NPR: The NPR News Blog

May 31, 2007

Iraq: The New South Korea for U.S. Troops?

So how long can we expect U.S. troops to remain in Iraq? Maybe the next 50 or 60 years.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said President Bush would like to see a U.S. presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea, where U.S. troops provide stability but do not have a front-line combat role. U.S. troops have been in Korea since the early '50s.

"The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you've had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability," Snow told reporters. ...
"I think the point he's trying to make is that the situation in Iraq, and indeed, the larger war on terror, are things that are going to take a long time. But it is not always going to require an up-front combat presence," Snow said.

Jules Crittenden, an editor at the Boston Herald who writes the Forward Movement blog, wonders if anyone is "seriously surprised" by this statement. But he thinks it makes a lot of sense because of the need for new Middle East bases, the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq and "Iranian meddling and attempts at regional domination." Blogger Don Surber concurs.

But Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo sees it as another example of the Bush administration being out of touch with reality and history. Juan Cole at Informed Comment sees the analogy "as frankly ridiculous" because Iraq isn't like Korea in any way.

Gallup Poll: Americans More Accepting of Gay Rights

Public acceptance of gay rights appears to have rebounded close to the high-water mark of the early 21st century.

Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, conducted each May, found that 59 percent of Americans believe that homosexual relations should be legal. And 57 percent of Americans now believe that homosexuality should be sanctioned as an acceptable lifestyle.

Public support for gay rights had declined in the backlash to the 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas sodomy law. But levels are now around the three-decade high marks seen before the ruling.

A majority of Americans -- 53 percent -- still believe that gay marriage should not be legal, but support for the idea has grown from 27 percent in 1996 to 46 percent in 2007.

The poll's trends clearly show that, over time, there has been a movement toward greater acceptance of the gay and lesbian lifestyle in America, and a high level of acceptance exists among young people today.

Blogging Leads Doctor to Make Malpractice Settlement

The Boston Globe called it "a Perry Mason moment updated for the Internet age."

It came during a malpractice case in a Boston courtroom, when well-known pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman made the dramatic confession that he was the blogger known as Flea.

Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day. In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.

The next morning, May 15, Lindeman agreed to what local experts called "a substantial settlement" with the parents of a 12-year-old boy who had died of complications from diabetes. Otherwise, now that Lindeman's secret was out, the plaintiffs' lawyer could let the jury know what he had said about them and the judicial process.

Elizabeth N. Mulvey, the plaintiffs' lawyer who asked the question that prompted Lindeman's confession, said what shocked her about his blog, drfleablog, was that so many other bloggers who knew little or nothing about the case came to Flea's defense. Other defense lawyers say they always check online for things their clients may have written, but it's hard to do when they blog under assumed names.

As for the drfleablog, well, as of this morning it is completely empty. But as my grandfather would say, that's closing the barn door after the horse has already run away.

NASA Chief Questions Need to Address Global Warming

It seems that NASA's chief doesn't think global warming is necessarily a problem that humanity needs to focus on.

Wednesday, NPR interviewed writer Gregg Easterbrook about his column in Wired that charged NASA with blowing its budget on what he considers ridiculous space exploration projects (like building a station on the moon) at the expense of dealing with problems like global warming here on Earth.

This morning, Steve Inskeep of Morning Edition interviewed NASA administrator Michael Griffin to get the other side of the story. During that interview, Griffin said global warming is not necessarily a problem that demands mankind's action.

I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings -- where and when -- are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

NASA issued a news release to respond to the attention generated by Griffin's comments. But the influential NASA Watch blog says in the press release Griffin only expands on the uncontroversial parts of the NPR interview and doesn't deal with the controversial global warming remarks.

Griffin's remarks, of course, have quickly become fodder for the blogosphere. "Stupid in Space" is how Daily Kos describes them. Libertas, on the other hand, calls them "Surprisingly Wise Words from NASA Administrator." DeSmogBlog calls Griffin "the White House 'denier-of-the-day.'"

May 30, 2007

Israeli Human Rights Groups Accuse Shin Bet of Torture

An Israeli human rights group has released a report accusing the Israeli counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency Shin Bet of regularly torturing Palestinian security suspects, The Jerusalem Post reports.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel's report, "Ticking Bombs," draws its name from a 1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that declared routine abuse of Palestinian suspects illegal and banned the use of torture in interrogations. The ruling, however, allowed for physical force to be used if authorities believed the suspect would reveal the location of a "ticking bomb." Human rights groups argue that Israel's security forces use the "ticking bomb" exemption when it shouldn't apply to justify using physical force in interrogations.

The report contains the testimony of nine Palestinians arrested in 2004 and 2005, including one who accused police investigators of committing severe sexual abuse. The Post adds that the report also alleges that "prison wardens, policemen and even doctors take part in torture, as well as lawyers, military judges and senior officials in the Justice Ministry."

