Undernews For July 12, 2010

Undernews For July 12, 2010

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WORD

Mr Simon Burns is the Tory MP for Chelmsford. . . Today, Mr Burns was driven to the edge of his reason – a distance which, to be frank, is not very great. – Simon Hoggarts, Guardian

RECENT STORIES

ARIZONA LIES ABOUT IMMIGRANTS

BOOKSHELF: TRIAL & ERROR IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

39% OF CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE BILLS CAME FROM LOBBYISTS

BIG BEASTS DISAPPEARING FROM AFRICAN PARKS

TWO MONTHS LATER, US & BP ACCEPT SPILL AID FROM 12 COUNTRIES (AND MAINE)

ACLU FILES SUIT AGAINST ‘NO FLY’ LIST

BANKS FINANCED MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS

THE MOST ANTI-DEMOCRATIC SENATOR

VETERAN ADMINISTRATION SCAMS AGAINST PATIENTS REVEALED

NEWSPAPERS HAVE STOPPED CALLING WATERBOARDING TORTURE

39% OF CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE BILLS CAME FROM LOBBYISTS

Fresno Bee, CA - Outside interests sponsored 39 percent of the bills introduced during a recent two-year session of the California Legislature, according to a report.

The analysis found nearly half the lobbyist-sponsored bills became law, compared to about 20 percent of bills written by legislators acting on their own.

The San Jose Mercury News found more than 1,800 bills were written by lobbyists in 2007-2008, the most recent complete legislative session. More.

BIG BEASTS DISAPPEARING FROM AFRICAN PARKS

Guardian, UK - Africa's extensive network of national parks is failing to stem the decline of large mammals, according to a new study that highlights biodiversity loss across the continent.

Populations of large mammals such as zebra, buffalo and lion have declined by an average of 59% since 1970, according to the research, which collated data from parks including popular tourist safari destinations such as the Masai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Ian Cragie, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge who led the study, said: 'Although the results indicate that African national parks have generally failed to maintain their populations of large mammals, the situation outside the parks is undoubtedly worse. Many species like rhino are practically extinct outside national parks.'

The team of scientists, including experts from the Zoological Society of London and the United Nations environment programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, compiled population records of 69 key species, including lion, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra and buffalo, inside 78 protected areas across Africa from 1970 to 2005. More than half the records came from aerial surveys, the most accurate but also the most expensive way to monitor.

The results show an average decline of 59%, though the results varied significantly from region to region. Eleven parks in west Africa were the hardest hit, with a decline of 85%. Mammal species populations across 43 protected areas in east Africa fell by more than half, while those in 35 reserves in southern Africa showed an increase of 25%. The scientists say they cannot break down the results to show the change in numbers in individual parks because of confidentiality agreements with data providers. More

PASSINGS: HARVEY PEKAR

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Harvey Pekar's life was not an open book. It was an open comic book.

Pekar chronicled his life and times in the acclaimed autobiographical comic-book series, "American Splendor," portraying himself as a rumpled, depressed, obsessive-compulsive "flunky file clerk" engaged in a constant battle with loneliness and anxiety.

Pekar, 70, was found dead shortly before 1 a.m. today by his wife, Joyce Brabner, in their Cleveland Heights home, said Powell Caesar, spokesman for Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller. An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death. Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, wrote "Our Cancer Year," a book-length comic, after Pekar was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1990 and underwent a grueling treatment.

"American Splendor" carried the subtitle, "From Off the Streets of Cleveland," and just like Superman, the other comic book hero born in Cleveland, Pekar wore something of a disguise. He never stepped into a phone booth to change, but underneath his persona of aggravated, disaffected file clerk, he was an erudite book and jazz critic, and a writer of short stories that many observers compared to Chekhov, despite their comic-book form.

Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could not leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul -- if not dignity -- intact.

"American Splendor" had its roots in Pekar's friendship with R. Crumb, the seminal underground comic-book artist, whom he met in 1962 when Crumb was working for American Greetings in Cleveland. At the time, Crumb was just beginning to explore the possibilities of comics, which would later lead to such groundbreaking work as "Mr. Natural" and "Fritz the Cat." Harvey Pekar Links

When Pekar, inspired by Crumb's work, wrote his nascent strip in 1972, Crumb illustrated it. Crumb also contributed to Pekar's first full-fledged books, which Pekar started publishing annually in 1976.

