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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010301400.html
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Experts Advocate Non-Microsoft Windows Patch
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Security experts yesterday criticized Microsoft Corp. for waiting until next week to address a recently revealed flaw in the Windows operating system that they say is unusually dangerous.
The experts took the unusual step of urging users to install a patch created by a private developer, saying Microsoft is downplaying the severity of the security hole.
The flaw, revealed last week, allows hackers to break into computers running versions of Windows software -- from Windows 98 through the most recent Windows XP. The flaw allows computers to be infected with spyware or viruses by visiting a Web site or opening on an image or link in an e-mail or instant message.
Debby Fry Wilson, a director in Microsoft's security response unit, said the company began working on a fix as soon as it confirmed the technical details of the ongoing attacks, which so far have affected computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Its patch, which is being tested to ensure that there are no conflicts with other software, is to be issued next Tuesday.
While the threat "is serious and malicious attacks are being attempted, Microsoft's intelligence sources indicate that the scope of the attacks are not widespread," she said.
Thomas F. Liston, an incident handler with the SANS Internet Storm Center in Bethesda, said Microsoft was downplaying the threat from the flaw.
"They're just keeping their fingers crossed that this doesn't blow up in a big way until the 10th," Liston said.
Another computer-security firm, Symantec Corp., said Microsoft's decision to delay the patch for another week presents attackers with a "seven-day window that attackers could exploit this issue in a potentially widespread and serious fashion." The Cupertino, Calif., company raised its threat alert to the highest level in 16 months.
Liston said hundreds of Web sites are exploiting the flaw. Malicious hackers expanded into instant messages on New Year's Eve to take advantage of the vulnerability, he said.
In an advisory posted on its Web site earlier this week, SANS urged Windows users to download and install the unofficial patch. SANS and other security experts checked the patch to ensure that it fixes the security flaw without compromising other programs or creating other problems for the users, Liston said.
"I was kind of afraid for my own computer because you can get infected just by visiting a site with your Web browser," said Ilfak Guilfanov, the programmer who developed the unofficial patch and is author of IDA Pro, a debugging tool. "I decided if it works for me, then maybe it will help others, too."
It is rare for established computer security experts to urge Windows users to install a third-party software patch for a Windows problem. They tend to advise users to ignore patches for Windows security flaws not issued by Microsoft because criminals frequently disguise their malware as Windows patches to trick users into installing them.
Wilson declined to comment on the quality and security of Guilfanov's patch.
Until Microsoft releases its patch, customers should practice "safe computing habits," such as updating anti-virus software and avoiding unfamiliar Web sites, she said. However, it's unclear whether safe computing is enough because the exploit it altered every time it infects a new machine, making it tougher for anti-virus software to detect it.
F-Secure Corp., the Finnish anti-virus company that first spotted the exploit on the Internet on Dec. 27, also vouched for the safety of the unofficial patch and advised customers to use it.
"We will see this vulnerability being used for various different purposes for months to come, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a massive worm outbreak before Microsoft releases this patch," said Mikko H. Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure.
Brian Krebs is ahttp://washingtonpost.comreporter. Updates on the security flaw and instructions on how to deal with it can be found athttp://washingtonpost.com/securityfix.
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Security experts yesterday criticized Microsoft Corp. for waiting until next week to address a recently revealed flaw in the Windows operating system that they say is unusually dangerous.
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Hall of Famer Runs for Office
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PITTSBURGH, Jan. 4 -- Former Steelers star Lynn Swann declared his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor Wednesday in the city where he made his name in professional football.
He said that he made up his mind to run in the fall, after spending months weighing support at events around the state.
Swann, a Hall of Fame receiver and longtime TV football commentator, faces three other candidates in seeking the Republican nomination for governor -- his first run for political office. The winner of the May 16 primary will probably face Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D), who is expected to seek a second four-year term.
If successful in his first bid for political office, Swann would become Pennsylvania's first black governor.
Swann, 53, planned to kick off his campaign with a Wednesday night rally in Pittsburgh, followed by appearances in five other cities Thursday and Friday.
The Steelers won four Super Bowls during Swann's nine-year pro career with the team.
Swann has so far revealed little about his political philosophy but has advocated reducing certain business taxes and said he opposes abortion rights.
In independent polling, former lieutenant governor William Scranton III and Swann are running ahead of the other two GOP candidates, but behind Rendell.
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Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today.
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Bush Appointments Avert Senate Battles
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President Bush yesterday made a raft of controversial recess appointments, including Julie L. Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security, in a maneuver circumventing the need for approval by the Senate.
Myers, a niece of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers and the wife of the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, had been criticized by Republicans and Democrats who charged that she lacked experience in immigration matters.
Myers's nomination faced a bruising and potentially embarrassing fight on the Senate floor, where Democrats were prepared to argue that politics, not merit, drove her selection for an important job preventing terrorists and weapons from entering the country.
Bush appointed Tracy A. Henke as executive director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness. She had been accused in her politically appointed post at the Justice Department of demanding that information about racial disparities in police treatment of blacks in traffic cases be deleted from a news release.
The president avoided an abortion rights battle with the recess appointment of former Maryland Republican gubernatorial candidate Ellen R. Sauerbrey as assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. Sauerbrey is an opponent of abortion rights.
For the Federal Election Commission, Bush picked Justice Department employee and former Fulton County, Ga., Republican chairman Hans von Spakovsky for one of three openings. Von Spakovsky is widely viewed as a key player in two disputed Justice Department decisions to overrule career staff in voting rights cases.
A Democratic vacancy will be filled by union lawyer Robert D. Lenhard. He has provoked opposition because of his participation as an attorney for the American Federation of State, Council and Municipal Employees in efforts to have the Supreme Court rule that the 2002 McCain-Feingold law is unconstitutional. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) indicated that he would fight the Lenhard nomination when Democratic leaders first announced it in 2003.
McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) issued statements critical of the appointments. Von Spakovsky may have undermined "enforcement of our civil rights laws," Kennedy said. "By appointing von Spakovsky, the White House missed an opportunity to fill this important position with a person clearly committed to these fundamental rights."
The other FEC appointment went to Nevada lawyer Steven T. Walther, who has close ties to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).
At the Pentagon, Bush granted recess appointments to Gordon R. England as deputy secretary of defense and Dorrance Smith, a former ABC producer, as assistant secretary for public affairs.
The recess appointments will end at the conclusion of the current congressional session in January 2007.
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President Bush yesterday made a raft of controversial recess appointments, including Julie L. Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security, in a maneuver circumventing the need for approval by the Senate.
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Russia and Ukraine Reach Deal on Gas, Ending Dispute
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MOSCOW, Jan. 4 -- Russia and Ukraine struck a face-saving and complex deal Wednesday that allowed both sides to say they secured the price they wanted for natural gas, ending a dispute that raised concern across Europe about Russia's reliability as a strategic energy partner.
Under the deal, the Russian energy giant Gazprom will sell natural gas to a trading company for $230 per 1,000 cubic meters, the price it had insisted that Ukraine pay. The trading company will mix the gas with cheaper gas from Central Asia and then charge Ukraine $95 per 1,000 cubic meters.
That is close to what Ukrainian officials had said they were willing to pay as part of a phased transition to market prices. Ukraine had been paying $50.
The agreement was reached early Wednesday after talks in Moscow between representatives of Gazprom and Naftogaz, the state-owned Ukrainian oil and gas company.
Gazprom also agreed to increase by 47 percent the fee it pays for the transit of gas though Ukrainian-owned pipelines, and to end the practice of bartering transit fees for natural gas. That would provide Ukraine with about $500 million to put toward the $1.5 billion it faces in higher natural gas costs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Moscow that he was sure the settlement would "have a positive effect on the entire set of Russian-Ukrainian relations," the Interfax news agency reported. "It is not only important that Russia's approach to calculating the gas price was recognized as justified, but that our relations are assuming a new quality and becoming a truly transparent market partnership."
Speaking in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, President Viktor Yushchenko said he was satisfied. "The Ukrainian economy is well enough prepared to operate in new market conditions," said Yushchenko, according to his press service. "Ukraine is a reliable and stable partner both for the European Union and the Russian Federation."
Gazprom, a state-controlled company, cut supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 after that country balked at an immediate fourfold jump in prices for natural gas, which is used to heat homes and power such key industries as steel and chemicals. But Gazprom's decision to reduce the amount of gas entering Ukrainian pipelines, which connect to the rest of Europe, led to shortages as far away as France.
Gazprom insisted it was putting enough gas into the system to meet the needs of Western Europe and accused Ukraine of stealing gas by siphoning it out of the system before it reached the country's western borders. Ukrainian officials denied they stole Russian gas. They also accused Gazprom of miscalculating the effects of its decision to reduce the volume of gas.
Russia provides about 25 percent of Europe's gas, and in some countries, such as Finland, it is the exclusive supplier.
The dispute between Ukraine and Russia, neighbors and former Soviet republics, had a political backdrop: Relations between the two have been strained since the election of Yushchenko in late 2004. He is intent on taking Ukraine out of Moscow's sphere of influence and into the NATO alliance and the European Union.
An uproar in Europe about dwindling gas supplies in the dead of winter, and pointed questions from European leaders about Russia's reliability as an energy partner, forced Gazprom on Tuesday to restore much of the natural gas it had cut off and restart negotiations with the Ukrainians.
"Europe can sleep easily from today," said the chief of Naftogaz, Oleksiy Ivchenko.
E.U. officials also welcomed the deal. "With this action, both Gazprom and Naftogaz have proved they're determined to remain wholly reliable suppliers of gas and transit respectively to the European Union," the E.U.'s energy commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, told reporters in Brussels, where the E.U. is headquartered.
But there were still some flashes of the rhetoric of the last few days.
"I would like to remind you that Ukraine will have to pay $230 for 1,000 cubic meters of Russian gas, which is $70 more than what Moscow offered Ukraine last spring," said Konstantin Zatulin, a member of the Russian parliament, according to Interfax. "This is the price Kiev will pay us, the Ukrainian people will pay us for the economic illiteracy of the country's leaders, who refused to accept this lower price."
Ukrainian officials vowed to work to reduce the country's dependence on Russian energy. "Ukraine will be politically independent only if it has energy independence," Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov said at a news conference in Kiev.
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Russia and Ukraine strike a face-saving and complex deal that ends a dispute that had sent shivers across Europe.
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K Street Reaction to Abramoff
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Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Hello everyone! I write the K Street Confidential column and today we're going to talk about Jack Abramoff, the street's most notorious denizen. So, without further delay, fire away!
Bethesda, Md.: Could you explain in a nutshell the involvement of senior Bush administration officials such as David Safavian in this corruption scandal? Also, is the connection of Karl Rove to Abramoff (through Susan Ralston) simply circumstantial or was there additional wrongdoing there?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: I'd go with circumstantial in answer to your second question. Ms. Ralston in my experience is terrific and highly skilled person who Karl Rove is lucky to have as a co-worker.
As for Safavian, in a nutshell, a government employee can't do official favors for outsiders in exchange for gifts or trips. Prosecutors think that's what Safavian did however. He doesn't think the same.
Bethesda, Md.: It was my understanding that there exists a cap on the total amount of money an individual can donate politically during an election cycle (about $37,000), outside of a PAC. How did Abramoff work around this?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: The limit per person these days is higher than that, in the range of $100,000 and as far as I know Abramoff hasn't been accused of breaking that limit.
It may be one of the few rules he didn't break, if you believe prosecutors.
In any case, a lot of the donations came from his clients, including Indian tribes and not from Abramoff himself.
Washington, D.C.: Comment: If there is a potential benefit to the Abramoff situation, it's the opportunity for my profession to fully disclose what a lobbyist is and what we do. Based on my experience with members of my association and those outside of lobbying, the average person thinks a lobbyist is a person who take three hour lunches, present a check before every meeting with a Member of Congress and not much else. Abramoff and his cohorts make it more difficult to change that perception.
We, as a profession, have a big job ahead of us. If we want to continue to advocate on behalf of those who can't or won't, we need to increase our visibilty and show why lobbyists matter in the legislative process.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: You know what? I think you're right.
Our system of government was designed to be lobbied. It needs input from outsiders so that it works well.
The problem is that the groups that have the most money are able to buy more access and power than everybody else.
That's gotten truer in recent years and the public seems to know that.
The pendulum is swinging and I'm afraid it will lop off a few more lobbyists' heads before it's done.
Also, expect a lot of lobbying legislation this year, as you suggest. Most lobbyists I know actually welcome more disclosure as you do. Maybe that will temper the public's anger at lobbyists and Washington generally.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Jeffrey! From the people you talk to all the time, are there any specific fears after the Abramoff case against the lobbyist profession?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Yes. Lobbyists think that Congress might overreact (shocking isn't it?) and crack down too hard on lobbying. More disclosure would be welcomed but all sorts of first amendment arguments are sure to be made if actual limits on lobbyists activities are attempted. Watch the sparks to fly this year!
In particular, John McCain wants a pretty sweeping bill but the leaders of his party in the House and Senate are preparing more tepid measures. It ought to get ugly (and fun to watch) before it's over.
Hillsdale, Mich.: You've covered the lobbying scene for a long time - do you think the Abramoff scandal really will force changes in lobbying practices, or will it blow over?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: It will force changes and it will blow over--until another scandal takes its place. This is a cyclical sort of thing.
Long Beach, Calif.: I watched the hearings with Senators McCain and Dorgan grilling Italia Federici. Do you believe her take on her dealings with Abramoff?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: We report, you decide. (I can use this phrase as a longtime Fox New contributor, by the way.)
Jaded, N.Y.: I'm just as excited as everyone else that the underbelly of politics and lobbying has been exposed, but what do you think the odds are that, after all is said and done, everyone who is found guilty will just be pardoned? or are we really going to see justice here, or is it politics as usual? Thanks.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Judging by the outrage that President Bush has expressed about Abramoff's activities (and the money he just returned that had come from Abramoff) I'm not betting on pardons for anyone involved.
Fairfax, Va.: Republican congressional leaders are already moving to propose corrective legislation to persuade the public therefore there isn't any need to find out the political context of the Abramoff story. Are any Democrats pushing for Congressional investigations about the political agenda Abramoff and Delay's schemes represent, or will they allow congressional Republicans to portray what has happened simply as plain old graft which both parties engage in? And will the media work to get the full story out, including what Delay was trying to achieve politically through his use of Abramoff as an operative of the Republican party?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: We in the media always are working hard. I'm not kidding. For the Post, we've been at it seriously for many months, and we don't plan to stop.
Democrats would certainly like to investigate all of this in Congress but they aren't in charge and won't be able to unless Republicans say okay.
Some of that's happened already and more will soon. The GOP is as eager as any group to distance itself from the Abramoff affair and condemning it through hearings is a TV-savvy way to do so.
Chicopee, Mass.: Can you tell us anything about the Guam scandal in which the Bush Administration removed the U.S. federal attorney, a Mr. Black, at the time Black was investigating corruption involving Abramoff's client, which happened to be inside the Supreme Court of Guam. On the advise of the Republican party in Guam, Bush removed Black and appointed their recommendation as prosecutor in Guam and the case was then quietly closed.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Sorry, don't know much about it, but I'll check.
Washington, D.C.: The amounts given by tribes to Scanlon's "public relations firm" are staggering. Has there been any investigation into what the tribes thought was being done with those funds and what accountability the tribes demanded for use of the funds?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Yes, that's all part of the ongoing probe and we'll be hearing a lot more from the tribes in the months ahead. Clearly, they were duped by Abramoff and Scanlon. The tribes' anger has been an important incentive for the two lobbyists to cop a plea.
Alexandria, Va.: I'm very curious about the Congressional spouse angle on this story. I think this will really interest people. Can you talk about what the "giving jobs to congressional wives" plays into this scandal?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: We need to see exactly who gets whacked on that one. What we do know is that the wives of Reps. Tom DeLay and John Doolittle, for example, did work for lobbying firms or for Abramoff himself--or both. The question involved is whether those jobs involved actual work or whether the positions were just another way to funnel gifts and money to the wives' lawmaker spouses. More to come on this one, for sure.
Florida: Will the investigations also look into the 'contributions' that Abramoff (& all his & DeLay's related entities) have made over the years to Congressional members' own or 'pet' charities/foundations/nonprofits which employ family members, friends, former staff of Congress members, or use them as 'paid consultants' -- another way that congress members and their families get the money filtered back to their personal bank accounts or personal benefits. No one has even mentioned how this is done on a daily basis.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Charities are central to the probes. In Abramoff's plea in particular, he used the Capital Athletic Foundation, which was supposed to be a nonprofit, do-gooder charity, to provide trips to lawmakers as a way of lobbying them. That's a no-no and he got caught doing so.
Arlington, Va.: Mr. Birnbaum,With all due respect, 99% of what is referred to as "lobbying" is bribery, pure and simple. You can call it influence peddling or whatever, but the bottom line always remains the same:
Things of value are given to legislators in return for desired legislation. This is bribery, and all the fancy word-twisting and semantics won't alter the truth. The majority of people understand this, are you paid to present the untruths of an alternate universe?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: What you are describing is one of the biggest fears on K Street. That the legalized bribery of campaign donations might be seen by prosecutors as illegal bribery. Contributions are named as part of the quid pro quos in both the Scanlon and Abramoff pleas, which has sent a chill down the spines of many lobbyists. We'll see how far that new definition goes with the indictments that are sure to come. In the meantime, lawmakers and lobbyists will be a lot more careful about what they say when campaign funds change hands.
Mexico City, Mexico: From what you know, how many Abramoff's are there around? Too many or is he just a bad apple?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: He's certainly a bad apple. And I suspect there are other Abramoffs. I'm sure there are in fact. He is different in kind to most lobbyists, I think, but also different only in degree to others. The system has gotten too saturated with money in recent years and Abramoff exists because things in general have gotten out of hand. There couldn't be an Abramoff, or rather it would be less likely for an Abramoff to surface, if the system was more pristine to start with, in my view.
Silver Spring, Md.: You sound impressed that the president gave back $6,000 of the $100,000 he got from Abramoff. Could you tell me why we should be?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: It's a start and proof that politicians are worried politically about the fallout from Abramoff as well as the legal problems they could face even with campaign donations given within the legal limits. That's a pretty big deal whether the number itself is large or not.
Woodbridge, Va.: From the second paragraph of your "News" story --
"Jack Abramoff represented the most flamboyant and extreme example of a brand of influence trading that flourished after the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives 11 years ago."
And what exactly did Clark Clifford, Tommy Boggs etc represent? If you are going to editorialize in a news story (and what Post reporter doesn't), you might also comment on the fact that when Clinton put the Lincoln bedroom up for sale, Janet Reno turned a blind eye to obvious abuse. From Howard Baker in '73 to Alice Fisher in '05, Republicans have been much more willing than Democrats to hold their own leaders to a higher ethical standard.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Can't put everything into every story. The piece you're mentioning was also labeled an analysis and didn't pretend to be a news story. These are distinctions we care a lot about here at the Post.
Ashland, Mo.: Two questions: (1) Does the media tend to overestimate the impact of stories about scandals in Washington as evidenced most recently by the public's reaction to President Clinton's problems and President Bush's wiretapping?
(2) Can't Mr. Bush take credit for aggressively prosecuting these cases? He could start with Enron, which his administration refused to bail out, note his cooperation with Mr. Fitzgerald and the resignation of Mr. Libby, the prosecution of Rep. Cunningham, and the aggressive investigation of the lobbyist scandal. In all these instances, he can argue he is not protecting anyone but letting the chips fall where they may, including Mr. Rove if he is indicted.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: (1) yes
Things in Washington are never as bad--or good--as they first appear.
Kennesaw, Ga.: Good afternoon, Jeff.
Among the many notable things about the Abramoff scandal's spreading stain is the many Congressional staffers said to be candidates for indictment. It's notable for me because I was a Congressional staffer myself in a past life; I'm quite sure no lobbyist I ever dealt with considered me important enough to bribe.
Evidently something about Washington has changed if this has. For a staffer to be worth bribing -- offering significant inducements in exchange for specific actions -- he has to be able to deliver his boss. To me, that means his boss has to be either a staff-dependent doofus (and there are plenty of those on the Hill) or must be aware of the relationship between the staffer and the lobbyist seeking favor.
I'm not sure which possibility is more unnerving, but to most people it is probably the idea that Congressional offices can be organized as criminal conspiracies. Based on what you know now, can you say whether this is the kind of thing that went on in the offices of Congressmen like DeLay and Ney?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: I've always thought staffers were very powerful people, especially leadership aides. Former Sen. Bob Packwood, now a lobbyist, proudly says that he lobbies staffers because they often know better than their bosses the substance of legislation that his clients want to impact. As for offices turning into criminal conspiracies, I will wait for the first lawmaker to be indicted in an Abramoff related matter until I can answer for sure.
Washington, D.C.: I'll disagree with the reader who said that it's an inherently dirty job. Like any profession, there are the dregs who drag the rest down. But I can tell you that when I worked on the Hill, I saw parents who lobbied for safety issues for their children, patients lobbying for money for research programs, small business owners lobbying for tax relief, foreign-born citizens lobbying for attention to the plight of their people back at home... (Surely, the reader wouldn't call that 'dirty.') And even when it is corporate-based, all of those companies asking for changes in the law still employ the rest of us. It's not a perfect system, but like you said, to be truly representative, the People need to be able to express their voices. Abramoff and his ilk may be the purging that the industry needs to get back on track.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Below, another thoughtful view. I present it without comment except for my thanks.
Alexandria, Va.: Not to drag a very old (and smaller) scandal back into the light and hurt anybody anew, but in the 80's, when I first arrived in Washington, I worked as a temp for a charity and one day stuffed envelopes with the wife of a certain attorney general, and -- not to go into detail -- was quite unimpressed with her and later found out that there was talk that she was being paid a whole lot for not doing much. I believe tongues were wagging that her position was an inappropriate political reward of some kind. A mostly different situation from what we are discussing today, except that in my experience this cronyism involving a political spouse is not new.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: To the victor goes the spoils. Twas always thus, though maybe it shouldn't be and maybe things have gone too far these days.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Whatever happened to that Soderbergh production K street? It aired on HBO a few times but stopped all of a sudden. Did the Senate shut it down because it hit too close to home?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: I believe that it stopped because it was unwatchable.
Long Beach, Calif. : Can we start spelling "K"orruption differently now?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Maybe we should start a contest! Any other suggestions!
Washington, D.C.: In a case of political corruption, the rule is "follow the money." While we know about political contributions reported to the FEC, how much is really known about the monies funneled by Jack Abramoff through other lobbying firms and Abramoff-controlled entities, including Grassroots Interactive and the Capital Athletic Foundation? Or through other organizations like Americans for Tax Reform?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: We know a few things and we may learn more if lawmakers or staffers-turned-lobbyists are indicted. But, in general, the money trail is very difficult to follow because of flimsy disclosure laws. My colleague Sue Schmidt has done a great job of trying to give a feel for the answers you seek in the stories she has written over the past year or two.
Atlanta, Ga.: I do not understand why the politicians are returning or gifting away Abramoff's donations. Were these donations illegal at the time they were made? Can the Justice department NOT prosecute someone who returned or gifted away the donation on the basis that they no longer have or used the money. Or is this just another ploy by the pols to claim moral rectitude? The whole affair is sickening!!
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Certainly it's a ploy designed mostly to show voters the integrity of the politician. It's hard to think that voters buy it, though. It's even less likely that prosecutors will care, either. If the money is tainted with bribery, the indictments will flow whether the money is returned, shed or kept right where it was.
The press is suggesting that the Abramoff scandal will primarily affect Republicans. I understand that a total of 220 congressmen have received money from Jack Abramoff, either directly or indirectly, and an entry on Daily Kos noted that 20 of 25 congressmen and senators who took more than $20,000 from him are Republicans.