Haaretz reports that Shin Bet says its methods were legal and in accordance with the 1999 ruling.

Israel says that, acting on information from arrested militants, in the past six months alone it managed to [track] down 11 explosive belts in the West Bank, of the kind used in deadly suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

This latest report follows one released May 6 by Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem and HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual that also accuses Shin Bet of acting in violation of the 1999 ruling and "international law which outlaws 'special' methods of torture."

The B'Tselem-HaMoked report noted 500 complaints have been made against Shin Bet since 2001 and not a single criminal probe was instigated, even in cases where preliminary investigations showed evidence of abuse existed.

California, Ontario Sign Stem-Cell Agreement

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says his state has become "soulmates" with the Canadian province of Ontario.

Schwarzenegger signed two deals with his Ontario counterpart today, including a new agreement on stem-cell research he says will give "rays of hope" to millions of people with diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.

The CBC reports that Ontario will contribute U.S. $30 million to a joint research project that will focus on using stem cells to find therapies for a variety of diseases. The money will be spread out over five years.

Canadian researchers were the first to isolate cancer stem cells in leukemia, brain and colon cancer, according to the CBC.

Schwarzenegger and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also signed an agreement that includes new low-carbon fuel standards for vehicles.

Candidates Repeating Unproven Iraq-al-Qaida Links

Presidential candidates have been known to sometimes go for style over substance, even when their style points aren't exactly true.

Take, for instance, the current top GOP contenders. As The Boston Globe points out, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are cheerfully repeating words and phrases that give misleading impressions about the links between al-Qaida and Iraq and Osama bin Laden's connection to events in Iraq.

Romney came pretty close to hitting a lack-of-accuracy trifecta in the last GOP debate.

"They want to bring down the West, particularly us," Romney declared. "And they've come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent."

The Shia and the Sunni aren't terrorist groups, of course; they are branches of Islam. Many of our major allies in the region, as well as many Americans, belong to these religious sects. The Globe also points out that specialists say that few of the groups Romney mentioned have worked together and not all of them have threatened the U.S.

Michael Scheuer, the CIA's former chief of operations against bin Laden in the late 1990s, said these kinds of remarks lead people to believe that bin Laden is directing terrorist attacks against the U.S. in Iraq, which he definitely is not. Scheuer also called another notion the candidates have been repeating -- that al-Qaida would move its base of operations to Iraq if the U.S. left -- "nonsense."

Chinese Journalist Joins Lawsuit Against Yahoo!

While the Internet operates as a forum for free speech in many places, it can earn journalists or activists in China a quick trip to jail -- especially after big U.S. Internet companies provide information about what they're doing.

A Chinese journalist and poet who is serving a 10-year sentence in prison has joined a lawsuit against the Internet company Yahoo! that was originally filed in April by Human Rights USA. Shi Tao was arrested for sending e-mail to a pro-democracy group in the United States.

Writing on Boing Boing, Xeni Jardin (a regular contributor to NPR's Day to Day) quotes Colleen M. Costello of the human rights group, who says Shi Tao's prison sentence is directly related to information that Yahoo! gave the Chinese government.

The 2004 Chinese court verdict that sentenced Shi Tao to jail specifically cited Yahoo! as having provided Chinese authorities with information identifying Shi Tao as the owner of the e-mail account and the source of the communications. Yahoo! acknowledges that it provided Chinese officials with identifying information leading to Shi Tao's arbitrary arrest and long-term imprisonment.

Yahoo! and other tech companies have defended what many see as their compliance with repressive governments, saying they are required to follow local laws where they operate. Award-winning digital cartoonist Mark Fiore has created this "iRepress" cartoon to challenge those claims.

The Yahoo! case will be discussed next week at a conference on human rights and Internet repression hosted by Amnesty International UK, which has strongly criticized the actions of companies like Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft in China.

Report: Thompson Plans Run for President

Looking out and seeing a field that lacks candidates with "real" conservative credentials, actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson plans to announce around July 4 that he will run for the Republican nomination for president, Politico reports. So watch for Thompson's well-known symbol -- a red pickup truck -- to start appearing in New Hampshire and Iowa.

The Weekly Standard reported around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday that Thompson would establish an official "testing the waters" committee on June 4 -- the day before the other GOP candidates meet in New Hampshire for their third debate. (Trying to steal a few headlines, perhaps.) That's the first step toward a run for president, and the Politico report takes a step beyond that.

The Latest Politics blog at The New York Sun says Thompson's entrance into the race is "clearly huge."

"A lot of conservatives have been struggling here to figure out where to go with a candidate that can keep the coalition together," a former presidential candidate who is now president of the nonprofit American Values, Gary Bauer, told me yesterday evening, referring to the GOP alliance among economic, defense, and social conservatives. "I think Fred Thompson has a fairly decent chance of emerging as the candidate that can do that."