"He's the soul of Cleveland," Crumb told The Plain Dealer in 1994. "He's passionate and articulate. He's grim. He's Jewish. I appreciate the way he embraces all that darkness."

Yet the darkness came with a humorous silver lining. As Pekar said, "The humor of everyday life is way funnier than what the comedians do on TV. It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about."

Pekar often complained that he made no money from his comics, but they did not go unappreciated. He won the American Book Award in 1987 for his first anthology of "American Splendor." He was a regular guest on "Late Night With David Letterman." In 2003, the film adaptation of his comics, also titled "American Splendor," won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic films at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

ARIZONA LIES ABOUT IMMIGRANTS

Dana Milbank, Washington Post -Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been "essentially flat for the past decade." For example, "In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes." The Pima County sheriff reported that "the border has never been more secure."

FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago -- yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is "the worst I have ever seen." President Obama justifiably asserted last week that "the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years," yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be "fit for the psycho ward" on the basis of that remark.

There is McCain -- second only to Brewer in wrecking Arizona tourism -- telling NBC, ABC and CNN that Phoenix is the "No. 2 kidnapping capital of the world," behind only Mexico City. "False," judged Politifact, tracing McCain's claim to a dubious report by ABC News in February 2009. Law-enforcement agencies generally don't track foreign kidnapping statistics, but experts said rates are far higher in various Central American, African and Asian countries. Reports of kidnapping in Phoenix, meanwhile, are declining.

Next, there's Brewer's claim that "the majority" of people immigrating illegally "are coming here and they're bringing drugs, and they're doing drop houses and they're extorting people and they're terrorizing the families. That is the truth." No, it isn't. The Border Patrol's Tucson Sector has apprehended more than 170,000 undocumented immigrants since Oct. 1, but only about 1,100 drug prosecutions have been filed in Arizona in that time.

The claim that illegal immigrants are behind most killings of law-enforcement personnel is also bunk. Arizona state Sen. Sylvia Allen claimed that "in the last few years 80 percent of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal." A Phoenix police spokesman told the Arizona Republic's E.J. Montini that the real figure for such killings is less than 25 percent, and that there are no statistics on the wounding of officers.

BOOKSHELF: TRIAL & ERROR IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

With the criminal justice field dominated by heated debates about "best practices," "evidence-based programs," and "what works," a new book, "Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure" argues that the public policy world cannot be divided neatly into successes and failures. The reality, say authors Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox, is that some ideas work in some places some of the time. Good results are hard to sustain and even harder to replicate.

Berman and Fox, executives with the Center for Court Innovation, seek lessons that can be applied to future programs. Among the promising initiatives that went wrong -

- Pioneering drug courts in Minneapolis and Denver that fell apart when their founding judges moved on to other assignments;

- Operation Ceasefire, which dramatically reduced teen homicides in Boston but disintegrated when leaders of the initiative squabbled over money and credit; and

- Consent to Search, an initiative of the St. Louis Police Department that succeeded in taking hundreds of guns off the streets but came undone due to local politics and ill-fated implementation decisions.

In detailing the stories of notable criminal justice innovations, "Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform" does not finger point, pass out grades, or look back with 20-20 hindsight. Rather, it aims to help reformers learn from their predecessors' mistakes. Berman and Fox present crucial lessons for would-be innovators, including the importance of understanding local context, winning over street-level bureaucrats, and engaging in self-reflection.

"This provocative book charts a promising path for criminal justice reform in this country. I can think of no other book like it, and I urge front-line practitioners, policymakers, and scholars to read it," commented Joan Petersilia, the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford University. "As the nation faces severe budget cuts, the lessons learned from past failures seem more important than ever."

ACLU FILES SUIT AGAINST ‘NO FLY’ LIST

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and lawful residents who are prohibited from flying to or from the United States or over U.S. airspace because they are on the government's "No Fly List." None of the individuals in the lawsuit, including a disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran stranded in Egypt and a U.S. Army veteran stuck in Colombia, have been told why they are on the list or given a chance to clear their names.

