Undernews for 29 January 2009

UNDERNEWS
The news while there's still time to do something about it

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JANUARY 29 2009

WORD

Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie - Umberto Eco

GREEN PARTY OFFICIAL REMAKES PARIS STREETS

International Herald Tribune - For his efforts to reduce the privilege of car drivers in Paris, Denis Baupin has been saddled with nasty nicknames, including "Monsieur Embouteillages" (Mr. Traffic Jam), Khmer Vert and worse.

As the transportation chief of the French capital for seven years, Baupin, who has written a book called "All Cars, No Future," was the force behind the development of Paris's hugely successful bicycle-sharing program, Velib'. He introduced a tramway, minibuses, rider subsidies, more bus lanes and faster bus speeds. He reduced auto speed limits to 30 kilometers an hour, or just under 19 miles an hour, from 50 kilometers an hour on 1,000 streets and closed many to cars altogether.

In short, Baupin has changed the face of mobility in Paris, making it, by most accounts, easier for users of public transportation, pedestrians and bikers, and less accessible to car drivers.

Since March 2008, the Green Party member has had a new but related charge: fighting climate change.

Under his plan, ?2 billion, or $2.6 billion, of taxpayers' money will go towards renovating a quarter of the city's 220,000 subsidized apartments to receive better insulation and more efficient heating. The program would eventually extend to all of Paris's 3,000 public and 100,000 private buildings, nearly half of them built before 1915.

Financing for the plan has not been set, though Baupin is in talks with the Caisse des Depots et Consignations, the French state-owned bank. . .

Baupin is expanding the city's car-sharing program, even as his boss, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, prepares a competing plan to place 2,000 electric cars throughout the city in 2010. Baupin happens to oppose the mayor's AutoLib' idea and fears its ease of use will prompt residents to abandon public transportation.

TOP SCIENTIST: CLIMATE CHANGE IRREVERSIBLE

NPR - Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study. As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world's top climate scientists.

"We're used to thinking about pollution problems as things that we can fix," Solomon says. "Smog, we just cut back and everything will be better later. Or haze, you know, it'll go away pretty quickly."

That's the case for some of the gases that contribute to climate change, such as methane and nitrous oxide. But as Solomon and colleagues suggest in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is not true for the most abundant greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide. Turning off the carbon dioxide emissions won't stop global warming. . .

If we continue with business as usual for even a few more decades, she says, emissions could be enough to create permanent dust-bowl conditions in the U.S. Southwest and around the Mediterranean.

"The sea level rise is a much slower thing, so it will take a long time to happen, but we will lock into it, based on the peak level of [carbon dioxide] we reach in this century," Solomon says.

The idea that changes will be irreversible has consequences for how we should deal with climate change. The global thermostat can't be turned down quickly once it's been turned up, so scientists say we need to proceed with more caution right now.

POPEPOURRI

LA Times - The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles has launched a federal grand jury investigation into Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in connection with his response to the molestation of children by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case. The probe, in which U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien is personally involved, is aimed at determining whether Mahony, and possibly other church leaders, committed fraud by failing to adequately deal with priests accused of sexually abusing children, said the sources, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

Authorities are applying a legal theory in an apparently novel way. One federal law enforcement source said prosecutors are seeking to use a federal statute that makes it illegal to "scheme . . . to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."

In this case, the victims would be parishioners who relied on Mahony and other church leaders to keep their children safe from predatory priests, the source said.

To gain a conviction on such a charge, prosecutors would have to prove that Mahony used the U.S. mail or some form of electronic communication in committing the alleged fraud, the source said.

NY Times - Pope Benedict XVI addressed for the first time the uproar over his decision to rehabilitate a Holocaust-denying bishop, expressing solidarity with Jews and strongly condemning Holocaust denial. In his weekly audience with the public on Wednesday, Benedict said he "renewed with love" his "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews, whom he called "our brothers of the first covenant.". . .

The pope revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops from a traditionalist sect, including Bishop Richard Williamson, who in an interview broadcast in Sweden last week and widely available online said he believed that no more than 300,000 Jews perished during World War II, none of them in gas chambers.

INAUGURATION (STILL)

Eavesdrop DC - On the Mall near 7th street and Constitution during the inauguration: Woman #1: (pushing through the crowd) Coming through, coming through. (Then stops moving). . . Woman #2: Excuse me you can't just stop here in front of me. . Woman #1: Well, where am I supposed to go?. . . Woman #2: Where were you before? . . . Woman #1: North Carolina.

