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My spelling reduces my credibility also.
I use the term Facist specificly.
Bin Laden and the terrorists are caused By The United States of America.. we have to address the cause... Soudi Arabia, egypt, and Iraq dictatorships, in the modern small world Dictatorships. wont cut it anymore,.. all of them need to go... I think the USA should have ended Sadamms regime by simply writing the oil checks to the oils owners Kurds Shiits and sunis. see how long that asshole would have stayed in power... Iraq,, we let Saddam have his own country. Shell oil wrote him checks till the week before invasion, Haliburton worked for Saddam in Iraq at time of invasion, and makes our troops food? WE the United States of America Caused this whole mess. We need to stop it.. IT is our responsibility. WE are the older brother, the just, and fair country.. We cant let the profiters run our operations though..guarenteed failure.. The millitary has done its job the CIA did its job..Bush N CO. failed.
The new Iraq government is set up exactly like Saddams regime it has strings for the US government to manipulate,
Pelosi steps out of bounds Fri Apr 6, 6:56 AM ET
Democrats in Congress have been busy flexing their foreign policy muscles almost from the moment they took power in January, for the most part responsibly.
>>>>>>>this will be the rights new angle for the failure in Iraq, n Afganistan.. its because of the new Democrat Congress,..Both parties will never know how much they need each other...
Its distraction. they cant talk about the resurge failure so they are grasping..
Proven liars, cant negotiate for our country.
Democrats had full knowlege the the intell was fake and they all voted for the war...
I cant believe Cheney is still out there calling others armchair Quarterbacks,, Those people live on another planet.. the dems should cut funding now.. to let those criminals take another hundred billion on this fake war is sickning.
Happy Face muslim dictatorships. We launched this Attack from Saudi Arabia. Our troops pass through the Facist muslim dictatorship that spawned bin laden, never lifting a finger to stop that regime,. that is good men doing nothing right?,,,.. your concern for the Kurds is dishonest.. When will they become inconvenient again? Bush n co already have the plan to slaugter the Kurds,, they label them comunist and then the cia is set lose on them. just a matter of time.
They were better off with Saddam.
anti fraud, fraud
Italy caused the war in Iraq..
The name of the women selling the Fake documents?, and who ransacked the Niger embasy, the Italians didnt want martino to identify them as the fake documents handlers then the Italian government is behind this..
Rocco Martino is an Italian security consultant and information peddler. Martino was formerly a member of Italy's foreign intelligence service (SISMI). Sometime after February of 1999, Martino provides French officials with documents suggesting that Iraq intends to expand its “trade” with Niger. The French assume the trade being discussed would be in uranium, Niger's main export. At French intelligence's request, Martino continues supplying them with documents.
In early 2000, Martino, is approached by a former colleague at SISMI,( Who is this person?) who tips him off to a former SISMI source( Who?) working at the Nigerien Embassy in Rome who can provide Martino with information in exchange for a monthly retainer fee. Martino pursues the lead, and agrees to pay her(who?) 500 euros/month.
The source, however, remains on SISMI's payroll providing the agency with a way to distribute information to the public while concealing its role. Most of the documents he will receive from the lady will be related to immigration into Italy and Islamist activities in North and Central Africa.
On January 2, 2001, the Italian police discover that the Niger Embassy in Rome has been ransacked. It appears that the people involved in the break-in searched through the embassy's documents and files. In 2003, Italian investigators will suspect that this incident is related to a collection of forged documents obtained by an Italian journalist in October 2002 which play a significant role in US allegations that Saddam Hussein attempted to obtain uranium oxide from Niger between 1999 and 2001.
The Italian government reportedly obtains half a dozen letters and other documents from a source in Rome alleged to be correspondence between Niger and Iraqi officials negotiating a sale of 500 tons of uranium oxide. The Italians share the intelligence with their counterparts in both Britain and the US.
Martino receives a telephone call sometime in late 2001 from a former colleague at SISMI, who informs him that his source at the Nigerien embassy is in possession of documents that might be of interest to him. “I met her and she gave me documents,” Martino later tells the Sunday Times. “SISMI wanted me to pass on the documents but they didn't want anyone to know they had been involved.”
These documents consisting of a series of letters purported to have been exchanged between the Niger government and an Iraqi diplomat to Martino. According to these letters, Iraq had attempted to obtain 500 tons of uranium oxide, or “yellowcake,” from Niger.
The Italian intelligence agency, SISMI, provides the CIA with a report on a 1999 trip to Niger made by Wissam al-Zahawie (see February 1999), Iraq's former ambassador to the Vatican. The report suggests that the trip's mission was to discuss the future purchase of uranium oxide, known as “yellowcake.” According to sources later interviewed by New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the report is “dismissed as amateurish and unsubstantiated” by US intelligence.
The CIA briefs Vice President Dick Cheney on intelligence that was provided by the Italians suggesting that Iraq is attempting to purchase uranium from Niger. Cheney asks about the implications of the report and is reportedly dissatisfied with the initial response. He asks the agency to take another look.
This prompts the CIA to send Joseph C. Wilson, a retired US diplomat, to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from that country, in late February 2002.
Iraqi form of government after invasion
Anarchy, void, freedom,
Then,
Individual and small groups of Iraqis begin punishment of Saddam s government employees, This is the beginning of law. Individual revenge is thus the basic form of government... Anarchy doesnt last long.
Government buildings looted. documents destroyed. After complaints of artifacts being destroyed and stolen from a museum looters are turned back.
Then local governments begin to form and were deemed illegal By the US army, and disbanded the individuals are placed in jail.
US Army disbands all Iraq governmental infrastructure including police and army.
US army begins policing. soldiers cannot read street signs. or communicate with the people.. US Soldiers complain that the Iraqi informants on Bath party members, are Sometimes false, informants are able to deal out punishment to inocent enemies, and the person reported on is held in jail with no rights.
Anti American Terrorist groups move into Iraq, and begin killing and capturing Americans. Captured Americans are beheaded on television.
US Army decides that pictures of Coffins and other items that they deem sensitive are not allowed. They claim that at a time of war The Leadeship should not be Questioned...
US Army Soldiers abuses against Iraqis goes unchecked because of a system with limited accoutability.
Posesion of a firearm by an Iraqi is concidered a serious crime, a US army Soldier is Judge Jury and Exocutioner.
Iraqis have no rights, a state of martial law persists.
Bombings increase..
US army, house to house search and destroy missions, killing anyone percieved as a threat..
Frustrated US soldiers massacre Iraqi families. US soldiers idividualy comit rape and murder and fellow soldiers lack will to report.
Most Iraqis able to leave have left Iraq.
Bush installed government gives charity to Iraqi muslim leaders. causing jealousy, Bush orchestrates a winner takes all election, Shiites win,, Get paid charity checks for % of oil Bush deems they need,, Sunnis get symbolic positions,.. civil war starts.. US ARmy Still controls oil fields and Green Zone.
Most Iraqis able to leave have left Iraq. Oil is ten dollars per Gallon. Government set price control is at low$ per gallon,, Gassoline is stolen and sold out the back door of the Government run Gas stations. The current form of government could be considered socialist, but the influence of US Government and Corporations would make it Facist.
US soldiers hide in there bases and do not patrol.
The Shiites in control only give there people welfare
no jobs, nothing ,.
We must set up a fair system of government deviding the groups into states,, limit national government , it could be done.. Or Leave,, bush n co have it how they like it,,so we must leave or this will just get worse,, no democrat has a plan to set up fair governing eother so we must leave...
No one knew his political views,
Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929) was an American economist and social scientist. He is known for his historical investigation of the economic structure of society and for his analysis of the contemporary economic system. Veblen was born a poor farm boy in Cato, Wisconsin. He was the sixth child of Norwegian immigrants. He was a odd child, lazy, and addicted to reading. He spent much of his time alone and had not perfected English as his second tongue until he went to college. He was educated at Carleton College, Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Cornell universities. Upon his graduaton from Yale in 1884 with his Ph.D., Veblen went into isolation for nearly seven years. Most of that time was spent reading. Veblen has been described as a "detached stranger in the bustling community in which he lived." He was also known to be uninvolved, distant, and disinterested. He had no close friends and many eccentricities. Despite these characteristics, many women found him attractive. From 1892 to 1906, Veblen taught political economy at the University of Chicago. He taught economics at Stanford University from 1906 to 1909 and at the University of Missouri from 1911 to 1918. He was on the staff of the New School for Social Research, in New York City, from 1919 to 1926, when he retired. According to Veblen, society was divided into a "predator" class, which owns business enterprises, and an "industrious" class, which produces goods. He criticized business owners for what he considered their "pecuniary" values. In his most famous work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), he characterized the leisure class as parasitic and therefore, harmful to the economy. He also introduced the phrase "conspicuous consumption", which would later be used to describe the competition for social status among Americans. Throughout Veblen's work there is an underlying concern with business enterprise and its power. His ideas influenced the development of economic policy and particularly the policy trend toward more social control or governmental activity in the economy at a time when business enterprise dominated the economy. His other writings include The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), The Instinct of Workmanship (1914), The Place of Science in Modern Civilization (1919), and The Engineers and the Price System (1921). This bit of humor was extracted from The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner, from the section on Thorstein Veblen. As you can see, he was a bit eccentric. My actual office hours for the Spring term, 2006 are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m, Wednesdays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., or by appointment. If these times are inconvenient for you, please call (608.785.5297) or leave me an email to make an appointment. I will take every step necessary to find a time to meet with you that is convenient for you. Veblen (1857-1929) was an American economist, and is considered (by some) to be the founder of institutionalist economics. He is the author of such books as The Theory of the Leisure Class, The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Engineers and the Price system, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise and The Higher Learning in America. He somewhat disregarded the formalities of academic institutions, and at one university his "door card read: 'Thorstein Veblen, 10-11, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays' was changed by slow degrees to read: 'Mondays: 10 to 10:05'" Chapter III: Conspicuous Leisure -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If its working were not disturbed by other economic forces or other features of the emulative process, the immediate effect of such a pecuniary struggle as has just been described in outline would be to make men industrious and frugal. This result actually follows, in some measure, so far as regards the lower classes, whose ordinary means of acquiring goods is productive labour. This is more especially true of the labouring classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry, in which there is a considerable subdivision of industry, and whose laws and customs secure to these classes a more or less definite share of the product of their industry. These lower classes can in any case not avoid labour, and the imputation of labour is therefore not greatly derogatory to them, at least not within their class. Rather, since labour is their recognised and accepted mode of life, they take some emulative pride in a reputation for efficiency in their work, this being often the only line of emulation that is open to them. For those for whom acquisition and emulation is possible only within the field of productive efficiency and thrift, the struggle for pecuniary reputability will in some measure work out in an increase of diligence and parsimony. But certain secondary features of the emulative process, yet to be spoken of, come in to very materially circumscribe and modify emulation in these directions among the pecuniary inferior classes as well as among the superior class. But it is otherwise with the superior pecuniary class, with which we are here immediately concerned. For this class also the incentive to diligence and thrift is not absent; but its action is so greatly qualified by the secondary demands of pecuniary emulation, that any inclination in this direction is practically overborne and any incentive to diligence tends to be of no effect. The most imperative of these secondary demands of emulation, as well as the one of widest scope, is the requirement of abstention from productive work. This is true in an especial degree for the barbarian stage of culture. During the predatory culture labour comes to be associated in men's habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority, and therefore comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. On the contrary, with the advance of social differentiation it has acquired the axiomatic force due to ancient and unquestioned prescription. In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. And not only does the evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's self-complacency. In all but the lowest stages of culture the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his self-respect by "decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". Enforced departure from his habitual standard of decency, either in the paraphernalia of life or in the kind and amount of his everyday activity, is felt to be a slight upon his human dignity, even apart from all conscious consideration of the approval or disapproval of his fellows. The archaic theoretical distinction between the base and the honourable in the manner of a man's life retains very much of its ancient force even