The most recent poll at Real Clear Politics shows Thompson at 10 percent, tied for third place among Republicans with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Have Notebook, Will Travel

Remember the 16-year-old from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who decided one day that he would just skip a few classes at his prep school and go to Iraq so he could see firsthand what was happening there? Well, Farris Hassan is now 17, and he has a new travel itinerary.

The Miami Herald's Cuban Colada blog reports that Farris wants to go to Cuba so he can write about what it's like to live as a "loser" in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

In a pitch e-mailed to several news organizations, Farris says he'd spend five to seven weeks in Cuba writing about dissidents, peasants, prostitutes, government workers and "passive city folk and professionals." He just asks that a real live news organization, like The Miami Herald for example, promise to run his stories, so that he can get around that pesky U.S. rule that prohibits travel to Cuba - but exempts journalists.

Farris has said that this time he will tell his parents that he's going. That's good. But a word of caution. Letting the Castro regime know that you're going to write about the "losers" of its culture might not be the smartest way to finagle your way into the country. Just a thought.

So far, no media outlet has taken Farris up on his offer.

May 29, 2007

Two Leading Anti-War Protesters Blame Both Parties

Two people who have become known as leading anti-war advocates now believe their work was just a waste of time.

Andrew Bacevich and Cindy Sheehan wrote in separate pieces published during the holiday weekend that their efforts have changed basically nothing about the war in Iraq. And both of them blasted Democrats as much as they did Republicans when it came to responsibility for the war.

In an intense, moving column in Sunday's Washington Post, Bacevich wrote about the death of his only son two weeks ago in Iraq. As his son had served his country as a soldier, Bacevich had tried to serve it as a citizen, he wrote, giving voice to what he considered an ill-begotten adventure. He now believes the idea that the American people could end the war by saying no to it was just "an illusion."

President Bush, he wrote, "has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as 'the will of the people.'" But Bacevich said he also feels the Democrats are now just as responsible for the war's continuation, joining hand-in-hand with Bush and "big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies."

Today, in a chat on the Post's site, Bacevich said America remains a democratic nation in a superficial sense, "But peer beneath the surface and the reality is something else again."

On Monday, Sheehan, who had protested the war since her son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, announced that she would protest no longer. She wrote on the Daily Kos blog that things became worse after she renounced all ties to the Democratic Party and started criticizing it, along with Republicans, for its stance on the war. The same people on the left who had first supported her activities turned on her with a vengeance, she wrote. "Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on," she wrote.

But the final realization that Sheehan said ended her days as an active war protester was that her son died "for nothing."

Astronaut in Love Triangle Sent Back to the Navy

At one point in "The Right Stuff," then-budding astronaut John Glenn lectures his fellow Mercury 7 teammates about keeping their "wicks dry." It's advice that shuttle pilot Cmdr. William Oefelein might have been wise to follow.

Oefelein is, of course, the love interest in the now infamous Lisa Nowak astronaut triangle. Well, Gannett News Service reports that NASA apparently has had enough of the Top Gun flyboy and is shipping him back to the Navy. "The Navy and NASA have mutually agreed to end his detail to NASA," said Kylie Clem, a spokeswoman at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. (Yeah, right. And my children and I mutually agreed that they'll stop watching so much TV.) Nowak was sent back to the Navy a few months ago.

Both Nowak and Oefelein also could face courts-martial for cheating on their spouses, conduct that the military considers unbecoming of an officer, officials said. Oefelein is divorced and Nowak is separated. They are the first NASA astronauts to be sent back to their military branch after a public scandal. Nowak is the first astronaut ever arrested on felony charges.

Is Being Good Based on Biology?

Being a good person isn't just the right thing to do -- it's a really smart survival tactic honed over millions of years of evolution that rewards you by making you feel good.

That's the finding of a team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health, and I can see this one is going to cause a little heat along with any light it generates. The article in The Washington Post notes that this discovery, and several others, suggest that altruism is not a sign of a "superior moral faculty" but is "basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable."

I predict that some theologians, ministers and philosophers might have a few problems accepting this scientific research, based on previous reactions to similar research.

Evolutionary biologists have been saying for years that altruism developed as a survival technique. (Read Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal" for a better understanding.) But this new research goes beyond the mere reciprocal approach of evolution to show that when we do something nice for someone, a part of our brain is activated that makes us feel good. So not only do we get to survive longer, we can feel good while we're doing it.

The Role Oil Plays in the Iraq War

Is the war in Iraq about oil after all?

