Washington Post, so please refrain from the "choirboy" metaphors...

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"

Silence enveloped the 60 or so Republicans in the auditorium, and Reed's cheerful manner turned tense. "No," he replied. "No to all these."...

Abramoff and Reed -- the former executive director of the Christian Coalition -- have been friends for 25 years, and until recently it had been a mutually profitable association. Now it is proving highly inconvenient for Reed, and threatens to stall a career that has been emblematic of the modern GOP.

"Stall?" In a functioning democracy it'd derail it.

[A] torrent of e-mails revealed during the investigation ...shows a side of Reed that some former supporters say cannot be reconciled with his professed Christian values.

"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God," said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. "We are righteously casting him out."

In 1999, Reed e-mailed Abramoff after submitting a bill for $120,000 and warning that he would need as much as $300,000 more: "We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back."

In 2004, when the casino payments to Reed were disclosed, Reed issued a statement declaring "no direct knowledge of their [Abramoff's law firm's] clients or interests." In 2005, however, Senate investigators released a 1999 e-mail from Abramoff to Reed explicitly citing the client: "It would be really helpful if you could get me invoices [for services performed] as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP."

One of the most damaging e-mails was sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon, complaining about Reed's billing practices and expenditure claims: "He is a bad version of us! No more money for him." Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to defrauding clients.

"People of faith" is a half truth....

And I was always told a half-truth is a whole lie:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Local clergy from nine mainstream denominations have accused two evangelical churches of illegal political activities involving an Ohio candidate for governor and want the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, The Columbus Dispatch reported Monday.

The 31 religious leaders met Sunday night and signed a letter asking the IRS to determine if the churches should lose tax-exempt status over what they claim to be improper campaigning for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican.

The Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster improperly used their churches and affiliated entities for partisan politics, according to the complaint to be faxed to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson...

Mark Youngkin, a spokesman for Parsley, disputed the voter registration allegations in an e-mail to The Dispatch, saying the efforts were conducted "without regard to political affiliation."

Johnson told the newspaper that his church and its affiliate, the Ohio Restoration Project, do not support candidates.

"It's sad to see the religious left and the secular left forge an unholy alliance against people of faith," Johnson said. "We have invited people to pray, to serve and to engage, and candidly, we will not be intimidated or bullied by these folks."

John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron, said the complaint was unusual because it wasn't filed by watchdog groups that routinely monitor church and state issues.

"This complaint is detailed and complex enough that I think the IRS is going to say, 'We better look into this,'" said Green, author of the book "Religion and the Culture Wars."

So all people in the religious center and left aren't people of faith? I mean, it's not an apt characterization for most US Buddhists (while we have a level of confidence in the efficacy of practice, it just isn't the same thing as "believing" that "God created the world in 6 days).

But I'd say it characterizes most mainstream religious types.

The political reality of Alito...

I think he's the "ideological substitute" for Rhenquist, with O'Connor's being Roberts.

So they probably won't filibuster him.

But if they did I think it would be better.

Speaking of the poor, about that minimum wage...

Let's not forget that the BS about the "minimum wage costing jobs" has been refuted:

One of the more intriguing questions about campaigns like the one in Albuquerque, and those planned for swing states next fall, is whether they reflect a profound sense of public alarm about the divergence between rich and poor in this country. Certainly most Americans do not support higher wages out of immediate self-interest. Probably only around 3 percent of those in the work force are actually paid $5.15 or less an hour; most low-wage workers, including Wal-Mart employees, who generally start at between $6.50 and $7.50 an hour, earn more. Increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour would directly affect the wages of only about 7 percent of the work force. Nevertheless, pollsters have discovered that a hypothetical state ballot measure typically generates support of around 70 percent. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center actually put the support for raising the national minimum wage to $6.45 at 86 percent. Rick Berman, a lobbyist who started the Employment Policies Institute and who is a longtime foe of living-wage laws, agrees that "the natural tendency is for people to support these things. They believe it's a free lunch." On the other hand, the electorate's reasons for crossing party lines to endorse the measures may be due to the simple fact that at least 60 percent of Americans have at one time or another been paid the minimum wage. Voters may just know precisely what they're voting for and why.