today. So much so that there are few of the better class who are no possessed of an instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. We have a realising sense of ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits of thought with menial service. It is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. Vulgar surroundings, mean (that is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and avoided. They are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual plane __ with "high thinking". From the days of the Greek philosophers to the present, a degree of leisure and of exemption from contact with such industrial processes as serve the immediate everyday purposes of human life has ever been recognised by thoughtful men as a prerequisite to a worthy or beautiful, or even a blameless, human life. In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes. This direct, subjective value of leisure and of other evidences of wealth is no doubt in great part secondary and derivative. It is in part a reflex of the utility of leisure as a means of gaining the respect of others, and in part it is the result of a mental substitution. The performance of labour has been accepted as a conventional evidence of inferior force; therefore it comes itself, by a mental short-cut, to be regarded as intrinsically base. During the predatory stage proper, and especially during the earlier stages of the quasi-peaceable development of industry that follows the predatory stage, a life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive evidence of pecuniary strength, and therefore of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure can live in manifest ease and comfort. At this stage wealth consists chiefly of slaves, and the benefits accruing from the possession of riches and power take the form chiefly of personal service and the immediate products of personal service. Conspicuous abstention from labour therefore becomes the conventional mark of superior pecuniary achievement and the conventional index of reputability; and conversely, since application to productive labour is a mark of poverty and subjection, it becomes inconsistent with a reputable standing in the community. Habits of industry and thrift, therefore, are not uniformly furthered by a prevailing pecuniary emulation. On the contrary, this kind of emulation indirectly discountenances participation in productive labour. Labour would unavoidably become dishonourable, as being an evidence indecorous under the ancient tradition handed down from an earlier cultural stage. The ancient tradition of the predatory culture is that productive effort is to be shunned as being unworthy of able-bodied men. and this tradition is reinforced rather than set aside in the passage from the predatory to the quasi-peaceable manner of life. Even if the institution of a leisure class had not come in with the first emergence of individual ownership, by force of the dishonour attaching to productive employment, it would in any case have come in as one of the early consequences of ownership. And it is to be remarked that while the leisure class existed in theory from the beginning of predatory culture, the institution takes on a new and fuller meaning with the transition from the predatory to the next succeeding pecuniary stage of culture. It is from this time forth a "leisure class" in fact as well as in theory. From this point dates the institution of the leisure class in its consummate form. During the predatory stage proper the distinction between the leisure and the labouring class is in some degree a ceremonial distinction only. The able bodied men jealously stand aloof from whatever is in their apprehension, menial drudgery; but their activity in fact contributes appreciably to the sustenance of the group. The subsequent stage of quasi-peaceable industry is usually characterised by an established chattel slavery, herds of cattle, and a servile class of herdsmen and shepherds; industry has advanced so far that the community is no longer dependent for its livelihood on the chase or on any other form of activity that can fairly be classed as exploit. From this point on, the characteristic feature of leisure class life is a conspicuous exemption from all useful employment. The normal and characteristic occupations of the class in this mature phase of its life history are in form very much the same as in its earlier days. These occupations are government, war, sports, and devout observances. Persons unduly given to difficult theoretical niceties may hold that these occupations are still incidentally and indirectly "productive"; but it is to be noted as decisive of the question in hand that the ordinary and ostensible motive of the leisure class in engaging in these occupations is assuredly not an increase of wealth by productive effort. At this as at any other cultural stage, government and war are, at least in part, carried on for the pecuniary gain of those who engage in them; but it is gain obtained by the honourable method of seizure and conversion. These occupations are of the nature of predatory, not of productive, employment. Something similar may be said of the chase, but with a difference. As the community passes out of the hunting stage proper, hunting gradually becomes differentiated into two distinct employments. On the one hand it is a trade, carried on chiefly for gain; and from this the element of exploit is virtually absent, or it is at any rate not present in a sufficient degree to clear the pursuit of the imputation of gainful industry. On the other hand, the chase is also a sport --an exercise of the predatory impulse simply. As such it does not afford any appreciable pecuniary incentive, but it contains a more or less obvious element of exploit. It is this latter development of the chase -- purged of all imputation of handicraft -- that alone is meritorious and fairly belongs in the scheme of life of the developed leisure class. Abstention from labour is not only a honorific or meritorious act, but it presently comes to be a requisite of decency. The insistence on property as the basis of reputability is very naive and very imperious during the early stages of the accumulation of wealth. Abstention from labour is the convenient evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing; and this insistence on the meritoriousness of wealth leads to a more strenuous insistence on leisure. Nota notae est nota rei ipsius. According to well established laws of human nature, prescription presently seizes upon this conventional evidence of wealth and fixes it in men's habits of thought as something that is in itself substantially meritorious and ennobling; while productive labour at the same time and by a like process becomes in a double sense intrinsically unworthy. Prescription ends by making labour not only disreputable in the eyes of the community, but morally impossible to the noble, freeborn man, and incompatible with a worthy life. This tabu on labour has a further consequence in the industrial differentiation of classes. As the population increases in density and the predatory group grows into a settled industrial community, the constituted authorities and the customs governing ownership gain in scope and consistency. It then presently becomes impracticable to accumulate wealth by simple seizure, and, in logical consistency, acquisition by industry is equally impossible for high minded and impecunious men. The alternative open to them is beggary or privation. Wherever the canon of conspicuous leisure has a chance undisturbed to work out its tendency, there will therefore emerge a secondary, and in a sense spurious, leisure class -- abjectly poor and living in a precarious life of want and discomfort, but morally unable to stoop to gainful pursuits. The decayed gentleman and the lady who has seen better days are by no means unfamiliar phenomena even now. This pervading sense of the indignity of the slightest manual labour is familiar to all civilized peoples, as well as to peoples of a less advanced pecuniary culture. In persons of a delicate sensibility who have long been habituated to gentle manners, the sense of the shamefulness of manual labour may become so strong that, at a critical juncture, it will even set aside the instinct of self-preservation. So, for instance, we are told of certain Polynesian chiefs, who, under the stress of good form, preferred to starve rather than carry their food to their mouths with their own hands. It is true, this conduct may have been due, at least in part, to an excessive sanctity or tabu attaching to the chief's person. The tabu would have been communicated by the contact of his hands, and so would have made anything touched by him unfit for human food. But the tabu is itself a derivative of the unworthiness or moral incompatibility of labour; so that even when construed in this sense the conduct of the Polynesian chiefs is truer to the canon of honorific leisure than would at first appear. A better illustration, or at least a more unmistakable one, is afforded by a certain king of France, who is said to have lost his life through an excess of moral stamina in the observance of good form. In the absence of the functionary whose office it was to shift his master's seat, the king sat uncomplaining before the fire and suffered his royal person to be toasted beyond recovery. But in so doing he saved his Most Christian Majesty from menial contamination. Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. It has already been remarked that the term "leisure", as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence. What it connotes is non-productive consumption of time. Time is consumed non-productively (1) from a sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness. But the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life. For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing account. He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators. This can be done only indirectly, through the exhibition of some tangible, lasting results of the leisure so spent -- in a manner analogous to the familiar exhibition of tangible, lasting products of the labour performed for the gentleman of leisure by handicraftsmen and servants in his employ. The lasting evidence of productive labour is its material product -- commonly some article of consumption. In the case of exploit it is similarly possible and usual to procure some tangible result that may serve for exhibition in the way of trophy or booty. at a later phase of the development it is customary to assume some badge of insignia of honour that will serve as a conventionally accepted mark of exploit, and which at the same time indicates the quantity or degree of exploit of which it is the symbol. As the population increases in density, and as human relations grow more complex and numerous, all the details of life undergo a process of elaboration and selection; and in this process of elaboration the use of trophies develops into a system of rank, titles, degrees and insignia, typical examples of which are heraldic devices, medals, and honorary decorations. As seen from the economic point of view, leisure, considered as an employment, is closely allied in kind with the life of exploit; and the achievements which characterise a life of leisure, and which remain as its decorous criteria, have much in common with the trophies of exploit. But leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from exploit and from any ostensibly productive employment of effort on objects which are of no intrinsic use, does not commonly leave a material product. The criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take the form of "immaterial" goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not conduce directly to the furtherance of human life. So, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge of the dead languages and the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of the various forms of domestic music and other household art; of the latest properties of dress, furniture, and equipage; of games, sports, and fancy-bred animals, such as dogs and race-horses. In all these branches of knowledge the initial motive from which their acquisition proceeded at the outset, and through which they first came into vogue, may have been something quite different from the wish to show that one's time had not been spent in industrial employment; but unless these accomplishments had approved themselves as serviceable evidence of an unproductive expenditure of time, they would not have survived and held their place as conventional accomplishments of the leisure class. These accomplishments may, in some sense, be classed as branches of learning. Beside and beyond these there is a further range of social facts which shade off from the region of learning into that of physical habit and dexterity. Such are what is known as manners and breeding, polite usage, decorum, and formal and ceremonial observances generally. This class of facts are even more immediately and obtrusively presented to the observation, and they therefore more widely and more imperatively insisted on as required evidences of a reputable degree of leisure. It is worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial observances which are classed under the general head of manners hold a more important place in the esteem of men during the stage of culture at which conspicuous leisure has the greatest vogue as a mark of reputability, than at later stages of the cultural development. The barbarian of the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is notoriously a more high-bred gentleman, in all that concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men of a later age. Indeed, it is well known, or at least it is currently believed, that manners have progressively deteriorated as society has receded from the patriarchal stage. Many a gentleman of the old school has been provoked to remark regretfully upon the under-bred manners and bearing of even the better classes in the modern industrial communities; and the decay of the ceremonial code -- or as it is otherwise called, the vulgarisation of life -- among the industrial classes proper has become one of the chief enormities of latter-day civilisation in the eyes of all persons of delicate sensibilities. The decay which the code has suffered at the hands of a busy people testifies -- all depreciation apart -- to the fact that decorum is a product and an exponent of leisure class life and thrives in full measure only under a regime of status. The origin, or better the derivation, of manners is no doubt, to be sought elsewhere than in a conscious effort on the part of the well-mannered to show that much time has been spent in acquiring them. The proximate end of innovation and elaboration has been the higher effectiveness of the new departure in point of beauty or of expressiveness. In great part the ceremonial code of decorous usages owes its beginning and its growth to the desire to conciliate or to show goodwill, as anthropologists and sociologists are in the habit of assuming, and this initial motive is rarely if ever absent from the conduct of well-mannered persons at any stage of the later development. Manners, we are told, are in part an elaboration of gesture, and in part they are symbolical and conventionalised survivals representing former acts of dominance or of personal service or of personal contact. In large part they are an expression of the relation of status, -- a symbolic pantomime of mastery on the one hand and of subservience on the other. Wherever at the present time the predatory habit of mind, and the consequent attitude of mastery and of subservience, gives its character to the accredited scheme of life, there the importance of all punctilios of conduct is extreme, and the assiduity with which the ceremonial observance of rank and titles is attended