Writing in the liberal truthout.org, Anne Wright (who served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves) furiously attacks last week's legislation to give additional funding to the troops in Iraq as a means to take oil rights away from the Iraqi people. As part of the funding package, Congress approved language that says if the Iraqi parliament refuses to pass oil legislation currently under review, then the U.S. will withhold reconstruction funds.

But Wright sees the Iraqi legislation as a Trojan horse for U.S. oil companies -- under the legislation, Iraq's national oil company would control only 17 of 78 known oil fields (some of these 78 have been identified but are not yet in production). The remaining known fields and all unknown ones would be up for grabs.

As Antonia Juhasz noted in an L.A. Times opinion piece in December, the much-ignored Iraq Study Group called for the privatization of Iraqi oil. Oil companies argue "increasing state ownership and rising resource nationalism" are long-term threats to global oil supplies. In this piece by NPR, an Iraqi oil expert argues that Iraq needs foreign investment, and that the new legislation would actually make it more difficult for foreign firms to invest.

But Iraqi Raed Jarrar writes in his In The Middle blog that the legislation is a direct intervention in Iraq's domestic politics and would result only in more violence in Iraq. No other Middle Eastern nation has privatized its oil reserves, Wright points out. Not surprisingly, most Iraqis want to retain control of the country's oil.

This story from The Plain Dealer in Cleveland seems to show that both sides have a point: Iraq does need foreign-based technology and companies to get its oil fields back in production, but the price may be the nation loses control of its greatest asset.

May 25, 2007

Adieu Until Tuesday

It's the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, and work is wrapping up around here. Just wanted to let you know that we'll be back Tuesday morning.

But before I go, I wanted to pass along this story and a warning to my many British friends: it's time to shape up -- or else. The Guardian reports that the principal of Wycliffe Hall (one of the leading Anglican theological training colleges) in Oxford, England, thinks 95 percent of all Brits are going straight to hell. Which basically means that outside the royal family and Anglican clergy, the entire country is doomed. (And when I think about some of the things the royals have done ... maybe only the queen is safe.)

Richard Turnbull made the comments in a speech last October to an evangelical group within the Church of England. They were first made public Wednesday on the Thinking Anglicans liberal Web site.

Love and Hate for the New Books about Hillary Clinton

This just in ... Hillary Clinton had problems with her husband's affairs and wants to be president.

Wait a minute, I'm suddenly flashing back to the '90s ... I can hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Bill's saying he didn't have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I'm wearing a fanny pack. "Frasier" is on TV ... Whoa, that was weird.

Anyway, two new books about Hillary Clinton that talk about her marriage and presidential ambitions are hitting the shelves: "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein and "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. After reading the story about them in today's Washington Post, I really did have a feeling of "been there, done that."

The blogosphere has its own opinions, of course. The anti-Clinton site "The Hillary Project" quickly linked to the Post story. Patterico's Pontifications zeroes in on the already-known fact that Clinton failed the District of Columbia bar exam. Against Hillary says Bernstein's book will hit some raw nerves, and that he had better watch his back.

Clinton has her supporters as well. Earlier this month "Left Turn" writing at Jo Swift denounced the book by Bernstein (or, as she calls him, "the guy played by Dustin Hoffman") as a slur on Clinton, "refracting her through the prism of the men around her to a nexus of feminine roles: daughter, wife, blah." The Carpetbagger Report says the two new Clinton books have no new facts and asks if they'll be in book stores' remainder bins by July or August.

(Tom's Update: Here is a Saturday morning piece from Politico that details what it says is the Clinton campaign to "kill" the books, including ensuring "that it emerges into the public eye on the Friday of a holiday weekend.")

Four Separate Conflicts Converge in Tripoli Fighting

"We are ready to die."

That's the message a spokesman for the Fatah al-Islam militant group gave to a reporter for The Daily Star in Lebanon. The Islamist group is holding out against the Lebanese army in a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli. "We only have two options now, to die as martyrs or win," Abu Salim Taha said.

The reasons for this conflict are complex, but a piece by Daily Star columnist (and frequent NPR guest) Rami Khouri explains it better than anything else I've seen. He says the fighting represents the convergence of four separate regional conflicts.

The four are the uneasy legacy of tensions between various Lebanese forces and armed Palestinian refugee groups in the country, going back to the 1960s; the continued tensions between Syria and Lebanon since a popular uprising forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon two years ago; the regional spin-offs from the US-led war in Iraq; and, the expanding clashes as US President George W. Bush's "global war on terror" both battles and breeds assorted Islamist terror groups that pursue Al-Qaeda-like goals and tactics.

On an ironic note, today is a holiday in Lebanon. It's Liberation Day, which commemorates the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. But the holiday has quickly become little more than a day off work, the paper notes in an editorial. Seven years later, much of the unity felt after that first Liberation Day has vanished in the resurgence of Lebanon's sectarian divisions.