Is there any additional information illuminating how many Republicans versus Democrats have received cash from Abramoff? And are there any figures detailing what percentage of Abramoff's cash went to the Republicans?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: The Post has published a few things on this subject. Many of the lobbyists (about a third of them) that Abramoff oversaw were Democrats and gave money to Democratic lawmakers. Abramoff directed roughly a third of the Indians' giving to Democrats, too. Whether any wrong-doing was involved with those Democrats, we have to wait and see. We know that the Justice Department is looking as at Democrats as well as Republicans. In general, though, I think it's useful to think of the Abramoff caper as mostly a Republican problem. Most of the funds went to Republicans. The Republicans are in the majority in the House and Senate. If incumbents are hurt by the scandal, then the GOP has the most to lose. Certainly Republican congressional leaders are approaching the issue as if the problem is mostly theirs--which is very wise with a midterm election coming in November.
Houston, Texas: Happy New Year Mr. Birnbaum,
Wondering if Abramoff's plea song will bring any financial recovery to the Indian tribes, have any impact on DeLay, Fitzgerald's investigation, or info on Cheney's secret energy meetings?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Happy New Year to you.
The Indians will be getting tens of millions from Abramoff and Scanlon.
As for the impact on DeLay, it could be huge, but Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) looks like he'll have to deal with prosecutors first, if the Abramoff plea document is to be believed.
I don't think Fitzgerald's Plame probe or Vice President Cheney will be touched by the Abramoff affair, at least directly.
K St.: What does this all mean for the future of lobbying firms? Are the lobbying practices of Abramoff's former firms going to take a hit as a result of the mess he created?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Yes. As Vin Weber, the former congressman turned lobbyist says, lawmakers will be allergic to lobbyists for at least a little while. Expect more distance from formerly friendly congressional offices for now.
Arizona Bay, Ariz.: In response to a question about Bush giving back $6,000, you said "It's a start and proof that politicians are worried politically about the fallout from Abramoff as well as the legal problems they could face even with campaign donations given within the legal limits."
Plain and simple they are worried about FALLOUT, not about what is right and wrong and good and bad for the average american person. How much of a "democracy" do we live in nowadays?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Enough of a democracy to allow your voice to be heard here. Cheers.
Baltimore, Md.: Are other lobby shops now looking over their shoulders? While Abramoff was breathtakingly indiscreet, I doubt if he is the only one who engaged in blatant influence peddling.
From your reporting, do you know how wired in Abramoff was to the rest of the DC lobbying world? Does he have secrets to tell?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: He has lots of secrets to tell and is expected to tell them all if he wants to keep his prison term to just 10 years. Other lobbying firms are sure to fall into the net but which ones aren't clear yet. This is likely to be a very big and very wide-ranging scandal.
Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: Let's say I'm a politician sans scruples who doesn't care where his money comes from. It's discovered that I have Abramoff cash in my kitty. I decide to get rid of it and hopefully, the stench that goes with it.
Why do I give it to charity? It didn't come from charity. It came from Jack!
Shouldn't I be required to give it back to the donor?
Is anyone fooled by this silly deception?
And what's America come to when Jack can't get his hard-earned booty back?
Finally, shouldn't this illegal or unethical bribery money go back to the IRS or the Treasury as part of the ongoing criminal investigation? Shouldn't it be seized awaiting the conclusion of the judicial process now unfolding? If it belongs to Abramoff shouldn't he be required to fork it over as a part of his guilty plea arrangements?
Look, I'm just a Vietnam Era Draftee/Veteran and, I'd like to think, an honorable professional electrical engineer. If I can't understand it, it's likely that other decent, hard-working Americans won't either.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: No, I don't think many people are fooled. Still, no one would appreciate even the gesture if the money went back to Abramoff. Charity is a good-hearted alternative.
Bethesda, Md.: Could you explain the distinction between what is being labeled bribery in these recent scandals, and the millions of dollars the petroleum industry pays to Congress members to keep our national energy policy rooted in the 1950's (and reap billions in subsidies during a time of record profits)? I suspect many people are wondering about this.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: To bribe someone, a person must give something in explicit exchange for an official act. Prosecutors think that otherwise legal campaign donations might fall into this category--which is a big change. But giving money to influence legislation generally is considered okay with the law even if it is unseemly. Such are the rules of the road.
Annapolis, Md.: Re: Woodbridge's comment, "From Howard Baker in '73 to Alice Fisher in '05, Republicans have been much more willing than Democrats to hold their own leaders to a higher ethical standard." Does this mean we can expect Bush/Cheney impeachment proceedings to begin any day now? Just hoping...
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: No impeachment. Didn't work out so well the last time, both sides agree.
Silver Spring, Md.: I agree that there are both uses and abuses of lobbyists. It isn't as if the average citizen reads all the details of the bills before congress, or harangues staffers about specific language, loopholes, etc.. But....access to the hill is pretty limited, and if you don't have any money or a darned big constituency to hit somebody over the head with, then you are pretty much out of luck. Also, there is a big difference between talking about the details of a bill with a staffer and paying for a round of golf at St. Andrews!!
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Thanks for the comment!
Orono, Maine: I am baffled by the fact that this scandal is big news. The corrupting influence of money in American politics has been obvious for a long time. In 1906, for instance, Upton Sinclair labeled the Democrats and Republicans as "rival sects of grafters." It was as true then as it is now.
Ok..off the soapbox. Should we expect that this time around Congress will really get serious about cracking down on special interests? Or are lawmakers simply going to throw up another smokescreen, promising action and taking half-hearted measures until the furor blows over?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: I'm betting on a tough minded bill, but lawmakers' regulating themselves? I could be wrong again.
Alexandria, Va.: "Republican Party officials said yesterday that President Bush will give up $6,000 in campaign contributions connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. . . . The court appearance in Miami came a day after Abramoff pleaded guilty before a federal judge in Washington to defrauding Indian tribe clients of millions of dollars. . .. "
What I haven't seen yet is any pledge by anybody to donate all that money to a good Indian charity -- something to alleviate poverty or help educational efforts among those defrauded tribes. I haven't even seen it suggested -- and yet donations to heart or cancer charities is, in this case, inappropriate in my opinion. The tribes have been played as a bunch of stooges, lining people's pockets, and if I were them (not necessarily their leaders dealing with Abramoff, but the citizens of those tribes), I'd be pissed. As is so often the case, all of the focus is on the people who've done the wrong, rather than the people who have been wronged, and it is very frustrating to witness.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont) said he'd give his tainted loot to an Indian charity.
Arlington, Va.: Here are more:
You know: This could all be fixed in an instant with public financing of campaigns.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: It could but I don't think voters want to finance politicians' campaign with their hard-earned tax dollars.
Silver Spring, Md.: I'm sorry, but the president cannot take credit for the Abramoff prosecution and the Cunningham resignation. This stuff went on for years right under his nose, involving his allies in the house, and the inner circle of the far right. It is odd that he is willing to throw Delay and Ney to the wolves, but I think that they might have learned a lesson from the Plame fiasco: Get the hell away from people with stink all over them! We've got enough problems!!
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Another voice heard from. Thanks for writing.
Long Beach, Calif.: Should K street attorneys be allowed to help draft laws? I've read that without them dong all the work, the laws would never get written by staff members, who would rather eat pizza and watch the lobbyists write their own tickets. TRUE, or urban legend?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Urban legend. I'm sure lobbyists help a lot--that's their job by the way--but staffers tend to be very serious people who do their jobs well.
Bethesda, Md.: Will Congress revisit any of the legislation that Abramoff's clients successfully purchased? Or do we just go on and pretend that it was the result of some democratic process?
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: I vote for pretending.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum: Thanks all! I had too many questions to answer them all. But let's do it again soon. Read Washingtonpost.com to find out the next chat, probably Jan. 23! Cheers!
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Lawmakers Again Target Maligned Student Loan Subsidy
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2006010219
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Twelve years ago, Congress passed a law meant to phase out an obscure interest rate subsidy for providers of student loans. But the lenders exploited legal loopholes and falling rates to enlarge their take from the federal government -- aided recently, critics charge, by an acquiescent Bush administration.
Now, lawmakers are on the verge of passing legislation they say will eventually kill the subsidy that refused to die.
Behind the measure, tucked into a budget bill that could win final congressional approval in early 2006, is a saga of government action -- or inaction -- that helped some enterprising financial institutions in recent years reap hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nelnet Inc., a for-profit lender based in Lincoln, Neb., is a leader in the field. The company holds roughly $3.5 billion in student loans that qualify for a government-guaranteed 9.5 percent interest rate.
Interest rates on government-backed loans paid by the student borrowers are lower -- often far lower. Some have recently financed their college education at less than 4 percent. The government pays the interest rate difference to Nelnet and other lenders that qualify for what is known as the 9.5 subsidy. The lower the market rates, the higher the subsidy -- and the greater the potential profit for the lender. That has proven costly for the federal treasury in what has been a decade of low rates.
The total federal payout in the first nine months of 2005 was more than $600 million, Education Department data show. Nelnet reported $77 million in profit during that time as a result of the subsidy. Yet Nelnet agrees with lawmakers and Bush administration officials who say the subsidy should end in coming years.
"This is an opportunity for this Congress to say, today, this policy doesn't make sense any longer," Nelnet spokeswoman Cheryl Watson said in a telephone interview.
Watson said the company endorsed the pending legislation, which would end financing practices that extended the subsidy's life. "We believe it makes good sense and will provide for better utilization of the funds. It's a position that we support."
Democrats say the subsidy's demise is long overdue.
"This has been a run on the taxpayer," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee who has tracked the issue. "Certain lenders have lined their pockets at the expense of students."
Republicans also lament the subsidy. But they say their hands have been tied by statute and legal interpretations dating to the Clinton presidency.
"The law is the law is the law," said Sally L. Stroup, assistant secretary of education for postsecondary education. "What the law says is what you pay people. We didn't make this stuff up. We may not like it and nobody else may like it, but we can't just unilaterally ignore Congress."
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Policymakers Rise on Rumsfeld's Ladder
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2006010219
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There is a new pecking order at the Pentagon should Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld not be able to perform his duties, one that favors his inner circle and pushes the three service secretaries further down the line of succession.
The new list -- approved by President Bush last week -- still has Rumsfeld's top deputy as his replacement should the defense secretary die or resign. But it now puts the undersecretaries for intelligence, policy and acquisition next in line, bumping the secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy into the following slots.
The secretary of the Army has traditionally been No. 3.
While the change does not have much of an impact on day-to-day matters, military experts said it does highlight Rumsfeld's interest in keeping his top advisers in line to run the department in the event of a catastrophe. Pentagon officials have said the move keeps defense policymakers who are responsible for broad departmental issues at the top of the line, moving down those civilian leaders who have specific concentrations on one of the services.
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said yesterday that the moves allow people who are "in a position to have a broader perspective on the department overall" to take over the entire Defense Department if needed. He said while the service secretaries have deep knowledge, they are more narrowly focused on military matters such as training and equipping troops.
"It's a sensible choice because the undersecretaries will have a department-wide view of their responsibilities that would be missing from the service-secretary outlooks," Loren B. Thompson, an expert at the Lexington Institute, said. "They have shifted the line of succession from people who run particular parts of the Pentagon to policymakers who see the entire defense posture."
Thompson said senior administration officials are preoccupied with what would happen in the event a large-scale attack -- such as a nuclear explosion -- were to occur in Washington, and that matters of succession have become an important topic. "It has as much urgency today as it did during the Cold War," he said.
The move gives Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary for intelligence, second billing after acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, who has not been confirmed as deputy secretary. England gave up his position as secretary of the Navy yesterday after serving in both roles for the past eight months, according to the Pentagon. Donald C. Winter is scheduled to be sworn in as Navy secretary on Tuesday.
Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, said Rumsfeld often pays attention to such "symbolic issues" as a way to send a message, in this case that his undersecretaries effectively outrank the service secretaries.
"Rumsfeld doesn't do things randomly," O'Hanlon said. "His inner circle is the key group."
As far as daily business, the change does not have much of an effect on the Pentagon.
Edwin Dorn, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said he came close to being tapped to be in charge of the Pentagon when his position was low in succession during a holiday when people were away -- but someone of higher rank stepped in.
Dorn said the change in succession intrigues him because the relatively new intelligence position appears to outrank everyone else, and he wondered if the department is trying to emphasize intelligence matters over ground forces.
"Obviously Rumsfeld believes intelligence is more important than war fighting," Dorn said.
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D.C. Spends Robustly on Official Travel
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2006010219
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The District spends $5.5 million a year on travel for its employees, far more than other cities, and often with minimal records to justify the expense.
A review of city travel documents over the past five years shows that officials have routinely authorized overseas travel and dispatched public servants in packs to attend week-long conferences in casinos and resorts. Employees have misused their official travel credit cards and failed to account for thousands of dollars in advances.
On average, the District spends about $220 per employee on out-of-town travel each year. That compares with about $40 per employee in Baltimore, $80 in San Francisco and $150 in Philadelphia and is also higher than the figures in Houston, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle and several other jurisdictions, according to a survey by The Washington Post.
Agency officials in the District defend the need to spend public money on travel, citing the benefits of training, the need to meet with government officials from other cities and the simple requirements of doing business. Federal grants often pay for city employees to go to conferences and training. And District employees handle city, county and state functions, they said.
But in at least one case, a city official decided that her agency could exist without travel. When Carol J. Mitten took over the Office of Property Management in 2003, the agency had spent $300,000 on travel over the previous two years. She discontinued travel credit cards and ended all trips.
"I'm just not a big fan of sending people to conferences," she said.
Many agency heads, however, do not share that view. The Department of Corrections, for example, authorized 25 employees to go to a six-day American Correctional Association conference in 2002. The list included a secretary, several staff assistants, a sheet-metal worker and several guards. The event promised keynote speaker Don Shula, the former Miami Dolphins football coach.
The department also has sent groups to conferences every year since.
Corrections officials defended the conference travel, saying it promotes "the best practices in the corrections industry," Interim Director S. Elwood York Jr. wrote in response to questions.
In late 2003, the Department of Health sent 39 employees to a five-day public health conference in San Francisco. The bill: $71,932.
"I don't have a problem with that," said Health Director Gregg A. Pane. "If anything, I think we don't do enough for our employees for professional development and training."
More than any other agency, the city's school system racks up travel expenses by sending clusters of employees to training and seminars. In 2003 and 2004, that agency averaged $60,000 a month.
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The District spends $5.5 million a year on travel for its employees, far more than other cities, and often with minimal records to justify the expense.
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James Brown at 9:30: The Dampened Blast Of Mr. Dynamite
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2006010219
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It's tough being Mr. Dynamite when you're well into your seventies, and Brown doesn't even bother putting on a charade anymore. Wednesday at the 9:30 club, the erstwhile hardest-working man in showbiz spent much of the night merely supervising his sprawling supporting cast.
The Godfather of Soul, whose career has been a mother lode of nicknames, was onstage for 85 minutes, many of which he spent either playing right-handed keyboard lines or semi-conducting his 11-piece band. Professional but hardly superlative, a la the Brown bands of old, the group vamped early and often, with three guitarists and a tenor sax player stepping out for frequent solos.
Two female dancers, who resembled NFL cheerleaders in their spangled spandex getups, moved more during "Get Up Offa That Thing" than Brown did the entire night. (Perhaps Soul Brother No. 1 was trying to keep his hair in place. Processed, parted emphatically on the right and swooping out over his ears like flaps, Brown's do is an objet d'art. Whatever; Butane James still managed to look gassed, if resplendent in a red tuxedo with black frills.)
There was also the matter of Brown's singing, or lack thereof: With four female backup singers -- plus Brown's wife, Tomi Rae -- often carrying the brunt of the vocal load, Brown's duties were significantly reduced in songs like "I Got You (I Feel Good)," "Living in America" and a truncated "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Often, about the only sounds coming from his mouth were grunts or shouts -- but not even many of those.
"Live at the Apollo" it was not.
And it certainly didn't help that D.C. Council member Vincent Orange interrupted the set after about 20 minutes to present a momentum-killing resolution honoring Brown "for the great work he's done in the nation's capital." Nice sentiment but lousy timing, and Orange, a mayoral candidate, was booed for the intrusion.
Still, a late-era James Brown show has its moments, and the best of them came when he performed the slower material. Brown summoned a bluesy, almost churchy wail for songs such as "Try Me" and Ray Charles's "Night Time Is the Right Time" and sounded particularly impassioned and soul-stirring on "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World," which was easily the highlight of the encoreless set.
Not that we'd ever dare to tell a live-show legend and one of the most important and influential performers ever how to do his thing, but Brown might consider replacing some of the up-tempo material in his show with more plaintive ballads. Even if fans flock to his shows largely for the fiery, polyrhythmic funk that he pioneered.
He'd also do well to slim down his touring troupe. There appeared to be plenty of musical redundancy, and often during the set, the second of the two drummers sat idly at his kit, watching the two bassists, two tenor sax players and three guitarists perform alongside the percussionist and horn player.
There were also the two dancers, the wife, the four other singers, the announcer, the hype man and, at one point, a guy in a suit who came onstage just to throw a James Brown-logo towel into the crowd at his boss's direction.
Alas, the one entertainer in the room who never did join Brown onstage was Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go, Washington's homespun funk music.
Chuck Brown, who's also in his seventies, opened with a loose, freewheeling set that stood in sharp contrast to James Brown's precision-oriented show, and the possibility of the two musical godfathers performing together had funk fans salivating. But even though Chuck Brown watched his idol's set from the side of the stage, a summit never materialized. Probably too much extra work for the headliner.
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Box Office Blahs: Blame It on (Fill in the Blank)
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2006010219
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LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood ticket sales took a little swan dive in 2005. Why? The consensus hypothesis appears to be that the movies were -- brace yourselves -- not good.
The industry and its observers are also variously blaming DVDs, video games, iPods, cellular phones, HBO, crying babies, $10 tickets, Chinese pirates, big screen plasma TVs, an aging demographic, liberal bias, video-on-demand, annoying pre-feature commercials and the Bush administration's energy policy.
The Great Box Office Slump has been covered by the entertainment press with a kind of giddy obsession ever since the summer proved blockbuster-deficient. Each week, the prognosticators sought deeper meaning in the weekend tallies for undercooked turkeys such as "Stealth" and "The Legend of Zorro." There was hope in the Hollywood press that "King Kong" might "save the day," but alas, the big ape has so far "disappointed," if it is possible for a $66 million opening five-day gross to disappoint (which it is, since Peter Jackson and Universal spent $220 million making the monkey movie).
The year isn't quite over, but Hollywood will likely end 2005 having sold about 1.4 billion tickets in the United States, which is a 6 percent decrease from last year. Revenue at the box office is expected to reach about $9 billion, trailing last year by 4 to 5 percent (the dip is slightly less than it would have been otherwise because of rising ticket prices).
This would be no big deal, except it appears to be a trend -- this marks the third consecutive year for declining attendance. And so the billion-dollar question: Does this represent the beginning of a fundamental shift in the moviegoing habits or was it just another off year in cyclical show business?
Not only are the studio suits and the pundits not sure what is behind the box office drop, there is disagreement over its significance.
"It's not a little off. Six percent is a big number," says Brandon Gray, founder of Box Office Mojo, an online movie publication and box office tracking service. "And they've got a big problem." In the press, some Wall Street analysts are using terms like "alarm" and "doom."
Not so, says Tom Rothman, the cheery chairman of 20th Century Fox, which had a record-breaking year. Rothman describes the current clamor as "the great over-hyped, over-exposed, over-reported box office decline." Rothman believes there is no fundamental revolution occurring in the movie theater business and that the year's totals were lower simply because a relative handful of high-profile potential blockbusters did not perform to expectations.
Rothman insists that history is on his side. "They said sound was going to kill the movies, that TV would, that home video would, that cable would, that pay-per-view would. Every time -- the hand-wringing! The woe-is-me! And instead what happened was, the pie gets bigger."
John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, a trade organization representing 37,500 screens, also argues there is no reason to panic. "It was a bit of a down year for theatergoing," he says. "There's been bigger down years."
True, there was a 9 percent fall in ticket sales in 1980, a 12 percent plunge in 1985 and a 6 percent drop in 1990.
"We're having another fabulous year," says Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. Pictures, whose studio business was up 15 percent. "A lot of people are crying wolf early." Actually what happened was that Fox and Warner Bros. had a great year, and "a couple of guys had a tough year," Fellman says.
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Windows Security Flaw Is 'Severe'
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2006010219
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A previously unknown flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system is leaving computer users vulnerable to spyware, viruses and other programs that could overtake their machines and has sent the company scrambling to come up with a fix.
Microsoft said in a statement yesterday that it is investigating the vulnerability and plans to issue a software patch to fix the problem. The company could not say how soon that patch would be available.
Mike Reavey, operations manager for Microsoft's Security Response Center, called the flaw "a very serious issue."
Security researchers revealed the flaw on Tuesday and posted instructions online that showed how would-be attackers could exploit the flaw. Within hours, computer virus and spyware authors were using the flaw to distribute malicious programs that could allow them to take over and remotely control afflicted computers.
Unlike with previously revealed vulnerabilities, computers can be infected simply by visiting one of the Web sites or viewing an infected image in an e-mail through the preview pane in older versions of Microsoft Outlook, even if users did not click on anything or open any files. Operating system versions ranging from the current Windows XP to Windows 98 are affected.
An estimated 90 percent of personal computers run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Microsoft has found itself under attack on several instances and has been forced to issue a number of patches to keep computers running Windows safe. Mac and Linux computer users are not at risk with this attack, even if their computers run Microsoft programs such as Office or the Internet Explorer Web browser.
Reavey encouraged users to update their anti-virus software, ensure all Windows security patches are installed, avoid visiting unfamiliar Web sites, and refrain from clicking on links that arrive via e-mail or instant message.
"The problem with this attack is that it is so hard to defend against for the average user," said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer for the SANS Internet Storm Center in Bethesda.
At first, the vulnerability was exploited by just a few dozen Web sites. Programming code embedded in these pages would install a program that warned victims their machines were infested with spyware, then prompted them to pay $40 to remove the supposed pests.
Since then, however, hundreds of sites have begun using the flaw to install a broad range of malicious software. SANS has received several reports of attackers blasting out spam e-mails containing links that lead to malicious sites exploiting the new flaw, Ullrich said.
Dean Turner, a senior manager at anti-virus firm Symantec Corp. of Cupertino, Calif., said the company has seen the vulnerability exploited to install software that intercepts personal and financial information when users of infected computers enter the data at certain banking or e-commerce sites.
Eric Sites, vice president of research and development for anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software, said he has spotted spyware being downloaded to a user's machine by online banner advertisements.
"Pretty much all of the spyware guys who normally use other techniques for pushing this stuff down to your machine are now picking this exploit up," Sites said.
Because the vulnerability exists within a faulty Windows component, security experts warn that Windows users who eschew Internet Explorer in favor of alternative Web browsers, such as older versions of Firefox and Opera, can still get their PCs infected if they agree to download a file from a site taking advantage of the flaw.
Richard M. Smith, a Boston security and privacy consultant, said he was particularly worried that the vulnerability could soon be used to power a fast-spreading e-mail worm.
"We could see the mother of all worms here," Smith said. "My big fear is we're going to wake up in the next week or two and have people warning users not to read their e-mail because something is going around that's extremely virulent."
Brian Krebs is a washingtonpost.com reporter.
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A previously unknown flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system is leaving computer users vulnerable to spyware, viruses and other programs that could overtake their machines and has sent the company scrambling to come up with a fix.
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Cleaning Up After the Fall
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2005122819
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Four years after Enron Corp. collapsed, the Houston energy trader clings to life as "the financial equivalent of a Superfund site," its chairman said.
New managers are struggling to clean up after the firm's December 2001 bankruptcy -- a process they say is likely to run into 2008. Two operating divisions must be unloaded. Lawsuits against banks that helped the company hide debt must be settled or brought to trial. Leftover cash must be dispensed to creditors claiming some $60 billion.