On the mall at 5:30 am, inauguration day: "I feel really stupid.. I thought this was an actual mall. Like we were going to be watching this in front of Claire's."

A homeless guy: "You all voted for change...NOW GIVE ME SOME CHANGE!"

Charles L. Edson, Letter to Washington Post - I accepted the invitation from the unnamed local official quoted in your Metro article on Inauguration Day problems to "do the math" on the Purple Tunnel of Doom. The results were astounding. Accepting that the 24 magnetometers could each process 400 people an hour (an unbelievable seven per minute), this totals 9,600 admissions an hour. The gates opened four hours before the noon swearing-in, allowing a total of 38,400 ticket holders to make it through. But 52,000 purple tickets were issued. What on earth were the planners thinking? For Inauguration Day in 2013, planning should be left to a class of third-graders who have mastered the art of multiplication.

EMENDATIONS

Covert revenue sharing

We criticized the bailout for lacking revenue sharing with states and cities, failing to realize that it was there, but hidden. As one account put it: "The largest proposed outlays amount to just writing unrestricted checks to state governments. Nearly $100 billion would result from increasing the 'Medicaid matching rate,' a technique for reducing states' Medicaid costs to free up state money for spending on anything governors and state legislators want. An additional $80 billion would be given out for 'state fiscal relief.'"

Gary Emerling of the Washington Times was grumpy about it:

=== D.C. officials say any federal stimulus funds provided for schools and bridges in the District will enable them to drop their own funding plans for such projects and divert the money to help plug other gaps in their 2010 budget. . .

Some economists see the plan as an example of a "bait-and-switch" tactic likely to be duplicated in cities and states across the country, effectively redirecting much of the $819 billion package to purposes for which it was not intended. . .

The District has identified food stamps and unemployment services among its top priorities for any new money, while Virginia hopes to free up money for things like Medicaid and transportation. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley also has said Medicaid spending is an area that could be bolstered by stimulus money." ===

Of course, there was a time when a conservative paper like the Times would have applauded the idea of states and localities making such decisions rather than the federal government.

Municipal cruelty

We mistakenly ran the story about the 93 year old man who froze to death after the power company cut off his electricity under the heading "Corporados." It was municipal and not a private power company.

PAKISTAN PRIME MINISTER SAYS DRONE ATTACKS NOT APPROVED

CNN - Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has called on the United States to halt its drone attacks against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters on Pakistani soil and warned that the missile strikes were fueling militarism in the country's troubled tribal border region. . . . Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has remained in the post despite the change of government, said that Pakistan was aware of U.S. strikes against militants within its territory -- but Gilani strenuously denied that any agreement existed between Islamabad and Washington.

"I want to put on record that we do not have any agreement between the government of the United States and the government of Pakistan," Gilani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview at the World Economic Forum.

"If there are any drone attacks these would be counter-productive... Therefore we ask that if they have credible and actionable information, they share it with our intelligence agencies and we will take action ourselves."

Gilani said that ongoing Pakistani army operations against the militants were backed by the region's local population, but warned that missile attacks jeopardized tribal support for the government and urged President Obama to "respect the sovereignty of Pakistan."

PBS PROGRAM CHARGES NSA MIGHT HAVE STOPPED 9/11

Muriel Kane, Raw Story - A forthcoming PBS documentary asks whether the NSA could have prevented 9/11 if it had been more willing to share its data with other agencies.

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996.

"The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington," Bamford told PBS.

PBS also found that "the 9/11 Commission never looked closely into NSA's role in the broad intelligence breakdown behind the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. If they had, they would have understood the full extent to which the agency had major pieces of the puzzle but never put them together or disclosed their entire body of knowledge to the CIA and the FBI."

In a review of Bamford's book, former senator and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey wrote, "As the 9/11 Commission later established, U.S. intelligence officials knew that al-Qaeda had held a planning meeting in Malaysia, found out the names of two recruits who had been present -- Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi -- and suspected that one and maybe both of them had flown to Los Angeles. Bamford reveals that the NSA had been eavesdropping for months on their calls to Yemen, yet the agency 'never made the effort' to trace where the calls originated. 'At any time, had the FBI been notified, they could have found Hazmi in a matter of seconds.'". . .