Hillary Clinton Seems to Get It Right for YouTube

Believe it or not, Hillary Clinton has produced a pretty funny YouTube video.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has created a "countdown" of the presidential candidates' YouTube offerings. And surprise, Clinton gets kudos for a really entertaining offering. I actually laughed out loud when I watched it. Clinton seems relaxed and having fun -- I don't know if I've ever seen her that way before.

Not everyone faired so well. Sen. Chris Dodd looks like he is speaking from the old politburo in Moscow. Sen. Joe Biden's video has a professional look, but at 13 minutes, it feels like one of those long-winded speeches he loves to give. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has tons of videos. So why put this one online? Still photos and bad audio? So not YouTube.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has those great job application videos. But Rep. Dennis Kucinich ... hmmm. Watching him standing in front of the wall map of Iran and Iraq made me feel like I was back in Mr. Fitzgerald's ninth grade social studies class. As Countdown notes, you expect you'll be given a quiz after watching the video.

New Poll Slams War, But Some Ask for Closer Look

Laura Bush was probably tempted to hide this morning's copy of The New York Times from the president. It includes a new opinion poll that shows that ratings for the Iraq war and for President Bush are lower than, as I once heard a comedian put it, a snake's belly in a wagon rut.

According to the New York Times/CBS News poll, Americans now view the war in Iraq more negatively than ever before: "Sixty-one percent of Americans say the United States should have stayed out of Iraq and 76 percent say things are going badly there, including 47 percent who say things are going very badly, the poll found." President Bush's approval rating (30 percent) looks more like the temperature on a cold day in December.

But two other statistics have Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters questioning whether we should throw out the entire poll. If Americans are so opposed to the war in Iraq, Morrissey wonders, then why are 69 percent still open to the idea of continued funding for it if the Iraqi government meets certain goals and deadlines? He also questions why Congress, which in two other recent polls scored lower than Bush on the approval meter, is suddenly six points in front.

Morrissey says he knows the president and the war are unpopular, but he would like to get a look at the poll's sample to see if that provides any answers. It's not included in the Times or CBS news stories about the poll online. Morrissey refers to the comments of a panel of professional analysts at a recent Online News Association conference, who said that if people aren't willing to show you the methodology behind their work, you should reject it.

It's a good principle, but after a little digging, I did find the sample information on the CBS News site. (It would have been nice if the Times Web site also had included a link to it.) Morrissey has a point about who was sampled (there are quite a few more Democrats than Republicans), but I think this means the poll gets to stay.

May 24, 2007

How Our Media Choices Reinforce What We Believe

A comment posted in response to Wednesday's post on American Muslims pointed out that 60 percent of those surveyed said they didn't believe Arabs were involved in the Sept. 11 attack.

That's an interesting point to note from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press' report on American Muslims, which overall showed the group is mostly mainstream. I would like to venture the theory that part of the reason this belief persists is that we choose media that reinforces our personal beliefs about world events, whether right or wrong, and that helps us to continue to believe them even if they are disproved.

Many Arab-Americans watch Arab-language satellite channels that originate in the Middle East. These channels often interview politicians, religious leaders or commentators who promote the view that Arabs had nothing to do with the attack. That makes it easier not to believe that people from a similar background would commit such a horrendous act.

Or take another example -- the belief that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida were working together before the Sept. 11 attack and Iraq was involved in the attack.

These perceptions have been discounted by many sources: the CIA, the 9/11 Commission and declassified Defense Department documents to name three. Yet according to a poll taken in March 2006 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, 49 percent of Americans still believed that Saddam's Iraq was involved in the attacks or gave substantial support to al-Qaida.

And the media connection? In a study in late 2003, the Maryland program found that media choices directly affected the way people viewed three myths about the Iraq war, including "There's clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists."

Eighty percent of Fox News viewers were likely to hold one of the three incorrect beliefs identified in the study. Seventy-one percent of those who relied on CBS for news held a false impression, as did 61 percent of ABC's audience and 55 percent of NBC viewers. Fifty-five percent of CNN viewers and 47 percent of Americans who rely on the print media as their primary source of information also held at least one misperception. Twenty-three percent of the NPR/PBS audience held one of the three incorrect beliefs.

The report attributed the results to several factors. For instance, supporters of the war in Iraq were more likely to hold one of the misperceptions. So it would appear that many war supporters turned to Fox News, which had the highest percentage of viewers with misperceptions, to find support for their assumptions about Saddam and al-Qaida.

Report: Using the War on Terror to Get U.S. Aid

Many U.S. allies in the war on terror supported the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies in an effort to get more foreign aid, according to a new series of reports in the Center For Public Integrity's ongoing series "Collateral Damage."

This new wave of foreign lobbying, combined with an emphasis "on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns," has cost the United States both financially and politically, according to the center's reports.