to approaches closely to the ideal set by the barbarian of the quasi-peaceable nomadic culture. Some of the Continental countries afford good illustrations of this spiritual survival. In these communities the archaic ideal is similarly approached as regards the esteem accorded to manners as a fact of intrinsic worth. Decorum set out with being symbol and pantomime and with having utility only as an exponent of the facts and qualities symbolised; but it presently suffered the transmutation which commonly passes over symbolical facts in human intercourse. Manners presently came, in popular apprehension, to be possessed of a substantial utility in themselves; they acquired a sacramental character, in great measure independent of the facts which they originally prefigured. Deviations from the code of decorum have become intrinsically odious to all men, and good breeding is, in everyday apprehension, not simply an adventitious mark of human excellence, but an integral feature of the worthy human soul. There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum; and so far have we progressed in the direction of imputing intrinsic utility to the ceremonial observances of etiquette that few of us, if any, can dissociate an offence against etiquette from a sense of the substantial unworthiness of the offender. A breach of faith may be condoned, but a breach of decorum can not. "Manners maketh man." None the less, while manners have this intrinsic utility, in the apprehension of the performer and the beholder alike, this sense of the intrinsic rightness of decorum is only the proximate ground of the vogue of manners and breeding. Their ulterior, economic ground is to be sought in the honorific character of that leisure or non-productive employment of time and effort without which good manners are not acquired. The knowledge and habit of good form come only by long-continued use. Refined tastes, manners, habits of life are a useful evidence of gentility, because good breeding requires time, application and expense, and can therefore not be compassed by those whose time and energy are taken up with work. A knowledge of good form is prima facie evidence that that portion of the well-bred person's life which is not spent under the observation of the spectator has been worthily spent in acquiring accomplishments that are of no lucrative effect. In the last analysis the value of manners lies in the fact that they are the voucher of a life of leisure. Therefore, conversely, since leisure is the conventional means of pecuniary repute, the acquisition of some proficiency in decorum is incumbent on all who aspire to a modicum of pecuniary decency. So much of the honourable life of leisure as is not spent in the sight of spectators can serve the purposes of reputability only in so far as it leaves a tangible, visible result that can be put in evidence and can be measured and compared with products of the same class exhibited by competing aspirants for repute. Some such effect, in the way of leisurely manners and carriage, etc., follows from simple persistent abstention from work, even where the subject does not take thought of the matter and studiously acquire an air of leisurely opulence and mastery. Especially does it seem to be true that a life of leisure in this way persisted in through several generations will leave a persistent, ascertainable effect in the conformation of the person, and still more in his habitual bearing and demeanour. But all the suggestions of a cumulative life of leisure, and all the proficiency in decorum that comes by the way of passive habituation, may be further improved upon by taking thought and assiduously acquiring the marks of honourable leisure, and then carrying the exhibition of these adventitious marks of exemption from employment out in a strenuous and systematic discipline. Plainly, this is a point at which a diligent application of effort and expenditure may materially further the attainment of a decent proficiency in the leisure-class properties. Conversely, the greater the degree of proficiency and the more patent the evidence of a high degree of habituation to observances which serve no lucrative or other directly useful purpose, the greater the consumption of time and substance impliedly involved in their acquisition, and the greater the resultant good repute. Hence under the competitive struggle for proficiency in good manners, it comes about that much pains in taken with the cultivation of habits of decorum; and hence the details of decorum develop into a comprehensive discipline, conformity to which is required of all who would be held blameless in point of repute. And hence, on the other hand, this conspicuous leisure of which decorum is a ramification grows gradually into a laborious drill in deportment and an education in taste and discrimination as to what articles of consumption are decorous and what are the decorous methods of consuming them. In this connection it is worthy of notice that the possibility of producing pathological and other idiosyncrasies of person and manner by shrewd mimicry and a systematic drill have been turned to account in the deliberate production of a cultured class -- often with a very happy effect. In this way, by the process vulgarly known as snobbery, a syncopated evolution of gentle birth and breeding is achieved in the case of a goodly number of families and lines of descent. This syncopated gentle birth gives results which, in point of serviceability as a leisure-class factor in the population, are in no wise substantially inferior to others who may have had a longer but less arduous training in the pecuniary properties. There are, moreover, measureable degrees of conformity to the latest accredited code of the punctilios as regards decorous means and methods of consumption. Differences between one person and another in the degree of conformity to the ideal in these respects can be compared, and persons may be graded and scheduled with some accuracy and effect according to a progressive scale of manners and breeding. The award of reputability in this regard is commonly made in good faith, on the ground of conformity to accepted canons of taste in the matters concerned, and without conscious regard to the pecuniary standing or the degree of leisure practised by any given candidate for reputability; but the canons of taste according to which the award is made are constantly under the surveillance of the law of conspicuous leisure, and are indeed constantly undergoing change and revision to bring them into closer conformity with its requirements. So that while the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. There may be some considerable range of variation in detail within the scope of this principle, but they are variations of form and expression, not of substance. Much of the courtesy of everyday intercourse is of course a direct expression of consideration and kindly good-will, and this element of conduct has for the most part no need of being traced back to any underlying ground of reputability to explain either its presence or the approval with which it is regarded; but the same is not true of the code of properties. These latter are expressions of status. It is of course sufficiently plain, to any one who cares to see, that our bearing towards menials and other pecuniary dependent inferiors is the bearing of the superior member in a relation of status, though its manifestation is often greatly modified and softened from the original expression of crude dominance. Similarly, our bearing towards superiors, and in great measure towards equals, expresses a more or less conventionalised attitude of subservience. Witness the masterful presence of the high-minded gentleman or lady, which testifies to so much of dominance and independence of economic circumstances, and which at the same time appeals with such convincing force to our sense of what is right and gracious. It is among this highest leisure class, who have no superiors and few peers, that decorum finds its fullest and maturest expression; and it is this highest class also that gives decorum that definite formulation which serves as a canon of conduct for the classes beneath. And there also the code is most obviously a code of status and shows most plainly its incompatibility with all vulgarly productive work. A divine assurance and an imperious complaisance, as of one habituated to require subservience and to take no thought for the morrow, is the birthright and the criterion of the gentleman at his best; and it is in popular apprehension even more than that, for this demeanour is accepted as an intrinsic attribute of superior worth, before which the base-born commoner delights to stoop and yield. As has been indicated in an earlier chapter, there is reason to believe that the institution of ownership has begun with the ownership of persons, primarily women. The incentives to acquiring such property have apparently been: (1) a propensity for dominance and coercion; (2) the utility of these persons as evidence of the prowess of the owner; (3) the utility of their services. Personal service holds a peculiar place in the economic development. During the stage of quasi-peaceable industry, and especially during the earlier development of industry within the limits of this general stage, the utility of their services seems commonly to be the dominant motive to the acquisition of property in persons. Servants are valued for their services. But the dominance of this motive is not due to a decline in the absolute importance of the other two utilities possessed by servants. It is rather that the altered circumstance of life accentuate the utility of servants for this last-named purpose. Women and other slaves are highly valued, both as an evidence of wealth and as a means of accumulating wealth. Together with cattle, if the tribe is a pastoral one, they are the usual form of investment for a profit. To such an extent may female slavery give its character to the economic life under the quasi-peaceable culture that the women even comes to serve as a unit of value among peoples occupying this cultural stage -- as for instance in Homeric times. Where this is the case there need be little question but that the basis of the industrial system is chattel slavery and that the women are commonly slaves. The great, pervading human relation in such a system is that of master and servant. The accepted evidence of wealth is the possession of many women, and presently also of other slaves engaged in attendance on their master's person and in producing goods for him. A division of labour presently sets in, whereby personal service and attendance on the master becomes the special office of a portion of the servants, while those who are wholly employed in industrial occupations proper are removed more and more from all immediate relation to the person of their owner. At the same time those servants whose office is personal service, including domestic duties, come gradually to be exempted from productive industry carried on for gain. This process of progressive exemption from the common run of industrial employment will commonly begin with the exemption of the wife, or the chief wife. After the community has advanced to settled habits of life, wife-capture from hostile tribes becomes impracticable as a customary source of supply. Where this cultural advance has been achieved, the chief wife is ordinarily of gentle blood, and the fact of her being so will hasten her exemption from vulgar employment. The manner in which the concept of gentle blood originates, as well as the place which it occupies in the development of marriage, cannot be discussed in this place. For the purpose in hand it will be sufficient to say that gentle blood is blood which has been ennobled by protracted contact with accumulated wealth or unbroken prerogative. The women with these antecedents is preferred in marriage, both for the sake of a resulting alliance with her powerful relatives and because a superior worth is felt to inhere in blood which has been associated with many goods and great power. She will still be her husband's chattel, as she was her father's chattel before her purchase, but she is at the same time of her father's gentle blood; and hence there is a moral incongruity in her occupying herself with the debasing employments of her fellow-servants. However completely she may be subject to her master, and however inferior to the male members of the social stratum in which her birth has placed her, the principle that gentility is transmissible will act to place her above the common slave; and so soon as this principle has acquired a prescriptive authority it will act to invest her in some measure with that prerogative of leisure which is the chief mark of gentility. Furthered by this principle of transmissible gentility the wife's exemption gains in scope, if the wealth of her owner permits it, until it includes exemption from debasing menial service as well as from handicraft. As the industrial development goes on and property becomes massed in relatively fewer hands, the conventional standard of wealth of the upper class rises. The same tendency to exemption from handicraft, and in the course of time from menial domestic employments, will then assert itself as regards the other wives, if such there are, and also as regards other servants in immediate attendance upon the person of their master. The exemption comes more tardily the remoter the relation in which the servant stands to the person of the master. If the pecuniary situation of the master permits it, the development of a special class of personal or body servants is also furthered by the very grave importance which comes to attach to this personal service. The master's person, being the embodiment of worth and honour, is of the most serious consequence. Both for his reputable standing in the community and for his self-respect, it is a matter of moment that he should have at his call efficient specialised servants, whose attendance upon his person is not diverted from this their chief office by any by-occupation. These specialised servants are useful more for show than for service actually performed. In so far as they are not kept for exhibition simply, they afford gratification to their master chiefly in allowing scope to his propensity for dominance. It is true, the care of the continually increasing household apparatus may require added labour; but since the apparatus is commonly increased in order to serve as a means of good repute rather than as a means of comfort, this qualification is not of great weight. All these lines of utility are better served by a larger number of more highly specialised servants. There results, therefore, a constantly increasing differentiation and multiplication of domestic and body servants, along with a concomitant progressive exemption of such servants from productive labour. By virtue of their serving as evidence of ability to pay, the office of such domestics regularly tends to include continually fewer duties, and their service tends in the end to become nominal only. This is especially true of those servants who are in most immediate and obvious attendance upon their master. So that the utility of these comes to consist, in great part, in their conspicuous exemption from productive labour and in the evidence which this exemption affords of their master's wealth and power. After some considerable advance has been made in the practice of employing a special corps of servants for the performance of a conspicuous leisure in this manner, men begin to be preferred above women for services that bring them obtrusively into view. Men, especially lusty, personable fellows, such as footmen and other menials should be, are obviously more powerful and more expensive than women. They are better fitted for this work, as showing a larger waste of time and of human energy. Hence it comes