"More and more Americans who have done nothing wrong find themselves unable to fly, and in some cases unable to return to the U.S., without any explanation whatsoever from the government," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "A secret list that deprives people of the right to fly and places them into effective exile without any opportunity to object is both un-American and unconstitutional."

According to the ACLU's legal complaint, thousands of people have been added to the "No Fly List" and barred from commercial air travel without any opportunity to learn about or refute the basis for their inclusion on the list. The result is a vast and growing list of individuals who, on the basis of error or innuendo, have been deemed too dangerous to fly but who are too harmless to arrest.

"Without a reasonable way for people to challenge their inclusion on the list, there's no way to keep innocent people off it," said Nusrat Choudhury, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The government's decision to prevent people from flying without giving them a chance to defend themselves has a huge impact on people's lives - including their ability to perform their jobs, see their families and, in the case of U.S. citizens, to return home to the United States from abroad."

TWO MONTHS LATER, US & BP ACCEPT SPILL AID FROM 12 COUNTRIES (AND MAINE)

Well, at least it’s better than Katrina where we never did accept the offer of 1,000 doctors from Cuba. Note that, as we have reported, the Netherlands offered skimming equipment back in early May and was refused.

AFP - The US government has accepted offers of help from 12 countries and international organisations in dealing with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The assistance includes special oil skimming equipment, floating booms designed to contain the oil, as well as personnel, the US State Department said on Tuesday.

Countries from which the US had accepted offers of help included Japan, Norway and Canada, while offers were also being considered from countries as diverse as China, Kenya and Vietnam.

Overall US officials said 27 countries had offered assistance ranging from vessels and dispersant, to fire boom and technical personnel.

In most cases reimbursement would be required.

"We are currently working out the particular modalities of delivering the offered assistance," the State Department said, adding that details would be "forthcoming once these arrangements are complete."

A US Coast Guard agency coordinating the response to the spill with BP said international offers of floating boom equipment to contain the oil and collect it off the surface of the water had been accepted from Canada, Mexico, Norway and Japan.

Maine Public Broadcasting - It's been nearly two months since the Maine Department of Environmental Protection offered to provide staff and equipment to respond to the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Alabama and Florida made inquiries about the DEP's offer earlier this month. But no one has taken Maine up on the invitation until now.

Late last week BP contacted Maine environmental officials and said, yes, they would like trained staff and shallow water oil skimmers to head to the Gulf and assist with cleanup. So a crew of six responders and the two skimmer boats will leave Maine and head for Panama City, Florida, where they'll work to protect the coast from the spreading devastation from the BP oil spill.

The assignment will last for six weeks. "I have experience in marine oil spills for the last 15 years, including skimmer design and training; and in fact, this type of skimmer is one I'm quite familiar with," says Thomas Smith, an oil and hazardous materials specialist who works out of the DEP's Bangor office.

Smith says his crew, which has similar training and background, is eager to get to work. Because they can do a lot with few people, crews will be rotated every two weeks. "It takes two people to operate the barge -- one to steer the barge and operate the forward propulsion, and another person to operate the skimming system," Smith says.

Thomas Smith: "The way it works is that as we encounter oil moving forward, into the oil, oil travels down a belt which is operating to move the oil underwater. As it clears the end of the belt, it floats up into what we call the collection well and we pump the oil from the top of the collection well; thus we're largely decanting the oil from the water as we travel through the oil and pump it to storage on the barge that we're operating."

The skimmers can hold up to 1,200 gallons of oil each. Smith says that collected oil then be off-loaded onto a containment site on shore. Depending on water conditions and the types of oil plumes they encounter, Smith says the vessels can fill up fast. During the height of the tanker Julie N spill in Portland in 1996, for example, they filled up in an hour's time.

The DEP is also sending more than two miles of oil containment boom and a mapping expert who previously spent three weeks in the Gulf helping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration track the spill.