In the mid-1990's, the last time Congress raised the minimum wage, the Clinton White House was reluctant to start a war over the federal rate, according to Robert Reich, the former labor secretary. For an administration bent on policy innovation, that would have seemed "old" Democrat. "Then we did some polling and discovered that the public is overwhelmingly in favor," Reich told me recently. "At which point the White House gave the green light to Democrats in Congress." Reich, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, happens to view the minimum wage as a somewhat inefficient tool for alleviating poverty (compared with earned income tax credits, say). But he acknowledges that it has a powerful moral and political impact, in states red as well as blue, and especially now, in an era when workers see the social contract with their employers vanishing. "They see neighbors and friends being fired for no reason by profitable companies, executives making off like bandits while thousands of their own workers are being laid off," Reich says. "They see health insurance drying up, employer pensions shrinking. Promises to retirees of health benefits are simply thrown overboard. The whole system has aspects that seem grossly immoral to average working people." As Reich points out, whatever the minimum wage's limitations may be as a policy instrument, as an idea "it demarcates our concept of decency with regard to work."

The idea, Reich points out, isn't new, even if the recent fervor for it is. Massachusetts enacted a state minimum wage in 1912, several decades before the federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour was adopted in 1938. And most of the wage ordinances of the past decade specifically trace their origins back to Baltimore, in 1995. After that moment, in fact, the phrase "living wage" soon caught on - or, you might say, returned. It was a popular workers' refrain in the late 19th century and was the title of a 1906 book by John Ryan, a Roman Catholic priest. In the late 1990's, a loose national network of advocates sprang up, incorporating organized labor, grass-roots groups like Acorn and the Industrial Areas Foundation and, more recently, the National Council of Churches. Legal advice often came out of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school, where a lawyer named Paul Sonn helped write wage ordinances and ballot measures for various states and cities...

The Economists Are Surprised

In the years before the enactment of the federal minimum wage in the late 1930's, the country's post-Depression economy was so weak that the notion that government should leave private business to its own devices was effectively marginalized. During the past few decades, though, in the wake of a fairly robust economy, debates on raising the minimum wage have consistently resulted in a rhetorical caterwaul. While the arguments have usually been between those on the labor side, who think the minimum wage should be raised substantially, and those on the employer side, who oppose any increase, a smaller but vocal contingent has claimed, more broadly and more philosophically, that it is in the best interest of both business and labor to let the market set wages, not the politicians. And certainly not the voters.

This last position was long underpinned by the academic consensus that a rise in the minimum wage hurts employment by interfering with the flow of supply and demand. In simplest terms, most economists accepted that when government forces businesses to pay higher wages, businesses, in turn ,hire fewer employees. It is a powerful argument against the minimum wage, since it suggests that private businesses as a group, along with teenagers and low-wage employees, will be penalized by a mandatory raise.

The tenor of this debate began to change in the mid-1990's following some work done by two Princeton economists, David Card (now at the University of California at Berkeley) and Alan B. Krueger. In 1992, New Jersey increased the state minimum wage to $5.05 an hour (applicable to both the public and private sectors), which gave the two young professors an opportunity to study the comparative effects of that raise on fast-food restaurants and low-wage employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained at the federal level of $4.25 an hour. Card and Krueger agreed that the hypothesis that a rise in wages would destroy jobs was "one of the clearest and most widely appreciated in the field of economics." Both told me they believed, at the start, that their work would reinforce that hypothesis. But in 1995, and again in 2000, the two academics effectively shredded the conventional wisdom. Their data demonstrated that a modest increase in wages did not appear to cause any significant harm to employment; in some cases, a rise in the minimum wage even resulted in a slight increase in employment.