Countries like Poland and Romania -- two of the European countries accused of hosting secret CIA prisons where terrorism suspects could be held and possibly tortured -- saw the level of their foreign aid from the United States skyrocket after the Sept. 11 attack.

In the three years before 9/11, Poland received just over $33 million in U.S. military training and assistance. Three years after, the amount was nearly tenfold, more than $300 million in mostly Coalition Support Funds to reimburse expenses incurred by Polish forces in Iraq, according to ICIJ's database of military training and assistance. Since 1998, Romania has received more than $100 million in U.S. military aid, primarily from the Foreign Military Financing program, which provides grants to buy U.S. military equipment and services.

According to the reports, many of the countries that received increases in U.S. foreign aid also saw an increase in human rights violations.

Collateral Damage involved 10 investigative journalists working on four continents "who examined U.S. military assistance and foreign lobbying expenditures and human rights abuses after 9/11." The center's team combed through thousands of Department of Justice lobbying records and human rights reports and used Freedom of Information Act requests to get information on U.S. funding for the countries covered in the series.

Has the Supreme Court 'Retired' A 50-Year-Old Practice?

There is considerable debate in online legal circles about a Supreme Court decision released Monday and whether it ends a 50-year-old practice in civil procedure that makes it easier for people to initiate lawsuits.

In Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, major telephone companies had been accused of conspiring to suppress competition.

The court decided in favor of what is now known as Verizon. But it also slammed a 50-year-old practice developed in a previous ruling that prevented lawsuits from being dismissed for failing to state a claim "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Mostly used in what are called "notice pleadings," it meant plaintiffs only had to give "a short and plain statement of their cause of action" in their initial complaint. A plaintiff who had a good but not perfect case could put the other side on notice of a lawsuit and then collect evidence during discovery.

In this posting on the Civil Procedure Prof Blog, Professor Scott Dodson gives a quite readable overview for the lay person. Scotus Blog looks at the case as well and wonders if this means the end of notice pleading, which would have a considerable impact on the ability to sue a company.

Army Awards New Vest Contract Despite Media Report

A couple of days ago we told you about the controversy over the type of body armor used by the military. NBC News had done an investigative report that included interviews with experts who said that an armored protective vest known as Dragon Skin, made by Pinnacle Armor, would better protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the current vest, known as Interceptor.

But the Pentagon produced test results that it said showed Dragon Skin was actually inferior to the current model, and some defense commentators at blogs like RedState backed the military. Then Wednesday, The Army Times reported that the brouhaha over the right vest didn't stop the Army from awarding new contracts worth $167 million for a new vest to protect soldiers.

Specialty Defense of Dunmore, Pa., and Point Blank of Pompano Beach, Fla., were awarded the contracts Monday to make the Improved Outer Tactical Vest, a redesigned version of the Interceptor that offers design improvements including a quick release system, increased coverage, lighter weight, and better fit and comfort, according to a press release from Program Executive Office Soldier.

May 23, 2007

The Fall and Rise Of John Ashcroft

Jonah Goldberg has, as they say, hit the nail on the head. Goldberg, editor-at-large of National Review Online writes that he is amazed by the way former Attorney General John Ashcroft has been redeemed in the eyes of official Washington because of one simple act -- he said no to Alberto Gonzales.

In 2001, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) led the Democratic opposition to Ashcroft's nomination, casting Ashcroft as a terrifying religious zealot lacking the integrity, temperament and racial "sensitivity" to be attorney general. Last week, Schumer saluted Ashcroft's "fidelity to the rule of law." The liberal Web site Wonkette praised Ashcroft's "heroic stand." ... Ashcroft's rehabilitation was sealed by a Washington Post story about how the former AG was often the only firebreak against the Bush White House. Even Ralph Neas, the hyperpartisan president of People for the American Way, managed to mumble to the Washington Post that Gonzales had managed to make Ashcroft look like a "defender of the Constitution."

It made me think of my dad, who worked in politics for much of his life. He once told me about the "six-month rule" -- the public never remembers what happened more than six months ago. Anybody can be redeemed if they just wait long enough.

Richard Nixon did it ... twice. Barry Goldwater. Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton. Now John Ashcroft. It'll be interesting to see what people think about George W. Bush six months after he's left office.

A New Curse in Boston

The curse of the Bambino plagues the Red Sox no longer. The Patriots play like they wouldn't care if there was a curse. The Bruins aren't cursed -- just badly managed and coached.

But the Boston Celtics ... ah, the Celtics are cursed.

The Celtics, at one time the winner of 16 NBA championships in 30 years, seemed to play the past season for one reason only -- to lose enough games to receive one of the top draft picks that go to the worst teams in the league. The idea of drafting Ohio State's dominating big man Greg Oden or Texas' dynamic Kevin Durant made fans drool, seeing a return to the promised land shimmering on the horizon.