As with everything else at Enron, a company that became a synonym for greed, a punch line for comedians and a curse word for thousands of workers who lost their retirement savings, closing shop hasn't been simple.
"Soup to nuts here, you've got a few years of hard duty," said Chairman John J. Ray III.
First on the agenda is selling what remains of a more than $4 billion trading portfolio, a reminder of the days when Enron leaders appeared on the cover of business magazines touting a bold new way to swap energy and other commodities. Soon Enron's former leaders will be in the news again. Former chairman Kenneth L. Lay and onetime chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling face trial Jan. 17 on fraud and conspiracy charges.
Meantime, a five-member board of directors recruited to unwind what was once the nation's seventh-largest firm, has logged 100 meetings over the past year dealing with what was left behind.
"It probably ought to be called E-Liquidation Company," said Ray. "This company has no future life to it. We're just basically in a dismemberment sort of process."
They are guiding Portland General Electric Co., an Oregon utility that serves 750,000 customers, through the process of becoming a separate, publicly traded company as early as April 2006. Regulators blocked a proposed sale to the Texas Pacific Group earlier this year.
They're also ensuring that business plans and audits are in shape at Prisma Energy International Inc., a collection of energy assets around the globe that employs nearly 8,500 people, said board member James R. Latimer III. With gas pipelines in Bolivia, the Caribbean, Europe, and Turkey, Prisma has never operated as a stand-alone company, complicating the efforts to spin off or auction the unit.
Ultimately, the board members said, they hope that the process goes as smoothly as last year's sale of their prize asset, 9,700 miles of domestic pipeline in CrossCountry Energy LLC, for $2 billion to Southern Union Co. and a General Electric Co. finance unit.
In all, Enron now sits on about $12 billion in cash, generated through asset sales and recoveries from investment banks including J.P. Morgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Litigation continues against five more banks, led by Citigroup and Credit Suisse First Boston, which Enron accuses of aiding and abetting fraud by its previous management team. Their civil trial is set for July 2007.
About 300 people continue to work at Enron's modest headquarters in Houston, a far cry from the gleaming downtown office towers it once occupied. The sculpted tilted-E logo, a one-ton beh-E-moth that stood in front of corporate headquarters, has been liquidated, too -- for $44,000.
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Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland business news headlines with stock portfolio and market news, economy, government/tech policy, mutual funds, personal finance. Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ quotes. Features top DC, VA, MD businesses, company research tools
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If you spent your year paying close attention to the comings and goings of Angelina and Brad, Tom and Katie, Jessica and Nick, Judy and Scooter -- or, heaven forbid, more important things like DeLay or the deluge that devastated the Gulf Coast -- you might have missed the most disconcerting, perplexing and underreported stories from 2005.
Not the Brightest Crayons in the Box
DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick told a middle-school class that the U.S. Congress is different from the Texas legislature because in Washington, there are "454" members on the House side and "60" in the Senate.
CROOKS WITH MONEY MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS (I) Police in Twin Falls, Idaho, confiscated almost $1 billion in counterfeit money in a scheme doomed from the start because all the bills were in the nonexistent denomination of $1 million. A Lafayette, Ind., counterfeiter did better with his bogus $100 bills, known as "Benjamins" (for Benjamin Franklin, whose likeness appears on the front). His mistake: The watermark, when held up to the light, showed Abe Lincoln's face -- apparently the result of using a $5 bill as a model. (Otherwise, said police investigator Jeff Rooze, the fakes were excellent. Police charged 22-year-old Earl H. Devine with four counts of forgery and four counts of theft.)
--Twin Falls News-Times, Oct. 8; Journal and Courier (Lafayette, Ind.), Aug. 11
CROOKS WITH MONEY MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS (II) A judge gave Vickey Siles of New Haven, Ind., just a suspended sentence and probation, ostensibly out of pity for the lousy job she did altering a check from Globe Life and Accident Co. Siles had tried to obliterate the "$1.00" amount of the check by typing "$4,000,000.00" over it, and then attempted to cash it at a neighborhood check-cashing store.
--Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, March 19
BLING 1, MATERNAL INSTINCT 0 Firefighters in Stamford, Conn., had to break a car window, against the owner's wishes, to rescue her 23-month-old son, whom she had accidentally locked inside along with the key. According to police reports and a 911 tape, the kid had been sweltering for more than 20 minutes on an 88-degree July day when Susan Guita Silverstein, 42 (who was later charged with reckless endangerment), asked firefighters to wait until she went home to get a spare key so they wouldn't have to damage her Audi A4.
TACKLING THE HARD ISSUES Oklahoma state senator Frank Shurden proposed legislation to revive the "sport" of cockfighting, which the state outlawed in 2002. But to make it more rooster-friendly, he suggested that the birds wear tiny boxing gloves instead of razor cleats and wear fencing-type electronic vests to record hits. "Let the roosters do what they love to do without getting injured," he said.
-- The Daily Oklahoman , Jan. 26
TOUGH WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT City Council member Yvonne Lamanna, 58, filed a workers' compensation claim against the city of Penn Hills, Pa., after she threw her back out while taking her seat at the Feb. 7 council meeting.
-- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 9
THE LAWS OF IRONY ARE STRICTLY ENFORCED When CNN/USA Today/Gallup pollsters asked in a telephone survey whether President Bush is a "uniter" or a "divider," 49 percent said a uniter and 49 percent said a divider.
DO I LOSE MY PLACE IN LINE? As a registered sex offender in California, James Andrew Crawford was required to notify authorities if he adopted a new "domicile" for more than five days. He was arrested in May for noncompliance after he camped out for two weeks in a theater line waiting for "Star Wars: Episode III" to open.
--North County (Escondido, Calif.) Times, May 19
At the Edge of Credulity
ANOTHER BUSH ADMINISTRATION SKEPTICAL OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS Laura and Edmund Gerstein, keen to save their beloved grapefruit tree from Florida's citrus canker eradication program, claimed immunity for the tree under the Geneva Conventions (the paragraph on protecting crops needed for civilians' survival during wartime). "As I understand it," said Edmund Gerstein, "we're in a state of war." Responded a state Department of Agriculture spokesman: "That tree will be coming down."
--Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), April 5, April 26
PLEASE DON'T BOTHER TO RELOAD In an early-morning shootout on June 4 at the Homewood housing complex in Pittsburgh, two undercover officers and a suspect exchanged at least 103 gunshots without anyone getting hit. (The first bullet did shatter the windshield of the officers' car, however.)
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 5; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 5
LAWYERS UNFAMILIAR WITH THEIR OWN CLIENT In court papers filed in 1994 but which only this year drew public attention, lawyers zealously representing the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., offered an unusual countercharge to a child-support claim against Father Arturo Uribe: that the mother herself was negligent because she had engaged in "unprotected intercourse." The lawyers did not explain how this defense squares with Roman Catholic doctrine, which regards birth control as a sin.
--Los Angeles Times, July 24, Aug. 3
BEST INVENTIONS OF THE YEAR (I) Spanish designer Pep Torres said he was nearing a launch date for his "Your Turn" washing machine, which he developed to encourage couples and families to share housework. Users initially register their fingerprints, and Your Turn will not operate if started by the same print twice in a row.
--Mirror (London), March 10; BBC News, May 1
BEST INVENTIONS OF THE YEAR (II) Yamaha Corp. introduced the MyRoom, a customizable, soundproof, shed-like structure with 27 square feet of floor space, to install inside notoriously crowded Japanese homes, for privacy (or to be exiled to). The company expects a sales surge in 2006, when Japan's first wave of baby-boom salarymen retire and begin annoying their spouses at home.
THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST Thirty-five Greenpeace activists rushed onto the floor of the International Petroleum Exchange in London intending to paralyze oil trading on the day the Kyoto environmental initiative took effect, but several traders turned on them, punching and kicking the protesters until they ran for their lives. (One activist was hospitalized with a suspected broken jaw, another with a concussion.) Said one understated Greenpeacer, "I've never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view."
--Associated Press, Feb. 16; Times (London), Feb. 17
THE REALITY SHOW IS NEXT At a new theme park in El Alberto, Mexico (near Mexico City), wannabe migrants to the United States can test their survival skills at an obstacle course that replicates the rigors migrants must endure while sneaking across the border. Admission price: about $13.50.
SOON TO BE A BUSINESS SCHOOL CASE STUDY When Japanese business exec Takashi Hashiyama had to choose either Sotheby's or Christie's to sell off his company's art collection, he asked the two auction houses to play rock-paper-scissors to win the privilege. Sotheby's chose paper and lost out on the eventual $2.3 million commission. (A Christie's executive had taken the advice of one of his 11-year-old twin daughters, who said, "Everybody knows you always start with scissors.")
--Wall Street Journal, New York Times, April 29
DANGERS THE SURGEON GENERAL MISSED Smoke started rising from Israel's then-finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he was sitting for a radio interview in Jerusalem in May, causing him to fling his jacket off. He had stuffed his lighted cigar inside a pocket to comply with the room's no-smoking policy. And in Foreman, Ark., Jeff Foran, 38, suffered facial injuries when he impulsively leaped from a fast-moving car just to retrieve his cigarette, which had blown out a window.
--Reuters, May 30 Associated Press, May 23
BRINGING NEW MEANING TO TICKET-SCALPING Reba Schappell, a professional country music singer from Reading, Pa., who is also a conjoined-at-the-head twin with sister Lori, told a BBC radio audience, "When I am singing, Lori is like any other fan, except she's up on the stage with me [covered by a blanket to reduce the distraction]." Said Lori, "I do not ask for anything from Reba. I don't get in to her concerts free just because she's a conjoined twin. I have to pay, just like every other fan . . . ."
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: PLEASE LET GREGORY HANG OUT TODAY Gregory Withrow and an associate staged a protest at the California state capitol building in Sacramento against U.S. policy in Iraq and in favor of white supremacy, among other issues. The associate's job was to nail Withrow's hands to a cross so he could stand as a martyr. Withrow brought notes with him from a Butte County, Calif., health official (saying that Withrow's plan to hurt himself was "thoughtfully considered") and from the Sacramento parks department (acknowledging that no permit was needed for the crucifixion).
DOES THE COP GET CREDIT FOR TWO COLLARS? Transsexual prostitute Monica Renee Champion, 37, was picked up by police in Richmond after arrest warrants for indecent exposure had been issued against her in the city's South Side, as a male, and in the North Side, as a female.
THE CLASSIC MIDDLE NAME (ALL NEW FOR 2005!) Once again this year, as a public service, we release this crucial homicide data:
Charged with murder, awaiting trial: Darrell Wayne Maness, 19 (Wilmington, N.C.); Timothy Wayne Ebert, 39 (Cleveland, Tex.); John Wayne Blair, 49 (Sevier County, Tenn.); Derek Wayne Jackson, 18 (Norristown, Pa.); Nathaniel Wayne Hart, 34 (Austin, Tex.); Kenneth Wayne Keller, 42, (Denton County, Tex.); Ronald Wayne Lail, 43 (Burke County, N.C.); Timothy Wayne Condrey, 27 (Caroleen, N.C.); Roy Wayne Russell, 45 (Vancouver, Wash.); Jeremy Wayne Hopkins, 22 (Denton, Tex.); Reginald Wayne Thomas, 23 (Huntsville, Tex.); Matthew Wayne Almand, 18 (Melbourne, Fla.)
Convicted of murder, but found insane: Emmanuel Wayne Harris, 28 (Bisbee, Ariz.)
Sentenced for murder: Tyler Wayne Justice (Alice, Tex.); Douglas Wayne Pepper, 44 (Greensboro, N.C.)
Awaiting a retrial after a judge overturned his murder conviction: Donald Wayne Shipe, 37 (Winchester, Va.)
Committed suicide in a murder-suicide: Eric Wayne Jacobs, 27 (Castroville, Tex.); Michael Wayne Baxter, 30 (Edgewater, Md.)
Executed for murder : Dennis Wayne Bagwell, 41; Lonnie Wayne Pursley, 43; Melvin Wayne White, 55 (all from Huntsville, Tex., the state penitentiary)
Died of a drug overdose while serving two life terms for murder: Russell Wayne Wagner, 52 (Jessup, Md.) (He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery based on Army service in Vietnam. The son of Wagner's victims objected, prompting a congressional review. A 1997 law supposedly bars those convicted of capital crimes from being buried in a national cemetery.)
Final note: Police in New Scotland, N.Y., arrested Corianna Thompson, 45, in April for the murder of her mother, then released her last month without charges while they investigate "additional leads." Thompson's birth name was Corey Wayne Balashek. Before his sex change, he served nine years in prison for the 1981 strangulation of an Albany nurse. Authorities believe Thompson/Balashek is the first American, let alone the first middle-name-Wayne, to be arrested for murder in both genders.
Sources: Maness: Wilmington (N.C.) Star News, Jan. 19; Ebert: Houston Chronicle, Feb. 22; Blair: Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 29; Associated Press, May 28; Jackson: Philadelphia Inquirer, April 21; Hart: Austin American-Statesman, April 13, Nov. 3; Keller: Dallas Morning News, Aug. 14; Lail: Charlotte Observer, Sept. 22; Condrey: Daily Courier (Forest City, N.C.), Sept. 22; Russell: The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.), Nov. 19; Hopkins: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nov. 22; Thomas: Houston Chronicle, Nov. 24; Almand: Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 30; Shipe: Winchester Star, May 4, Nov. 8; Harris: Associated Press, Jan. 20; Justice: Alice (Tex.) Echo-News Journal, Sept. 14; Pepper: Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, Nov. 8; Bagwell: Associated Press, Feb. 17; Pursley: Associated Press, May 3; White: Associated Press, Nov. 3; Jacobs: Houston Chronicle, April 14; Baxter: The Capital (Annapolis), Oct. 8; Wagner: Washington Post, Aug. 5, 10; Thompson/Balashek: Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, April 11, Nov. 18
Chuck Shepherd writes the weekly syndicated column News of the Weird, which appears locally in Washington City Paper. His e-mail address isweirdnews@earthlink.net.
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If you spent your year paying close attention to the comings and goings of Angelina and Brad, Tom and Katie, Jessica and Nick, Judy and Scooter -- or, heaven forbid, more important things like DeLay or the deluge that devastated the Gulf Coast -- you might have missed the most... BEST INVENTIONS......
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Hope and Toil at India's Call Centers
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GURGAON, India -- As fireworks boomed across nearby New Delhi and families lit candles and incense and prayed late into the evening, thousands of call-center agents reported to work at a gleaming office tower here. Donning headsets and fake American names, they placed and fielded phone calls to and from the United States, collecting bills, selling products and raising credit limits.
For a few minutes each shift, though, the workers hurried outside to take part in their own celebration. Under a massive tent, a deejay spun beats including Punjabi folk music and the imported sounds of R&B artist Usher. Dozens crowded the dance floor and lined up at buffet stations and arcade games. It was Diwali, after all, and the Hindu festival of lights couldn't pass unmarked at Convergys, the Ohio-based operator of one of India's largest call centers.
"We celebrate here as if we are family," said Shweta Pundir, a 27-year-old training manager at Convergys. "This is like home."
In India, call centers are part of a burgeoning industry known as "business process outsourcing," or BPO -- a new world created by a rush of foreign investment as Western companies outsource functions such as customer care and billing services. But the emerging subculture of call-center workers reveals that the United States has exported more than jobs and products to India -- it has exported values, as well. Call centers have brought new wealth to India, but they are also fostering a cultural backlash, as the country's young, hip BPO workers run up against the traditions of the older generations.
Companies such as Convergys now employ more than 5,000 in India to perform "back-office" functions. This suburb south of New Delhi also boasts offices for International Business Machines Corp., General Electric Co., American Express Co. and Nestle SA. The Indian twenty-somethings laboring in these call centers not only work together -- they also drink together, dance together, date one another and, most important, understand one another. Their jobs compel them to cultivate American pronunciations and keep up with U.S. pop culture. They have their own hybrid vocabulary. ("No probs, yaar" means "no problem, my friend.") And they have boundless expectations about where their new careers can take them.
But not everyone rejoices at these new employment opportunities. Citing low pay and dead-end jobs, India's most popular news portal declared recently that call centers have "cons more than pros." A television talk show probed whether such centers are no more than "swanky sweatshops." And in a best-selling novel, "One Night @ The Call Center," two BPO workers quit to open their own company, saying they were sick of working all night for Americans in jobs with no potential.
As more call centers and multinationals enter India, the agents have become hot commodities, switching jobs and commanding steep salary hikes along the way. This, along with their spending and partying, has fueled a popular image of BPO workers as greedy and individualistic.
The reputation of call-center agents has plummeted in India over the past year, said Vishal Manchanda, who heads the India office of Arlington-based Cvent, an online event management firm. "It used to be if you said you were a team lead, a girl's family was impressed," he said. "Now, increasingly, it's being nullified. It's like the dot-com bubble which burst. . . . An associate or an agent is just a spoke in the wheel."
Observers say the sudden debate over call centers stems from longer-term changes in Indian society since the nation's economy opened up in 1991. Older Indians lament that their children are too busy, with no time for weddings, holidays or relatives. While young people's social life used to revolve around family, now it increasingly focuses on friends and work.
"The average Indian youth today is more outward-looking, more confident, more liberal in terms of attitudes and values and social norms" compared with 20 years ago, said Sunil Mehta, vice president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies. "It is a phenomenon of the Indian youth, rather than a phenomenon of BPO. But these characteristics might be more amplified by people who work in the BPO sector."
Call-center workers insist that they need not choose between their jobs and their traditions.
"Why is this industry so looked down upon?" said Pundir, the Convergys training manager. "I am so close to my culture now. There are things we've learned from our colleagues in the U.S. like time management, but I celebrate more of the festivals at work than I did before."
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Fairfax Gunman's Rampage Detailed
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Police yesterday described a harrowing scene at the Great Falls home where a triple slaying occurred Christmas morning, with the 27-year-old gunman rampaging through the spacious residence, shooting two victims at bedside and one cowering in a closet.
Shocked neighbors, friends and law enforcement officials struggled to make sense of the killings, which occurred less than an hour after the gunman, identified as Nathan Cheatham, allegedly killed his mother, Sheila Cheatham, at her McLean home eight miles away. The bloodbath ended when Cheatham shot himself in the head with the 9mm handgun, bringing the day's death toll to five, authorities said.
The lone survivor, a 20-year-old man who called police, had sought refuge in the basement of the Great Falls home.
Even as police swarmed around the home yesterday, looking for clues, they acknowledged a sense of mystery about the killings, which brought the number of homicides in Fairfax County this year to 22.
"Perhaps we will never be able to answer the question that is most prevalent, and that is, why?" Fairfax County Police Chief David M. Rohrer said at an afternoon news conference.
Police identified the victims in the Great Falls home as Adam Sebastian Price, 19, a friend of Cheatham's, and his mother, Janina C. Price, 50. They had moved from their longtime home in another part of Great Falls a few weeks ago and appeared to be renting the Sycamore Springs Lane house, which is owned by a retired U.S. diplomat, neighbors said. Also slain was Christopher James Buro, 20, a friend of the Price family whom Cheatham apparently did not know, police said.
Friends recalled Cheatham in his earlier years as a respectful youth who was gifted at drawing. But in recent years, he had run into trouble, with emotional problems, convictions on minor assault and concealed weapon charges, and arrests on drug charges, according to police, public records and friends.
"He seemed to be a loner," said a woman who lived near the Lewinsville Road home of Sheila Cheatham, near Tysons Corner. "I would see him sitting out on the porch by himself."
Police said that autopsies were being conducted and that they will ascertain whether Nathan Cheatham had drugs in his system.
Cheatham had moved back to his mother's home in the past few weeks after living for a while with two brothers elsewhere in Fairfax County, police said. Sheila Cheatham, 53, ran a day-care center, Mother Nurture, on her property. Acquaintances described her as enthusiastic about her business and delighted with a new beachfront condo in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., one of several properties she owned. They said she was divorced from Nathan's father, who was described by one of his co-workers as a former Navy SEAL.
One Lewinsville Road resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the area -- a mix of modest homes and large, new houses -- as "a wonderful neighborhood. I've been here 40 years, never had anything" happen.
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Police yesterday described a harrowing scene at the Great Falls home where a triple slaying occurred Christmas morning, with the 27-year-old gunman rampaging through the spacious residence, shooting two victims at bedside and one cowering in a closet.
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Stores Try to Lure Customers in Year's Final Week
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Retailers were pulling out all the stops yesterday to boost holiday sales before the year ends as shoppers streamed back into the malls to search for deep discounts and try out gift cards loaded with cash.
The week after Christmas has the potential to be especially big this year thanks to the triple whammy of post-holiday discounts, the boom in popularity of gift cards and the start of Hanukkah on Sunday night.
Scott Krugman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, said that those factors created "the equivalent of retail's perfect storm." This week traditionally accounts for about 10 percent to 15 percent of total holiday sales, he said. That means a strong week could tip the scales for retailers.
"That's just enough to turn a good holiday season into a great one," Krugman said.
Though retailers are not expected to release December sales figures until next week, many industry experts predicted that industry-wide growth this year would be moderate to strong. The NRF has been among the most bullish, forecasting sales growth of 6 percent, to $439.53 billion. Other groups, like the International Council of Shopping Centers, expect a more modest increase of 3 percent to 3.5 percent.
At White Flint in North Bethesda yesterday, sales signs hung in nearly every store window. Pottery Barn was having its "winter sale," Gap was touting its "end of season sale" and trendy apparel store H&M was boasting discounts as high as 70 percent.
"The week after Christmas is a big part of our December," said Bert Oser, owner of the mall store Bertram's Inkwell, which specializes in high-end pens.
A large sale sign advertising price cuts of 30 to 50 percent was propped against a cabinet in the back of the store. Oser said he planned to put the sign outside of his store later in the day but that many of his customers already knew that this week meant big sales.
"With time, people have learned to just wait," he said.
Oser said he wants to clear out inventory this month to make room for next year's stock. He has marked down several brands and styles of pens that are being phased out. Oser said he doesn't expect his season to end until the middle of January and many of the gift certificates he sold before Christmas may not be redeemed until after that.
The quandary has become a serious one for many retailers as sales of gift cards have grown over the past few years. The NRF predicts that this season, consumers will spend nearly 16 percent of their holiday budget on gift cards, pumping up sales 6.6 percent, to $18.48 billion. The only problem is that retailers can't count those sales until the cards are actually redeemed.
Thirteen-year-old Brittnie Baughman of Silver Spring and her sister, Danielle, 11, both got $50 gift cards to Target and $25 American Express gift cards.
"That's like the big thing for them now," said their mother, Kelly. "They can finally go shopping for themselves and not ask mom for money."
According to data from accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP compiled by Giftcertificates.com, a consulting group, about 54 percent of teenagers redeemed their cards the week after Christmas last year, compared with about 35 percent of adults. By the end of January, 61 percent of adults had cashed in their cards. Some may never be redeemed.
The Baughman sisters hadn't decided what they would spend their gift cards on. The sisters were pretty well satiated -- both sat on a bench at White Flint yesterday morning dressed entirely in clothes from Aeropostale, their favorite store, with Brittnie listening to Lindsay Lohan sing "Confessions of a Broken Heart" on her new iPod Nano.
"I think it's more peaceful" the week after Christmas, Brittnie said, one ear still glued to her headphones. "People have gotten everything they wanted. People are tired of the mall."
The girls' parents were unwinding at Roxan Day Spa across the hall after hosting 15 people at their house for Christmas: Kelly with a manicure and Randy with a pedicure.
"Now we're ready to spend," Randy said as he relaxed with his feet in a tub of sudsy water.
Stephanie Yun, however, was ready to go home and take a nap by mid-morning yesterday.
The 30-year-old from the District had arrived at White Flint at 7:45 a.m. to take advantage of the day's sales: a calendar that was half-off, coupons to Lord & Taylor, a Coach purse discounted 20 percent. She said she also stocked up on cashmere sweaters for her mother and boyfriend -- and maybe one or two for herself.