about that in the economy of the leisure class the busy housewife of the early patriarchal days, with her retinue of hard-working handmaidens, presently gives place to the lady and the lackey. In all grades and walks of life, and at any stage of the economic development, the leisure of the lady and of the lackey differs from the leisure of the gentleman in his own right in that it is an occupation of an ostensibly laborious kind. It takes the form, in large measure, of a painstaking attention to the service of the master, or to the maintenance and elaboration of the household paraphernalia; so that it is leisure only in the sense that little or no productive work is performed by this class, not in the sense that all appearance of labour is avoided by them. The duties performed by the lady, or by the household or domestic servants, are frequently arduous enough, and they are also frequently directed to ends which are considered extremely necessary to the comfort of the entire household. So far as these services conduce to the physical efficiency or comfort of the master or the rest of the household, they are to be accounted productive work. Only the residue of employment left after deduction of this effective work is to be classed as a performance of leisure. But much of the services classed as household cares in modern everyday life, and many of the "utilities" required for a comfortable existence by civilised man, are of a ceremonial character. They are, therefore, properly to be classed as a performance of leisure in the sense in which the term is here used. They may be none the less imperatively necessary from the point of view of decent existence: they may be none the less requisite for personal comfort even, although they may be chiefly or wholly of a ceremonial character. But in so far as they partake of this character they are imperative and requisite because we have been taught to require them under pain of ceremonial uncleanness or unworthiness. We feel discomfort in their absence, but not because their absence results directly in physical discomfort; nor would a taste not trained to discriminate between the conventionally good and the conventionally bad take offence at their omission. In so far as this is true the labour spent in these services is to be classed as leisure; and when performed by others than the economically free and self-directed head of the establishment, they are to be classed as vicarious leisure. The vicarious leisure performed by housewives and menials, under the head of household cares, may frequently develop into drudgery, especially where the competition for reputability is close and strenuous. This is frequently the case in modern life. Where this happens, the domestic service which comprises the duties of this servant class might aptly be designated as wasted effort, rather than as vicarious leisure. But the latter term has the advantage of indicating the line of derivation of these domestic offices, as well as of neatly suggesting the substantial economic ground of their utility; for these occupations are chiefly useful as a method of imputing pecuniary reputability to the master or to the household on the ground that a given amount of time and effort is conspicuously wasted in that behalf. In this way, then, there arises a subsidiary or derivative leisure class, whose office is the performance of a vicarious leisure for the behoof of the reputability of the primary or legitimate leisure class. This vicarious leisure class is distinguished from the leisure class proper by a characteristic feature of its habitual mode of life. The leisure of the master class is, at least ostensibly, an indulgence of a proclivity for the avoidance of labour and is presumed to enhance the master's own well-being and fulness of life; but the leisure of the servant class exempt from productive labour is in some sort a performance exacted from them, and is not normally or primarily directed to their own comfort. The leisure of the servant is not his own leisure. So far as he is a servant in the full sense, and not at the same time a member of a lower order of the leisure class proper, his leisure normally passes under the guise of specialised service directed to the furtherance of his master's fulness of life. Evidence of this relation of subservience is obviously present in the servant's carriage and manner of life. The like is often true of the wife throughout the protracted economic stage during which she is still primarily a servant -- that is to say, so long as the household with a male head remains in force. In order to satisfy the requirements of the leisure class scheme of life, the servant should show not only an attitude of subservience, but also the effects of special training and practice in subservience. The servant or wife should not only perform certain offices and show a servile disposition, but it is quite as imperative that they should show an acquired facility in the tactics of subservience -- a trained conformity to the canons of effectual and conspicuous subservience. Even today it is this aptitude and acquired skill in the formal manifestation of the servile relation that constitutes the chief element of utility in our highly paid servants, as well as one of the chief ornaments of the well-bred housewife. The first requisite of a good servant is that he should conspicuously know his place. It is not enough that he knows how to effect certain desired mechanical results; he must above all, know how to effect these results in due form. Domestic service might be said to be a spiritual rather than a mechanical function. Gradually there grows up an elaborate system of good form, specifically regulating the manner in which this vicarious leisure of the servant class is to be performed. Any departure from these canons of form is to be depreciated, not so much because it evinces a shortcoming in mechanical efficiency, or even that it shows an absence of the servile attitude and temperament, but because, in the last analysis, it shows the absence of special training. Special training in personal service costs time and effort, and where it is obviously present in a high degree, it argues that the servant who possesses it, neither is nor has been habitually engaged in any productive occupation. It is prima facie evidence of a vicarious leisure extending far back in the past. So that trained service has utility, not only as gratifying the master's instinctive liking for good and skilful workmanship and his propensity for conspicuous dominance over those whose lives are subservient to his own, but it has utility also as putting in evidence a much larger consumption of human service than would be shown by the mere present conspicuous leisure performed by an untrained person. It is a serious grievance if a gentleman's butler or footman performs his duties about his master's table or carriage in such unformed style as to suggest that his habitual occupation may be ploughing or sheepherding. Such bungling work would imply inability on the master's part to procure the service of specially trained servants; that is to say, it would imply inability to pay for the consumption of time, effort, and instruction required to fit a trained servant for special service under the exacting code of forms. If the performance of the servant argues lack of means on the part of his master, it defeats its chief substantial end; for the chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay. What has just been said might be taken to imply that the offence of an under-trained servant lies in a direct suggestion of inexpensiveness or of usefulness. Such, of course, is not the case. The connection is much less immediate. What happens here is what happens generally. Whatever approves itself to us on any ground at the outset, presently comes to appeal to us as a gratifying thing in itself; it comes to rest in our habits of though as substantially right. But in order that any specific canon of deportment shall maintain itself in favour, it must continue to have the support of, or at least not be incompatible with, the habit or aptitude which constitutes the norm of its development. The need of vicarious leisure, or conspicuous consumption of service, is a dominant incentive to the keeping of servants. So long as this remains true it may be set down without much discussion that any such departure from accepted usage as would suggest an abridged apprenticeship in service would presently be found insufferable. The requirement of an expensive vicarious leisure acts indirectly, selectively, by guiding the formation of our taste, -- of our sense of what is right in these matters, -- and so weeds out unconformable departures by withholding approval of them. As the standard of wealth recognized by common consent advances, the possession and exploitation of servants as a means of showing superfluity undergoes a refinement. The possession and maintenance of slaves employed in the production of goods argues wealth and prowess, but the maintenance of servants who produce nothing argues still higher wealth and position. Under this principle there arises a class of servants, the more numerous the better, whose sole office is fatuously to wait upon the person of their owner, and so to put in evidence his ability unproductively to consume a large amount of service. There supervenes a division of labour among the servants or dependents whose life is spent in maintaining the honour of the gentleman of leisure. So that, while one group produces goods for him, another group, usually headed by the wife, or chief, consumes for him in conspicuous leisure; thereby putting in evidence his ability to sustain large pecuniary damage without impairing his superior opulence. This somewhat idealized and diagrammatic outline of the development and nature of domestic service comes nearest being true for that cultural stage which was here been named the "quasi-peaceable" stage of industry. At this stage personal service first rises to the position of an economic institution, and it is at this stage that it occupies the largest place in the community's scheme of life. In the cultural sequence, the quasi-peaceable stage follows the predatory stage proper, the two being successive phases of barbarian life. Its characteristic feature is a formal observance of peace and order, at the same time that life at this stage still has too much of coercion and class antagonism to be called peaceable in the full sense of the word. For many purposes, and from another point of view than the economic one, it might as well be named the stage of status. The method of human relation during this stage, and the spiritual attitude of men at this level of culture, is well summed up under the term. But as a descriptive term to characterise the prevailing methods of industry, as well as to indicate the trend of industrial development at this point in economic evolution, the term "quasi-peaceable" seems preferable. So far as concerns the communities of the Western culture, this phase of economic development probably lies in the past; except for a numerically small though very conspicuous fraction of the community in whom the habits of thought peculiar to the barbarian culture have suffered but a relatively slight disintegration. Personal service is still an element of great economic importance, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of goods; but its relative importance even in this direction is no doubt less than it once was. The best development of this vicarious leisure lies in the past rather than in the present; and its best expression in the present is to be found in the scheme of life of the upper leisure class. To this class the modern culture owes much in the way of the conservation of traditions, usages, and habits of thought which belong on a more archaic cultural plane, so far as regards their widest acceptance and their most effective development. In the modern industrial communities the mechanical contrivances available for the comfort and convenience of everyday life are highly developed. So much so that body servants, or, indeed, domestic servants of any kind, would now scarcely be employed by anybody except on the ground of a canon of reputability carried over by tradition from earlier usage. The only exception would be servants employed to attend on the persons of the infirm and the feeble-minded. But such servants properly come under the head of trained nurses rather than under that of domestic servants, and they are, therefore, an apparent rather than a real exception to the rule. The proximate reason for keeping domestic servants, for instance, in the moderately well-to-do household of to-day, is (ostensibly) that the members of the household are unable without discomfort to compass the work required by such a modern establishment. And the reason for their being unable to accomplish it is (1) that they have too many "social duties", and (2) that the work to be done is too severe and that there is too much of it. These two reasons may be restated as follows: (1) Under the mandatory code of decency, the time and effort of the members of such a household are required to be ostensibly all spent in a performance of conspicuous leisure, in the way of calls, drives, clubs, sewing-circles, sports, charity organisations, and other like social functions. Those persons whose time and energy are employed in these matters privately avow that all these observances, as well as the incidental attention to dress and other conspicuous consumption, are very irksome but altogether unavoidable. (2) Under the requirement of conspicuous consumption of goods, the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bric-a-brac, wardrobe and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help. Personal contact with the hired persons whose aid is called in to fulfil the routine of decency is commonly distasteful to the occupants of the house, but their presence is endured and paid for, in order to delegate to them a share in this onerous consumption of household goods. The presence of domestic servants, and of the special class of body servants in an eminent degree, is a concession of physical comfort to the moral need of pecuniary decency. The largest manifestation of vicarious leisure in modern life is made up of what are called domestic duties. These duties are fast becoming a species of services performed, not so much for the individual behoof of the head of the household as for the reputability of the household taken as a corporate unit -- a group of which the housewife is a member on a footing of ostensible equality. As fast as the household for which they are performed departs from its archaic basis of ownership-marriage, these household duties of course tend to fall out of the category of vicarious leisure in the original sense; except so far as they are performed by hired servants. That is to say, since vicarious leisure is possible only on a basis of status or of hired service, the disappearance of the relation of status from human intercourse at any point carries with it the disappearance of vicarious leisure so far as regards that much of life. But it is to be added, in qualification of this qualification, that so long as the household subsists, even with a divided head, this class of non-productive labour performed for the sake of the household reputability must still be classed as vicarious leisure, although in a slightly altered sense. It is now leisure performed for the quasi-personal corporate household, instead of, as formerly, for the proprietary head of the household. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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no flood
http://www.nosnivelling.com/snoqualmie_falls.jpg
Flood
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/11/06/2003354598.jpg
Nice and green . this is the miidle fork of the snoqualmie. I've rafted it many times.