Not only was then-Director Michael Hayden never held accountable for the NSA's alleged failure, but he went on to oversee the Bush administration's vast expansion of domestic surveillance. In 2006, he was appointed as director of the CIA.

The Spy Factory will be shown over most PBS stations on February 3, 2009 at 8 pm.

DESPITE CAMPAIGN PROMISES, OBAMA HIRES LOBBYISTS

Politico - President Obama promised during his campaign that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House."

So far, though, at least a dozen former lobbyists have found top jobs in his administration, according to an analysis done by Republican sources and corroborated by Politico.

Obama aides did not challenge the list of lobbyists appointed to administration jobs, but they stressed that former lobbyists comprise a fraction of the more than 8,000 employees who will be hired by the new administration. And they pointed out that before Obama made his campaign-trail promise, he issued a more complete - and more nuanced - policy on former lobbyists.

Formalized in a recent presidential executive order, it forbids executive branch employees from working in an agency, or on a program, for which they have lobbied in the last two years. Yet in the past few days, a number of exceptions have been granted, with the administration conceding at least two waivers and that a handful of other appointees will recuse themselves from dealing with matters on which they lobbied within the two-year window. . .

Here are former lobbyists Obama has tapped for top jobs:

Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm.

Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.

William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.

William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.

David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.

Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.

Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.

Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.

Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president's assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.

SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS TIED TO INFERTILITY

Clive Cookson, Financial Times - A study of Danish women has found the first evidence that synthetic chemicals widely used in consumer products cause infertility. In a study to be published in the medical journal Human Reproduction, US scientists say they found that women with higher levels of perfluorinated chemicals in their blood took longer to become pregnant. Since the 1950s PFCs have been incorporated in many everyday items, including food packaging, textiles, upholstery, carpets and personal products. They are coming under increasing suspicion for having damaged human health - and particularly for causing infertility - by disrupting hormones. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, who carried out the study, claim they are the first to provide statistical evidence that PFCs have an effect on people. Chunyuan Fei of UCLA said: "Animal studies have shown that these chemicals may have a variety of toxic effects on the liver, immune system and developmental and reproductive organs. Very few human studies have been done."

IRAQ KICKING BLACKWATER OUT

Washington Post - The Iraqi government has informed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that it will not issue a new operating license to Blackwater Worldwide, the embassy's primary security company, which has come under scrutiny for allegedly using excessive force while protecting American diplomats, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

Iraq's Interior Ministry conveyed its decision to U.S. officials in Baghdad on Friday, in one of the boldest moves the government has made since the Jan. 1 implementation of a security agreement with the United States that sharply curbed American power in Iraq.

Blackwater employees who have not been accused of improper conduct will be allowed to continue working as private security contractors in Iraq if they switch employers, Iraqi officials said.

The officials said Blackwater must leave the country as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finishes drawing up guidelines for private contractors under the security agreement. It is unclear how long that will take. Blackwater employees and other U.S. contractors had been immune from prosecution under Iraqi law.

"When the work of this committee ends," Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said, private security companies "will be under the authority of the Iraqi government, and those companies that don't have licenses, such as Blackwater, should leave Iraq immediately."

CRASH TALK

Where did that infrastructure go?

Boston Globe - Five weeks before becoming president, Barack Obama urged passage of a massive economic stimulus package, vowing that it would "create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

But the bill passed by the House yesterday dedicates only about 5 percent of the $819 billion measure to highway, mass transit, and rail projects, analysts said. That has prompted even some Democratic supporters to complain that the transportation spending was gutted by Republicans who insisted on more tax cuts - none of whom voted for the measure anyway - and by Obama advisers who shifted priorities to advance policy goals.

Many economists have argued in recent weeks that spending on infrastructure would do more to quickly create jobs and pull the country out of recession than tax cuts for individuals and businesses, or investments in healthcare and alternative energy - such as grants for health information technology and for a smart electricity grid. The tax cuts and investments are now sizable elements of the recovery package, with Obama's assent.

Representative Michael Capuano, a Somerville Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said he has watched with frustration as spending for rapid transit and rail dropped during negotiations over the bill. For example, after an initial burst of enthusiasm for inter-city rail projects, the amount was reduced to $5 billion and then to $1.1 billion, he said.

The bill has $30 billion for roads and bridges and $12 billion for rapid transit, with decisions on specific projects to be made by state and local officials. But that's far less than originally sought by some Democrats. . .