THE FORMER BARACK OBAMA

Senator McCain's big solution to the crisis we're facing is ¬ put on your seatbelts ¬ a commission. A commission. You know, that's Washington-speak for 'We'll get back to you later.' – Barack Obama, 2008

NEWSPAPERS HAVE STOPPED CALLING WATERBOARDING TORTURE

Harvard University report - The current debate over waterboarding has spawned hundreds of newspaper articles in the last two years alone. However, waterboarding has been the subject of press attention for over a century. Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27).

By contrast, from 2002-2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture.

VETERAN ADMINISTRATION SCAMS AGAINST PATIENTS REVEALED

Alternet -The Veterans Health Administration systematically delays and denies sick veterans medical care and masks it with bogus documentation. That's what the VA Inspector General and a number of veterans' advocates have been claiming since the early days of the Iraq War, when soldiers returning from Operation Enduring Freedom began flooding VA facilities. Now an internal department memo, posted on a watchdog Web site, confirms these charges.

The April 26 memo from William Schoenhard, Deputy Undersecretary for Health Operations and Management, alerts supervisors overseeing scheduling in the nation's largest health care system that he has learned of unacceptable practices. VA facilities have adopted what he calls “gaming strategies" in order to “improve scores on various access measures" by diminishing patient access to treatment.

An eight-page attachment identifies 24 "tricks" detected so far, but Schoenhard says there may be more. Using fine-print rules to cancel patients' appointments is one of the more sinister strategies that Schoenhard describes. Here, a patient arrives on time for an appointment only to be told he has no appointment. When the patient shows the employee his/her appointment form, the employee shows the patient the fine print on the form, which says that patients who do not come 10 (sometimes 15) minutes early to check in risk cancellation.

In another example of the VA gaming the system, employees enter into the computer a later date (often by months) than the doctor has specified for a return visit . Another practice is recording a patient's initial request to be treated in a paper log, not the computer system, then calling them in months or a full year later (law requires they be seen within 30 days) and recording that date as their first request to be seen.

In the block-scheduling strategy, employees book several patients in the same time slot for the same doctor or provider, leaving patients to wait for hours to to be seen, sometimes for something as simple as a monthly prescription renewal, which, due to frustration or obligation, they sometimes leave without.

Paul Sullivan, director of the veterans advocacy group, Veterans for Common Sense, told AlterNet he believes Schoenhard's memo "forces a key leadership test upon VA Secretary Eric Shinseki" to end the shenanigans and solve the underlying problems. "The constant stream of hurricane-force flooding of new combat veteran patients from the wars and into VA hospitals has totally overwhelmed VA and caused the improper gaming," Sullivan said, adding that the memo "reveals how VA takes the easy way out."

BANKS FINANCED MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS

Michael Smith, Bloomberg - Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history -- a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case.

Since 2006, more than 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related battles that have raged mostly along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border that Mexico shares with the U.S. In the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, 700 people had been murdered this year as of mid- June. Six Juarez police officers were slaughtered by automatic weapons fire in a midday ambush in April.

Rondolfo Torre, the leading candidate for governor in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, was gunned down yesterday, less than a week before elections in which violence related to drug trafficking was a central issue. . . .

DEFICIT COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR IS A NUMEROLOGIST

Dean Baker, CEPR - Erskine Bowles, the Democratic co-chairman of President Obama's deficit commission, revealed that he was a numerologist yesterday when he suggested that the commission should set a limit on federal government spending at 21 percent of GDP. (Numerologists assign mystical powers to specific numbers.)This fact should have been highlighted more prominently because it is unusual to have people with such extraordinary beliefs in prominent positions in government.

More typically these people are pragmatists who believe that goods and services should be provided in the most efficient possible way. For example, if it is more efficient to provide retirement benefits through a public Social Security system or health care through a public Medicare-type system, most people in responsible positions would support expanding the public sector.

However, because of his belief in numerology, Mr. Bowles would waste resources, thereby slowing growth and eliminating jobs, by instead providing these services in a less efficient manner in the private sector. This is a very peculiar view and should be highlighted by those reporting on the deficit commission.

UTOPIA FOR JUST $4 MILLION

Alternet - What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?

We finally have the answer, and you're not going to like it: a new fleet of castles that float in the oceans. The super-wealthy are already building their first floating castle, a billion-dollar-plus luxury liner that offers permanent multimillion-dollar housing with the best protection of all: moats made of oceans, keeping the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.