"I feel less guilty," she said, explaining her rationalization for the purchases. "Here, Mom, do you want this one? I'll take these two."
She said she had a few returns to make. One of her grandmothers didn't like the Tommy Hilfiger purse she had picked out for her, and her other grandmother said she had no use for the black evening bag that Yun gave her. ("Apparently, she doesn't go out anymore," she said.)
But Yun said she had not received any gifts that she needed to return.
"Maybe just the rest of my family is really picky," she said.
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Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland business news headlines with stock portfolio and market news, economy, government/tech policy, mutual funds, personal finance. Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ quotes. Features top DC, VA, MD businesses, company research tools
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Fraud Alleged at Red Cross Call Centers
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Nearly 50 people have been indicted in connection with a scheme that bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Red Cross program to put cash into the hands of Hurricane Katrina victims, according to federal authorities.
Seventeen of the accused worked at the Red Cross claim center in Bakersfield, Calif., which handled calls from storm victims across the country and authorized cash payments to them. The others were the workers' relatives and friends, prosecutors said last week.
The scam came to light when Red Cross officials noticed that a suspiciously high number of people were picking up Red Cross money at Western Union outlets near the Bakersfield center, even though few evacuees were in the area.
The Red Cross called law enforcement authorities. Forty-nine people in the Bakersfield area have been indicted in the past three months for filing false claims with the center.
More indictments are expected soon, said Stanley A. Boone, an assistant U.S. attorney in Bakersfield.
The incident reveals a sometimes chaotic system that the Red Cross cobbled together after the devastating storm get cash to desperate evacuees. Many had fled their homes with only the clothing they wore and what they could carry.
Before winding up the program two weeks ago, the Red Cross gave out $1.3 billion to evacuees in more than 1.4 million households. It was the charity's largest cash-assistance program ever -- double the amount of cash it distributed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to financial statements.
"We went in knowing that we had a great need, almost an incomprehensible need," said Michael Brackney, manager of the Red Cross's client services program.
But charity experts say that in this era, when a highly visible disaster can trigger an outpouring of hundreds of millions of dollars, relief groups are under enormous pressure to disburse the money as quickly as possible or risk the ire of donors.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Red Cross was criticized for attempting to use some of the money to prepare for future disasters, donors have little tolerance for diverting funds to other causes, say those who study charitable giving. But that presents challenges to charities that usually are careful to parcel out aid based on need.
"Sometimes they have so much money, there is no obvious, easy way to give it out," said C. Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who conducted studies of the money donated to charities after Sept. 11.
In the days after Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast, Red Cross officials realized they faced a gargantuan task. Hundreds of thousands of evacuees fleeing the storm would need money quickly. Some left their homes with no identification, no cash and no access to their local banks.
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Complete Coverage on Hurricane Katrina and Rita including video, photos and blogs. Get up-to-date news on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Rita, news from New Orleans and more.
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The Rail Thing
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2005122819
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A freight train sweeps around snow-covered mountains and past a picturesque village, around snow-covered mountains and past a picturesque village, around snow-covered mountains and . . . oh, you get the picture.
On one of its endless circlings -- in the First Street-side foyer of Union Station -- the little electric locomotive, which drags eight boxcars, moves along the shores of a miniature lake and past a small, crowded skating rink. When it emerges from a long tunnel, 3-year-old Jacob, in blue sweat shirt and pants, stands waiting like a giant in a sci-fi movie. He laughs, claps and points at the petite Norwegian Christmas tableau.
His mother, Nancy Kwon of Takoma Park, sighs at the thought that Jacob could stand here for hours delighting in the model train going round and round and round and round. Ad nauseam.
Electric trains are everywhere -- under the National Christmas Tree at the White House, in the U.S. Botanic Garden near the Capitol, at shopping malls, in restaurants and surely looping around lots of living-room Christmas trees this year. For decades, the toy train has been a symbol of the season.
But what do we really know about this holiday icon? It's a traditional gift for wide-eyed children to play with, right? It's a fading American artifact, fast falling into obsolescence and obscurity, right? It's a reliable relic that stays the same, despite the ever-changing world all around, right?
Wrong. The more we learn about model trains today, the more we discover that our preconceptions are wrong wrong wrong. To get on the right track, here are some myth-busting facts about model trains:
They're for the children. Not! "The dirty little secret," says Jerry Calabrese, CEO of Lionel, "is that most fathers play with trains more than their kids do." Lionel, based in Michigan, is the largest maker of model trains in this country.
"Our average customer is a 52-year-old man," says Mike Wolf, founder of MTH Electric Trains. A multimillion-dollar enterprise in Columbia, MTH is the second-largest model train company in the United States. Wolf says model trains have always been bought by older guys, mostly for themselves.
Men might say they are buying the trains for their children or their grandchildren, but they're not. "Kids are an excuse," Wolf says. Hobbyists, mostly male, spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on model trains and model railroad paraphernalia.
Observe a well-designed train panorama and you will understand the attraction. You are in control of your world. The train runs in an oval or a figure eight, but it always ends up where it began. There is completion, order. The track threads together cities and farms -- blessed be the ties that bind urban and rural in our fractured culture. Men love the same things about model trains that their forebears did about real trains more than a century ago.
Though the idea of model trains harks back to a simpler time, in many ways today's hobby is much simpler. In the old days, electric trains were heavy, bulky things. Track pieces were often bent or broken. You had to build a table and secure the tracks to plywood. The transformer was a quirky thing. Nowadays, track pieces are more stable and snap together and pull apart easily. Transformers are more reliable. Trains are ready to roll right out of the box.
Wolf, who has trafficked in the business for more than 25 years, says the folks who buy his products are the same ones who buy Harley-Davidson motorcycles: middle-aged doctors and lawyers "who are reliving their childhoods."
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Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.
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Dealmaking Power Companies Change the Utility Landscape
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Consumers and investors may think it doesn't matter much that Constellation Energy Group Inc., Maryland's biggest utility company, plans to merge with Florida's FPL Group Inc. Think again.
Last week's $11 billion deal to create the nation's largest seller of electricity may bode well for investors. At the very least, executives have promised to pay shareholders bigger dividends after the two companies merge next year. And because it's an all-stock deal, the merger will be tax-free for investors.
But the merger may not be such a good deal for customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., the local utility company from which Constellation of Baltimore was created. The state-regulated company that provides their power will become an even smaller part of an even bigger conglomerate that makes most of its profit through unregulated energy investments.
Even before the merger goes through, Maryland's top utility regulator has begun raising questions about whether BG&E's finances have been structured to benefit its corporate parent at the expense of Maryland natural gas users.
Last week the Maryland Public Service Commission slashed $17.5 million from BG&E's $54 million request to raise natural gas rates. Gas bills will go up by about $3 a month for the average residential customer instead of the $4 that BG&E wanted.
But PSC Chairman Kenneth D. Schisler wanted the rate increase to be pruned even more to assure that Maryland consumers are not subsidizing the vast array of unregulated business run by Constellation, BG&E's parent company.
Schisler contends that BG&E is borrowing money at costly long-term rates and lending extra cash to Constellation at bargain short-term rates.
Calling this a "subsidy from BGE ratepayers to Constellation and its unregulated affiliates," he said the company's financial practices "create costs for the ratepayers, which would not occur if BGE were a stand-alone gas company."
Schisler is no anti-business bomb thrower. Like three of the four other commissioners, Schisler was appointed by Maryland's Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
"We are still reviewing the decision," Constellation spokesman Robert Gould said Friday, noting that this was BG&E's first rate increase request after almost six years of steadily rising costs. "We certainly respect the process needed to give it a thorough review," he said. Providing safe and reliable service to customers remains Constellation's priority, he added.
BG&E'S central Maryland territory stretches from Harford County north of Baltimore to Howard and Anne Arundel counties, plus a sliver of Montgomery County and a big chunk of Prince George's County.
The dissent by Schisler and fellow commissioner Allen M. Freifeld, another Ehrlich appointee, raised issues never before faced by Maryland regulators.
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Consumers and investors may think it doesn't matter much that Constellation Energy Group Inc., Maryland's biggest utility company, plans to merge with Florida's FPL Group Inc. Think again.
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Sites and Sound Advice For Your Eve
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Finally -- December 25. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Seasons Greetings. Yadda yadda yadda.
Now on to the important stuff. What are you doing for New Year's Eve?
No matter if you're off to a black-tie gala, a rowdy bash at a nightclub or an in-home celebration with friends or family, it never hurts to be prepared.
Sure, some of you are already coordinating your dashing New Year's Eve outfits. Others are packing the fridge with cold beverages that will be used to make the happiest of nights even happier. Party hats, confetti and noisemakers are on standby, just waiting for the big countdown. But what about all of the other information you'll need for New Year's Eve? Don't worry. Here at Web Watch, we've done some of the prep work for you so the blender won't sit unattended while you run to look up something on the Internet.
Speaking of the blender: There's plenty of cool information at http://www.webtender.com/ , including drink recipes, a bartender's handbook and statistics on the most popular drinks. Our favorite part is the "In My Bar" feature where you can select what's already in your bar and get a list of drinks you can make with those ingredients. Here's a tip: Stay clear of Duke's Nightmare, made of equal parts Jack Daniel's Whiskey and Jose Cuervo Tequila. Ouch!
Preparing the toast: Did you know there's a difference between champagne and sparkling wine? (Okay, so I'm a beer dude.) There's an article at askmen.com ( http://www.askmen.com/fashion/ wine_dine_100/117_wine_dine.html ) that highlights the Top 11 champagnes to celebrate the New Year. The list will give you an idea of when and how to serve it, an approximate price and its taste (the Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut is dry with citrus flavors and a crisp finish). The site also offers some helpful hints -- such as avoiding the "pop" when you open the bottle. (It takes away the bubbles when you do that.)
If everyone will now raise glasses: If you're responsible for saying something funny or eloquent to toast in the New Year, it helps to have something prepared that goes beyond "Happy New Year." But you're not good with words, you say? The Quote Garden has devoted a page to New Year's quotes that are both profound and humorous, including one from an unknown author that reads: "A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other." ( http://www.quotegarden.com/new-year.html )
Is now the appropriate time to make a resolution?: People have been doing it for ages -- and even though the wisest of the wise warn that resolutions should not be limited to Jan. 1, go ahead and resolve to give up a vice or reach a new goal. Maybe you can do something to guarantee yourself a year of good luck. Over at GoalsGuy.com ( http://www.goalsguy.com/ Events/n_facts.html ) there's a list of the most common resolutions (lose weight, stop smoking, keep a better budget are the top three). It also includes good luck traditions from around the globe. In Spain, for example, people eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight to bring good luck for the upcoming 12 months.
And when the clock actually strikes midnight: I've never actually been to a bash where people sing "Auld Lang Syne" but I've seen it in the movies a million times. Just in case you and your partygoers feel the need to burst into song, scroll down further on the GoalsGuy.com page listed above. Not only will the site give you the lyrics to the song, it will also tell you that 'Auld Lang Syne" literally means " Old Long Ago," or simply, "the good old days." (I always wanted to know that.)
Finally, when the party is over: It used to be that you needed a ride home if you'd had "a few too many." These days, it's better to stay away from the wheel if you've even had "just a few." It doesn't take much for the evening to end behind bars. But it doesn't have to be this way: The Washington Regional Alcohol Program is offering free cab rides in the Washington Metro area (yes, that includes the 'burbs, as well) from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. by simply calling (800) 200-TAXI or #8294 from Cingular cell phones. Check out the details at http://www.soberride.com/ . In case you're thinking of trying your luck at avoiding the law, consider that a DUI these days will cost you at least $7,800. FriendsDriveSober.org breaks down the cost of a DUI at http://www.friendsdrivesober.org/ alcohol_drugs_driving/cost_of_dui.html .
The morning after: It's not a pretty sight. But consider that some preventive action could make the next morning substantially less miserable. Soyouwanna.com has a thorough offering of advice on how to prevent or deal with a hangover. Aspirin doesn't help the next morning but eating before the party will help absorb the alcohol, and drinking plenty of water will replenish necessary fluids. Visit http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/ syws/hangover/hangover.html for plenty of helpful hints.
So that's it. You're ready to tackle the big night, right? Good luck out there. Be safe and be smart.
And have a Happy New Year.
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Finally -- December 25. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Seasons Greetings. Yadda yadda yadda.
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Scholar Stands by Post-9/11 Writings On Torture, Domestic Eavesdropping
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2005122819
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John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the University of California at Berkeley.
Civil liberties advocates were appalled by a memo he helped draft on torture. The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time called his analysis of the Geneva Conventions "seriously flawed." Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views espoused by Yoo, "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."
Yoo has alienated so many influential opponents that he is considered unconfirmable for a judgeship or high office, not unlike a certain conservative jurist rejected by the Senate for the Supreme Court.
"Someone said to me that I was the Robert Bork of my generation," he reported the other day.
Yet Yoo, 38, an engaging and outspoken lifelong conservative who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, can be found at seminars and radio microphones, standing up for Bush administration legal arguments that will be studied for decades.
"The worst thing you could do, now that people are critical of your views, is to run and hide. I agree with the work I did. I have an obligation to explain it," Yoo said from his Berkeley office. "I'm one of the few people who is willing to defend decisions I made in government."
Those decisions, made when he was a mid-level Justice Department adviser, have been the most fiercely contested legal positions of the Bush presidency. Framing the battle against terrorism as a wartime emergency, Yoo redefined torture, reinterpreted the Constitution and classified as archaic the long-established humanitarian rules of the battlefield.
Yoo wrote a memo that said the White House was not bound by a federal law prohibiting warrantless eavesdropping on communications that originated or ended in the United States. When news of the program broke, members of both parties called for hearings.
Yoo believes he was correct, even if critics say the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "threatens the very idea of America," as one editorial said. "It would be inappropriate for a lawyer to say, 'The law means A, but I'm going to say B because to interpret it as A would violate American values,'" Yoo said. "A lawyer's job is if the law says A, the law says A."
How Yoo, who has never met President Bush or Vice President Cheney, came to be a principal interpreter of laws and the Constitution for the Bush team is a story rooted in his conservative convictions and a network of like-minded thinkers who helped him thrive.
"He has succeeded and won people over and advanced his ideas," said Manus Cooney, who hired Yoo on to the Judiciary Committee staff of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) in 1995. "As far as conservative academics, I don't think there's anyone in the law whose contacts run deeper in the three branches, or higher."
Yoo traces his convictions in no small part to his parents, and Ronald Reagan. His father and mother are psychiatrists who grew up in Korea during the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. They emigrated in 1967, when Yoo was 3 months old. They sought three things, he said: education, economic opportunity and democracy. They settled in Philadelphia because they admired Eugene Ormandy, then conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
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John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the...
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Postseason Dark Horse? It Depends on the Colts
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2005122819
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It's been a bizarre little football season, from the opening curtain when Hurricane Katrina dislodged the New Orleans Saints and the NFL preposterously rewarded the New York Giants a ninth home game, to just last week when the joy of the Indianapolis Colts' season turned to tragedy. It has produced, almost equally, duds like the Eagles, Packers and Ravens, and surprising achievers like (so far) the Redskins, Bears, Bengals, Jaguars and Seahawks.
But the truth is, for 14 weeks there was only one team worth watching, studying, dissecting and debating. That team was the Colts, undefeated through 13 games but heaven only knows from here on in.
Now however, at least eight teams and as many as 10 are worth watching closely. If this season, vanilla at best on the field, is going to be saved, it's going to happen in this sprint to and through the playoffs.
The number one question, of course, is how will the Colts bear the weight of the sorrow enveloping their coach, Tony Dungy, and his extended family of players in the aftermath of his 18-year-old son's death by apparent suicide? Even those of us who believe the Colts will rally around their coach physically and emotionally, particularly come game time, have to allow for the possibility that we have no real knowledge of how something so complex will play out, and whether Dungy will even be on the sideline once the playoffs begin.
And beyond the question of the Colts, there are 50 others, and you'd better begin with the charge of the New England Patriots, the two-time defending champs who have won their last three games by about 650 to 3. One by one, from linebacker Tedy Bruschi to running back Corey Dillon to defensive lineman Richard Seymour, the Patriots have come back from the sick bay. You look out there the last three weeks, as the champs have rolled through the Jets, Bills and then a probable division-winning Buccaneers team, and you have to work really hard to build a case for New England not winning again.
Though Marvin Lewis has done wonders in three years in Cincinnati, the 11-4 Bengals demonstrated by losing at home to the Bills that they're not ready to be counted on in January. In fact, by losing, they opened the door for the Patriots to rush into the No. 3 spot in the AFC, which could facilitate an AFC championship game between the Colts and Patriots, though this time in Indianapolis.
There's no shortage of challengers behind the Patriots, either. What does work in Cincinnati's favor is that the Bengals (unlike next year) are working with no outside pressure whatsoever. Anything they do is like a toddler taking his first steps. And the same pretty much goes for Jacksonville, which could end up as the least imposing 12-4 team in NFL history. While it's hard to grant Jake Plummer full benefit of the doubt given his history, everything he and the Broncos have done this season points to them being a worthy playoff team. And the Steelers, as long as Ben Roethlisberger is able to play through his various injuries, are menacing, as usual.
But if the Colts are able to have their hearts and minds in the game the next time they play for real, they're still the best team and only the Patriots are fit to derail them. One would hope preparing for the games will somehow liberate them, even if only in small chunks, from the sorrow that will follow this team the rest of the season. The Colts have been the story for all the right reasons, and go into the postseason as the story for the saddest of reasons.
We're still trying to figure out who and what the story is in the NFC. Sadly, a preseason decision by the NFL, a dumb one then and a dumber one in retrospect, may have too big an impact on the postseason.
Moving the Saints' home opener to Giants Stadium in the aftermath of Katrina helped one team and only one team: the Giants. Handing an additional home game to a team that isn't any good on the road is unforgivable, not to mention lazy and unimaginative, though you won't hear anybody at league headquarters in New York apologize.
It stinks that the Giants, given how ordinary they are on the road (3-4), could win the division by one game, one extra, league-mandated "home" game. And this doesn't just affect the Redskins and Cowboys, although they have the biggest reason to gripe. Carolina and Tampa Bay could be unfairly affected by the Giants being given an extra home game. The Giants were in contention for a No. 2 seed and a bye week until the Bears clinched both with a win yesterday. Yes, that one extra home game could have been the difference between missing the playoffs entirely at 10-6 and having home-field advantage as the second-best division winner.
Even though Tiki Barber is a worthy MVP candidate (though behind Seattle's Shaun Alexander and his 27 touchdowns), nothing else we saw from the Giants against the Redskins suggests New York is any better the Bears, Buccaneers, Panthers or Redskins. And Seattle, having won 11 straight, would have to be seen as the NFC favorite.
And what about the second-hottest team in the NFC, the Washington Redskins? So much will depend on Mark Brunell's status for next week at Philly and (if necessary) beyond. Brunell, not Michael Vick, should have gone to the Pro Bowl. This isn't to suggest that Patrick Ramsey isn't capable of good relief work; we saw him fulfill that role very well on Christmas Eve. But the Redskins got on this roll late. They need Brunell's mobility, his savvy from previous playoff battles. The last thing you need heading into Philly and possibly the playoffs is to change the trigger man.
If Brunell's knee allows him to play as he has most of the season, the Redskins are a threat to anybody, including the Seahawks in Seattle or the Bears in Chicago. If not, the Redskins will be way up at the top of the list of major questions about the final week of the regular season and whether they'll be included in the drama that remains.
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It's been a bizarre little football season, from the opening curtain when Hurricane Katrina dislodged the New Orleans Saints and the NFL preposterously rewarded the New York Giants a ninth home game, to just last week when the joy of the Indianapolis Colts' season turned to tragedy. It has produced,...
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U.S. Seeks To Escape Brutal Cycle In Iraqi City
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SAMARRA, Iraq -- On one of his last days in Iraq, Sgt. Dale Evans looked out over the turbulent city from a rooftop tower piled high with sandbags, manning a machine gun. Below him, rows of Bradley Fighting Vehicles stood at the ready. Dusty streets were lined with coiled barbed wire and abandoned houses pockmarked from gunfire -- a protective no-man's land around a base that U.S. commanders describe as their "battleship" in downtown Samarra.
This month, Evans and his company from the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, will leave Patrol Base Uvanni, beginning a third attempt in as many years by U.S. forces to hand this Sunni city over to Iraqi police. It's a major test for the U.S. military in Iraq, and one U.S. commanders here say they can't afford to fail.
Since 2003, Samarra has come to symbolize the trials and errors of U.S. strategy in Iraq -- a cycle of military offensives, lulls and new waves of lethal insurgent attacks.
In recent months, U.S. forces have resorted to draconian tactics to try to drive insurgents from Samarra and keep them out. In late August, Army engineers used bulldozers to build an eight-foot-high, 6 1/2-mile-long dirt wall around the city, threatening to kill anyone who tried to cross it. Entry into Samarra was limited to three checkpoints. Since then, attacks have fallen sharply, and voter turnout was high for the Dec. 15 national elections.
But no one here is sure the relative calm will last. The military received reports that at least one local election worker was killed last week.
One of the toughest challenges the U.S. military faces in Samarra and other Sunni cities is building local police forces, a top priority for the U.S. command in Iraq in 2006. Homegrown police are vital to fighting an insurgency, military experts agree; they know the tribes, neighborhoods and back alleys. But for the same reason, they and their families are highly vulnerable to insurgent threats. In Samarra, 10 police officers have been assassinated in recent months. About 800 policemen are on the payroll, but only 100 to 150 show up for work, according to their American trainers.
At Patrol Base Uvanni, a three-story school surrounded by concrete barricades, Evans, 35, of San Antonio, said that as the U.S. military recruits police, insurgents are recruiting, too. A day before, the base was rattled by insurgent mortars -- a regular event. Evans's advice for the far smaller contingent of U.S. troops that is coming to Samarra: "Watch your backside. It's kind of rough."
Sixty-five miles north of Baghdad, on a bend of the Tigris River, Samarra was troubled even under the government of Saddam Hussein. Founded in the 9th century as a base for the Abbassid army, the city became best known for its spiral minaret, markets and -- in recent years -- crime. Things grew so bad that Hussein built a bypass around Samarra on Highway 1, Iraq's main north-south artery.
"There were a bunch of ruffians extorting money from travelers," said Capt. Rich Germann, a military intelligence officer with the 3rd Battalion, based in Samarra. Today, the insurgency in Samarra also has a strong criminal element, Germann says.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, successive military offensives brought only short-lived security to the city of 200,000, which repeatedly fell back into the grip of insurgents. Local police were killed, fled or simply walked off the job. Following the last U.S. military sweep into the city, in October 2004, U.S. troops built several small police outposts inside the city using trailers barricaded by cement slabs. Those, too, failed.
"They created a police station in a box," said Maj. Patrick Walsh, the operations officer for the battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division. "There were too many out there. Insurgents overran them, and police died."
When Walsh's battalion took over Samarra in February, the city had "zero" police, he said, apart from a sergeant guarding an armory of 20 rifles and small contingents at the hospital and Golden Mosque. Officials said the Iraqi Interior Ministry sent two battalions of Special Police commandos from Baghdad to help quell the violence, and attacks dropped off from dozens each week to less than two a day. But last spring, half the commandos were pulled out on another mission, and violence quickly escalated.
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SAMARRA, Iraq -- On one of his last days in Iraq, Sgt. Dale Evans looked out over the turbulent city from a rooftop tower piled high with sandbags, manning a machine gun. Below him, rows of Bradley Fighting Vehicles stood at the ready. Dusty streets were lined with coiled barbed wire and abandoned...
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Rivals Demonstrate Over Iraq Vote
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BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 -- Shiite Muslims staged rallies Sunday in support of their apparent victory in national parliamentary elections, while the Sunni Muslim minority also demonstrated, continuing to condemn the results. Meanwhile, in violence across the country, bombers and gunmen killed 13 people, indicating that an informal election truce in Iraq might be waning.