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Photo/detail/photoid/15076/
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Photo/detail/photoid/15077/
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Photo/detail/photoid/15078/
http://www.midforc.org/fram?url_id=4
This is how I go to work. that grey color is what we've had here for 7 months now the sun will come out and it will be nice for three months then do it over again. If my family and friends didnt live here I would leave and only come in the summer!!
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/craig/post_to_your_blog_by_si....
It is getting old
I think we all should post local stories or personal stories about whats going on,, I'm trully a republican at heart I just have a brain also. Our city government In Duvall has just made a new position, economic development director. This town has 10 people that are not millionaires, The new director used to be the city planer, Under her, land development has increased in cost tenfold. and is basicly extortion, they own your land and if you pay enough mitigation fees they will let you use your own land... I'm trying to figure out how they will sell her services in the new position.. The mayors letter indicates that they are undertaking different inititives and the citizens should be excited about it. Selling influence legally, should have a better name.
Hillary Clinton will inherit the Patriot Act. Handed on a silver platter by George Bush. I think she will leave guantanamo open and make a special wing for the suicidal prisoners, she will name the cell block 'Vince Fosters Memorial Hall' " Here we keep our loyalty and honor, all are welcome"
We need Saudi Arabia as the base for attacking and bombing non democracies so we cant risk democracy there.
Thank you Mr Z for giving us a place to rant and rave, and I do watch your stock picks also thanks.. Ultra Cancer fighters, Lime.....,Limes have limonoids with two(known) cancer killer phytocheamicals, I eat the skin also, in small amounts,,kumqats,,skin also,.. Grapefruit, celery, pomagranite, carrot juice,,,my wify beat breast cancer with the three pronger. Shawn.
I threw my vote away to Ralph Nader last round , it felt good,, Then I voted alternative candidates the rest. The media controles it If Ross perot would not have been let on the debate he would have got 2 % but he got 18% .. How can we get independant candidates in the national debates,, and not let the cronies pick our two choices* I dont know...
Do we have any president candidates willing to end that non sense? I'm afraid Hilary Clinton would want her own wing at the prison for her own pleasure...
The 9/11 atackers are all dead.
China has gone from a net newcomer to the country with the world's second-largest online population.
The first international internet data from China started travelling across the net in 1994, yet now the country has more than 100m net users
That puts its second only to the US with its 185m web users. But China looks set to pass that within a few years - especially when you consider that China's net users represent barely 8% of its population.
If Chinese net use grows to the levels seen in many Western nations, it could end up with 750m people regularly going online.
But currently the experience of the average Chinese net user differs greatly from that of many in the West.
Different experience
Part of the net's allure to Western users is the sense of freedom it gives them to look at, read, and say almost anything they want.
By contrast, Chinese net use is much more circumscribed.
Much has been made of the so-called Great Firewall of China that censors what people see using technology built in to the country's basic net infrastructure.
The Chinese authorities have used several methods to "sanitise" what people see online, according to a report from US firm Dynamic Internet Technologies, which watches net use in the country.
On the most basic level, the firewall blocks net addresses hosting webpages that the authorities would rather people did not see. Anyone trying to visit these pages gets told that the page cannot be found or does not exist.
Surveillance is much easier in cyberspace than in the real world
Julien Pain, Reporters Without Borders
More sophisticated firewall technology spots when people are searching the web for particular words and hijacks their session to stop them getting the information.
Also China has changed its core net address books, known as Domain Name Servers, which tell a user's computer where to find a particular webpage on the net.
The sites blocked by these techniques include the many dealing with taboo subjects such as Tibet and Falun Gong as well as the BBC News website, search engine Google, sex sites such as Playboy and many blogs.
There is also an entire department of the police force that patrols online.
Wall game
But despite the sophistication of these technologies, they are not infallible.
To begin with, blocking an entire net address can stop people getting at all the information on a webpage, some of which might be relatively neutral.
Many Chinese people use net cafes because PCs are costly
Numerous reports show that many of China's net users know how to get around these restrictions.
The web addresses of proxies, that help users see banned pages, are well known. Many activist organisations in the West help pass on the addresses of these pages and set up new ones when old ones are shut down.
Equally there are programs produced by firm such as Dynaweb and Ultrareach that let people see banned sites and get e-mail from overseas.
The technology also has some embarrassing holes.
For instance a version of the Google website called Elgoog (Google spelled backwards) that accepts queries also written backwards apparently slips through the firewall.
But what does make a difference is the responsibilities the Chinese authorities heap upon native net service firms, said Xiao Qiang, head of the China internet project at the University of California Berkeley and a contributor to the China Digital News blog.
"The government makes every digital enterprise, online hosting service and commercial portal accountable for what they publish," he said. "If they don't, they won't be able to do business in China."
This stands in contrast to many Western nations which regard net service firms as common carriers, which like postal services, are not responsible for what customers do.
Jail time
Net cafes have to abide by a strict series of guidelines that govern where they can be sited, what services they can offer and how they must monitor what customers do.
Those that do not comply are shut down. In 2004, more than 47,000 net cafes were shut for breaking these laws.
This leads to a lot of self-censorship and a willingness by private firms to co-operate with government monitoring of what people do online, said Julien Pain, head of the internet freedom desk at Reporters Without Borders.
Surveillance is easy via the net warn activists
"The intention is to clear the web of subversive material," he said.
The monitoring of comments posted in chat rooms and on bulletin boards is quite aggressive, said Mr Pain.
Now, he said, thanks to automatic censoring systems undesirable postings only last a few minutes.
Less than 18 months ago, such posts would survive for up to 30 minutes, he said.
The consequences of posting subversive information, be it about Tibet, Falun Gong, or even Sars can be severe.
This week Amnesty International released a report that highlighted the number of people imprisoned for championing human rights in China. Many were jailed for posting information online.
Currently 54 people are thought to be in jail because they were judged to distributed "illegal" information via the net.
Many activists used to think that the more people that were online the harder it would be to censor, said Mr Pain.
But, by contrast, censorship of political debate in China seems to be getting more effective.
"We are talking about software that's really efficient," he said, "and when you have 100 million or 200 million people it does not make any difference."
The resources that the Chinese government puts in to monitoring dwarfs the efforts of the activist groups working to combat it.
Said Mr Pain: "Surveillance is much easier in cyberspace than in the real world."
The king of Soudi Arabia is a white guy, with a fake beard and mustache...look...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6505803.stm
Saudi reformists call for Islamic constitutional monarchy Mon Apr 2, 5:49 PM ET
DUBAI (AFP) - Saudi reformists have sent a petition to King Abdullah calling for the establishment of an Islam-based constitutional monarchy in the oil-rich kingdom, one of the 99 signatories said on Monday.
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The petition was also sent on Sunday to 15 leading members of the Al-Saud ruling family, including Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and Interior Minister Prince Nayef, writer Mohammed bin Hudeijan al-Harbi told AFP.
The signatories, who call themselves "advocates of a civil society" and include five women, demanded the introduction of a parliament "elected by all adults, men and women" in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
As a first step, they proposed electing half the members of the Shura Council, an all-male advisory body whose 150 members are named by the king.
They demanded the promulgation of laws to "combat poverty" and institute a fair distribution of resources, complaining of a "huge disparity" in apportioning the kingdom's vast wealth.
The reformists called for "issuing a code recognizing the rights granted by sharia (Islamic law), which guarantees freedom of opinion, expression and assembly."
Other demands included the promulgation of an "effective law" regulating the creation of independent civil associations.
They also called for moves to enhance the independence of the judiciary such as open trials, and the separation of the powerful interior ministry into two ministries -- one in charge of local government and the other of security.
The signatories, from different walks of life, included some of the dozen activists who were arrested in March 2004 after putting their names to a petition also demanding a constitutional monarchy.
Three of those were put on trial and spent 17 months in jail before being pardoned by Abdullah when he rose to the throne in August 2005 after the death of King Fahd.
"We believe that King Abdullah is the most prominent advocate of reform in Saudi Arabia," Harbi said, explaining why the signatories thought they stood a better chance than before of eliciting a sympathetic response.
"Our demands confirm the legitimacy of the honorable ruling family and propose public and peaceful action to ... build a modern state based on an Islamic constitution," Harbi said.
However, he said, the signatories decided to send the petition by mail rather than request an audience with the king because past experience suggested they stood little chance of being granted a meeting.
It was not immediately clear if the message had already reached the king.
Harbi said four of the signatories were in detention and he believed they had been arrested as "a preemptive strike against the statement."
Three of those detained were among 10 people arrested in early February whom the interior ministry said at the time were held on suspicion of collecting money to fund terror-related activities.
"Everything is possible," Harbi said when asked if he did not fear further arrests.
Saudi Arabia has a basic statute of government based on sharia, which serves as a constitution.
The oil powerhouse has under Abdullah, who was de facto ruler for 10 years before becoming king, taken small steps toward reform, including male-only elections to pick half the members of municipal councils in 2005.
Bush is like hitler. His crimes are so bad that he can never admit to them...