But when the lottery balls fell, so did the Celts. Instead of first or second, they were fifth. No Oden, no Durant.

So why murmurs of a curse? Because it's Boston and Bostonians love curses! The Boston Globe's Bob Ryan, who knows basketball like few other writers, explains:

And who didn't believe that the bad fortune, which began with the death of Len Bias, proceeded with the death of Reggie Lewis, and continued 10 years ago with the faulty drop of the Ping-Pong balls when Tim Duncan was available (and the Celtics had the best chance at him), would finally be reversed? Nope. Sorry. Somebody up there loathes them.

Bill Simmons, who writes on Page 2 on the ESPN website put it this way - "We're headed for another decade in which the Sox and Pats are Michael, and Sonny and the Celtics are Fredo."

You want to know the most ironic touch to this whole sad story? The Celtics' mascot is called "Lucky."

Abstinence-Only Education Facing Funding Cut

Get ready for another cultural battle.

Last week, Democratic Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made it clear that Democrats do not intend to re-fund a $50 million grant program for abstinence-only sex education. Dingell says he considers the funded programs "a colossal failure."

Dingell and other Democrats were given fresh ammunition when Mathematica Policy Research Inc. released a federally funded study of four abstinence-only programs. It found that "the programs had no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth." (Previous studies had indicated similar results.) Dingell says he plans to let the programs' funding expire on June 30 and replace them with funding for both abstinence and safe-sex education.

But conservative religious groups are fighting back. Over 100 supporters were on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for retaining the abstinence-only education. On Saturday, The Christian Post reported that religious leaders like Tony Perkins are arguing the Mathematica report ignored several important points and was too narrowly focused on four of a possible 900 programs.

Michael Craven, founding director of the Center for Christ & Culture, wrote in another column for the Post that he felt the programs studied were aimed at children too young to absorb the message and needed to be continued into high school. (In fact, the Mathmatica report also supports this statement.)

But many people who support the idea of abstinence education also believe that it should be combined with more information about safe sex. As Tarryl Jackson writes for The Jackson Citizen Patriot of Michigan "...why not just give teenagers all the facts about sexuality and sexual health? Ignorance is not bliss."

The Real Picture on Muslim Americans

It's always nice when a major research center releases a study that lends support to something I've believed for a long time -- that one of the main reasons that there have been no further terrorist attacks in the U.S. since Sept. 11 is that Muslims are more integrated into American society and culture than their counterparts are in Europe.

In the report from the Pew Research Center for The People and the Press on Muslim Americans, "Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream," I wasn't surprised to read that "Muslim Americans have a generally positive view of the larger society. Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live." Nor that 71 percent believe that if you're willing to work hard you can get ahead here. Nor that 63 percent see no problem between being a devout Muslim and living in a free society. Nor that 80 percent believe that a suicide bombing in the name of Islam is a bad thing.

These survey results, of course, don't mean something horrible won't ever happen here again. Or that there aren't any grievances in the American Muslim community. But I'm a firm believer that freedom of religion is one of the greatest gifts America gives to those who come here. I've seen it firsthand.

Several years ago, my family hired a young au pair from France named Najat. She had grown up in a secular Muslim household. She was a great au pair and my kids loved her. But she was restless and often unhappy. She started, more as a lark than anything else, attending some meetings at the mosque in Cambridge, Mass., near where we lived. It changed her life.

One day, toward the end of her stay, she said the most amazing thing. Coming to America had given her the freedom to choose to be a Muslim, something that she didn't feel she had in France. She said that America was "the greatest country in the world" for Muslims because you could live as you liked, in a free society. She said those who wanted to destroy America just didn't understand that.

Will Chagos Islanders' Return Mean Problems for U.S. Base?

Britain tried to keep them away. The United States tried to keep them away. But it now looks as if the Chagos islanders might finally be going home.

The Guardian reports that the islanders -- who were expelled by Britain in 1966 after it gave the United States a 50-year lease to build an airbase on Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean -- won a resounding victory in Britain's court of appeals Tuesday.

The court ruled that thousands of people who were tricked, starved and even terrorized from their homes could return immediately, with the decision likely to draw a line under what is widely seen as one of the most shameful episodes in British colonial history.

In 2006, after an earlier court decision, the Daily Telegraph painted a bleak picture of Britain's actions during the expulsion.

The islanders won their first court ruling in 2000. The late Robin Cook, then British foreign secretary, said there would be no appeal and that he would begin a "feasibility study" into the possibility of the islanders' return. But the U.S. told Britain it didn't want anyone near the Diego Garcia base for fear of "terrorists infiltrating the islands."