The first such floating castle has been christened the "Utopia"--the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale--which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot "estates." The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.

It's the first of its kind to offer permanent housing units to buyers, and there'll be plenty on board the Utopia for the global elite inhabitants to keep themselves entertained: an outdoor movie theater, casino, miniature golf course, nightclubs, restaurants, shops, and a water park for the elites' heirs (featuring a "Lazy River," rock-climbing wall and water slides). At nearly 1,000 feet, the Utopia is almost as long as a nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

GALLERY

GREAT MOMENTS IN PARENTHOOD

Toronto Star, Canada - Two sets of parents are suing the Greater Toronto Hockey League, one of its clubs and four coaches for $25,000 each because their sons were cut by the Avalanche Minor Sports Club midget junior A team during tryouts in April.

It’s the first time parents in the GTHL have ever taken legal action against the league or one of its teams for declining the services of their children, says league president John Gardner.

Even nationally, it’s a rare event.

“We have had very few lawsuits on ice time or (player) cuts,” said Hockey Canada's Glen McCurdie director of member services. “There are more threats than actual suits.”

Vito Valela and David Longo are both suing on behalf of their sons, Christopher and Daniel respectively. Besides the GTHL, Avalanche Minor Sports president Anthony Iantorno as well as team officials Doriano Pistarelli, Andy Vandenberk, Felice Guglielmi and Peter Posca are named as defendants in the action.

“Their direct actions have caused irreparable psychological damage to Daniel Longo’s self esteem as an impressionable teenager and demoralized Daniel as an athlete and team hockey player with his peers,” the Longo statement of claim reads. “The conduct by all defendants destroyed the dignity of my son, whom in good conscience gave his team nothing but his best efforts.”

Valela’s statement of claim states: “When Christopher was advised of his termination by my wife and I, he vowed never to play the game he loved since childhood. And, moreover, his misguided group of defendants demoralized my wife and I, whom had gone well beyond the call of duty as parents in support of the Toronto Avalanche hockey team for two seasons.”

Christopher has signed with Hillcrest Summits, the statement reads.

“Thank the good Lord that my son had the courage and strength to compose himself in his demoralized state,” reads the statement of claim.

A statement of defense from the defendants says more than 70 players tried out for the Avalanche Midget Jr. team.

“We were looking for 17 players. It was inevitable there were going to be players released.. . All players attending try-outs from the Minor league level to the National League level (i.e. NHL and Canadian Olympic Team) realize that not making the team they are trying out for is a strong possibility and a lawsuit does not solve anything.”

THE MOST ANTI-DEMOCRATIC SENATOR

Maidhc O Cathail, Online Journal - It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman.

Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the “global war on terror” which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.

On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.

According to the bill he recently proposed in the Senate, the entire global Internet is to be claimed as a “national asset” of the United States. If Congress passes the bill, the US president would be given the power to “kill” the Internet in the event of a “national cyber-emergency.” Supporters of the legislation say this is necessary to prevent a “cyber 9/11” -- yet another myth from the fearmongers who brought us tales of “Iraqi WMD” and “Iranian nukes.”

It’s hardly surprising that Lieberman’s views on what constitute terrorism parallel those of Tel Aviv. As Mark Vogel, chairman of the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee in the United States, once said, “Joe Lieberman, without exception, no conditions . . . is the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress. There is nobody who does more on behalf of Israel than Joe Lieberman.”

Lieberman has been well rewarded for his patriotism -- to another country. In the past six years, he has been the Senate’s top recipient of political contributions from pro-Israel PACs with a staggering $1,226,956.

But what is it that bothers Lieberman so much about the Internet? Could it be that it allows ordinary Americans access to facts which reveal exactly what kind of “friend” Israel has been to its overgenerous benefactor? Facts which they have been denied by the pro-Israel mainstream media.

BOOKSHELF: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain

Barbara Strauch

Rita Beamish, SF Chronicle - Despite the cliches of middle-age forgetfulness - hunting for glasses that rest on top of your head or climbing the stairs purposefully only to wonder why - it turns out that the mature brain has dazzling capabilities. And better yet, there's scant reason to believe that all of us will suffer a decline in brainpower as we age.