Card and Krueger's conclusions have not necessarily made philosophical converts of Congress or the current administration. Attempts to raise the federal minimum wage - led by Senators Edward M. Kennedy on the left and Rick Santorum on the right - have made little headway over the past few years. And the White House went so far as to temporarily suspend the obligation of businesses with U.S. government construction contracts to pay so-called prevailing wages (that is, whatever is paid to a majority of workers in an industry in a particular area) during the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. David Card, who seems nothing short of disgusted by the ideological nature of the debates over the wage issue, says he feels that opinions on the minimum wage are so politically entrenched that even the most scientific studies can't change anyone's mind. "People think we're biased, partisan," he says. And he's probably right. While Card has never advocated for or against raising the minimum wage, many who oppose wage laws have made exactly those assertions about his research. Nonetheless, in Krueger's view, he and Card changed the debate. "I'm willing to declare a partial victory," Krueger told me. Some recent surveys of top academics show a significant majority now agree that a modest raise in the minimum wage does little to harm employment, he points out.

If nothing else, Card and Krueger's findings have provided persuasive data, and a degree of legitimacy, to those who maintain that raising the minimum wage, whether at the city, state or federal level, need not be toxic. The Economic Policy Institute, which endorses wage regulations, has succeeded recently in getting hundreds of respected economists - excluding Card and Krueger, however, who choose to remain outside the debate - to support raising the federal minimum to $7 an hour. That would have been impossible as recently as five years ago, says Jeff Chapman, an economist at the E.P.I. Even Wal-Mart's president and C.E.O., Lee Scott, recently spoke out in favor of raising the minimum wage. It wasn't altruism or economic theory or even public relations that motivated him, but a matter of bottom-line practicality. "Our current average hourly wage for workers is $9.68," Lee Culpepper, a Wal-Mart spokesman, told me. "So I would think raising the wage would have minimal impact on our workers. But we think it would have a beneficial effect on our customers."

Well, beneficiaries of a living wage would spend more money & stimulate the economy.

But of course we need a global living wage...

I simply cannot fathom this type of Christian...

I don't mean those who out of desperation, are drawn to the likes of a Creflo Dollar. I mean Dollar:

It is time to pass the offering buckets at World Changers Church New York, and Troy and Cheryal Anderson are eager to give the Lord his due. They wave their blue offering envelope overhead, as all around them worshipers whoop and holler their praises to God.

Inside the envelope is 10 percent of the weekly pay Mr. Anderson takes home as an electrician's apprentice - he earns about $30,000 a year - and a little more for the church's building fund.

The Andersons, who live in the Bronx, are struggling financially. A few weeks ago, the couple, who have two young children, had no money to buy groceries. But they believe what their pastor, the Rev. Creflo A. Dollar Jr., said on this recent Saturday night about the offering time: "It's opportunity for prosperity."

"Remember," said Mr. Dollar, a familiar figure across the country because of his "Changing Your World" television show and best-selling books, "if you sow a seed on a good ground, you can expect a harvest."

Mr. Dollar, whose Rolls-Royces, private jets, million-dollar Atlanta home and $2.5 million Manhattan apartment, furnish proof to his followers of the validity of his teachings, is a leading apostle of what is known as the "prosperity gospel."

It is a theology that is excoriated in many Christian circles but is becoming increasingly visible in this country, according to religious scholars. Now, it is beginning to establish a foothold in New York City, where capitalism has long been religion...

It is the connecting of religious faithfulness, especially in giving, to material riches that causes many Christians, including other evangelicals, to accuse prosperity teachers of verging on heresy.

"Verging?" You don't take from the poor, dammit, you help them get fed. At least that's my viewpoint as a Buddhist.