So in 2004, Tony Blair's government tried to use a procedure called royal prerogative to effectively nullify the first decision. But Britain's High Court overturned that gambit, rejecting the government's argument that "the royal prerogative, exercised by ministers in the Queen's name, was immune from scrutiny."

This latest victory for the Chagos islanders means they can return to a group of 65 islands in the Chagos archipelago, except for Diego Garcia itself. Blair's government has one option left -- an appeal to the House of Lords. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's office has not said yet if that avenue will be pursued.

May 22, 2007

The Debunking Of The Five-Second Rule

It never ceases to amaze me how science consistently breaks through the barriers of ignorance that we have erected around our most sacred beliefs ... like the five-second rule. You know, the one that says if you drop a piece of food on the floor, you have up to five seconds to pick it up and pop it in your mouth. After that -- to the trash! Every grade school kid knows this rule, for heaven's sake.

A complete myth! Totally untrue! Mere superstition!

A crack team of student researchers at Connecticut College vigorously tested the five-second rule, leaving both wet and dry food on the floor for various lengths of time. And zounds if they didn't discover that you can leave that gooey bit of macaroni and cheese or that apple slice on the floor for up to 30 seconds! Thirty seconds!

And hard food, well, it's unbelievable. Skittles, for instance, can be left for about (dare I write this) FIVE MINUTES before any sign of bacteria is present. (I have Skittles that have been in the back of my minivan for five years -- that's probably too long.)

When I told my colleagues about these findings, they had immediate questions. What about different kinds of floors? What about that really cheap outdoor carpeting that some restaurants use? What about spilled beer? There is immediate need for more research. I have no doubts that a federal grant could be found that would provide all needed funding.

Controversy Emerges Over Military's Body Armor

The U.S. military is hustling to explain to Congress that it already offers its troops the best body armor available after NBC News aired a report that questioned this claim. Military.com reports that the Army's top equipment buyer, Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, will meet with members of Congress and staff to explain why the military believes an armored vest known as "Dragon Skin" is not the best choice. On Monday at a Pentagon briefing, Brown made his case publicly.

Brown appeared at the Pentagon briefing with the actual test articles that had failed to stop armor-piercing rounds, which Army officials claim its current enhanced small arms protective insert plate can withstand ... The Dragon Skin vests tested by the Army in May suffered 13 penetrations in 48 shots, service officials said.

In its investigative report, however, NBC interviewed Jim Magee, a retired Marine colonel who designed the current body armor in use by the military, known as Interceptor. Magee said he felt Dragon Skin was the best available -- "two steps ahead of anything I've ever seen." Other people interviewed for the show claimed that officers at lower levels tried to sabotage the use of Dragon Skin because it was not Army developed and would threaten their funding and programs.

NBC also reported that the CIA had approved Dragon Skin for its elite operatives and that select soldiers assigned to protect generals and VIPs in Iraq and Afghanistan wore Dragon Skin.

The Army has decided to launch "an aggressive campaign" to counter the claims of NBC and the company that makes Dragon Skin, Pinnacle Armor, so I doubt we've heard the last of this one. The discussion boards at Military.com are already filled with comments pro and con.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't, Al Hurra

If you want to know why the U.S.-backed Al Hurra Arabic satellite TV network will never reach the levels of audience penetration that its competitors, like Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, have reached, it's illustrated rather neatly in this piece from Thursday's New York Times.

Executives from the cable channel were chastised by both Democrats and Republicans for airing the views of leaders of the militant Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Washington-based politicians saw this as a no-no. One problem is that none of the top executives who run Al Hurra, which is based in Virginia, actually speak Arabic, so they have to rely on the Arabic-speaking staff to tell them if a program or interview is OK.

Congress has a perfectly understandable position -- it funds the program, it gets to call the tune. But it's also why Al Hurra will struggle to overcome the perception that it is little more than an American propaganda outlet in Iraq. This piece by Courtney Radsch at Arabisto gives a good overview of the difficulty of Al Hurra's position.

Joaquin F. Blaya, a Hurra executive, did point out that it didn't make much sense for a station designed to promote democracy and free speech not to practice it. But this being America, where you can air different viewpoints, one exists, of course -- Joel Mowbray presents it at Power Line.

China Heads for Moon, Eyes Mars

If you really want to mark the point when you enter the big time as a country, don't pay any attention to the fact that you produce almost every toy American children play with, or that you manufacture ingredients for much of the pet food we Americans buy (even if many of us don't know that until it starts poisoning the pets), or that there are shoe stores around the world that only carry products manufactured within your borders.

No, if you're China, and you've achieved all the economic milestones mentioned above, and you've already got the other marker of the big-time club -- the bomb -- there is only one direction you can go to show you belong in the top echelon -- straight up.

On Sunday, China National Space Agency chief Sun Laiyan announced that his country would launch its first lunar probe later this year. Sc