But even while it outperforms its younger self in many ways, the middle-age brain gets a bad rap. It's true that we can lose our focus or get distracted more easily as we age, but there is plenty of emerging and established science to show that people underestimate the formidable talents of the mature brain, says Barbara Strauch, author of "The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain"

While some people do slip mentally in midlife, the message of neuroscience today is that the human brain is highly variable. Even in our early 70s, the average age when cognitive decline is seen, some of us roll along without symptoms of decline, apparently tapping superior repair systems. So, while the brain does slow down, with the growth in cognitive depth and reasoning power, there's a "net gain" in middle age, Strauch said.

She cites a growing acceptance of the idea of a "cognitive reserve," something like an emergency stash of brainpower that helps the mind adapt to greater challenges and resist damage. Tapping that reserve may provide a buffer against the outward symptoms of mental decline, some research shows. Additionally, a beneficial fatty white coating on the brain called myelin continues to grow, insulating the brain's long arms of nerve fibers as we age into our 50s and 60s and, in some cases, beyond.

AMERICA 2.0: ALTERNATIVE CURRENCIES

Judith D. Schwartz, Time - Beneath the financial radar, in hip U.S. towns or South African townships, in shops, markets and even banks, people throughout the world are exchanging goods and services via thousands of currency types that look nothing like official tender.

Alternative means of trade often surface during tough economic times. "When money gets dried up and there are still needs to be met in society, people come up with creative ways to meet those needs," says Peter North, a senior lecturer in geography at the University of Liverpool and the author of two books on the subject. He refers to the "scrips" issued in the U.S. and Europe during the Great Depression that kept money flowing and the massive barter exchanges involving millions of people that emerged amid runaway inflation in Argentina in 2000. "People were kept from starving," he says

Closer to home, "Ithaca Hours," with a livable hourly wage as the standard, were launched during the 1991 recession to sustain the economy in Ithaca, N.Y., and stem the loss of jobs. Hours, which are legal and taxable, circulate within the community, moving from local shop to local artisan and back, rather than leaking out into the larger monetary system. The logo on the Hour reads "In Ithaca We Trust."

Alternative (or "complementary") currencies range from quaint to robust, simple to high tech. There are Greens from the Lettuce Patch Bank at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in rural northeastern Missouri. In western Massachusetts one finds fine-artist-designed BerkShares, which are convertible to U.S. dollars. More than $2 million in BerkShares have been issued through the 12 branches of five local banks, according to Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, the nonprofit behind the currency. And in South Africa, proprietary software keeps track of Community Exchange System (CES) Talents; one ambitious plan is to make Khayelitsha, a vast, desolate township of perhaps 1 million inhabitants near Cape Town, a self-sustaining community.

VISITING SLUMBURBIA

Timothy Egan, NY Times, Lathrop, CA - Drive along foreclosure alley, through new planned communities that look like tile-roofed versions of a 21st century ghost town, and you see what happens when people gamble with houses instead of casino chips.

Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions. On the ground, foreclosure signs are tagged with gang graffiti. Empty lots are untended, cratered with mud puddles from the winter storms that have hammered California's San Joaquin Valley.

Nobody is home in the cities of the future. . .

In places like Lathrop, Manteca and Tracy, population nearly doubled in 10 years, and home prices tripled. After inhaling all this real estate helium, some developers and their apologists in urban planning circles hailed the boom as the new America at the far exurban fringe. Every citizen a homeowner! Half-acre lots for all! No credit, no problem!

Others saw it as the residential embodiment of the Edward Abbey line that "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Now median home prices have fallen from $500,000 to $150,000 - among the most precipitous drops in the nation - and still the houses sit empty, spooky and see-through, waiting on demography and psychology to catch up.

In strip malls where tenants seem to last no longer than the life cycle of a gold fish, the bottom-feeders have moved in. "Coming soon: Cigarette City," reads one sign here in Lathrop, near a "Cash Advance" outlet. . .

Nationwide, a record 2.8 million homes received foreclosure notices last year - up 119 percent from two years ago. Just under 5 million homeowners - 1 in 10 mortgages - owe more than their houses are worth. The impulse is to walk away. Surrender. And many have.