Anne Frank, who wrote in her diary, “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart”
I believe that there is a Universal Capacity for Evil , we all are prone to it.... If I were born in a ghetto would I smoke crack so I could feel good for five minutes... yes.. The time table is up for Iraq war,, the pendulum has just swung to far. kicking down doors of people that never attacked us, shooting anyone they feel like.. doesnt that get old after a while? whould your ears hurt.. would you get a blister on your shooting finger and say I'm going to quit shooting people because my finger hurts... How many Billions do the Nazis need before they just cant keep track of that many bank accounts...
People cant get a grip on 1-2 degrees warmer climate when the summer to winter temp change is 60 70 80 degrees, People can see and smell the smog, know that our seafood is poisoned with heavy metals from undisputable testing. We send alot of our polution overseas because we dont manufacture here anymore.
Bush appointed EPA administrators were sued by local governments and environmental groups to force them to act on emissions control. Bush Represents the EPA, Bizare. I had to read the article twice.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration Monday for its inaction on global warming in a decision that could lead to more fuel-efficient cars as early as next year. The court, in a 5-4 ruling in its first case on climate change, declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
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The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate those emissions from new cars and trucks under the landmark environment law, and the "laundry list" of reasons it has given for declining to do so are insufficient, the court said.
"A reduction in domestic emissions would slow the pace of global emissions increases, no matter what happens elsewhere," Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion. "EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change."
The politics of global warming have changed dramatically since the court agreed last year to hear its first case on the subject, with many Republicans as well as Democrats now pressing for action. However, the administration has argued for a voluntary approach rather than new regulation.
The reasoning in the court's ruling also appears to apply to EPA's decision not to impose controls on global warming pollution from power plants, a decision that has been challenged separately in court, several environmental lawyers said.
In the short term, the decision boosts California's and 11 other states' prospects for gaining EPA approval of their own program to limit tailpipe emissions, beginning with the 2009 model year. Those cars begin appearing in showrooms next year. Emission limits would become stricter each year until 2016.
Automobile makers have said stricter emission limits would be accomplished by increasing fuel-economy standards.
Reacting to the court ruling, the automakers called for an economy-wide approach to global warming, cautioning that no single industry could bear the burden alone.
Monday's ruling also improved the odds that Congress would take action on comprehensive legislation to reduce global warming, said business groups, environmental advocates and lawmakers. Several measures already have been introduced.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (news, bio, voting record), D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee urged President Bush "to work with Congress to enact a mandatory cap-and-trade proposal and other programs to reduce our nation's greenhouse gas emissions."
EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said the agency is studying the court's ruling.
In the meantime, she defended EPA's voluntary partnerships to reduce emissions. "These national and international voluntary programs are helping achieve reductions now while saving millions of dollars, as well as providing clean, affordable energy," Wood said.
Ann R. Klee, who was general counsel at the EPA from 2004 through mid-2006, said the Bush administration's "options are now considerably more limited." She said EPA could still decide not to regulate carbon dioxide, but only if it also concluded that such emissions do not contribute to climate change or endanger public health and welfare.
That's an argument that could be difficult to make given the widespread view among climate scientists that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the principal heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas that, if not contained, will lead to significant warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.
Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.
In handing an almost-total victory to Massachusetts, 11 other states, three cities and 13 environmental groups that sued the EPA, the court adopted many of their concerns and their belief that taking even limited action concerning new American cars and trucks is better than doing nothing.
The court's four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented. (((Anyone care to eat a toxic clam?)))
"In many ways, the debate has moved beyond this," said Chris Miller, director of the global warming campaign for Greenpeace, one of the environmental groups that sued the EPA. "All the front-runners in the 2008 presidential campaign, both Democrats and Republicans, even the business community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is."
Democrats took control of Congress last November. The world's leading climate scientists reported in February that global warming is "very likely" to be caused by man and is so severe that it will continue for centuries. Former Vice President Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" — making the case for quick action on climate change — won an Oscar. Business leaders are saying they are increasingly open to congressional action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is the largest.
The court had three questions before it.
_Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
_Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
_Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.
The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.
In his dissent, Roberts focused on the issue of standing, whether a party has the right to file a lawsuit.
The court should simply recognize that dealing with the complaints spelled out by the state of Massachusetts is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts, Roberts said.
He said his position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem."
Justice Antonin Scalia, in a separate dissent, said the court should not substitute its judgment in place of the EPA's, "no matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake."
Whatever else comes of the decision, "this administration's legal strategy for doing nothing has been repudiated," said David Doniger, counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group involved in the case.
Other states that have adopted California's standards on emissions of greenhouse gases are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120.
___
Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry has made much in his campaign about railing against "special interests."
Yet, a close inspection of Kerry's donation records reveals that the Massachusetts senator has taken money from convicted criminals and several key figures from the Clinton China-gate scandal.
According to the Federal Election Commission records Kerry has taken money from Bernard Schwartz the CEO of Loral Corporation, convicted China-gate figure Johnny Chung, convicted China-gate figure John Huang, and convicted fundraising scandal figure Mark Jimenez.
In addition, Kerry has accepted donations from billionaire George Soros, China-gate figure George Chao-Chi Chu, and from well know left-wing activists/actors such as Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin.
According to the FEC records, Kerry has returned only some of the cash, in particular the donations from John Huang and a portion of the money donated by George Chao-Chi Chu.
KERRY MEETS PLA LT. COL. LIU
China-gate figure Johnny Chung pled guilty to funneling $10,000 to Kerry and $18,000 to Clinton's 1996 reelection on orders from Chinese General Ji, then the head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) military intelligence. The money donated to Kerry came directly from cash provided by the Chinese Army General.
According to stories published in the New York Times, Newsweek and the New York Post, Chung came to Kerry's office in July 1996 to seek help in getting Lt. Colonel Liu Chaoying in to meet with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lt. Colonel Liu was then an executive of China Aerospace, a PLA military owned company that produces nuclear tipped missiles. Liu's sponsor Johnny Chung made clear during a meeting in Senator Kerry's office that she was interested in getting China Aerospace listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange.
Lt. Col. Liu was well known in military and intelligence circles. Lt. Col. Liu's father, a retired PLA general, was until 1997 vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. In response, Kerry ordered his aides to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Newsweek, "the next day Liu and Chung were ushered into a private briefing with a senior SEC official." Within a week of the SEC meeting, Kerry's staff wrote Chung asking him to host a Sept. 9 fund-raiser.
KERRY - "NO RECOLLECTION"
Kerry claims that he never met Johnny Chung or Lt. Col. Liu until the Sept. 9 fundraiser. However, according to the Newsweek reports, Kerry wrote a personal note on July 31 to Chung.
Dear Johnny", wrote Kerry. "It was a great pleasure to have met you last week." Kerry also closed the July 31 note with a personal thank you to Chung for being "on my team".
On Sept. 9, 1996, Chung held the Kerry fund-raiser at a Beverly Hills hotel that raked in the $10,000 of Chinese Army money for the senator's re-election campaign. Kerry stated that the Chung note and money was "old news."
The Democrat front-runner also claimed the "Dear Johnny" note was routine in fund-raising.
"I have no recollection of it at all," stated Kerry.
KERRY AND LORAL CEO
Kerry began accepting donations from Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz at about the same time he took money from China-gate figure Johnny Chung. Yet, the Loral CEO was already very familiar with China Aerospace and its PLA connections.
During the August 1994 trade trip to China, Schwartz met with Liu Ju-Yuan the minister of China Aerospace Corporation. Minister Liu is also the official boss of Chinese Army Lt. Colonel Liu Chao Ying.
Schwartz met directly with a Chinese General at his own request. In 1994, Chinese Army Lieutenant General Shen Rougjun, was second in command at COSTIND - the Chinese Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. In 1994, COSTIND General Shen met with the Loral CEO in Beijing.
In August 1994, Lt. General Shen and Minister Liu of China Aerospace consummated a series of multi-million dollar satellite deals with the CEO of Loral. The Beijing meeting was requested by Schwartz, arranged by President Clinton and included Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
The technology obtained from Loral included advanced missile guidance systems and encrypted satellite telemetry systems.
During the 1996 election, Loral CEO, Bernard L. Schwartz, was the single largest individual donor to the Democrats. Schwartz and his wife Irene contributed $1,122,000 to federal campaigns, of which $1,089,750 went to Democratic candidates and party committees.
Altogether, Schwartz, Loral, and Loral employees contributed $2.4 million to federal candidates and national party committees since 1991, $2 million of it to Democrats. Since 1996, Schwartz and Loral have fallen on hard times. In 2002, Loral Space & Communications, reached a settlement with the State Department over charges of passing advanced military technology to the Chinese Army.
Loral agreed to pay $20 million in fines, but did not admit nor deny wrongdoing. In 2003, Loral declared bankruptcy. The once mighty aerospace giant which sold for $72 a share in 1996 tumbled to less than 20 cents a share.
The failure of his company has not slowed the donation record of Bernard Schwartz. Since 2000, the Loral CEO has donated over $3 million to the DNC or Democrat candidates. Schwartz's most recent contribution is a donation in March 2003 to the campaign of Senator John Kerry for President.
KERRY AND GEORGE CHAO-CHI
Kerry's cash links to Beijing do not end with Chung, Lt. Col. Liu and Loral. A controversial Chinese-American businessman involved in the 1996 fundraising scandal turned out to be a donor to Kerry's political campaigns.
Campaign records filed with the Federal Election Commission show that George Chao-chi Chu contributed to the campaign of John Kerry. Kerry has returned only part of the money donated by Chu according to the FEC.
Chu had been one of the Democratic Party's top fundraisers, raising more than $500,000 before the China-gate scandal hit in 1997.
"Mr. Chu has never been convicted of any crime," stated Kelley Benander, a spokeswoman for Kerry's presidential campaign. "While it's never possible to know the complete history of every one of the thousands of donors to the campaign, we do have an established vetting process for contributors," said Benander.
Benander did not explain why Kerry returned some of Chu's donations despite the fact that Chu had never been convicted of any crime.
Chu's contributions raised questions because of his links to the Communist Chinese leadership in Beijing and to John Huang, a central figure in the scandal.
Chu once escorted Richard Blum, the wealthy husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to Beijing to meet Deng Pufang, son of late Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping. Federal regulators also investigated his import-export company, Da Tung International, throughout the 1980s President Clinton appointed Chu to an advisory committee on trade with China in 2000.
China-gate figure John Huang also donated money to Kerry. Huang later pled guilty to illegal fundraising for the DNC. Huang remains free despite the fact that he refused to answer whether he was an agent of the Chinese military over 2,000 times while under oath.
According to Court records, Huang was cited for contempt for refusing to answer but the Judge in the case has never imposed any penalty against Huang. Kerry's campaign, on the other hand, elected to return Huang's donation.
KERRY AND MARK JIMENEZ
In the case of Mark Jimenez, however, Kerry has so far elected to keep the money donated by the Florida businessman who was convicted of election fraud in November 2002.