Big banks win big

Pro Publica - $180 billion, roughly 60 percent of the total, has so far gone to the five biggest financial institutions: Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. $280.2 billion, roughly 93 percent of the total, has so far gone to the top 28 institutions, all of which got investments or loans of $1 billion and above. By contrast, the 300 smallest investments, doled out to local or regional banks, total $10.87 billion, roughly 3.6 percent of the total.

Number 3 on "What's Hot" on Reddit: Bailout question: Why not give money to homeowners to pay off their mortgages, instead of giving money to the banks? The banks get the money anyways, two birds with one stone, everybody wins. Please educate me as to why this is a bad idea.

What works; what doesn't

Martin Feldstein, Washington Post - The plan is to give a tax cut of $500 a year for two years to each employed person. That's not a good way to increase consumer spending. Experience shows that the money from such temporary, lump-sum tax cuts is largely saved or used to pay down debt. Only about 15 percent of last year's tax rebates led to additional spending.

The proposed business tax cuts are also likely to do little to increase business investment and employment. The extended loss "carrybacks" are primarily lump-sum payments to selected companies. The bonus depreciation plan would do little to raise capital spending in the current environment of weak demand because the tax benefits in the early years would be recaptured later.

Instead, the tax changes should focus on providing incentives to households and businesses to increase current spending. Why not a temporary refundable tax credit to households that purchase cars or other major consumer durables, analogous to the investment tax credit for businesses? Or a temporary tax credit for home improvements? In that way, the same total tax reduction could produce much more spending and employment. . .

On the spending side, the stimulus package is full of well-intended items that, unfortunately, are not likely to do much for employment. Computerizing the medical records of every American over the next five years is desirable, but it is not a cost-effective way to create jobs. .

National Mall unstimulated

DCist - Funds for a $200 million renovation of the National Mall was removed from President Obama's stimulus package during a House Rules Committee session. The move is a blow to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and to groups like the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, who have been pushing hard for Mall repairs for the last several years. Mall advocates had been hoping the national spotlight on the Mall during Obama's inauguration ceremonies would shore up support for funding restoration work. Visitors to the Mall have long been disappointed to find dead grass, mud and cracked sidewalks around the splendor of the monuments and museums.

FBI knew about fraud in mortgage industry

Paul Shukovsky, Seatlle Post- Intelligencer - The FBI was aware for years of "pervasive and growing" fraud in the mortgage industry that eventually contributed to America's financial meltdown, but did not take definitive action to stop it.

"It is clear that we had good intelligence on the mortgage-fraud schemes, the corrupt attorneys, the corrupt appraisers, the insider schemes," said a recently retired, high FBI official. Another retired top FBI official confirmed that such intelligence went back to 2002.

The problem, according to the two FBI retirees and several other current and former bureau colleagues, is that the bureau was stretched so thin that no one noticed when those lenders began packaging bad mortgages into bad securities.

"We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt," the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. "Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."

The FBI not only lacked the resources, but also never got the tips it needed from the banking regulatory agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also failed to detect the securities issue, said the first retired FBI official. . .

Both retired FBI officials asserted that the Bush administration was thoroughly briefed on the mortgage fraud crisis and its potential to cascade out of control with devastating financial consequences, but made the decision not to give back to the FBI the agents it needed to address the problem. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, about 2,400 agents were reassigned to counterterrorism duties.

Russian and Chinese leaders slam US economy

Marcus Baram, Huffington Post - The leaders of both Russian and China slammed the U.S. economic system, blaming it for leading the world into the current financial crisis. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao both expressed their desire for cooperation with President Obama but attacked the capitalism of Wall Street. . .

The Wall Street Journal reports:

=== The Russian leader mocked U.S. businessmen who he said had boasted at last year's Davos meeting of the U.S. economy's fundamental strength and "cloudless" prospects. "Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist," he said...

While Mr. Wen never named the U.S., his critique of its failings was as sweeping as Mr. Putin's. The financial crisis, he said, was "attributable to inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies and their unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption; excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit" -- and other excesses. ===

Putin's other remarks were more conciliatory, focusing on his desire for cooperation with Obama on disarmament, energy security and the economy.

Welfare fathers blame labor

Sam Stein, Huffington Post - Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars were needed, it was argued, to prevent America from turning "into France."

"If a retailer has not gotten involved in this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to [former Sen.] Norm Coleman and all these other guys, they should be shot. They should be thrown out their goddamn jobs," Marcus declared.