Two of the dead were American soldiers, killed by insurgent bombings in the Baghdad area, the U.S. military said. Military statements said at least one of the men was killed while on patrol, but the accounts gave no other details.
Five Iraqi soldiers died when a suicide car bomber slammed into two Iraqi army vehicles in Baghdad, according to police Maj. Mohammed Younis, the Associated Press reported.
Attacks in Kirkuk, Mosul and Jbala killed six other people, news agencies said.
The Dec. 15 national elections brought days of comparative calm in Iraq, with few of the massive bombings that had been frequent in Baghdad and other cities. But Sunni Arabs received less support in the elections than some Sunni leaders have said they expected. Some of those politicians had warned that Sunni insurgents would step up violence if they felt their minority had been cheated out of election victories.
In Baghdad's predominantly Shiite slum of Sadr City, an estimated 1,000 people rallied to support the governing Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, which took a large lead in preliminary results from the parliamentary elections.
Sunni Arabs staged smaller, rival demonstrations in Fallujah and Baqubah to support demands from Sunni and secular Shiite parties for a rerun of the election.
In Fallujah, a former insurgent stronghold in Anbar province, local government offices closed in support of the Sunni protest, news agencies said.
The election complaints demonstrated the difficulty that Iraqi parties are likely to face in forming a government after final election results are released in early January.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, a U.S. military spokesman reiterated a policy that bars the U.S. military from transferring Iraqi detainees into Iraqi custody. The policy applies to detainees held as possible risks to national security, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson.
The U.S. military will transfer the detainees only when officials are certain the detainees "are treated in accordance with international law and with respect for their human rights,'' Johnson said.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have said prisoners held at detention centers controlled by the Shiite-run Interior Ministry have been beaten, starved and subjected to electric shock torture, among other abuses.
The torture cases exposed serious weaknesses in the new Iraqi security forces, as the Bush administration planned a stepped-up turnover of military and police responsibilities to the Iraqi government.
U.S. officials have said that they would turn their attention in 2006 from building up the Iraqi army to improving the Iraqi police. The United States has "a program actively in place for training and integrating Iraqi guards,'' Johnson said.
A U.S. general stressed in a recent telephone news conference with U.S.-based reporters that the United States would refuse to transfer security detainees to Iraqi detention centers until it deemed those centers in accord with international standards.
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BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 -- Shiite Muslims staged rallies Sunday in support of their apparent victory in national parliamentary elections, while the Sunni Muslim minority also demonstrated, continuing to condemn the results. Meanwhile, in violence across the country, bombers and gunmen killed 13 people,...
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Global Polio Largely Fading
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The 17-year effort to eradicate polio from the world appears to be back on track after nearly unraveling in the past three years.
A new strategy of using a vaccine targeting the dominant strain of the virus appears to have eliminated polio from Egypt, one of six countries where it was freely circulating. That approach is on the verge of doing the same in India. Twenty-five years ago, India had 200,000 cases of paralytic polio a year. A decade ago, it was still seeing 75,000 cases annually. Through November this year, it recorded 52.
Such dramatic successes, many the result of a more potent formulation of polio vaccine, have once again made eradication of the paralyzing viral disease a realistic goal. Only one human disease -- smallpox -- has ever been wiped out, and that was almost three decades ago.
Intensive immunization campaigns targeting tens of millions of children in Africa have suppressed polio transmission in countries where it reappeared after the continent's most populous nation, Nigeria, halted universal polio vaccination in 2003.
The end of 2005 had been the latest deadline for polio eradication. The initiative, started in 1988, had a polio-free world by 2000 as its goal. No new deadline has been set, and success may depend, in part, on raising $200 million for more vaccination campaigns.
Nevertheless, the organizers and those funding the eradication initiative are more confident.
"I don't think there's any question that it's going to succeed. The question is how long," said William T. Sergeant, a Rotary International official. "The countries that were reinfected -- they were places where we had stopped polio before, and we can stop it again."
A civic club with 33,000 chapters worldwide, Rotary is a co-leader of the eradication campaign, to which it has contributed $600 million and tens of thousands of volunteers.
"The risk now is Nigeria -- and losing the commitment in other countries. But we're confident now that Nigeria will get the job done," said David L. Heymann, chief of the polio eradication program at the World Health Organization, which is directing the initiative.
The new "monovalent" vaccine appears to have been close to a magic bullet in boosting immunity to polio in a half-dozen areas of extremely high population density.
"This is the big development, without a doubt," said R. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian physician and WHO's chief eradication strategist.
The effort to eliminate polio has taken longer and proved harder than the eradication of smallpox, which took 10 years and ended in 1978. One of the main reasons is that most polio infections are not apparent, while smallpox causes a dramatic rash that makes identifying victims fairly easy.
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The 17-year effort to eradicate polio from the world appears to be back on track after nearly unraveling in the past three years.
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Pope Warns of Modern 'Spiritual Barrenness'
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VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 -- Pope Benedict XVI, standing on the spot where he appeared as the newly elected pontiff last spring, delivered his first Christmas message to a large crowd in St. Peter's Square and warned of dangers of technological advance made in the absence of religious belief.
"Today we can marshal vast material resources," he said from a balcony to thousands of people below as rain poured down from gray skies. "But the men and women in our technological age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart.
"The modern age is often seen as an awakening of reason from its slumbers, humanity's enlightenment after an age of darkness," he said. "Yet without the light of Christ, the light of reason is not sufficient to enlighten humanity and the world."
In his homily at midnight Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, a few hours before his appearance in the square, Benedict made a reference to the church's ban on abortion, saying that God's love shines on each child, "even on those still unborn."
The pope's Christmas appearance was much anticipated, in part to see how he would measure up to John Paul II in terms of charisma and stamina. Benedict, declaring "Merry Christmas" in 30 languages, presided at the two-hour midnight Mass without signs of fatigue and braved the foul weather to speak to the assembled crowd at St. Peter's.
In the traditional Christmas message, titled "Urbi et Orbi," Latin for "to the city and the world," Benedict reviewed world conditions. Speaking in Italian, he prayed for "courage to people of goodwill in the Holy Land, in Iraq, in Lebanon, where signs of hope, which are not lacking, need to be confirmed by actions inspired by fairness and wisdom."
The pontiff said the suffering refugees in Darfur, a region of western Sudan, need protection of their "most elementary rights," and he appealed for resolution of "dangerous disputes" in South Asia and on the Korean Peninsula.
"A united humanity will be able to confront the troubling problems of the present time: from the menace of terrorism to the humiliating poverty in which millions of human beings live, from the proliferation of weapons to the pandemics and the environmental destruction which threaten the future of our planet," he said. Benedict, wearing a gold miter and glittering gold cape with white vestments, stood on the balcony over the main door at St. Peter's Basilica.
The crowd applauded and cheered. Before the pope's appearance, a military band serenaded the people waiting in the rain.
Benedict, who has made few comments on social issues during his papacy, called for a battle against poverty in the name of Jesus. "Do not fear. Put your trust in Him!" he said. "The life-giving power of His light is an incentive for building a new world order based on just, ethical and economic relationships."
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VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 -- Pope Benedict XVI, standing on the spot where he appeared as the newly elected pontiff last spring, delivered his first Christmas message to a large crowd in St. Peter's Square and warned of dangers of technological advance made in the absence of religious belief.
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Goss's Garage
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Pat Goss has worked on cars for more than 40 years. He owns a car repair company that bears his name, has authored numerous books on auto maintenance, and makes weekly appearances on Motorweek, a PBS television program.
He visits right here once a month to answer questions about fixing your car.
Philadelphia, Penn.: Is there a glass treatment or wiper blade treatment to eliminate the annoying "chattering" of wiper blades?
Pat Goss: I use Rain X windshield washer solvent year round. Because it has Rain X in the mixture whenever the wipers start to chatter you simply hit the washer button for a couple seconds and the noise goes away. I love it!
Anonymous: What would make a piston go through the engine? Would it be from not having any oil in it?
Pat Goss: That's certainly one reason. No oil means the engine goes away and it usually does it violently.
Columbia, Md.: The brakes on my Infiniti squeal as I come to a stop. Does this indicate a problem?
Pat Goss: Until the brakes are checked it doesn't mean anything except the brakes need to be checked. Whenever there is ANY change in the way brakes feel or sound they need to be checked immediately.
Washington, D.C.: Happy holidays to all.
I was asked by a woman in a shopping center for help with her van when she couldn't turn the key in the ignition switch. I couldn't help. The driver's manual said it should turn after inserting the key. I believe it was a Chrysler van that she had, and I believe the van was in park. Can you suggest any reason this would occur, and what could I have done, if anything, to correct it?
Pat Goss: It is usually caused by turning the ignition off with the wheels turned. When the engine stops the power assist goes away. If the wheels are turned when this happens the force of the tires (the rubber is twisted due to being turned) is applied to the steering lock mechanism. This causes the key to bind and usually impossible to turn. The fix is first to never shut the engine off in any car with the wheels turned. Two is to apply strong pressure (STRONG) to the steering wheel in the direction the wheels are turned while attempting to operate the key. This almost always works.
Adelphi, Md.: I have had my front brake pad and rotors replaced twice this year, yet I still hear that grinding sound when I press my brakes, also when I press my brake, my steering wheel vibrants. Can you tell me what the mechanic is missing?
Pat Goss: Yes! What's missing is a full knowledge of how to do a MODERN brake job. The shudder in the steering wheel usually means the brake rotors are warped and that can happen immediately if the wheel lug nuts are not torqued using a torque wrench. The noise can be the result of many things including pad quality, rotor preparation, not greasing the caliper slides and mounting pins, failure to use pad c treatment chemicals, etc., etc.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Pat. I own a '04 F-150 that I drive, tops -- 20 miles per week. I commute on the subway, so it never leaves the parking space. I put maybe a couple thousand miles on it a year. I know this sound funny, but is there any special maintenance that needs to be done on a vehicle that -- doesn't -- get much driving? I am religious about following the owner's manual maintenance schedule-but should I worry that I don't drive it enough? Thanks!
Pat Goss: Not so much special maintenance as special times. All maintenance on a lightly used vehicle should be done based on time rather than mileage. Time is the enemy and if you wait for the miles to accumulate before performing preventive maintenance you will more than likely regret it.
Falls Church, Va.: How much should a timing belt replacement on a 1998 Mazda 626 really cost? $800 seems a bit much for one belt and a few pulleys.
Pat Goss: Timing belt, water pump, fresh coolant, possibly seals on the crankshaft and camshaft, plus idler and tensioner pulleys should cost between $800 and $1,200 depending on car, miles and engine.
Silver Spring, Md.: Hi Pat. I have a '99 Cougar with a hole in the antifreeze container. When I put antifreeze in it, it just drains out. I was told it's expensive to get this replaced because major machinery needs to be moved around to get to it. What do you think?
Pat Goss: I suspect this is not the anti-freeze container but rather a gasket or seal and if that is the case yes it would be expensive. If it is just the container it should be under $100 parts and labor.
My brother is 19. In February he will have completed a year of training at UTI (where he finished top of his class) and four months of specialized training at Volvo in Chicago (where he is also top of his class). Though Volvo guarantees placement somewhere after graduation, over Thanksgiving he met with a few Volvo dealerships in the area to see about securing a job before he is done with school. I was shocked to see that he was offered jobs that paid only $14 an hour. Do you feel he was low-balled by these dealerships? Is there room for negotiations? I know nothing about cars or garages ... just a big sister trying to get a little more info. Thoughts?
Pat Goss: Low-balled? What does he bring to the table? he has no real experience. He has no real training. In the outside world that would be a reasonably good starting point. yeah I know the schools tell tales of enormous salaries but that does not usually happen unless the person has experience. Besides the hourly rate is not nearly as important as his ability to produce work. Most shops pay on hours completed which is then converted to an adjusted hourly wage. If he's good he can easily convert the $14 an hour into $35 or more simply by producing more work relative to book allowed hours.
Springfield, Va.: How do I reduce/get rid of road noise on my '97 Corolla? I have had the car for over four years and noticed it getting louder gradually. Thanks.
Pat Goss: Check tire wear. This is especially important if you don't rotate the tires at least every 7,500 miles. You're looking for uneven wear from one tread to another around the tire. Not abnormal wear across the tire. If no problems are found check wheel and axle bearings.
Baltimore, Md.: Hi Pat. It's winter, how long should you warm-up the car on cold mornings and does it depend on the make of the car? Thanks.
Pat Goss: Unless are there are extenuating circumstances like lots of ice or snow to defrost, warm up time should be approximately one minute and then drive gently until the car reaches normal operating temperature.
Reston, Va.: I own a 2000 Lexus ES300 with a little over 90,000 miles. Over a month ago, the brake light came on and stayed on (the break was not activated). Late last week, the engine light and track light came on. At that point, I took the car to a shop to run a check. They told me that they could not read what the problem was, however, the timing belt needed to be replaced, so I had it done. When leaving the shop, I noticed that the brake, engine, track lights were not on. I took the car to the Lexus dealer who could not find anything wrong with the car.
Why do you think the lights were coming on? Was it related to the timing belt? Thanks.
Pat Goss: I expect the lights were coming on because there was a problem. I expect the lights will come back on as soon as the computer determines that problem stills exists, maybe a few days maybe a few weeks.
Washington, D.C.: Happy Holidays! My owner's manual does not specify whether the engine oil should be checked when the engine is cold or hot. I have been checking it when the engine is cold. In you opinion, in the absence of any guidance in the owner's manual, would you check it cold, hot or does it matter at all? Thanks.
Pat Goss: Normally oil is checked cold or hot. In most cases there will be an allowable range on the dipstick. So cold engine oil levels will be lower than hot engine oil levels. Check oil hot the engine must be shut off and allowed to rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
I have an '89 Camry with 244,000 miles. The brake, charge and lights "idiot lights" have been coming on while cruising down the road. They stay on anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. When they come on, the heater blower slows down and, at night, the headlights and dashboard lights dim slightly. The repair manual states loose drive belt, blown fuse, faulty IC regulator or alternator as possible causes. The car starts and runs fine.
Your opinion would be much appreciated. Thanks very much.
Pat Goss: Check the alternator.
Windshield glare: Please help! I have a five and a half year old Saab, 40,000 miles, and the windshield is starting to get really bad as far as tiny scratches go. I use Rain-X so that water beads up nicely, but the glare during twilight and on the highway at night is getting bad. Is there anything I can do to fill in the scratches? What should I do to prevent this in my next car?
Pat Goss: Nothing other than a new windshield. Extremely common problem. It's usually caused by road debris. One thing that will help when you get a new windshield is to allow more distance between you and the car ahead of you.
Burke, Va.: What causes -- and how do you prevent -- an electric shock when getting out of a car in the winter? Sounds like a silly question, but I just got a new Camry -- and I'm really getting zapped. Haven't noticed it as much in other cars.
Pat Goss: The normal cure is to spray the carpeting and, if it has cloth seats, the seats with static guard.
I have an '91 Mazda Protege that I bought here and took to Texas for six years. When I returned I was driving on 370 for about five miles each way at speed and when I had my emissions test in '03 it passed with some of the best scores ever -- better than when I was here in 92, but I was driving fast every day.
Last year I moved to an apartment and now drive only once a week or so. I took it in to be tested in the fall and just barely passed. I drove from Rockville to Gaithersburg and it warmed up, then waited a half hour or so for the test.
Should I get a tune up before my next emissions test. The last was at 40,000 miles (now 86,000 miles) and I got platinum plugs and all.
What should I do to get ready for my next emissions test? Or should I take my chances and get work if it flunks?
Pat Goss: Other than basic preventive maintenance. Fresh oil change, pcv system service, and things like that. Don't try to second guess emissions, you could spend a ton of money and still fail. Wait until it fails, the failure numbers are also diagnostic numbers.
Washington, D.C. (Southwest): I desperately want a deeper sounding horn on my 2003 Buick Park Avenue Ultra and want my dealer's repair shop to install a '98 or '99 Cadillac horn on my Ultra. Will this work and are there any risks? Should someone other than my repair shop install my new horn? (I do not want to keep the Buick horn). Thanks.
Pat Goss: Cadillacs usually use three horns instead of two. This is not a difficult conversion, although I doubt a dealer would do it. You may have to have an independent shop do the service repair.
Washington, D.C.: I recently bought my first car and I'm confused about the maintenance it requires. The recommended service schedule the dealer gives is different than what is explained in the owner's manual. Also, I have a friend who says both of those schedules are a racket and all I really need is an oil change every 3,000 miles with a tire rotation every other oil change. I think the dealer is overcharging and I probably don't need everything they do, so I feel taken advantage of. At the same time, I recognize there are a lot of moving parts in a car and I think I should get more than just oil changes. So what is the minimum maintenance I should keep up with to keep my car working well (and the warranty valid)?
Pat Goss: Not knowing what the dealer is recommending, I can't say right or wrong. However, factory recommended schedules are usually based on a five year, 100,000 mile life expectancy. If that's all you want out of a car, follow the owner's manual and pay the price. If you want real value from the car find a GOOD, UNBIASED service schedule and follow it to the letter.
Silver Spring, Md.: I have a 93 Nissan Sentra with a rusted out trunk latch. The only way I can open the trunk is to pry it open with a large screwdriver. Can I order new parts and replace the latch myself? I'm fairly handy. Thanks!
Pat Goss: The parts should be readily available. The fix is simple. The adjustment is a little more complicated.
Bowie, Md.: My 2002 VW Cabrio GLX is back in the shop because the automatic windows are not working. I had it in last week for the same problem and I was told that the fuse needed to be replaced because freezing caused the problem. Well, they broke a few days later again, and I put it back in the shop and after two days there, I have been told that the VW dealership has "no clue" why the windows won't work. At the same time, they are replacing the radio because it was fading in and out. My question to you is two-fold: (1.) Have you heard of this happening in VW cars and a mechanic unable to diagnose the problem? and (2.) My warranty is up in less than 300 miles and I owe less on the car than it is worth. I am thinking of getting rid of it as I have had nothing but problem after problem with it. I also know VWs should run for well over a hundred thousand miles. Would you take the gamble and keep the car without a warranty? Thank you for taking my question.
Pat Goss: The dealer has no clue about a nearly endless problem on VWs in general? Go to www.alldata.com or www.nhtsa.gov and look for technical service bulletins and recalls pertaining to the problem on your car.
Bowie, Md.: I have a '99 VW Passat V6 with 60,000 miles and I'm already starting to have some problems. Two axle replacements, faulty electronics and brake problems. Should I get rid of it now or hold onto it? Have you had any experience with this car and know of its long-term reliability?
Pat Goss: Volkswagens are usually extremely reliable in the engine and transmission departments. Electronics are another issue altogether. If you keep it prepare for more electronics problems.
Rockville, Md.: Hi Pat. Some time ago, you had said that using gasoline of a higher octane than recommended has some negative result on the engine (carbon build-up?).
I have found a gas station that offers the 91 octane recommended for my car but it is five to ten cents more per gallon than the 93 octane sold at FreeState. I'm trying to figure out if it makes sense to pay more for the 91 or pay less for the 93 and know that every X years, I'll need to have the extra maintenance done that caused by the improper gas.
So, can you tell me how much this maintenance would typically cost for a 2001 BMW 330? Thanks.
Pat Goss: I would use the 93 because your car is a high octane fuel vehicle. The problem with carbon buildup comes from using high octane in an 87 octane engine.
Alexandria, Va.: Hey Pat! I have a '94 Toyota Corolla DX with 125,000 miles on the motor. For the last two weeks, I've noticed the battery/ignition behaving strangely. Several times when starting the car (especially in the morning, ESP. when its cold) I'll turn the key with no result. Lights, power locks, etc. all work, but no cranking of the engine. If I persist four or five times (key on/key off), the engine jumps to life. As I said, this happens rather infrequently, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. I've never experienced anything like this before ... and I bought the battery six months ago ... HELP!
Pat Goss: Check battery condition, check battery cable connection condition (requires a voltage-drop test). If battery passes and voltage drop on all cables and connections is absolutely zero, test the starter.
Leesburg, Va.: I have a 2004 Accord with 30,000 miles. I'm pretty good about following the Honda maintenance schedule and changing the oil every 3,500 or so miles. I really want the car to last for years, although with as much as I drive I'll probably be at 120,000 miles within three years. Is there anything else I can do to ensure the car will last?
Pat Goss: Yes. Use a high mileage maintenance schedule rather than the light duty schedule in the owner's manual. If you want a free copy of a generic schedule based on an average vehicle life of 250,000 miles instead of the manufacturers 100,000 miles go to www.goss-garage.com
Rockville, Md.: Hello Pat. I have a question pertaining to my '00 Ford Ranger 4x4 3.0L. When the temperature drops below freezing my oil pressure gate indicates that it has no pressure. Once the engine warms up for two to three minutes that gauge jumps to it's normal position. Any idea what might be wrong? Thank you.
Pat Goss: What's wrong? Could be minor, a bad oil pressure switch. Could be major, no oil pressure. Oil pressure needs to be checked using a mechanical oil pressure test gauge.
I'm looking at buying either the 2006 Audi A6 or the 2006 Lexus IS350.
Are there any mechanical or reliability issues that I need to worry about with either model? Also, which do you think has the edge in performance?
Pat Goss: Lexus, Lexus, Lexus, Lexus.
1988 Honda Accord with 180,000 miles on it. Recently, after the car warms up and while waiting at a light, my idle drops to where the car shakes and sputters like it is going to die. It gets slightly worse after I step on the brake. My mechanic cleaned the carburetor, but could find nothing else wrong. Makes me wonder if he really knows his stuff or not. I would think he would perform a check on the o2 sensor and throttle body and also check for vacuum leaks. But, since it is an old car, I thought I would check with you first before returning to the shop. Thanks.
Pat Goss: You confuse me. You mentioned carburetor and throttle body in the same question. Cars don't have both. Which is it?
Why do some automakers still insist on using drum brakes ? Even with anti-lock brake systems, aren't the drums the weakest link in the system? More prone to locking up due to dirt and such getting into the drum?
My old 1981 Benz had disc all around, as did most Volvos and Saabs of that era. Why are the American car makers so far behind?
Pat Goss: It isn't just domestic makers. It is import and domestic vehicle makers and it has to do with the cost of the car. Hopefully you don't think an entry level Honda or Chevrolet will have the same level of standard equipment as a Benz or Volvo.
Gainesville, Fla.: RE: The antifreeze container I've fixed those and the windshield washer ones with a sodering iron and a little plastic from a milk jug. If that's where the leak is.
Pat Goss: Yeah, so have we. Usually don't recommend it though. We consider it a temporary repair. But if the person is up for that type of repair, certainly it could be done.
Bethesda, Md.: Wanted to thank you for an earlier mention of solving erratic fuel gauge by using a Top Tier fuel. Had suffered for months with a "volatile" gauge in my '00 Mercedes and lots of advice from various sources that was worthless. After two fill-ups with a top tier gas, no problem.
Pat Goss: Glad to hear it worked.
Glenn Dale, Md.: Hey Pat. I've used this stuff called Never-Dull on my car to take out any markings or dirt that soap and water can't seem to take care of. Does this stuff have any negative effects on car paint? I've heard of people observing a cloudy appearance even after trying to buff it out.
Pat Goss: Never tried it. Never tested it. Don't know. Sorry.
Alexandria, Va.: Hi Pat. I read once where you were fully against remote starting systems. Still the case? Thanks.
Rockville, Md.: I replaced a battery about six months ago at 90,000 miles, and since then the battery light blinks faintly when I start the car. I can recognize the light only when it is dark. But it disappears above one rpn. I check the battery with my mechanic and it's OK. My car is a '96 Honda Accord V6. What's the problem and what should I do?
Pat Goss: Test the condition of the alternator. Specifically of the brushes in the alternator.