A U.S. federal court in Florida sentenced ousted Philippine congressman Mark Jimenez to more than two years in jail for federal election fraud. Jimenez was sentenced to 2 1/4 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million restitution on his guilty plea to election conspiracy and tax evasion charges.
Jimenez fled to the Philippines when he was charged of making illegal donations to the DNC during the 1990s. There he became a confidante of jailed ex-president Estrada. Jimenez returned to the United States to face charges after the 2000 U.S. elections. The court ruled in November that Jimenez contributed illegally to the campaigns of then-president Clinton and other Democrats. Jimenez said he hoped his guilty plea would serve as "a lesson in my country" where political corruption is frequently alleged but rarely admitted.
RADIO AND TV SCHEDULE Charles Smith will be on:
The Charlie Smith Show on the American Freedom Network on Friday, 2/13/4, at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.amerifree.com.
The Jerry Hughes show on Friday, 2/13/4, at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.cilamerica.com.
The Jeff Rense Show on Wednesday, 2/18/4, at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.rense.com
Editor's note:
Did you know that China`s military manual first suggested the idea of bombing the World Trade Center? Click here now for details
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Sen John Kerry
Campaign Finance Reform
China/Taiwan
DNC
Hillary Rodham Clinton must be owned by China Also..
Clinton-Gore fund-raisers who illegally funneled large sums of money from Communist China into the Democrats' 1996 campaigns either agreed to turn state's evidence or pleaded guilty. This badly shook key figures at the White House and the Democratic National Committee. But the biggest bonanza was from a bipartisan, Republican-led select committee that unanimously found Beijing systematically had penetrated the United States' nuclear-weapons program, just as Insight has been reporting for more than a year.
While President Clinton, Vice President Gore and others wooed Chinese illegal money, the evidence shows the administration ignored and downplayed intelligence reports, obstructed an FBI investigation and allowed a suspected Chinese spy continued access to nuclear-weapons secrets at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Officials even ordered an intelligence professional at the Energy Department not to reveal the thefts to Congress and, when ultimately he did, the intelligence specialist was instructed to mislead lawmakers about the danger.
How Hughes Got What It Wanted on China
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 25, 1998; Page A01
C. Michael Armstrong could hardly have been more blunt with President Clinton in a letter in October 1993. "You asked me to support your economic package; I did," wrote the then-chief executive of Hughes Electronics Corp. Then he ticked off other policy areas where he had helped the president. Now Armstrong wanted Clinton to exempt Hughes from trade sanctions against China so the firm could launch satellites there.
"It's a tragic situation that potentially thousands of California people could lose their jobs" if the sales ban remained, Armstrong wrote. Then he delivered a warning: "This will be public and political shortly. Thank you." Within weeks, Armstrong, whose company employed 30,000 people in vote-rich California, met with Clinton. Eventually, he would receive most of what he wanted.
It was a classic episode in the politics of space. Hughes, the world's largest satellite-builder and a favorite of U.S. trade officials, has gotten almost all it has sought from the Clinton administration on China deals, through in-your-face lobbying tactics and a revolving-door hiring policy for officials departing key agencies, government and industry officials said.
In coming weeks congressional committees investigating Clinton's satellite export policies are scheduled to turn the spotlight on Hughes, and especially on what critics call its convivial relationship with the Commerce Department. Hughes led most of the industry's successful initiatives to loosen controls on exports to China in recent years.
Investigators are particularly examining the firm's activities in Washington under Armstrong, a rider of vintage Harley-Davidsons whose crystal-blue stare possesses a persuasive intensity. Brash and self-confident, Armstrong led Hughes from 1994 to 1997, when he left to become chief executive of AT&T Corp. He proved his slashing style again yesterday by announcing AT&T's $32 billion purchase of cable giant Tele-Communications Inc.
"When we say we're questioning the Clinton administration's policy on satellite sales to China, we should say it's the Clinton-Hughes-Armstrong policy," said a congressional investigator. "Hughes is the Commerce Department."
In the current controversy about space deals with China, the public has heard more about Bernard Schwartz, CEO of Loral Space & Communications Ltd., whose engineers may have broken U.S. export rules in 1996 by faxing the Chinese a technical report about rocketry after the failed launch of a Loral spacecraft. The Justice Department is investigating that incident, and Clinton's later approval of a Loral launch in China this year, in light of the fact that Schwartz is a big Democratic donor.
But while Schwartz did little lobbying in Washington on Chinese launches, Armstrong made loosening controls on Chinese satellite deals a key mission of his Hughes tenure, industry officials said. A Republican, he supported President George Bush's reelection effort in 1992, and in 1993 and 1994 gave $25,000 to GOP groups. Hughes has split its donations between the two parties.
Hughes has an easy story to sell in Washington. Founded in the 1930s in a rented hangar in Burbank, Calif., by aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, the firm went on in the 1960s to become the global leader in developing commercial satellites. Its spacecraft, designed to withstand the extremely violent vibrations of takeoff as well as the extremes of hot and cold in deep space, beam television programs, phone calls, faxes and e-mail messages around the world.
Hughes's lobbying on China began in 1992, around the time Bush moved authority for licensing some U.S.-China satellite deals from the relatively strict State Department to the Commerce Department, which promotes U.S. business abroad. The firm won Commerce's permission to communicate more freely with Chinese space officials on technical data in many launches. Moreover, the firm got Commerce to loosen requirements that Pentagon officials monitor all technical discussions between U.S. and Chinese space engineers.
Hughes said it simply sought to avoid paying for monitors. But a congressional staffer said, "Hughes wanted to please its customers, the Chinese, and didn't want anyone between them and their customers."
These Commerce decisions led to years of confusion about which agency regulated which phases of U.S. launches in China. While other U.S. firms, such as Loral and Lockheed Martin Corp., had Pentagon monitors present for discussions with the Chinese, Hughes did not, and three of its launches had no Defense Department monitors in 1995-97, government officials said.
"Hughes followed all the correct procedures," a Hughes official said. "We just didn't want somebody from DOD looking over our shoulder."
Now the Justice Department is investigating Hughes's transmission of a technical report to China about a failed launch in 1995 that destroyed a Hughes satellite. Administration officials say all U.S. satellite launches in China now require monitors.
"Hughes was aggressive in pushing to not allow bureaucrats to stand in its way in capturing the Chinese market," a senior administration official said. The firm "exploited inconsistencies in the way the regulations were applied. But national security wasn't compromised."
Hughes stepped up its lobbying in 1993, when Clinton imposed trade sanctions after concluding China had sold M-11 missile parts to Pakistan. That meant Hughes couldn't sell satellites in China; Armstrong simmered as European firms snagged Chinese deals worth $1 billion.
Armstrong led the lobbying to exempt U.S. satellite firms from the sanctions. He bitterly denounced the Clinton sanctions for hurting the U.S. economy and doing little to induce China to stop selling missiles. Hughes hired Hill & Knowlton, the public relations firm, which worked Congress, the White House and the Democratic National Committee.
In late 1993, weeks after sending his letter to Clinton and then meeting with him, Armstrong won a partial victory when the White House decided satellites regulated by Commerce could be launched in China.
But State still regulated phases of Hughes's China launches, and Armstrong became infuriated by what he saw as its pettifoggery. "There is a tension between Hughes and State, bad blood," an administration official said. "Armstrong felt decisions got lost for months on end at State."
Angry at State, "Armstrong said, 'Yo, Washington office, fix this,'" an industry executive said. Soon he got Clinton to name him chairman of the President's Export Council, a presidential advisory group. It was an odd choice, given Armstrong's GOP affiliations and his past blunt talks with Clinton, industry officials said. But then again, Armstrong did represent a huge firm beloved by administration technology wonks in a key electoral state, they said.
From that perch, Armstrong lobbied Secretary of State Warren Christopher and many members of the administration and Congress for his key objective: moving licensing authority for all Chinese satellite deals from State to Commerce.
In 1995 Armstrong hired Loretta Dunn, then a top aide to Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, as Hughes's vice president for trade. She lobbied numerous former colleagues in the administration and is credited with helping arrange Clinton's March 1996 decision shifting regulatory authority over Chinese satellite deals to her former agency.
"This was a bipartisan decision made in consultation with Capitol Hill," said Hughes general counsel Marcy Tiffany. "It was not a case of the administration pandering to industry." She added: "Hughes feels we contribute to the national security by having American satellites up there."
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
A House-Senate conference has agreed to transfer export licensing authority, reversing a 1996 decision by President Clinton that came under fire this year amid allegations of unauthorized technology transfers to China and favoritism to a big campaign contributor.
Most American companies are moving there opperations to China. Why would they remain loyal to America? Lybias president Momar Gahdaffi was quoted as saying all his oil refining is still done by Texas companies that relicenced in europe to avoid the sanctions against him..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/missile/keystories.htm
The Chinese most likely own our Cia. China is silent on Iraq, one world government is here.
Chinese Missile Allegations: Key Stories
President Clinton greets Democratic donor Bernard Schwartz, head of Loral Space and Communications Ltd. (AP File Photo)
Hughes Electronics and Loral Space & Communications Ltd. are both under investigation by the Justice Department and two Congressional committees for their role in transferring sensitive U.S. space technology to the Chinese after Hughes and Loral satellites were destroyed in two Chinese rocket explosions.
Panel Faults Space Aid to China
December 31, 1998
Two American aerospace companies damaged U.S. national security when they provided Chinese space engineers with technical rocketry data that could have assisted Beijing's ballistic missile program, a House committee concluded in a classified 700-page report.
U.S. Probes Company's Covert Operations
December 30, 1998
The rise and fall of Vector Microwave Research Corp., a firm in the business of covertly acquiring foreign weapons for the U.S. government, illustrates the awkward bargain that can result when intelligence agencies such as the CIA privatize covert operations.
Report Faults Hughes on Data Given China
December 9, 1998
A preliminary Defense Department assessment has concluded that Hughes Electronics Corp. provided China with information potentially damaging to U.S. national security following the 1995 crash of a Chinese rocket carrying a Hughes-built commercial satellite.
CIA Role in Satellite Case Spurs Probe
December 5, 1998
The Justice Department has initiated a criminal probe of the CIA to determine whether the agency obstructed justice when it provided information to Hughes Electronics Corp. about the scope of an ongoing congressional investigation into the transfer of sensitive U.S. space technology to China.
Hill Conferees Agree to Return Satellite Export Licensing to State
September 19, 1998
A House-Senate conference has agreed to transfer export licensing authority, reversing a 1996 decision by President Clinton that came under fire this year amid allegations of unauthorized technology transfers to China and favoritism to a big campaign contributor.
2 Executives Defend Hughes's China Deals
July 30, 1998
Two current and former high-ranking executives of Hughes Electronics Corp. defended their company's patriotism before a Senate committee, disputing suggestions that their practice of launching satellites in China helped Beijing's ballistic missile program.