Percent unemployed

December 1998 - December 2008

Whites: Up 2.8 to 6.6
Blacks: Up 4.2 to 11.9
Latinos: Up 1.5 to 9.2

January - December 1998

Whites: Up 2.2. to 6.6
Blacks: Up 2.7 to 11.9
Latinos: Up 2.8 to 9.2

Bureau of Labor Statistics

THE GITMO YOU DON'T HEAR ABOUT

Pro Publica - An untold portion of the 600 detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan were captured outside the country while engaged in peaceful activities, lawyers and court documents say, and imprisoned alongside Afghan warriors. The U.S. government has argued that battlefield rules put the prisoners beyond the reach of civilian justice, even though they weren't captured in the Afghan war zone.

A lawsuit by four Bagram detainees has revealed striking similarities between the prison in Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay facility. To determine the full measure of that resemblance, District Court Judge John D. Bates instructed government lawyers to turn over the total number of captives nabbed abroad. That crucial number was redacted from public court documents filed in the case. Recently, Bates has turned to the Obama administration, which recently put the Gitmo military commissions on hold, for guidance. . .

The Obama administration instructed prosecutors to ask judges in military commissions and civil courts to suspend cases involving Guantanamo detainees during his first evening in office. Judge Bates surprised lawyers in the Bagram case by following suit without any prompting.

In a court order last Thursday, Bates said he would "provide the new administration with the same type of opportunity [to offer new, specific detention policies] in these Bagram Airfield habeas cases." The Obama administration has until Feb. 20 to weigh in on Bagram.

BRITISH CAP & TRADE TURNS INTO A SCAM

Guardian, UK - Britain's biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emissions trading scheme designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets.

The sell-off has helped trigger a collapse in the price of carbon, making it cheaper to burn high-carbon fossil fuels and leading to a fall in the number of clean energy projects. The moves were seized on by environmentalists and other critics who have previously criticized the European Union's ETS for delivering more windfall profits for business than climate change.

Steel, concrete and glassmakers are believed to be the main sellers along with financial speculators such as hedge funds. The sell-off of the pollution permits has led to carbon prices plunging 60% . . .

Environmentalists expressed anger last night about the way the ETS was being used. "The ETS has bowed to corporate self-interest at every stage of its design and implementation, so there is no surprise that it is now being used as a cash cow to see firms through a difficult financial phase," said Oscar Reyes, a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch.

"Recession in Europe is bringing a slowdown in manufacturing meaning less production and less emissions. Companies are doing exactly what is the rational thing to do in these circumstances which is to sell if they are long on credits. It is right that if they are emitting less then they do not need the credits so much and the price of carbon will fall," said Henrik Hasselknippe, global head of carbon at Point Carbon.
BREVITAS
CRASH TALK

Andrew Stern, Reuters - U.S. roads, airports, schools, levees, dams, and other infrastructure are in overall poor shape and require a $2.2 trillion investment to bring them up to par, an engineering group said. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave infrastructure a grade of "D" as U.S. President Barack Obama seeks $825 billion in extra government spending and tax cuts to ease the economic crisis. Infrastructure earned the same dismal grade in 2005, but the group's estimated five-year price tag to fix it rose by $600 billion to $2.2 trillion.

DRUG BUSTS

Guardian, UK - Elizabeth J Narcessian and HoJung Yoon, both at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, published finding in a 1997 study called False-Positive Urine Drug Screen: Beware the Poppy Seed Bagel. It concerned a patient whose urine mysteriously tested positive for morphine: "[The] results confirmed that ingestion of poppy seeds can result in a positive urine toxicology for morphine. The urines may remain positive from 24 to 48 hours after ingestion." . .

CRIME BLOTTER

Morning Sentinel, ME - Getting engaged was the last thing on Harmon's mind last Saturday when Trooper Joe Chretien of the Maine State Police pulled the Portland woman over on Interstate 95. Harmon, who was headed with her boyfriend, Gary Lapointe, to the Hollywood Slots casino in Bangor, had been driving 92 miles per hour in the 65 miles-per-hour zone. . . After filling out the paperwork, which led to a summons for speeding against the 23-year-old Harmon, Chretien's focus turned to Lapointe. "I noticed the gentleman in the passenger's seat," Chretien recalled. "He was kind of nervous to get my attention." Lapointe showed the trooper a black box from Zales jewelry store and the big diamond ring inside. "He said, 'I'm trying to figure out a way to ask her to marry me, and I just don't know how,'" Chretien said. "I was kind of dumbfounded and asked if he wanted me to provide a lead-in, and he said 'yes.'" Chretien told Harmon that Lapointe had something to tell her that might make her feel better about getting charged for speeding. Lapointe opened the door, got on the ground on one knee and proposed. . . "I said, 'Congratulations to both of you,' and went back to my car," he said. "They sat there for a couple of minutes, hugging and kissing. Then he got in the driver's seat, and drove away. It had a happy ending."