Greenbelt, Md.: I bought myself one of those tiny satellite radio things, and now I can't figure out how to install it in my 1996 Pontiac Sunfire. The antenna is this little thing that sits on top of the roof (via a magnet) and has a small cord running to the radio. How do I get the cord from the outside of the car to the inside without jamming up my doors or windows or creating a leak that will flood the inside of my car when it rains? Thanks in advance!
Pat Goss: Beats me. Most such units either use a magnetic antenna that attaches to the trunk of the car (the cord runs under the edge of the trunk and through the inside of the car) or the have a self contained antenna. As far as running it through the door, that can be done. It usually doesn't leak but over time the antenna wire will suffer.
Laurel, Md.: Another transmission fluid question. I have a '92 Ford Taurus my father drove -- 40,000 miles and never had a tranny fluid change. What is your advice?
Pat Goss: I recommend checking the condition of the fluid. If it still looks new and smells new, flush the transmission. Note that I said flush, not a partial change.
Hear about the incident at HBL? Seems the mechanic tried to jump start the Mercedes-Benz McLaren, which has a carbon fiber frame.
This was despite the warning label under the hood that says not to jump start the vehicle under any conditions.
Pat Goss: Didn't hear about it.
Atlanta, Ga.: I have a VW Passat with an anti-lock brake system. Occasionally (but becoming more frequent) the yellow "ABS" light and the red "brake" light come on the dashboard and stay on for a little while before going off. I had my regular mechanic check it out and he said he couldn't find anything wrong with the brakes themselves so it was probably a sensor problem but he didn't have the ability to check the VW computer. I've called around and I can't find any regular brake place that can read VW's ABS codes. Is this common in the industry? I've had bad experiences with the dealerships in my area (lots of unnecessary work recommended) and I would hate to have to pay $75 bucks to them just to find out what's wrong.
Pat Goss: Information or the lack thereof is an extremely hot topic within the auto repair industry. It's common, the shop might not have VW software. I also have to tell you, free service is usually worth what you pay for it. The people that know, and the people that have the equipment, do not give their knowledge and the use of their equipment away free. $75 is extremely fair.
Washington, D.C.: I'm in the same situation as the driver of the low-mileage F-150. I understand that I'm supposed to use time, not mileage, for the maintenance schedule, but what I am supposed to do about replacing the car's tires? The current set of tires I have are about 10 years old, and the tread is still good (they've been driven for about 20,000 miles). Should I replace them and when? Thanks.
Pat Goss: Most reliable tire information sources consider five years to be the normal safe life expectancy for a tire. Certainly in some cases they could be used longer, but that would require they only be used at low speeds and for short distances. After five years they would not be considered safe for highway use at high way speeds, for longer distances or to carry loads.
Upper Marlboro, Md.: '98 Caddie STS -- transmission repair cost $3,200. Is this typical for this car or I can look forward to more repair cost? Or dump it?
Pat Goss: It's not unusual especially if the transmission has not been flushed on a regular basis. Still cheaper than buying a new one.
Richmond, Va.: I appreciate your advice.
I have a 1996 Saturn SL1 with a 170,000 miles. Basically, it's a good running car. I have to put in a quart or oil every 1,000 to 2,000 miles. Also, I have noticed the gas mileage has slipped a little. Are these warning signs? Time to get rid of the car?
Pat Goss: Sounds like it's in great shape. With a 170,000 miles it has no value to speak of, why not drive it into the ground and then donate it.
Falls Church, Va.: Hi Pat. Enjoy your chats.
What are the symptoms of a failing water pump?
Pat Goss: Rumbling noises, coolant leakage, looseness in the water pump bearings.
Pittsburgh, Penn.: Happy holiday to you and all the chatters.
I do have a question.
I will be leaving my car in my garage for about two months. Is there anything I should do, prior to, and during its incarceration to protect it? Would having someone start it periodically help?
Pat Goss: Don't have anyone start it. Unless they can take it out and drive it for 45 minutes. The best thing to do is to treat the fuel with a fuel stabilizer(full tank), run the car for 10-15 minutes to circulate the treated fuel through the entire system. Buy a battery maintainer (not a trickle charger), connect it to the battery and all will be find. Longer periods of time would require more.
Alexandria, Va.: I have 1999 Acura 3.2 TL (82,000 miles, 2,000 of which are out of warranty). The catalytic converter was recently found to be failing gradually. After poking around a bit, it seems this problem afflicts Acuras in this age/mileage range quite a bit, and Honda has been extending "good will" warranties to help cover the cost.
Have you seen this problem much? If so, what kind of coverage has the manufacturer been giving?
Pat Goss: We see it from time to time. What I have not seen, is any help.
Silver Spring, Md.: I have a 1995 Honda Civic and a 1995 Pontiac Trans Am. Which would be easier to learn how to maintain? Why? Thanks!
Pat Goss: They both have pluses and minuses. Some things are easier on the Honda, some things are easier on the Pontiac.
Washington, D.C.: I have a '94 Honda del Sol that, after sitting idly for a few days, starts very slowly. Turns over slowly, takes a few tries (15+ mins. total) to get her running. I had the starter replaced about two months ago, but the car wouldn't "do" the not-starting thing when I brought it to my mechanic. My money is on needing a new battery because the bad starter drained it. Should I just go get a new battery and see if it solves the problem? Thanks and happy holidays!
Pat Goss: I'd get the battery tested. That's often a free service. I'm not big on just replacing things and hoping.
Washington, D.C.: For those of us without the time and money to strictly abide by owner's manuals suggested maintenance. What key preventive maintenance, besides regular oil changes, do you recommend?
Pat Goss: If you can't abide by the most lax maintenance there is, about the only thing you can do is set aside money for the big repairs that are unavoidable.
Washington, D.C.: I have an analog radio in my 1984 car. Do radio tuners wear out or do they fail catastrophically?
Pat Goss: Yes. They wear out or they fail catastrophically.
I own an all-wheel drive '98 Mountaineer, which I think, has a flat spot on a tire or two. The front two tires were replaced two years ago to fix the same issue. It made it better for a while, but the pulsing noise is back. You can slightly hear it at low speeds, around 40 mph it seems to find some sort of harmonic resonance and goes away, and at 75 mph it feels like you are in a massage chair. I thought I read about the Firestone replacement tires having this issue. Or could it be something else altogether?
Pat Goss: I suggest you find a shop that has a Hunter GSP9700 road force balancer and a skilled operator and have the road force variation of your tires checked. Should be under 15 lbs.
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee, V8, quadra-trac, full time four-wheel drive and 63,000 miles. I've noticed that the transfer case lever slower migrates a few inches from the four wheel hi in the direction of the four wheel lo, on its own. I push it back, it moves a few inches. No noticeable change or feel, but it does make an odd, very low, almost vibrating sound. Is this just the linkage that needs to be tightened or adjusted, or could it be more serious. Local shop didn't want to diagnose it. Thanks!
Pat Goss: Check linkage and linkage bushings.
Arlington, Va.: Turn signal devices: The turn signal indicator on my dash board is obscured by the steering wheel when I adjust my seat position to reach the pedals and sit comfortably. I do not have a tilt option steering wheel so I often depend on the audio signal to remind me that the turn signal is sill on. The current plug-in device located under the dash board has a faint sound. Do auto part stores sell such devices with louder audio signals for particular makes and models or is there a set audio signal loudness for the make and model car to be compatible with the electrical system?
Pat Goss: Depending on year make and model. There are loud signal flashers available. They do not fit all cars. Most parts stores do not stock them, as most people want quieter not louder signals.
Silver Spring, Md.: On my '99 Accord ,the check engine light came on. It turned out that there was a problem with the EGR valve. Also, the catalytic converter was bad. Could the EGR problem have caused the catalytic converter to go bad? The check engine light was on for over a month before I got them fixed. Thank you.
Pat Goss: Not likely. Depends on the mileage, but like brake shoes and tires, converters wear out.
Minneapolis, Minn.: You were very helpful with my question last month about my 1990 Camry and hope that you will be again. I got the car about a year and a half ago and it has 77,000 miles on it. I haven't done much more than oil changes and new tires and need to get it on a regular maintenance schedule. Where can I find one that will help lengthen the life of my car?
Montgomery County, Md.: Hi Pat. I have a 1994 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with 59,000 miles on it. The "service ride control" light comes on and it was traced to a sensor not being able to read the right front strut. Since ride quality has not deteriorated should I continue to ignore the warning light? If so, when should I consider replacing the shocks and struts? Thank you.
Pat Goss: Unless this is a Concours, the light should only apply to the rear shocks. It's usually caused by an air leak in one of the rear shock lines.
Washington, D.C.: Why are you against automatic starters for cars? What is the danger/problem with them? We are thinking of getting my dad one for Christmas for his 2004 F-150.
Pat Goss: Remote starters make the car easier to steal. In many areas, it is against the law to allow an unattended car to run. Because of the inefficiency of an idling engine, wear is increased. You only warming the engine, not the transmission, accessories or the rest of the car, etc., etc.
Columbia, Md.: I purchased a new vehicle from a local dealer and was given customer for life status which means my regular oil changes are free as long as I bring my vehicle back to the dealership. The first time I used this service I noticed the dealership filled the oil past not only the full line but past the maximum indicator. I returned the vehicle and made them remove the excess oil down to the full line. They made me wait almost two hours. I still bring my vehicle in for the free service and they continue to fill past the maximum line. I have complained and wrote letters and they just don't get it. I just bring the vehicle home and remove the excess oil myself. Am I wrong in my understanding that too much oil is harmful?
Pat Goss: Too much oil, can be very harmful. Under certain conditions it could destroy the engine.
Reston, Va.: Husband has always taken his '99 Acura to the dealership for any issues other than an oil change. Normally have no reason not to trust them but recently after bringing it in for maintenance they say he needs new brakes (front and rear) totaling about $1,000 for work. Granted he's never had brakes serviced/replaced and it is at 60,000 miles (but we haven't heard/noticed any indication that the brakes need serviced).
I think it is extraordinarily high -- like twice as much as it should be. I told him to get estimates (not have it done) before making his mind. He hasn't done that so I'm asking you -- how much ballpark should it really be?
Pat Goss: Could be as little as $120, could be as much as $2000. A thousand dollars on a poorly maintained 60,000 mile '99 Acura is certainly not out of the question. Although it is slightly unusual.
Hermosa Beach, Calif.: Thanks for taking these questions.
I have a 2000 S-10. Most of the time I love it. Good suburban hauler, etc. However, it has an intermittent "tick" somewhere in the dash that has so far evaded detection. Almost sounds like the emergency flashers, but it isn't them. The truck has after market electrical windows and an Aiwa stereo. Otherwise it's stock. Any suggestions?
Pat Goss: Afraid not, sorry.
Vienna, Va.: Pat. I have a '92 Toyota Celica. Every time I make a left turn slowly, like parking, I hear a sound but I don't know where its coming from. The sound is like squeaky, but this only happens when I'm turning slow (less than five mph). Thanks.
Pat Goss: Check the sway bar frame bushings for lack of lubricant.
Falls Church, Va.: It doesn't matter if you check your oil hot or cold -- there are not different makings on the dipstick. The only issue with a hot check is that often oil does not fully drain back to the crankcase so the reading may be deceiving. P.S., Running 93 octane on a motor rated for 87 will not hurt anything and will not produce additional carbon deposits. This is much more a function of the fuels chemical make up (and quality) than the octane rating.
Pat Goss: Gee, I'm glad to know that. Thank you so much.
We hit a curb hard the other day, and the left front tire of our vehicle now has a golf ball-sized bulge in the outer wall. We took it to our mechanic, who said to drive gingerly and not even think about using the Beltway or any other high-speed road.
Must this tire be replaced? Also, would you recommend replacing both front tires? These are original equipment tires with about 35,000 miles on them.
Pat Goss: Should have been replaced yesterday. Measure the tread depth of the other three tires. If they are 50 percent or more you are probably okay, replacing one tire.
Chantilly, Va.: I need to replace small light bulbs that make the buttons for heater, air, etc. glow at night, in my '00 Nissan Maxima. Someone at a dealership claims it will take two hours to open the panel covering the bulbs. Can I open this panel myself and install these $30 bulbs without paying $200 to a mechanic.
Pat Goss: Don't know but I can tell you that many Nissans require replacement of the switch due to using LEDs or similar lighting devices rather than bulbs. Actually, if you have the skill, you can certainly do the same work the shop can do.
Linton, Ind.: I have a 93 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera 3.3 liter engine. The harmonic balancer is bad, when trying to remove it the retaining bolt would not come loose. I thought a lot applying heat but am afraid of damaging the front seal, any suggestions? Thanks.
Pat Goss: Do not apply heat. We often use a large impact wrench to remove stuck crankshaft bolts. Second choice is a large (there's that word again) breaker bar and a flywheel lock to get it loose.
Bethesda, Md.: Hi Pat. '96 Ford Probe GT with 130,000 miles (auto transmission). Lately, the car has been vibrating when stopped, as if the transmission doesn't fully release when the car is stopped. I had a transmission flushed performed (by a quick lube place via the trans dip stick) which may have helped a bit. Problem goes away if I put trans in neutral.
Is this transmission dying or can it be adjusted?
Pat Goss: Check the engine, check the engine mounts, and all tune-up related items rather than the transmission.
Can you explain the difference in driving dynamics between something with a high horsepower/torque ratio (i.e. Mazda RX-8) vs. something with lots more torque (like your diesel)? I understand it conceptually, but when you get in the car and drive it, how does it manifest?
Pat Goss: Higher torque gives the sensation of more power. Higher horsepower gives the sensation of more speed. Although the performance may be identical.
Chantilly, Va.: I have a 2002 Ford Ranger,and sometimes I have difficulty turning the ignition switch to the off position while the vehicle is in park. The front wheels are straight, not turned at the time. The ignition key hangs up about halfway to the off position. This happens with both ignition keys. The dealer has replaced the ignition switch, and realigned the steering column, and this has not fixed the problem. What do you suggest?
Pat Goss: Check the brake shifter interlock adjustment.
Richmond, Va.: I have a '98 Mazda Millenia. There is a strong vibration in the front end of the car (not tires ... they are new). It happens only during acceleration at highway speed after driving for about 30 minutes. I took it to the local Mazda dealer and they could find nothing. Any thoughts?
Pat Goss: One would hope they gave you a warranty on your new tires. Most new things come with warranties, and there is a good reason for that. New does not mean good. Check tire balance and check road force variation using a Hunter GSP9700 road force balancer.
Pat Goss: Thank you everyone. As always it's fun. Here's wishing you very Happy Holidays, and all the best for the New Year. See you next year. Drive gently. Pat.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Car expert Pat Goss will be online to answer your questions about car repair and maintenance.
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Fantasy Football
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Washington Post staff writer Gene Wang is on hand every Thursday at 11 a.m. ET to help you through the fantasy football season.
Gene Wang: Good morning fantasy footballers everywhere. Many fantasy titles will be decided this weekend, so let's jump right in.
Norfolk, Va.: Hello, Gene. Great column! I'm a reigning Fantasy Football champion looking for a repeat. Two questions.
Do you think Marvin Harrison will play this weekend or is it best to go ahead and start Housh?
Also, I'm leaning towards starting Cadillac againts the Falcons over Mike Anderson and Steven Jackson. What are your thoughts?
Thank you for your reply.
washingtonpost.com: 'Tis the Season for Well-Earned Superlatives; Recriminations, Too (Post, Dec. 22)
Gene Wang: Don't necessarily count out Harrison for this weekend. I'd keep a close watch on his practice progress today and tomorrow, then decided whether to start TJ Housh. Caddy will rebound from a really bad game last week because the Falcons have trouble on the road and against the run.
Gene Wang: make that decide.
Nashville, Tenn.: Mean Gene - thanks for your live sessions all season. I've enjoyed the columns and I'm finally admitting I need help (the first step toward recovery, right?). I need some lineup recs:
QB - Is Favre done? I only have Bollinger as backup and Losman is the only other starter on waivers.
RB - Rudi Johnson is a lock, but McGahee or Dominick Rhodes?
WR - The Infirmary - Pick 3 (or 2 but start McGahee AND Rhodes) - I. Bruce, D. Jackson, D. Stallworth, Eric Parker, D. Hall.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Let's hope 2006 is better for Fantasy Football.
PS - I traded away most of my roster and now have six picks in the first two rounds - will you do online sessions before the draft next year?
Gene Wang: Favre will play this week, so start him. McGahee, Bruce, DJack (he's listed as questionable on the injury report, so keep an eye on his status over the next few days), Stallworth. And yes, the first fantasy chat next year will be devoted entirely to the draft.
NOVA (Northern Virginia): Happy Holidays: Hi Gene, I read this chat all the time... Great Job!!!Thanks for getting me to the playoffs!
Brunell, E. Manning, B. Johnson
Wash Def, Miami Def, Giants Def
Gene Wang: Brunell, Galloway, Glenn, Dolphins defense
Baltimore, Md.: Gene Gene dancing machine,
Despite you not replying to any of my questions all season, I've made it to the championship game. Here's this week's questions, WRs Plaxico or Lelie, RBs Droughns or Parker, TEs Witten or Cooley (could have really used your insight on that one last week!) Cincy's D or Tampa's D.
Gene Wang: Congrats on making it to your league title game. It's clear you really don't need my help at all. But here goes. Plaxico, Parker, Cooley and Bengals defense.
I'm loving your show and check it out every week. I need an edge on defense this weekend. Which DF would you start out of the following teams: Steelers, Panthers, or Bengals.
Arlington, Va.: Just wanted to share an amazing fantasy story with you. I was in the semi of a league and I was getting drummed. The score before Monday night had me down by about 10 points. I had no players playing in that game, but my oppenent had Green Bay's defense. He didn't even have to play his defense to win, but let them go and they gave up 42 points, which gets you big time negative points in the league. B/c of that, I ended up winning by about 5 points and I am now sitting in the finals saying "I'm just happy to be here." Just letting everybody know that defenses can swing games in fantasy sports just like they can in real life.
Gene Wang: Thanks for that story. Your opponent really must have been kicking himself the next day. But who in their right mind could have predicted the Ravens scoring that many points?
Arlington, Va.: My heart goes out to Tony Dungy and his family. I know all the talk about when he's going to rest his players and making it to the Super Bowl pales in comparison to the news received today.
washingtonpost.com: Son of Colts' Coach Tony Dungy Found Dead (Post, Dec. 22)
Gene Wang: I read the news this morning as I was getting ready for the chat. The game has got to be the last thing on his mind right now. I'm sure all the fantasy readers out there will join me in sending condolences to the Dungy family.
Fairfax, Va.: Gene-o - Do you think Kyle Boller will ever have another fantasy-esque performance, or was that a one time deal?
Gene Wang: As my esteemed colleague and Post Gameday guru Desmond Bieler stated in his chat earlier this week, let's wait until Kyle "Pro" Boller has another great game before pronouncing him the next Joe Montana. That's the long way of saying I can't see him repeating that performance.
Need a QB!: Please help - I'm stuck without a quarterback for the championship game. In a league where you don't lose points for interceptions, who would you start in Week 16: McCown (vs. PHI), Frye (vs. CLE), or Grossman (vs. GB)? Thanks.
Washington, D.C.: Mean Gene the Fantasy Football Machine, Thanks for your help all season long. I'm in the finals this weekend, and I need some sage advice. Will Seattle or Indy mail it in this weekend given that they have nothing tangible to play for? What about Chicago's defense? Thanks!
Gene Wang: Indy might mail it in, but the Hawks actually do have something for which to play: home-field advantage throughout the postseason. And I always like the Bears defense.
Alexandria, Va.: I made it to my league's championship and need a fill in at running back if Kevin Jones doesn't play again this week. Between Cedric Houston vs. NE, Zack Crocket (if Jordan is out) vs. DEN and Maurice Hicks (if Gore and Barlow are out) vs. STL would get me the most points this week?
Gene Wang: Hick vs. the Rams defense seems the best play. The Pats defense is healthy again and bent on stopping the run, and no one really runs on the Broncos defense.
Gaithersburg, Md.: Hi Gene , Let me start off with you are the best at Fantasy advice. I've reached my championship game (thanks to your advice)and need help can you pick three out of Shawn Alexander, Rudi, Dillon, Fred taylor, Ricky williams.
pick two Boldin , Bennet, Darell Jackson, Jimmy smith. And which QB do i pick Trent or Jarrad??? Thank you for all the help this year and trade advice.
Gene Wang: You are too kind, though I'm sure there are plenty of fantasy readers out there who are cursing my name. In any case, Alexander, Rudi and Dillon. Boldin and DJack, assuming of course that he plays. I like Garrard too against the Texans.
Did I read that correctly?: Did someone just ask you to help them decide between McCown (vs. PHI), Frye (vs. CLE), or Grossman (vs. GB)?
Does this person have 30 teams in their fantasy league?
Gene Wang: You're right, it's probably not your typical fantasy league. I'm actually in one league with 12 teams that requires starting three QBs! I feel that poster's pain, believe me.
Annapolis, Md.: Gene, I made it to the final game, and I owe you a big thanks as I have a few of the same guys as you on your team.
QB: Garrard or Brunell? WR: Housh or B. Lloyd?
Gene Wang: I accept payment in checks, money orders or cold, hard cash. Seriously, congrats on advancing to the title game, and good luck with Garrard and TJ Housh.
I am the only female in my fantasy league and am fighting my fiance for 3rd place this week. Can you advise on who to play for WR-C. Chambers, H. Ward, Ji Smith, E. Moulds, B. Stokley and D. Branch...If you also have suggestions for my running back I would appreciate it! M. Anderson, F. Taylor, J. Jones, M. Barber
Thanks Much and Happy Holidays!
Gene Wang: I don't want to be held responsible for breaking up your marriage, but here goes. I like Chambers, Ward and Branch. As for RB, I'm starting Mike Anderson in one of my leagues, and I need a huge game from him.
Great column/chat. I am in my league championship game this weekend and would appreciate your thoughts on my lineup. I am currently starting Drew Brees, Shaun Alexander, Thomas Jones, Chad Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Rod Smith, Jason Witten, Nick Keading and the Chicago D.
My significant reserves are Jake Plummer, Marion Barber, David Givens and Lee Evans (I also have Adrian Peterson and Maurice Morris). Jonathn Wells and Michael Turner are available free agents.
Is my lineup alright the way it is or should I bring someone in off the bench and/or pick up a free agent?
Thanks and sorry for the long question. Good luck with your fantasy teams and Merry Christmas!
Gene Wang: I like your lineup just the way it is.
Baltimore, Md.: Hi Gene, I have Peyton Manning and there are many QB's I can pick up... Vick, Bledsoe, Roethlisberger, Garrard, Fitzpatrick, Navarre and Boller. Please let me know if any are worth a pickup. Also, I have Cin., Balt., Seat. for def. and N.E. is available. Please pick 1. Thanks again and good luck this week.
Gene Wang: I like Garrard's matchup this week vs. the Texans, but that's no reason to bench Manning. Peyton's numbers in one half probably will be better than most over an entire game. New England's defense is a good play against a weak Jets offense.
Rockville, Md.: Gene -- thanks for all the advice you've doled out this year. Should I start Andre Johnson (vs. JAX), Dante Hall (vs. DEN), or Ashley Lelie (vs. OAK) at WR3? If it matters, we get a point for every 20 return yards as well.
Gene Wang: I think the Broncos will be able to get deep on the Raiders secondary, so my inclination would be to go with Lelie.
Chesapeake, Va.: Mr. Gene! I've reached the championship game in my first-ever fantasy season. I'm a little concerned because my team is Seahawks-heavy and I'm not sure what to do about my receiving corps.
Against Indianapolis, is Shaun Alexander going to have a bigger game than his backup, Maurice Morris? I own both.
Joe Jurevicius? Bobby Engram? Jerry Porter? Isaac Bruce? Deion Branch? I'm a little iffy. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks!