White House Papers Trace Hughes Executive's Pressure for China Deals
July 27, 1998
The White House released hundreds of pages of documents on U.S. space deals with China, many of which focus on former Hughes Electronics Corporation CEO C. Michael Armstrong's full-court-press lobbying.
Lott Scolds White House on Satellite Deals
July 15, 1998
Majority Leader Trent Lott said a Senate probe has found that China received sensitive technology and military advantages under what he described as a "wholly inadequate" system of U.S. export controls.
Satellite Launches Were Forced Overseas
July 15, 1998
The main reason U.S. companies go abroad for launches is that they generally have nowhere else to go.
Encryption Chips' Fate After Crash a Mystery
July 8, 1998
No one -- at least in the United States -- knows exactly what happened when a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a U.S. satellite exploded seconds after takeoff in February 1996. But the Clinton administration and its critics each have a theory.
Testimony: Export Watchdog Neutered
June 26, 1998
Republicans in Congress cite the weakening of the Defense Technology Security Administrationy as Exhibit A in their effort to demonstrate that the Clinton administration emphasizes foreign sales of technology at the expense of national security concerns.
How Hughes Got What It Wanted on China
June 25, 1998
Hughes Electronics Corp., the world's largest satellite-builder and a favorite of U.S. trade officials, has gotten almost all it has sought from the Clinton administration on China deals, through in-your-face lobbying tactics and a revolving-door hiring policy for officials departing key agencies.
Technology Transfer Probe Is Widened
June 24, 1998
The Justice Department has expanded its investigation into the transfer of sensitive U.S. space technology to China to examine a case in which Hughes Electronics Corp. gave technical data to China in 1995 after a Chinese rocket carrying a Hughes-made telecommunications satellite exploded shortly after launch.
White House: Chinese Launches Aid U.S.
June 16, 1998
Clinton administration officials made their case to two skeptical congressional committees that the controversy about American satellite deals with China is overblown, and that allowing U.S. spacecraft to be launched aboard Chinese rockets helps persuade the Beijing government to stop selling weaponry to other nations.
U.S. Gains Intelligence in China Launches
June 13, 1998
Chinese officials, trying to explain in 1996 why one of their satellite-bearing rockets had blown up, for the first time revealed to outsiders the inner workings of their Long March missiles.
Ex-Official: Signs of Chinese Sale Snubbed
June 12, 1998
The former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's weapons counter-proliferation efforts told a Senate committee that the Clinton administration's determination not to impose economic sanctions on China led it to play down persuasive evidence that Beijing sold nuclear-capable missiles to Pakistan.
Missile Failures Led To Loral-China Link
June 12, 1998
Failed Chinese rocket launches set the stage for the current congressional and Justice Department investigations of Loral Space & Communications Ltd.
Pentagon, CIA Differ on Missile Threat
June 8, 1998
The CIA determined more than a year ago that a controversial transfer to Chinese officials of an American technical report about a 1996 Chinese missile crash did not raise "proliferation concerns" that could harm U.S. security.
Papers Trace China Waiver Concerns
June 11, 1998
In a series of public hearings starting this week, congressional Republicans are seeking to expand their field of attack from a single case to a wider assault on Clinton's China export policies.
Sale Shows Perils of Exporting Technology
June 7, 1998
The story of how machine tools the size of a football field were improperly transported from a McDonnell Douglas Corp. aircraft plant in Columbus, Ohio to a Chinese missile plant serves as a case study in the pressures to export technology and the hazards of trying to control its ultimate uses.
CIA Director Is Quiet on Technology Transfer
June 5, 1998
CIA Director George J. Tenet refused to discuss with the Senate Intelligence Committee a secret report about an unauthorized U.S. transfer of information to Chinese missile officials, citing a last-minute request by Attorney General Janet Reno to reserve comment on the case.
Lott Says China Probes Won't Be Political Tool
June 3, 1998
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said Congress does not intend to use its China investigations as a political club against the Clinton administration.
Bureaucracy, Bungled Report Collide at Loral
May 31, 1998
A reconstruction of the administration's handling of the waiver for a 1998 U.S. satellite launch in China reveals a complicated, and in many ways mundane, picture of a bureaucratic process propelled by a policy forged in the Reagan and Bush administrations.
Chinese Missile Gain Questioned by Experts
May 31, 1998
The evidence so far does not amount to a credible case that China's military rockets are better prepared to strike at American cities as a direct windfall from U.S. participation in its satellite launching business, according to many independent specialists on Chinese forces.
Big Donor Calls Favorable Treatment a 'Coincidence'
May 25, 1998
Bernard Schwartz says the "confluence" of his own increased contributions and the Clinton administration's favorable treatment of his company was "just coincidence."
Liu's Deals With Chung: An Intercontinental Puzzle
May 24, 1998
Liu Chaoying, the daughter of China's most powerful military official, brokered deals for missile components one day and Sonoma Valley Cabernet the next. Johnny Chung, a glad-handing entrepreneur who boasted of his White House access, became her California business partner in 1996.
Chinese Company Denies it Got Sensitive Technology
May 23, 1998
Officials from a Chinese satellite launching company denied that they had received any sensitive technology with military applications from U.S. firms.
President Overrode China Launch Concerns
May 23, 1998
President Clinton gave the go-ahead in February to a U.S. company's satellite launch in China despite staff concerns that granting such approval might be seen as letting the company "off the hook" in a Justice Department investigation of whether it previously provided unauthorized assistance to China's ballistic missile program.
Democrats Ask Clinton's Cooperation In Probes
May 22, 1998
The White House intends to send to the House documents that officials said will show there was nothing nefarious about a controversial Chinese satellite launch for a U.S. aerospace firm headed by a top Democratic donor.
House Rebukes Clinton on China
May 21, 1998
In a series of nearly unanimous votes, the House said President Clinton failed to act in "the national interest" earlier this year when he gave permission for a Chinese satellite launch to a U.S. aerospace firm with close Democratic ties, and moved to block him from approving similar exports.
Gingrich to Create Special Panel to Probe China Technology Deal
May 20, 1998
House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced that he would create a select committee to probe allegations that China illegally obtained missile technology from a U.S. company that received favorable treatment from the administration.
Loral Denies Benefits in Return for Donations
May 19, 1998
The major U.S. aerospace company denied that it requested or received "political favors or benefits of any kind" in exchange for campaign donations.
Clinton Defends Satellite Waiver
May 18, 1998
President Clinton said no foreign policy decisions by his administration affecting China were influenced by political contributions.
Justice Dept. Investigates Satellite Exports
May 17, 1998
The Justice Department's campaign finance task force has begun to examine whether a Clinton administration decision to export commercial satellites to China was influenced by contributions to the Democratic Party during the 1996 campaign.
Chung Ties Chinese Funds to Democrats
May 16, 1998
Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung has told Justice Department investigators that a Chinese military officer who is an executive with a state-owned aerospace company gave him $300,000 to donate to the Democrats' 1996 campaign.
GOP Leaders Demand Satellite Export Data
May 12, 1998
Congress's two top Republicans are demanding that the White House provide documents on whether China's nuclear missile capability was aided by an administration policy on exporting commercial satellites.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/missile/keystories.htm
GOP Says U.S. Gave China Nuclear Edge
May 6, 1998
Congressional Republicans plan a series of hearings to investigate whether President Clinton's policy on the export of commercial satellites to China has allowed the Chinese to acquire technology to improve the accuracy of their nuclear missiles – and whether that policy was influenced by campaign contributions.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
"There is no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of law."
-- Al Gore, seven times (in one form or another), White House news conference, March 3
"Controlling legal authority." Whatever other legacies Al Gore leaves behind between now and retirement, he forever bequeaths this newest weasel word to the lexicon of American political corruption.
Gore is talking here about his phone calls from the White House soliciting Democratic campaign contributions. Now, he cannot say, "I have broken no law," because Section 607 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code states very clearly there is to be no solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices. Gore broke the law as written, as understood and as practiced. His defense? Apparently, that there are no cases testing the law. So there.
The problem for Gore is not just that Mr. Clean is taking refuge in one of the flimsiest legal confections of our time but that this flimsy confection is directly contradicted by his own president.
Here is President Clinton, one week earlier, defending his 103 White House coffees: "We got strict advice about – legal advice about what the rules were and everyone involved knew what the rules were. . . . There was no solicitation at the White House."
The rule: no solicitation
And in case that wasn't clear enough, here is presidential parrot Mike McCurry on the same Clinton coffees: "There is a separate restriction that exists for the solicitation of funds for political activities, which cannot occur on these premises."
Solicitation cannot occur on these premises.
McCurry: "The law is what counts. . . . the law is the law . . . the law goes to the question of solicitation, and that's the issue."
What a paradox. Gore lavishes the most fulsome praise on the wisdom, vision and clearsightedness of his president. But regarding what is and is not legal in the Clinton White House, Clinton is for Gore no authority at all.
The apologists say: Well, what's the difference? It is a meaningless distinction. Congressmen run out of their offices and make cell phone calls from the Capitol parking lot to stay on the right side of this law.
But that's exactly the point. With active politicians, it is very hard to draw a line between public service and self-serving campaigning. It is precisely because the line drawn is necessarily somewhat arbitrary that it is very bright and very clear.
So clear that congressmen, like furtive sidewalk smokers, must make their campaign calls outside. So clear that the president indignantly defends his coffees by saying he solicited no money. So clear that McCurry insists the law is the law and solicitation defines lawbreaking.
Ah, but that was last week. In this White House, a week is a lifetime. What was law last week is now history. This week the very idea of law gives way to "controlling legal authority."
But this week, too, the Clinton scandals finally reach critical mass. The reason is simple: volume. There are so many of them, coming from every direction. News of Gore's lawbreaking comes days before news that the first lady's chief of staff took a $50,000 campaign contribution in the White House from a California "hustler" (the National Security Council's word) looking for "access."
This comes just days after the Lincoln Bedroom list, the selling by a tenant of what most Americans regard as their common patrimony. At the same time, the Commerce Department announces new rules banning what the Clinton administration had been doing for four years – giving places on international trade missions to fat-cat Democratic donors.
Meanwhile, documents emerge showing that the mad INS rush to naturalize a million new Americans last year (resulting in hundreds, maybe thousands of criminals sliding through unchecked) was done under the pressure of a White House eager to produce new Democratic voters in time for Clinton's reelection.
Clinton had made promoting trade the keystone of his entire foreign policy, and now it turns out that it was a vehicle for the crassest political money-grubbing. It turns out, too, that naturalization, that most sacred induction ritual into the American civil religion, was also made an instrument of Clinton's political purposes.
Is there anything Clinton and company have touched that they have not corrupted?
On Oct. 13, 1996 – amid all this immigration, trade, Lincoln Bedroom, White House phone-calls sordidness – Al Gore went on national television and said this: "The ethical standards established in this White House have been the highest in the history of the White House. You have a tougher code of ethics, tougher requirements strictly abided by."
And no controlling legal authority to contradict him.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company