Everett Herald, WA - Officers arrested an Everett man morning after they overheard him on a cell phone, apparently trying to make a drug deal. The suspect, 24, was inside a bathroom stall at the police department at the time. . . . A police sergeant who was in the restroom happened to overhear the man placing the call. It appeared the man was desperately trying to arrange drug deals. "In a bit of disbelief, the sergeant told his partner what he had heard," Goetz said. . . Police confronted the man as he left the bathroom. He reportedly thought he was at a probation office, not an Everett police station. "He asked an officer if he was a probation officer," Goetz said.

Guardian, UK - Naked alpine ramblers have been warned to keep their clothes on this spring or face fines under new legislation introduced by Swiss authorities intended to clamp down on a growing pastime. . . According to one naked hiker website, nacktwandern.de, the trend goes back to the start of the 20th century and has much to do with the new access it gives people to nature. . . Naked ramblers are drawn to Appenzell Innerrhoden - which is also famous for delaying giving women the vote until 1990 - by its beautiful landscape.

Don't Tase Me Bro' You can buy a gun, liquor and even some drug paraphernalia items in Coweta County, Georgia, but as of Monday, you can't buy a sex toy. In a special meeting, the Coweta County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a new obscenity ordinance prohibiting anyone from knowingly selling "any device designed or markets as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs," The Newnan Times-Herald reported.

Reuters - Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery. Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323. "The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone. "We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said.

INDICATORS

NY Times - The Pew Research Center found that while more than 8 in 10 Americans rate where they live now as excellent, nearly half say they would rather live in a different type of community. City dwellers feel the most mismatched. A majority would rather live in a suburb, small town or rural area. The survey found that Denver, San Diego and Seattle top a list of 30 metropolitan areas that people preferred. Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati ranked lowest. New York was in the middle, between Washington and Dallas. All of the top 10 preferred areas are in the West or the South, but geography isn't necessarily the first priority for various groups. Young adults prefer New York and Los Angeles. Phoenix is the favorite of Republicans and San Francisco of Democrats.

OBAMALAND

Our new secretary of state's husband received $6 million in so-called honoraria last year from foreign sources.

THE MIX

Michael Neibauer, DC Examiner - About a thousand members of D.C.'s Irish community may be exempted from the city's smoking ban so they can continue the annual rite of toasting St. Patrick with a tumbler in one hand and a cigar in the other. Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans has introduced legislation sparing the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, a social organization that comprises much of Washington's elite Irishmen, from the ban for their 81st annual St. Patrick's Day dinner at the Capital Hilton on March 17. The city's smoke-free law provides an economic hardship waiver for struggling bars and restaurants, Evans said, but it leaves no wiggle room for a single event, like the St. Patrick's Day gala or Fight Night at the Washington Hilton. . . Evans is a member of the Friendly Sons organization, though he claims not to partake in the cigar end of the toasting tradition

CORPORADOS

Times, UK - The disgraced chief executive of Lehman Brothers transferred ownership of a $14 million Florida mansion to his wife for $100 in a possible attempt to move assets beyond the reach of infuriated investors of the collapsed bank. Richard Fuld, who led the 158-year-old investment bank to its demise last September, sold the beach-front house to his wife, Kathleen, for $100 on November 10, according to Marin County real estate records. . . Cityfile.com, the New York website that uncovered the secret sale, speculated: "Could Fuld be worried about the flurry of lawsuits from incensed shareholders and creditors?"

WORLD

IRC - Conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo have taken the lives of an estimated 5.4 million people since 1998 and continue to leave as many as 45,000 dead every month, according to a major mortality survey released today by the International Rescue Committee. "The conflict and its aftermath, in terms of fatalities, surpass any other since World War II," says the aid group's president, George Rupp. "Congo's loss is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark or the state of Colorado perishing within a decade. Although Congo's war formally ended five years ago, ongoing strife and poverty continue to take a staggering toll."