Gene Wang: The Seahawks still have plenty to play for (home-field advantage), so Alexander will play his share. On a personal note, I really need him to have a big game because my opponent's lineup is stacked! I like Engram over JJ, and I also like Deion Branch.
Thanks for all of your help this season. w/o you, i don't go to the finals. my opponent has hasselbach and alexander. i can start three RB's. who do i go with?? mc gahee, james (??), foster, bell, or taylor??
Which D do you like better: NE or CINCY's?
Do I start gould vs. the pack or do i stay with graham???
Much appreciative of your help. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you. see you next season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gene Wang: McGahee, James (yes, I like Edge even if he doesn't play the entire game) and Foster. I like NE's defense and Graham as well. For everyone worried about starting Colts players, I'm convinced Dungy will give those guys a good amount of work after they lost last week. They don't want to go into the playoffs on a mini losing streak.
Another championship on the line: So Gene, who would you start as your 2nd QB behind C. Palmer? C. Simms or J. McCown?
Ellicott City, Md.: Grossman over McCown??? The Rexter will only throw it 15 times all game! Is Josh that bad a choice??
Gene Wang: I think the Bears will give Grossman more opportunities to throw because he simply is a better passer than Kyle Orton. Lovie Smith is starting Grossman because he makes the Bears more of a downfield threat. And you've got to like the Bears matchup against the Packers, right? I mean, if Kyle Boller can throw for three touchdowns against the Pack . . .
This is the first time that I have played FF, and now I am the only chickie in the playoffs! Woohoo! I am playing the same fella in the playoffs that I lost to last week. My main producer is L.T.. I picked up Michael Turner, but I do not know who to put up. I have Rudi Johnson as my other RB.
I also have a dilemma with my QB situation. Vick or Bledsoe? Neither provided points for me last week.
Any advice would be appreciated!! Merry Xmas! And GO SKINS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gene Wang: You have to figure LT will play this week in must-win game for the Chargers. I like Vick a little more than Bledsoe, but both have very tough matchups this weekend.
I'm in the same boat as you are at wide receiver. So who is it this week- Roy Williams or Terry Glenn? No pressure. It's just that my league title is at stake.
Thanks for the great season of advice.
Gene Wang: I may end up flipping a coin on this one. It'll be a game-time decision for me. Right now I like Glenn though.
Gene Wang: Thanks for all your questions, and good luck to all in the playoffs. Time for me to finish the rest of my Christmas shopping! I'm told there will be a bonus fantasy chat in two weeks, so join me then for the final one of the season. Happy holidays, and see you next year.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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The Post's Gene Wang helps you through the fantasy football season.
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Movies: "The New World"
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Lead actor Q'orianka Kilcher will be online Thursday, Dec. 22, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss her role in the Terrence Malick film, "The New World," an adventure set amid the clash of European and Native American cultures during the founding of Jamestown in 1607. The story is inspired by the legend of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Kilcher) and dramatizes the relationship of two strong-willed characters and their struggles with civic duty and love.
Watch the Trailer (New Line Cinema)
The film opens in Washington on Friday, Jan. 13.
Baltimore, Md.: What is the derivation of your first name?
Q'orianka Kilcher: My mom made it up in Quechua, my native Peruvian language, and it means Golden Eagle.
Anonymous: Terrence Malick has a really good reputation for making fine films. He's only made four or so. What kind of a director is he? Was he easy to work with? Did he expect a lot?
Q'orianka Kilcher: He's a very spur of the moment kind of director. And he likes to act on his impulses which is great for me because I love acting on my impulses at the risk of being wrong or looking silly. So it really worked out between us. There was never a dull moment on the set. You never knew what to expect. He allowed his actors to fully immerse themselves in their characters and let us bring to life our characters in our own way.
Arlington, Va.: Looked like you guys were out in the wilderness to make the movie. Did you get any weird bug bites during filming?
Q'orianka Kilcher: Oh yeah. We were walking through bogs full of leeches and there were ticks, spiders, everything you could imagine in the grass and everywhere. I was fortunate I didn't get bitten by ticks of any bugs and I don't why because I was the one who ran through it all. Terry was always telling me to run through the grass and everywhere.
Lyme, Conn.: How did you get this role? Were you noted from a previous role and recruited for this part, or did you audition, or what did you do? Good luck with your career.
Q'orianka Kilcher: I was actually submitted for a TV series called Into the West and the same casting office was also casting The New World. And so, an assistant to Renee Haines Casting, Joanna, she saw my photo on the table and thought I looked like an Indian Julia Roberts and persisted on them for three days risking her job and they finally brought me in because on the beginning day, we're like, "No, no, no, she's way too young ..." Because they working for someone 18 or older, 17 being the youngest to play the role of Pocahontas. So I kept on going to audition after audition and they always told me that I was too young for the role except they wanted to see me and I went in for probably 15 auditions and I never knew what to expect in the auditions. Because they would tell me to do a traditional dance, sing and play my Native American flute or try to memorize something within 5 or 10 minutes to see if I was able to withstand the pressures of how it would kind of be on a movie set.
And so, when I got the call from the producer Sarah Green that I got the role I was walking in Beverly Hills and I stopped in the middle of the street and started screaming and dancing. Yeah, it was unbelievable. And that's it.
Fairfax, Va.: Were you intimidated by the role of Pocahontas because the legend is so well known? Was that hard for you to get over? Did you watch previous movies about the story?
Q'orianka Kilcher: I didn't watch any previous movies about the story and I just knew the cartoon like everyone else, but once I got to Virginia they had a great research team and they gave me tons and tons of books to do research in. That was my biggest challenge throughout the entire filming, to do Pocahontas justice and show her story as best as I could to the world. And the more I read about the Algonquin Indians of Virginia and Pocahontas I fell more in love with it and wanted to do the Native American story even more justice.
Have to ask: What was it like to kiss Colin Farrell? Did you feel overwhelmed since you're so much younger and acting with seasoned vets like Christopher Plummer? What is Terrence Malick like to work with? Heard he's kind of intense.
Q'orianka Kilcher: I was first of all extremely honored to be able to work with such an accomplished cast as well as director. I admit I was a bit scared the first day on set but everyone was so supportive and really helped me through the entire process and being able to be on set and watch these wonderful actors taught me so much and kissing Colin Farrell ... yeah, what 14-year-old wouldn't want to have him as their first kiss? He was like my older brother and really took me under his wing and he taught me so much in acting as well as in life and he was really wonderful.
Christopher Plummer was grand. He was so sweet. I saw him like my grandfather and he just had a glow about him that was so kind and sweet. I didn't get to work with him unfortunately but on set he was such a gentleman.
Washington, D.C.: What's Christian Bale like to work with?
Q'orianka Kilcher: Working with such a seasoned, accomplished actor like Christian Bale was a dream come true because being on set with him and him taking his work so serious was amazing for me to observe and learn so much. And he was such a gentleman and a very kind, kind guy.
Washington, D.C.: For you, what became your most important actor's frame of reference in portraying someone being dragged between two extremely different cultures?
Q'orianka Kilcher: It was the birthing of a nation, the sacrifice and nearly death of a culture and the culture still exists today, the Native Americans that remain but they really began to take a severe hard beating from the day the English arrived in Virginia in 1607.
By doing lots of research, setting my mind in the 1600s and wearing the different clothes from Pocahontas's traditional tribal clothes vs. her English wardrobe, really helped me in portraying Pocahontas as a free spirit in a sense running through the woods than her becoming a confined English woman. Just the clothing itself affected me so much in portraying Pocahontas that the first time I wore my corset and my English shoes I went home and I cried. Because I felt like such a caged bird and to think Pocahontas went through, in a sense, changing everything who she was, was amazing and sad for me.
Wheaton, Md.: How did John Smith communicate with the Algonquins in real life? And, how is it handled in the movie?
Q'orianka Kilcher: Sign language, for both.
Chesapeake, Va.: I was a student at William and Mary while the movie was being filmed in the area, and I know some professors were involved with the film's historical accuracy, etc. How much training did you get in the Powhatan culture and how much was guessing? Thanks, I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie.
Q'orianka Kilcher: Me personally, I did lots of research on the Powhatan tribe because it was something very close to me. Because I was portraying Pocahontas, a very important person for the Algonquin tribe and for Virginia's history. In the movie, however, they did do lots of research except it was really Terrence Malick's vision of the story.
Washington, D.C.: Who do you think the film will appeal to?
Q'orianka Kilcher: I think all ages. Those who have a love for history through the eyes of Terrence Malick.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Q'orianka Kilcher, Pocahontas in the new Terrence Malick film, "The New World," will discuss her role in the movie and her other projects.
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Microsoft Is Losing Some Of Its Elbow Room
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Rob Enderle, a longtime Silicon Valley analyst and observer of Microsoft Corp., remembers what used to happen when a tech start-up sought funding for a business that might brush up against the software giant's universe.
"It would be hard to get a meeting" with venture capitalists, Enderle recalls. "It would be harder not to get laughed at in the meeting. And to get any money, you'd have to get them drunk first."
The danger was that if Microsoft felt threatened by, or even jealous of, a new or rival technology, it could create something similar and fold it into its Windows operating system. Since Windows powered just about every personal computer on the planet, Microsoft's version of the new program would get unassailable, worldwide distribution.
Windows is still the brains of nearly every PC, and Microsoft remains one of the most profitable, powerful and storied companies ever created. But the shadow cast by the colossus of Redmond, Wash., is looking less imposing today.
Its financial growth is slowing -- in the single digits in sales growth for fiscal 2005 over the previous year, for the first time in the company's history -- and its stock has been flat for five years. It missed some of the most popular technology advances in recent years, such as searching the Internet and downloading music. It continues to fight antitrust battles in Europe and Asia and has had to divert resources to confront persistent security holes in its software.
Meanwhile, a handful of Internet companies such as Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc. and most particularly Google Inc. have matured into well-financed rivals challenging Microsoft in several areas. In the most recent example of Microsoft's fall from almighty status, Google outmaneuvered and outbid it for a stake in America Online Inc., a combination Microsoft hoped would boost its own MSN online service.
Today, Google is the verb for search. AOL's instant-messaging service still dominates the landscape. File-sharing software and Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes have redefined how the digital world gets and listens to music and videos. Yahoo is the most trafficked Internet portal.
"Now," Enderle said, "it's Google" that worries venture capitalists eyeing software start-ups.
These might seem like mere speed bumps for a 60,000-employee company that in the 2004-05 fiscal year generated $1.4 million in profit every hour. But they speak to what many analysts say is the most significant challenge Microsoft has ever faced:
The center of the computing experience is rapidly moving from the desktop of the PC, which Microsoft largely owns, to the Internet, which it does not. With Internet connections getting faster and more able to handle large volumes of information, whole software programs can be delivered or used online.
Thus, in what is known as the Web 2.0 world, a start-up aptly named Upstartle LLC offers an online program for creating, writing and sharing documents. Whereas the Microsoft Office suite that includes such tools costs more than $140, Upstartle's Writely.com service is free, with add-on features to be made available for a subscription fee later.
"Where I do my word processing, how I collaborate, maintaining my social network . . . those things are shifting away from Microsoft," said Tom Bittman, a research fellow at Gartner Inc., a market research company.
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Rob Enderle, a longtime Silicon Valley analyst and observer of Microsoft Corp., remembers what used to happen when a tech start-up sought funding for a business that might brush up against the software giant's universe.
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Iraq's Election Result
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IT DIDN'T TAKE long for Iraq's inspiring election day last week to give way to renewed violence, bitter charges of fraud and threats of even bloodier sectarian conflict in the months ahead. Before turning to those sobering developments, however, it's worth taking note of what happened last Thursday: Nearly 10.9 million Iraqis turned out to vote around the country, up from 9 million in January's election and 9.8 million in the October constitutional referendum. The turnout rate, about 70 percent, was considerably higher than that in any modern American election; it was easily the most democratic poll in the history of the Arab Middle East. Iraqis, if not all of their leaders, have unmistakably chosen to try democracy as a means of constructing a new political order.
The results, however, may make it more difficult to build that order than the Bush administration hoped. The Shiite religious coalition that dominates the present government appears to have obtained a slightly lower percentage of the vote than in January, because of much greater Sunni participation. But it will still have by far the largest block of seats in the new parliament, and perhaps a narrow majority. Kurdish and Sunni parties appear to have won just under 20 percent of the vote each, in keeping with their share of the population. That means Sunni seats in the legislature will more than double compared with the present transitional body.
The big losers were secular and nonsectarian parties, such as that led by former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi. Iraqis "preferred to vote for their ethnic and sectarian identity," as U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad put it. The problem with this result, Mr. Khalilzad candidly added, is that "for Iraq to succeed there has to be cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic cooperation."
The opening round of what is likely to be a prolonged post-election power struggle among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds was discouraging. Sunni leaders and Mr. Allawi charged that they had been robbed of votes, in Baghdad and elsewhere, by Shiite-orchestrated fraud. Though election officials conceded some irregularities, the Sunni complaint appeared driven less by facts than by the arrogant sense of entitlement that continues to infect that community. Unwilling to accept a share of power equal to their proportion of the population, Sunni leaders now threaten another boycott of the political system and an escalation of their war against the government and U.S. forces.
Shiite religious leaders, bolstered by their strong showing, may not be obliged to heed even reasonable Sunni demands in order to name a president and prime minister. The leading Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, remains determined to establish a nine-province Shiite ministate in southern Iraq; its leader has hinted at escalating a dirty war against the Sunni resistance spearheaded by the party's own death squads. Kurdish leaders appear willing to collaborate in Iraq's de facto partition so they can establish their own ministate in the north.
Some Shiite leaders, including the Supreme Council's likely candidate for prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, appear open to building a broad government coalition including Sunnis, in the hope of defusing the insurgency. Yet the election results mean that such an accord, requiring deep political concessions by all ethnic and sectarian groups, will be possible only through forceful and skilled U.S. intervention. Mr. Khalilzad seems to understand what must be done: He has spoken out in recent days not only about the need for compromise but also for steps to neutralize the ethnic militias now pushing toward civil war. The next few months are likely to determine whether Iraq tips into that war or toward a national compromise based on democracy. Though it cannot necessarily determine the path Iraqis will take, the Bush administration must use all the leverage it can muster in favor of those who chose democracy.
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IT DIDN'T TAKE long for Iraq's inspiring election day last week to give way to renewed violence, bitter charges of fraud and threats of even bloodier sectarian conflict in the months ahead. Before turning to those sobering developments, however, it's worth taking note of what happened last...
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And the Saga on Arctic Oil Drilling Continues
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Lawmakers have feuded over drilling in Alaska's wilderness for a quarter-century, ever since Congress in 1980 passed a law saying only it could determine whether drilling was permissible in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In 1995, the leaders of the new Republican majority in Congress thought they finally had succeeded in a long-sought goal by passing a bill permitting oil drilling in the refuge. But President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure under prodding from environmentalists.
Emboldened by their electoral gains and President Bush's reelection in 2004, Republicans thought they had gained enough clout on Capitol Hill this year to muscle the bill through as part of the annual budget process.
But yesterday, proponents were thwarted once again. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) hoped he had his adversaries cornered when he attached the drilling plan to an essential measure to fund ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But two Republicans joined 42 Democrats in filibustering the defense bill that would have authorized drilling. Last night, the Senate agreed to pass the defense bill, without the drilling provision.
Yesterday's procedural vote -- in which drilling supporters failed to gain enough votes to end the filibuster and force action -- gave environmentalists a rare legislative win on Capitol Hill, and it ensured that an oil-rich 1.5 million-acre stretch of the Arctic will remain untouched for the immediate future.
The refuge, which has at least 5 billion barrels of oil beneath its surface, shelters birthing caribou as well as musk oxen and millions of migratory birds each year.
"This is the greatest environmental victory of the year," said Lydia Weiss, a lobbyist for the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife. "We are thrilled the Senate did not go down the slippery slope of holding a defense bill hostage over this toxic legislation."
The failure of drilling advocates to push forward a measure that has spent so long on the brink of passage highlights some complicated politics within the Republican Party. GOP leaders had to back down earlier this year when moderate Republicans in the House protested a move to add it to a comprehensive budget bill.
But Stevens, the Senate's most influential drilling proponent, refused to back down, tacking the measure onto the defense spending measure. His blunt lobbying tactics were even directed toward his GOP colleagues. In an e-mail, he said that if the defense bill failed to go through this would upend the budget process generally -- endangering favored projects in their states.
The warning worked with moderate GOP Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine.), who issued a statement yesterday after the vote saying that she worried an impasse over the defense appropriations bill would endanger subsidized low-income heating funds.
Two key Republicans, Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio), were unmoved, arguing that Arctic drilling would not solve the nation's energy problems.
"We've got to find other ways to be energy independent," DeWine said in an interview.
Stevens's year-end maneuvering also infuriated Senate Democrats: At one point during Sunday night's debate, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) slammed his microphone down and refused to allow Stevens to respond to criticism. Yesterday, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said Stevens was to blame for holding up money for the military.
"I am not the one threatening support for our troops in the middle of a war," Lieberman said.
These senators were bolstered by environmental groups' ambitious media and grass-roots lobbying campaign this week, which featured full-page ads in eight national, regional and Capitol Hill newspapers, and thousands of phone calls to key senators. Former president Jimmy Carter plotted strategy with Reid last weekend and spoke yesterday with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who voted against the Arctic measure.
The American Petroleum Institute condemned the Senate action, saying "its refusal to seize this opportunity does a disservice to American consumers and fails to acknowledge that the consequences of inaction are adverse and significant."
And even the refuge's most passionate advocates said they expected another drilling fight next year.
"We've been arguing about ANWR for the 21 years I've been here -- it's not going to go away," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "I'm confident we will see another debate on ANWR."
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Lawmakers have feuded over drilling in Alaska's wilderness for a quarter-century, ever since Congress in 1980 passed a law saying only it could determine whether drilling was permissible in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start
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The Department of Homeland Security was only a month old, and already it had an image problem.
It was April 2003, and Susan Neely, a close aide to DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, decided the gargantuan new conglomeration of 22 federal agencies had to stand for something more than multicolored threat levels. It needed an identity -- not the "flavor of the day in terms of brand chic," as Neely put it, but something meant to last.
So she called in the branders.
Neely hired Landor Associates, the same company that invented the FedEx name and the BP sunflower, and together they began to rebrand a behemoth Landor described in a confidential briefing as a "disparate organization with a lack of focus." They developed a new DHS typeface (Joanna, with modifications) and color scheme (cool gray, red and hints of "punched-up" blue). They debated new uniforms for its armies of agents and focus-group-tested a new seal designed to convey "strength" and "gravitas." The department even got its own lapel pin, which was given to all 180,000 of its employees -- with Ridge's signature -- to celebrate its "brand launch" that June.
"It's got to have its own story," Neely explained.
Nearly three years after it was created in the largest government reorganization since the Department of Defense, DHS does have a story, but so far it is one of haphazard design, bureaucratic warfare and unfulfilled promises. The department's first significant test -- its response to Hurricane Katrina in August -- exposed a troubled organization where preparedness was more slogan than mission.
Born out of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, DHS was initially expected to synthesize intelligence, secure borders, protect infrastructure and prepare for the next catastrophe. For most of those missions, the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission recently gave the Bush administration D's or F's. To some extent, the department was set up to fail. It was assigned the awesome responsibility of defending the homeland without the investigative, intelligence and military powers of the FBI, CIA and the Pentagon; it was also repeatedly undermined by the White House that initially opposed its creation. But the department has also struggled to execute even seemingly basic tasks, such as prioritizing America's most critical infrastructure.
When Coast Guard Adm. James M. Loy signed on as Ridge's top deputy in the fall of 2003, "I found turmoil," he recalled, and "lack of strategic direction." When Loy left earlier this year, he believed DHS was sorely in need of "a midcourse correction." And Michael Chertoff, Ridge's successor, said in an interview that when he arrived in February, he was disturbed by the department's "insufficient focus on outcome and mission." Chertoff was so disturbed that he has already proposed a broad restructuring of DHS.
"We're not where we need to be," he said.
President Bush hailed DHS as his administration's answer to the "urgent and overriding" mission of securing the homeland. But the department designed in secrecy and haste in the White House basement and complicated further on Capitol Hill was hobbled from the start by what the branders called a "Rube Goldberg drawing" of an organization chart.
Interviews with dozens of participants in DHS's formation and operation -- including Ridge and Chertoff, White House aides, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, and current and former DHS officials -- suggest the sheer magnitude of the bureaucratic challenge overwhelmed the department's leaders. They worked almost full time on the merger, too busy to do much more than manage their inboxes, referee internal turf wars and wage losing battles with departments that commanded more clout at the White House.
Most corporate mergers fail, and even the successful ones often take years to produce dividends. DHS can point to some results, including hardened cockpit doors on commercial airliners, background checks for truckers and radiation detectors at ports. DHS has consolidated eight payroll providers into one system, and 22 human resources offices into seven. And there has not been another terrorist attack.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program
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The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.
Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court.
"The questions are obvious," said U.S. District Judge Dee Benson of Utah. "What have you been doing, and how might it affect the reliability and credibility of the information we're getting in our court?"
Such comments underscored the continuing questions among judges about the program, which most of them learned about when it was disclosed last week by the New York Times. On Monday, one of 10 FISA judges, federal Judge James Robertson, submitted his resignation -- in protest of the president's action, according to two sources familiar with his decision. He will maintain his position on the U.S. District Court here.
Other judges contacted yesterday said they do not plan to resign but are seeking more information about the president's initiative. Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who also sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, told fellow FISA court members by e-mail Monday that she is arranging for them to convene in Washington, preferably early next month, for a secret briefing on the program, several judges confirmed yesterday.
Two intelligence sources familiar with the plan said Kollar-Kotelly expects top-ranking officials from the National Security Agency and the Justice Department to outline the classified program to the members.
The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.
The highly classified FISA court was set up in the 1970s to authorize secret surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects within the United States. Under the law setting up the court, the Justice Department must show probable cause that its targets are foreign governments or their agents. The FISA law does include emergency provisions that allow warrantless eavesdropping for up to 72 hours if the attorney general certifies there is no other way to get the information.
Still, Bush and his advisers have said they need to operate outside the FISA system in order to move quickly against suspected terrorists. In explaining the program, Bush has made the distinction between detecting threats and plots and monitoring likely, known targets, as FISA would allow.
Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a large-scale eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the court requires to approve a warrant. Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.
One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.
"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Court Bars Transfer of Padilla To Face New Terrorism Charges
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A federal appeals court yesterday refused to authorize the transfer of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla to face new criminal charges, issuing a strongly worded opinion rebuking the Bush administration and its handling of the high-profile terrorism case.
The same court that had granted the administration wide latitude in holding Padilla without charges or a court appearance now is suggesting that the detention was a mistake. As a result, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said prosecutors could not take custody of Padilla from the military and take him to Miami, where he now faces indictment on terrorism charges.
In issuing its denial, the court cited the government's changing rationale for Padilla's detention, questioning why it used one set of arguments before federal judges deciding whether it was legal for the military to hold Padilla and another set before the Miami grand jury.
Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was arrested in Chicago in 2002, initially was accused of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb," declared an enemy combatant and held for more than three years in Defense Department custody. But in the criminal charges brought last month, the government does not mention the alleged bomb plot or any attack in the United States.
The government's actions have left "the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake," the court wrote. That impression, the judges said, may hurt the government's "credibility before the courts."
Padilla, a former gang member, has been at the center of a heated battle over governmental powers that arose after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because he was imprisoned so long without the opportunity to challenge his detention.
Justice Department officials now must decide whether to defy the court and take Padilla before a federal judge in Miami. Tasia Scolinos, a department spokeswoman, said the government is "disappointed that the court has denied the unopposed motion to transfer Jose Padilla to the criminal justice system to face the terrorism charges currently pending against him." She said department lawyers are reviewing the order and "will continue to consider all options with respect to pursuing the criminal charges as expeditiously as possible."