But don't worry about the Dollars:

Wall Watchers, an evangelical organization that monitors the finances of Christian ministries, gave Mr. Dollar's organization an "F" grade for financial transparency in its yearly report and urged donors not to give to it and similar groups. World Changers officials say members can inspect audited financial statements on the church's finances if they desire, but they declined to release them to The New York Times.

According to church officials, the New York church collects an average of $345,000 a month, which works out to more than $4 million annually; the Atlanta church's operating budget is $80 million a year. The offering collected in New York stays entirely in New York, Mr. Dollar said.

About $800,000 of it goes toward renting the theater in Madison Square Garden; an additional $84,000 pays for the church's rented office space nearby; only about $120,000 is spent on the salaries of three people who are on staff. The bulk of the rest, according to church officials, is designated for the church's building fund. The church hopes to raise $200 million for a complex in the city.

Mr. Dollar's salary is set by a compensation board at the Georgia church, but he declined to reveal it. He also declined to say how much of his salary and fees he donates back to the church, except to say that he is one of the church's biggest givers.

He and his wife live in a million-dollar mansion in Atlanta that is owned by the church. He has said that his two Rolls-Royces were gifts from congregants. But shortly after he started the New York church, he and his wife, Taffi, purchased a $2.5 million apartment in the new Time Warner Center on their own.

The shorter version of the rest of the article is: As for the Andersons, they'll get pie in the sky when they die.

Unintentional irony from the NY Times...

In Tiny Arab State, Web Takes on Ruling Elite

Anybody who reads this blog knows that it ain't just Arab states, and not only that but the "ruling elite" also astroturfs its own propaganda machine via the web...

Here's the "fair and balanced" money quote. Remind you of anywhere?

The royal family here dominates, holding half the cabinet positions and the major posts in the security services and the University of Bahrain.

Sheik Muhammad al-Khalifa, the prince who runs the Economic Development Board, argues that Bahrain should not become a democracy in the Western sense. "As traditional Arabs, I don't think democracy is part of our nature," he said.

"I think all people want is accountability," he added, noting that some form of democracy was needed to achieve that.

So political change in the Middle East rests partly on whether and how the many minority governments will yield power and allow others to participate. So far, the results are anemic.

More absurdity from "Michelle Malkin"

This woman, whose latest problem is describe here, is actually published. Scary.

HT: Robot Buddha/John Bridges.

I gotta blogroll that guy's blog...

"Sing a song for Chavez..." or at least buy Citgo gas

Looks like it's beginning to be a Latino bloc against Bush:

Spain said on Friday it would go ahead with the sale of military aircraft to Venezuela in spite of a US ban on the export of US technology to the country.

Defence analysts said Washington's refusal to grant a re-export licence for the US components of the Spanish aircraft might scupper Spain's largest-ever defence contract: a $2bn deal to supply 12 transport and maritime surveillance aircraft and eight patrol boats to the government of Hugo Chávez.

Spanish state radio quoted Defence Ministry sources as saying the aircraft sale would go ahead and that EADS-Casa, the European defence consortium, was in contact with French companies to provide substitute technology, although this could increase the price.

EADS-Casa on Friday declined to comment on whether alternative technologies were available. Navantia, the Spanish state-owned shipyard, said the sale of its patrol boats would not be affected by the US ban...

"Despite being democratically elected, the government of Hugo Chávez has systematically undermined democratic institutions, pressured and harassed independent media and the political opposition, and grown progressively more autocratic and anti-democratic," the US government said.

Now that's the pot calling the kettle black...and no doubt readers of the UK Financial Times see the irony...

...Madrid's deliberate courting of leftwing and populist regimes in Latin America has not endeared José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government to Washington. The contract with Venezuela was signed in November in spite of strong US opposition. It soured relations that have never fully recovered from Mr Zapatero's decision to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq in 2004.

Venezuela, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, has gone on a military spending spree that has stirred concern in Washington.

Mr Chávez complained this week that Washington was also trying to scupper a contract for Brazil to sell Venezuela at least a dozen Super-Tucano light attack aircraft, a deal agreed with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last year.