JUSTICE & FREEDOM

Carlos Miller, Indy Bay - Seconds after BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, police immediately began confiscating cell phones containing videos that have yet to see the light of day. In fact, the only videos that have been seen by the public were filmed by people who managed to leave the scene before police confronted them.
In one instance, police chased after Karina Vargas after she stepped on the train, banging on the window and demanding her to turn over the camera. The train sped away with Vargas still holding her camera. . . The truth is, police had no legal right to confiscate a single camera. "Cops may be entitled to ask for people's names and addresses and may even go as far as subpoenaing the video tape, but as far as confiscating the camera on the spot, no," said [attorney] Marc Randazza.

WAR DEPARTMENT

Times, UK - Russia held out an olive branch to President Barack Obama by suspending plans to deploy missiles in Europe, according to a report in Moscow. An official from Russia's General Staff in Moscow told Interfax news that the move had been made because the new United States leadership was reconsidering plans to establish a missile defence shield in eastern Europe. Mr Putin said on Monday that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the potential for improved relations with the US because the Obama Administration had shown a willingness to reconsider the missile shield.

Michelle Tan, Army Times - Army Secretary Pete Geren has ordered a stand-down of the Army's entire recruiting force and a review of almost every aspect of the job is underway in the wake of a wide-ranging investigation of four suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion. Poor command climate, failing personal relationships and long, stressful work days were factors in the suicides, the investigation found. The investigating officer noted a "threatening" environment in the battalion and that leaders may have tried to influence statements from witnesses. . . The one-day stand-down of all 7,000 active Army and 1,400 Army Reserve recruiters will be Feb. 13. The soldiers will receive training on leadership, a review of the expectations of Recruiting Command's leaders, suicide prevention and resiliency training, coping skills and recruiter wellness, Turner said.

ECO CLIPS

New Scientist - Emperor penguins are likely to be melted out of house and home by climate change, according to a new study. Earlier work suggests that Antarctica's penguins are already suffering from warming temperatures. Now a group of researchers have combined what is known about emperor penguin ecology with forecasts from 10 leading climate change models to forecast the future of the species. It doesn't look good. The models predict that, unless fossil fuels are phased out, there is more than a one-in-three chance that 95% of the Adelie Land colony of eastern Antarctica - the best studied emperor penguin colony - will be gone by 2100.

NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME WATCH

Raw Story - A few weeks ago, George Washington University Constitutional Law professor Jonathan Turley, while appearing on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, essentially said that the Obama administration would "own" any war crimes -- such as the reported waterboarding of 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- if it chose to look the other way. On Monday's show Turley went a little further and suggested that if Obama impedes investigations or prosecution that he wouldn't just be an "apologist," but also an "accessory.". . .

ARTS & CULTURE

The Washington Post is no longer going to have a stand alone book section. Writes the NY Times: "The New York Times Book Review is now the largest remaining stand-alone Sunday tabloid section. . . In addition to being included in the Sunday paper, the Book Review is sold as a separate section on its own to 23,500 subscribers. An additional 4,200 sections are sold in bookstores across the country. The San Francisco Chronicle publishes an eight-page book review that is inserted into its Sunday Insight section, but has its own front cover and is designed to be pulled out, editor John McMurtrie said. . . The Los Angeles Times lost its stand-alone Sunday section in 2007."

Radar - Due to falling sales and a worsening economy, venerable humor mag Mad is giving up its monthly schedule to come out quarterly. The magazine, which began as a comic book in 1952 and shifted to magazine size with issue #24, sold 2 million copies at its peak. Current figures are roughly one-tenth that.

FIELD NOTES

Phil Papers is a comprehensive directory of online philosophy articles and books by academic philosophers. It monitors journals in many areas of philosophy, as well as archives and personal pages. It also accepts articles directly from users

New American Dream is a new progressive web site with politics, poetry and interviews. The spirit behind it is Mike Palecek, who has been a reporter, editor and publisher as well as being a Iowa Democratic Party nominee for the House of Representatives in 2000. He received 65,000 votes in a conservative district on an anti-military, anti-prison, pro-immigration platform, even after endorsing Ralph Nader over Al Gore.

FURTHERMORE. . .

Rules of Thumb - If there are more than three cars in line ahead of you at a bank or fast-food drive-up window, you'll save time if you get out of the car and go inside. - Bill Lowe, Birmingham, Alabama

ENDS

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