What they leave behind, along with the gang presence, the vandalism and the absence of vested owners, is a slum. A new slum. In an influential article in the Atlantic in 2008, the writer Christopher B. Leinberger predicted that the catastrophic collapse of the new home market could turn many of today's McMansions into tenements.

I'm not sure of that. . . Yes, huge developments are empty, with rising crime at the edges, and thousands of homes owned by banks that can't unload them even at fire-sale prices.

Through immigration and high birth rates, the United States is expected to add another 100 million people by 2050. If you don't believe me, consider that we've added 105 million people since 1970. This is more than the population of France. More than Italy. More than Germany. Currently, we have a net gain of one person every 13 seconds.

At some point, the market will settle on proper pricing levels. At its peak, only 11 percent of the people in this valley could afford the median home price.

In the meantime, during these low, ragged years, a few lessons about urban planning can be picked from the stucco pile.

One is that, at least here in California, the outlying cities themselves encouraged the boom, spurred by the state's broken tax system. Hemmed in by property tax limitations, cities were compelled to increase revenue by the easiest route: expanding urban boundaries. They let developers plow up walnut groves and vineyards and places that were supposed to be strawberry fields forever to pay for services demanded by new school parents and park users.

Second, look at the cities with stable and recovering home markets. On this coast, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and San Diego come to mind. All of these cities have fairly strict development codes, trying to hem in their excess sprawl. Developers, many of them, hate these restrictions. They said the coastal cities would eventually price the middle class out, and start to empty.

It hasn't happened. Just the opposite. The developers' favorite role models, the laissez faire free-for-alls - Las Vegas, the Phoenix metro area, South Florida, this valley - are the most troubled, the suburban slums.

Come see: this is what happens when money and market, alone, guide the way we live.

DEPARTMENT OF GOOD THINGS

Street Soccer USA is a non-profit organization in charge of an 18-city league that aims to get homeless men, women, and youth off the streets by using soccer as a tool for social change. The program is designed to help players improve social skills, self esteem, health, and eliminate barriers to employment.

SSUSA is having their annual US Cup in Washington D.C. this year from July 30th - August 1st. All 18 teams from the league will come to play in the tournament. The best players from all of the teams in the league will be chosen to represent the United States Homeless World Cup team that will go to play in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in September.

Iceland approves gay marriage

Sixty pianos being spread around NYC for anyone to play

BOOKS

Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan by David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis. In question and answer format, analysts from the United Methodist Church and the Institute of Policy Studies provide essential background on the real reasons for the Bush invasion of Afghanistan and the continuation of the war by President Obama. They also address the question of how the U.S. can bring its involvement to an end.

MORE GOOD STUFF

FURTHERMORE.. .

AOL News - The school superintendent in Springfield, Mass., has taken responsibility for tests given to the district's 11th- and 12th-graders that were rife with spelling, grammatical and factual errors. Two tests given in May to about 2,600 students contained about 100 errors combined. The mistakes included the phrases "truning around" and "For God's skae," as well as a note on one test that read "This is the end of the Test," when there were two more pages. The district contracts with an outside company to develop the exams.

Internet sightings: Bible lady also hogged the armrest. Seriously, lady, skip ahead to the New Testament, there's sharing in there. – phillygirl

Al Kamen, Washington Post - The enviro group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is auctioning off original MMS memorabilia accumulated over the years. . . . There's the usual assortment of gym bags, pins, lanyards, 25th-anniversary laptop bags and such. But then there are the truly coveted items, such as "Petey, the Petroleum-Loving Whale" -- actually, PEER made that name up -- a little rubber toy whale embossed with "MMS Environmental Studies Program," starting bid $50. . . Our top choice, though, is the beautifully framed Al Gore Hammer Award for high-performing federal employees ($100). This one was for the agency's Innovative Achievements Program acknowledging the agency's and staff's commitment to customer service, PEER said. (No, this was given in 1997, long before that IG report of an MMS staffer having sex with an oil company employee.) The message from Gore reads: "Thanks for building a government that works better and costs less!"

WHY FACTS OFTEN DON'T WORK

36 QUESTIONS FOR ELENA KAGAN

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