Celso Amorim, Brazil's foreign minister, acknowledged that there were "signs" that the US was seeking to veto the Brazilian contract.

I can understand what Chavez wants to defend against. And Brazil.

And it's stuff like that which makes you think the Bush folks simply fears or loathes or is unable to face everyone - even their funding sources and blogging supporters- except for a few select folks.

"President Bush's signature domestic achievement..."

From today's WaPo, Bush's "Drug Benefit" is Katrina all over again:

Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines.

Computer glitches, overloaded telephone lines and poorly trained pharmacists are being blamed for mix-ups that have resulted in the worst of unintended consequences: As many as 6.4 million low-income seniors, who until Dec. 31 received their medications free, suddenly find themselves navigating an insurance maze of large deductibles, co-payments and outright denial of coverage...

"This new prescription drug plan was supposed to be a voluntary program to help people who didn't have coverage," said Jeanne Finberg, a lawyer for the National Senior Citizens Law Center. "All this is doing is harming the people who had coverage -- America's most vulnerable citizens."

Hailed as President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the program, which began Jan. 1, offers drug coverage for the first time to 43 million elderly and disabled Americans eligible for Medicare. At the same time, 6.4 million low-income beneficiaries who were receiving their medications through state Medicaid plans were switched into Medicare for their drug benefits and told they would not be charged the standard $250 deductible or co-payments.

But interviews with two dozen people -- state officials, pharmacists, advocates for seniors, and Medicare clients -- revealed a host of problems. Many poor seniors were never enrolled or were enrolled in plans that do not cover their medications. Others received multiple insurance cards, creating confusion at the pharmacies. Some were charged the deductible and unaffordable co-payments. And some, such as Laurine League, left empty-handed.

"For years I've had no problems, going to the same pharmacy," said League, 49, a Queens, N.Y., woman with severe mental illness. "The pharmacist told me one drug was going to cost $198. I don't have that kind of money."

He's doing a heckuva job.

But gods, the man has so many "signature achievements": the fiasco with China invading their airspace, the lack of inaction in reponse to the Aug. 6 2001 PDB, "My Pet Goat," Iraq, Katrina, Plamegate...


But I am truly not telling you the scope of this, so when this thing's published right, this should stand out a bit:

Politicians in both parties were quick to rise to the defense of a particularly vulnerable population. As a group, dual-eligibles have incomes below the poverty rate of $9,570 a year and take an average of 15 medications a day. More than half are women, 40 percent have cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer's and 20 percent do not speak English, according to Finberg.

"The dual-eligibles should have been the last group enrolled because they are the hardest to get going," said Thanh Lu, who focuses on Medicare issues at the Progress Center for Independent Living in Illinois. Clients who are in nursing homes, who have schizophrenia, or who are deaf or blind are ill equipped to tackle the complex new system. Medicare compounded the problem by sending out a handbook that incorrectly told low-income seniors they could enroll in any plan at virtually no cost, he said...

"We had dialysis patients who were not getting medicines, pharmacies on hold for 60-plus minutes, some plans closed for the holiday," she said, describing some of the frantic calls. "One man called me -- he and his wife were on 15 medications. They had no co-payments on Medicaid. He went in for 15, and he left with one" medicine because of the cost, she said.

Yesterday the hotline uncovered a new problem, she said. Some beneficiaries have received letters from private health plans warning that the monthly premiums for their drug coverage will be deducted from their Social Security checks, even though they are poor enough to qualify for free coverage...

Ignorant? Deluded? Malicious?

I wonder about the righties sometimes. They think they want to end "corruption" so they make an "appeal" to do so, welcoming a guy named John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader...

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.

OK, what they really want is to be put on the same dais with the Repubs...

But who's this Shadegg guy?

But this June 2005 passage from CongressDaily tells you a lot about what passes for principle in the GOP House these days:

During the marathon vote for the Medicare prescription drug bill in November 2003, House GOP leaders found a surprising ally in Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz. Shadegg opposed the bill, but helped the party reach its razor-thin margin of victory in the early morning hours.

"There was never any question that John would not support that bill," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., Shadegg's friend since their freshman days in the historic GOP class of 1994. "But at a key moment at the end, he helped get the votes. He understood that everything was at stake for our leadership and our speaker, and he knows that sometimes you have to swallow hard."

To recap: There's simply no way John Shadegg would ever have supported that massive drug benefit, which made a complete mockery of small-government conservatism. But he was heroically instrumental to its passage. Leadership, thy name is Shadegg!

But the sad reality is, the Republican Party would not exist without "K-Street Corruption."

The above link links to this article, which shows just how intimately bound up the Republicans are with K-Street lobbyists:

Inside the House Republican leadership, the former pest exterminator from Houston is the enforcer. His mission is to ensure that money flows along the same stream as policy, that the pro-business deregulatory agenda of the House Republicans receives the undivided financial support of the corporate interests that benefit from it. His motto is an unabashedly blunt interpretation of the dictums of Speaker Newt Gingrich: "If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules."

The role of money in the revolution has been obscured by the titanic clash with President Clinton and the Democrats over balanced budgets and the reshaping of the federal government, but it is part of that larger struggle. Money is at the center of Gingrich's transformation of the House. With the new alignment of ideological allies in the business and political worlds, there are unparalleled opportunities for both the people who give the money and the people who receive it.

It is such an obvious quid pro quo that it goes almost unnoticed. From House Republicans come measures that gratify industry: weakening environmental standards, loosening workplace safety rules, limiting the legal liability of corporations, defunding nonprofit groups that present an opposing view. From the beneficiaries of that legislation come millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

"The Republicans have a wonderful situation," said one trade association president, a longtime Democrat. "They don't have to prostitute themselves. They are ideologically in sync" with the corporate PACs. "Every politician dreams of being able to meet your conscience and raise money at the same time."

Yet money is also the source of increasing tension among House Republicans that could ultimately weaken them, if not tear them apart. The conflict, in essence, is between ideology and populist reform. One wing wants to collect as much corporate money as possible to sustain and expand the revolution. Another wing fears that this will disillusion voters who brought the Republicans to power to change the traditional ways of doing business in Washington. Gingrich stands in the middle aware, people around him say, that his tenure could depend in part on his ability to resolve the conflict.

I wonder then, are those right-wing bloggers so self-centered that they don't see what is in plain view?

Perhaps it's not self-centeredness; perhaps it's simple ignorance.

But it's not just, of course, corruption in Congress...

I was watching the Alito hearings- and the witnesses were coming forth on the Vanguard thing (I've changed my mind about that a bit- Alito should have recused himself, and doesnt' deserve confirmation for that bit alone), but more importantly, on how Alito's axe is not ideological- he's a "strict constructionist" only when it serves to enhance the government's power, and the rest of the time, he's a from-whole-cloth make up shit as he goes justice.

And yet... the propaganda says otherwise.

How can people be so in defiance of reality?

How can they not see that somebody that votes against investors against corporations consistently isn't on their side? I mean, forget about women needing abortions to save their lives; forget about cops beating the shit out of some poor person- this Alito guy's out for middle class people's wallets. Not that there's nothing repugnant about Alito ruling against women needing abortions to save their lives or cops beating the shit out of poor people, but we're talking not just Wal-Mart middle class here, we're talking Port Washington NY middle class. We're talking Fairview Park OH middle class. We're talking middle class salivating to be upper class. Well, at least, I suppose you could say Alito's consistent.

I don't know why folks don't wake up. But there's too much Kool-Aid being drunk with the bad acid in it I think...

Michelle Malkin

is the "mainstream media."

Just with her name on it.

As in Jayson Blair...