In requesting the transfer to Justice Department custody, the government suggested that the 4th Circuit vacate its ruling allowing Padilla to be held as an enemy combatant. But the 4th Circuit yesterday also refused to lift the earlier decision and suggested that the Justice Department request was made to avoid further judicial scrutiny.
The judges said prosecutors had left "an appearance that the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of our decision by the Supreme Court." They said they welcomed Supreme Court intervention because of the "enormous implications" of the Padilla case.
Some lawyers said high court involvement might be inevitable because it would be difficult for the administration to defy an appellate court and transfer Padilla at a time when it faces criticism over a secret domestic spying program and other parts of its counterterrorism efforts.
"They've been kind of beat up lately about the way they've conducted the war on terrorism," said Eric H. Holder Jr., who was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. "It's a difficult thing for them now to take another hit from the 4th Circuit, and then do something contrary to what that court says."
Although the Justice Department asked the 4th Circuit for permission to take custody of Padilla, the department maintained that it does not need that permission. Even the 4th Circuit acknowledged yesterday that the issue is "unclear."
Jonathan Freiman, a lawyer for Padilla, said only that the 4th Circuit opinion "speaks loudly for itself."
Legal experts said the decision showed that a previously friendly appellate court was now casting a more skeptical eye toward the Bush administration's terrorism arguments. The Richmond-based 4th Circuit has been the administration's venue of choice for several high-profile terrorism cases. It is widely considered the nation's most conservative appellate court, and the same three-judge panel that issued yesterday's ruling had earlier strongly backed the president's authority to detain Padilla without trial. Both decisions were written by Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was a leading contender to be nominated to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
"Obviously, the court feels very stung by being presented with what it thought to be a serious and heartfelt argument by the administration [to hold Padilla originally], only to learn it would turn on a dime," said Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.
Padilla was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in May 2002 and declared an enemy combatant by President Bush a month later. Padilla has been held in a U.S. naval brig since.
Attorneys for Padilla, joined by a host of civil liberties organizations, blasted the detention as illegal, but the 4th Circuit panel ruled in September that Bush had the authority to detain Padilla and that such power is essential to preventing terrorist strikes.
Last month, Padilla was indicted in Miami on federal charges of being part of a violent terrorism conspiracy rooted in North America but directed at sending money and recruits overseas to "murder, kidnap and maim." The indictment did not mention the dirty bomb or any plot to attack inside the U.S.
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Continuing coverage of the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process from The Washington Post.
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Used Medical Devices Being Sold on EBay
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Consumers can buy and sell almost anything on eBay, the giant online auctioneer -- including a used tube designed to be inserted into a patient's jugular.
That little-known commodity, a refurbished single-use medical device, was recently offered by a seller who could not be identified, and there was no way of knowing who bought it and whether it was ultimately used on a patient.
Manufacturers of single-use devices say they cannot vouch for the safety of their instruments if they are reconditioned. Those who sell such devices say there is no credible evidence that their refurbished devices are riskier than new devices, and they say they can save hospitals about half the cost of a new device.
But are hospitals buying medical devices on eBay? There is little way to know.
EBay Inc. says it is not its role to oversee the buying and selling of such devices on its service. "We don't take responsibility for items sold on the site," said company spokesman Hani Durzy. "We're a marketplace."
That means buyers and sellers of reprocessed single-use medical devices on eBay operate largely under the radar. In many cases, there is no certain way of knowing where sellers obtained such used medical devices and no sure way of knowing who bought them, interviews and records show.
Among the more visible online marketers is ClearMedical Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., one of the five largest reprocessors in the United States. In a three-month experiment last year, the company said, it operated an eBay virtual "storefront," selling reused single-use medical devices that it considers "non-invasive" because they do not enter the bloodstream when used on patients. That includes pulse oximeter sensors, which measure oxygen in the blood, and compression sleeves, which increase circulation. (One bidder offered $450 for a set of compression sleeves; ClearMedical said that was about a 30 percent discount off the original price.)
Privately held ClearMedical declined to disclose sales results from the test market, but chief executive Gregg Bennett said it went so well, "we have bigger plans in process." He declined to disclose them.
When asked how ClearMedical can know who is buying its devices online, Bennett said his firm can ask buyers to "validate" themselves; a hospital, for example, can furnish a copy of its purchase order, he said. But if individuals want to buy a reprocessed medical device, he said, there is little that can be done to confirm their identity. Bennett added, however, "Nobody's concerned about that here. Why would anyone [outside of the medical field] want to buy one of those devices?"
As it turns out, there is a market for medical devices on the Web. In 2004, an Arizona medical clinic bought a pacemaker on eBay, and it was implanted in a patient. The pacemaker, it was discovered, had been stolen. On eBay, a company called Trimey this year offered for sale devices reprocessed by Phoenix-based Alliance Medical Corp., the nation's biggest reprocessor. That included percutaneous lead introducers -- long, narrow plastic tubes that surgeons insert into a vein, such as the jugular. Such devices are used in cardiac surgery; for example, a surgeon will thread an electrical wire through the lead introducer into a patient's heart, which is used to temporarily pace the heart.
On eBay, the reprocessed device had a starting bid of $4.99 -- at least 20 times lower than the regular cost of a lead introducer package. The eBay seller did not respond to e-mail; there was no telephone listing for Trimey in Mentor, Ohio, where it stated online that it was based; and no incorporation records could be found.
"We don't condone it and certainly don't support" such sales, said Don Selvey, Alliance's vice president of regulatory affairs and quality assurance. Alliance has alerted the online service that reprocessed devices are not to be sold on eBay. Through a spokesman, he also said he did not know where sellers obtained the reprocessed devices.
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This is your source for news on personal technology. Find info and reviews on the newest technology that affects your life. Read our latest features on new tech gadgets.
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Chuck Hagel: A Christmas Present, and Past
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On camera, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) wore concealer under his eyes, covering the shadows from a late last night. On camera, on "Face the Nation," the senator analyzed Iraq, and during breaks he parried questions about running for president. On camera, on Sunday morning, he was loose and concise, while Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) opined through clenched incisors, and the CBS audio assistant snored.
Then Hagel, 59, unclipped his microphone, and the techs dimmed the lights. He stepped out of the studio and off camera.
"Last night, I stayed home with the dog," Hagel said, the words spilling, messy and excited. The election in Iraq was historic, but so was this small piece of personal history: "A big box arrived."
Hagel's Aunt Doris, 92, had found a box from his father. Inside were schoolboy pictures; letters his father, Charles, had written as a tail gunner in World War II; napkins from his wedding -- Valentine's Day, 1946.
"My father died when I was in high school," Hagel said. He hadn't seen his handwriting or heard his thoughts since.
All day Saturday, at home in McLean, Hagel had holed up with the box. In the evening, Hagel asked his wife, Lilibet, to take their teenage children to the movies. Hagel sat in silence in the library, reading more than a hundred letters, as his great-grandmother's clock chimed every half-hour.
"This is a treasure chest," Hagel said, weeks later, as he dipped his hands into the box. "Here's 1945, '44, '43," he said, holding up batches of yellowing letters with 6-cent U.S. Army stamps.
Although he reluctantly agreed to show them, Hagel hadn't shared them with anyone yet, not even with his wife. Reading his father's letters was a raw and awkward rite, a reunion with a man lost for 43 years. "You need to sit back and savor them," Hagel said. "Rather than go through like a corn sheller."
Here is what Hagel had known about his father: He married Betty after the war, and later that year they had Chuck. He was tough on his younger son, Tom. He was strapping.
Here is what Hagel learned from the letters: He married Betty despite his parents' concerns and his sister's suggestion that he date "Grace." His handwriting was identical to Tom's. His sister called him "Pee Wee."
Hagel also discovered his father's feelings about war. "My father was about the same age in the war as I had been," Hagel said, touching his temples. In Vietnam, Chuck, 21, and brother Tom, 19, had fought and nearly died together as infantry squad leaders. In 1968, their armored personnel carrier hit a 500-pound mine. It blew out Chuck's eardrums, set him on fire -- "the whole left side of my face bubbled." Chuck pulled Tom, unconscious, from the burning gunner turret. Chuck saved his brother's life just months after Tom had saved his, when shrapnel ripped Chuck's chest.
"We had hundreds of conversations -- if our dad would have lived, what would he think of the world?" Hagel said.
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On camera, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) wore concealer under his eyes, covering the shadows from a late last night. On camera, on "Face the Nation," the senator analyzed Iraq, and during breaks he parried questions about running for president. On camera, on Sunday morning, he was loose and concise,...
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Dancers, Ballet Out of Step in Pas de Deux
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2005122319
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A week has gone by since the Washington Ballet began canceling "Nutcracker" performances, a move that ultimately led to scratching all the remaining shows. What is being called the "nuclear option" -- shutting down the profitable "Nutcracker" -- has led only to further conflict and confusion.
The dispute over whether the dancers had declared a strike last week (management's view) or were locked out by management (as the dancers claim) has been given a new twist. For the past two days, when the dancers have shown up for their previously scheduled rehearsals, they have been turned away by Artistic Director Septime Webre.
The Washington Ballet is the city's oldest and best-known dance group. Webre, brought in seven years ago to bring new life to the ballet, has had some success, but this month's labor dispute has threatened to undo that.
Money is not the primary issue. The thorny questions involve how much control Webre should have. Can he hire and fire without restrictions? Can he change the size of the company? Should there be limits on how he conducts rehearsals to prevent injuries? Can he cast students from the Washington School of Ballet in productions anytime he likes?
On Tuesday, Webre seemed happy to see the dancers, but he said he was not prepared for them even though the rehearsal had long been scheduled, according to dancer Luis Torres. There was confusion over whether there would be rehearsals Wednesday.
When the dancers arrived Wednesday at the ballet's studio on Wisconsin Avenue, Webre read to them from a letter Executive Director Jason Palmquist had sent to the union last Friday. The letter stated, in part, "We will advise you as to what if any rehearsal obligations the dancers will be expected to fulfill in light of the consequences of the now-canceled 'Nutcracker' run."
Regardless of the scheduling confusion, that letter, Webre said, effectively canceled rehearsals until January. After reading the letter, Webre told the dancers it was a "very heartbreaking situation," Torres said. But the dancers left feeling confused.
"I really don't understand what they're trying to do, because it makes no sense to me," Torres said. "It almost felt rehearsed. When someone asks a question you don't expect them to hand you a letter. It was a different mood than the day before, when he was excited to see that we wanted to rehearse. It was like Jason was calling the shots."
"I was certainly glad to see them," Webre said Wednesday night, "but it surprised me that they were there because rehearsals had been canceled."
Webre added that he hopes to resume rehearsals on Jan. 3 "so that we can get back to the business of making art."
For union officials, the scrapped rehearsals are one more symptom of deeper communication problems. "We're not on strike. We're doing business as normal," said Eleni Kallas, local representative of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the dancers union. "Our dancers have fulfilled every job obligation that has not been canceled. The ballet has been in denial from Day One, in denial that they have a problem, in denial that they need to change and in denial now that they have locked us out."
Ballet officials say they will resume contract talks with AGMA in January. Until then, they will be trying to figure out how much money they lost by dropping the last 10 days of "The Nutcracker's" three-week run. The Christmas "Nutcracker" accounts for more than half the troupe's annual revenue. Roughly $780,000 will be refunded to ticket holders.
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Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.
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For Snails, The Slimelight Is Fleeting
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2005122319
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In a town awash in fuzzy panda love, it's hard for a slimy, hermaphrodite mollusk to get a piece of the action.
Still, for the past six weeks, nothing at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has been quite so attention-grabbing as a vitrine containing two heads of cabbage and about 20 brown snails.
This is the big time for snails with art-world aspirations, being part of a major work at a high-profile museum. Ann Hamilton's 1989 "Palimpsest" is a room-size installation that also features handwritten notes on yellowed newsprint pinned to the walls and encased in beeswax floor tiles. The Columbus, Ohio, artist calls it "a meditation on memory, its loss and our finitude."
The Hirshhorn added "Palimpsest" to its permanent collection last year and installed it in late October, part of its "Gyroscope" series. But there have been no snail T-shirts in the museum shop, or snail fan blogs, or a "SnailCam" on the Web. (" Pandas get Web time," you can practically hear the snails mutter.) "Palimpsest" is up through Jan. 3; after that, well, the snails are, how can we put this delicately?
In return for their service to high art, the Hirshhorn snails must face . . . the autoclave. (Did anyone else just hear snails shrieking in terror?) The device, more commonly used to sterilize medical equipment, contains a highly pressurized steam chamber and sounds an awful lot like a convenient way to whip up a batch of escargots. In fact, the snails are actually Helix aspersa , a type of European snail, popular in French cuisine.
We learn of the snails' fate while chatting with Anne Ellegood, a Hirshhorn curator. "It's the most humane method," she says of the autoclave. "We really don't have a choice."
For the museum's first foray into art with live animals, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had to grant special permission for the Hirshhorn to purchase the snails from a biological supply company, Ellegood explains, and the USDA requires the museum to destroy the snails -- considered an agricultural pest -- when "Palimpsest" closes next month.
The Hirshhorn's snail permit wasn't lined up in time for the installation's October debut, though. Despite the artist's specification to display 20 to 25 large snails feeding on two heads of cabbage, slugs actually stood in for the snails for the first two weeks in the vitrine (which is like a terrarium on tall metal legs). Slugs, you see, the shell-less relatives of snails, are free to pursue art gigs without USDA intervention. Hirshhorn staffers found slugs in gardens near the museum on the Mall and returned them once the snails were finally in place.
Hamilton, 49, who has made installations using peacocks, canaries and sheep, says she finds snails "fascinating creatures. There's a sense of wonder when you slow down to watch animals," she says.
Hirshhorn regulars may recall her 2003 work, "At Hand," in which a mechanism showered visitors with a constant rain of paper scraps. "Palimpsest" (it means a manuscript that has been erased and rewritten on, with traces of the original writing still visible) had its premiere at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art and was last seen in 1996 at the Des Moines Art Center. Hamilton hadn't faced USDA regulation when displaying the work in the past.
Conservator Tatiana Ausema, who has primary responsibility for the snails' care, shows us the terrarium in the conservation lab where the snail B-team is kept. (The Hirshhorn initially acquired 48 snails and awaits the arrival of 16 more to offset several deaths, attributed by Ausema to old age.) The snail squads are rotated between the installation and the lab, where they have a more diverse diet and were even given small Christmas stockings by staffers.
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In a town awash in fuzzy panda love, it's hard for a slimy, hermaphrodite mollusk to get a piece of the action.
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Strict Control Key to Taming Diabetes
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Diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar levels can cut their risk of heart attacks and strokes in half, a long-awaited federally funded study shows.
The findings, from nearly 1,400 diabetics who have been followed for more than a decade, provide the first direct evidence that the risk of the most serious complications of the disease, which affects millions of Americans, can be minimized by aggressive treatment, experts said.
"This is the most important diabetes news of the year," said David M. Nathan of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who co-chaired the study, published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is the remaining piece of the puzzle with regard to our ability to take the teeth out of diabetes and make it a less dangerous disease."
Nearly 21 million Americans have diabetes, and the number is rising because of the increasing number of elderly and obese people.
Diabetics' bodies are unable to control the amount of sugar in their blood. Over time, elevated sugar levels can cause damage throughout the body, making diabetics prone to a variety of health problems that include blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage that sometimes requires amputations, and, most seriously, heart attacks and strokes.
In 1993, Nathan and his colleagues revolutionized the treatment of the disease when they reported the results of the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, in which 1,441 patients with Type 1 diabetes were put on either conventional treatment or a strict regimen aimed at tightly controlling their blood sugar, beginning in 1983.
When the study began, the practice of most diabetics was to test their blood sugar once a day and give themselves one or two insulin injections daily. The strict regimen used in the study involved multiple blood sugar tests every day and a minimum of three insulin injections or the use of an insulin pump.
The results, hailed as the most important development in diabetes since insulin, showed that after about six years the strict regimen sharply reduced the risk of the most common complications: eye, kidney and nerve damage. As a result, most doctors began to advocate the aggressive treatment approach and many patients adopted the more difficult lifestyle.
But that study was too short to determine whether strict blood sugar control would also reduce the risk of heart disease, which kills 75 percent of diabetics. For the new study, researchers continued to follow 1,394 subjects from the original study until Feb. 1, 2005, to determine the impact of strict control on heart disease and stroke.
The diabetics on the strict regimen were 42 percent less likely to experience any kind of heart problem and 57 percent less likely to suffer the most serious problems, such as heart attacks or strokes, the researchers found.
"That's a pretty dramatic reduction," Nathan said. "Short of curing diabetes, this is one of the final answers in the puzzle as to whether we can decrease the complications from the disease. This adds something very important to the list of things we know we can improve."
The findings should push more doctors to encourage their patients to embrace the aggressive approach, and more diabetics to work harder at controlling their blood sugar levels, experts said. Despite the 1993 findings, many diabetics fail to tightly control their blood sugar.
"This shows that it is really important both for physicians and patients to really focus on this," said Judith E. Fradkin of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which funded the study. "It requires eternal vigilance, and it's hard. But this is pretty definitive evidence of the value of making that effort."
About 5 to 10 percent of diabetics suffer from the Type 1 form of the disease, which usually begins in childhood and is caused by a breakdown in the body's ability to make insulin. Accumulating evidence suggests patients with the more common Type 2 form of the disease, in which the body either cannot produce enough insulin or cannot use it adequately, are likely to experience similar benefits, experts said. Research has already shown that tight blood sugar control strongly protects Type 2 diabetics against eye, kidney and nerve damage and reduces their risk of heart disease.
"This helps build the case that improving control of blood sugar levels does in fact improve the risk for cardiovascular disease for both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes," said Robert Rizza, president of the American Diabetes Association. "This has important implications for large numbers of patients."
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Diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar levels can cut their risk of heart attacks and strokes in half, a long-awaited federally funded study shows.
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Advocates of 'Intelligent Design' Vow to Continue Despite Ruling
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2005122319
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A federal judge's ruling in Pennsylvania that "intelligent design" is religious fundamentalism dressed in the raiment of science has wounded a politically influential movement.
"It was a real disappointment," biochemist Michael J. Behe, who testified in the trial, said from his office at Lehigh University. "It's hard to say this chills the atmosphere, because if you're publicly known as an ID supporter you can already kiss your tenure chances goodbye. It doesn't help."
But Behe and other proponents of intelligent design emphasized that the court decision would not cast them into the political and cultural wilderness. They have pushed their theory, which holds that life is too complicated to have arisen without the hand of a supernatural creator, to the center of legislative debates in more than a dozen states, and they intend to keep it there.
Some politically influential backers of intelligent design warned that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who was appointed by President Bush, so overreached that his ruling will outrage and inflame millions of conservative and religiously observant Americans.
"This decision is a poster child for a half-century secularist reign of terror that's coming to a rapid end with Justice Roberts and soon-to-be Justice Alito," said Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and is a political ally of White House adviser Karl Rove. "This was an extremely injudicious judge who went way, way beyond his boundaries -- if he had any eyes on advancing up the judicial ladder, he just sawed off the bottom rung."
Jones's expansively written decision incorporated the scientific critique of intelligent design as pseudoscience in almost every detail. Legally, that decision is not binding in other states, such as Kansas, where the state school board is debating incorporating a critique of Darwinian evolution into its state standards.
Kansas officials said they would not mandate specific mention of intelligent design.
"The heart of science should be looking at the gaps in theory and trying to figure out what that's about," said Steve Abrams, a Kansas school board member. "This decision will perhaps have an effect on other states, but we don't talk about intelligent design."
Still, few advocates of intelligent design tried to hide their dismay with the judge's decision. The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, wrote that the judge has a "pernicious understanding of what intellectual and religious freedom in America means." Some acknowledged that the decision foreshadows a much longer and more complicated battle for public acceptance.
Steve Fuller, a philosopher of science at the University of Warwick in England, whose politics tend to the left, said he worries that Jones's decision will drive an intriguing if still half-formed challenge to Darwinian theory out of the academy and into the theology schools. "The judge's ruling really puts the burden on the intelligent-design guys," Fuller said. "The judge's ruling that the theory is theology could become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Other advocates take comfort in history. They note that in 1925, lawyer Clarence Darrow argued and lost the Scopes "monkey trial," in which a teacher was convicted of teaching that man descended from apes. But in the long run, that loss became a victory for evolutionary theory.
William A. Dembski, a philosopher and math professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville, wrote in his Web log that the loss in Pennsylvania means thousands more young people "would continue to be indoctrinated into a neo-Darwinian view of biological origins." But he wrote that the future is bright.
"ID is rapidly going international and crossing metaphysical and theological boundaries," Dembski wrote. "The important thing is ID's intellectual vitality."
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A federal judge's ruling in Pennsylvania that "intelligent design" is religious fundamentalism dressed in the raiment of science has wounded a politically influential movement.
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GOP Challenger to Sen. Clinton Quits Race
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2005122319
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Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro (R) ended her campaign against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday, bringing to a close a brief and decidedly rocky attempt to unseat perhaps the country's most famous Democratic officeholder.
Even as she announced she would shutter her campaign against Clinton, Pirro jumped into the state attorney general's contest. A recent independent poll showed her trailing the two Democrats seeking that office.
In a statement released by her campaign, Pirro said her "law enforcement background better qualifies me for a race for New York State Attorney General than a race for the United States Senate."
Pirro's exit leaves the Republicans adrift for now, with only two obscure candidates vying for the nomination: former Yonkers mayor John Spencer and tax lawyer William Brenner.
From the start of Pirro's Senate campaign in mid-August, she was beset by questions about her fundraising ability and readiness for such a high-profile contest.
Pirro is the second Republican to drop a bid against Clinton, who is seeking a second Senate term next November. New York City lawyer Ed Cox, the son-in-law of President Richard M. Nixon, left the contest Oct. 16 when New York Gov. George E. Pataki (R) announced his support for Pirro.
"We know at some point the Republicans will sort out this process and choose a nominee," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.
Cillizza is a washingtonpost.com staff writer.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Drunk Driving
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2005122319
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Alcohol-impaired driving is one of America's most commonly committed and deadliest crimes. In 2004, 42,639 people died on our Nation's roadways. Thirty-nine percent of these deaths were alcohol-related. That's an average of one alcohol-related motor vehicle crash every 31 minutes. The December holiday season can be a dangerous time for traffic fatalities, especially around the Christmas and New Year's holidays. In this discussion, Amy Berning will discuss the issue of alcohol-impaired driving and high visibility enforcement methods that are being utilized to save lives and keep drunk drivers off the roads.
During this discussion, Amy took questions and comments about drinking and driving during the holiday season.
Amy Berning: Hi, this is Amy. I'm glad to be here and let's chat.
Washington: With all the holiday parties, it's tough to not drink. Is it okay to just have one or two before driving?
Amy Berning: That's a great question. It's important to know that impairment can begin with just one drink. All states now have .08 BAC (blood alcohol concentration) per se laws which means that a person can be arrested for DWI if their BAC is at or above .08. However, if a person's driving shows signs of impairment, and an officer has probable cause, a person can be arrested at a lower BAC.
Montgomery Village, Md.: Someone in my family was killed by a drunk driver many years ago, but the problem doesn't seem to be lessening. What can we do to keep drunks off the road?
Amy Berning: I'm very sorry about the death of your family member. We work everyday to reduce those numbers so that other families won't suffer the loss that you did. The number of alcohol-related crash deaths has decreased substantially over the past 20 years. However, despite our progress, over 16,000 people died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes last year. Highly publicized and highly visible enforcement has been shown to decrease alcohol-related crashes. We need to send a strong message that impaired drivers will be seen by police, will be arrested and will face swift and certain penalties.
Florida: What's really going to keep drunk drivers off the road? Besides fines, which I'm not sure is much of a deterrent, can taking away people's cars be enough of a threat?
Amy Berning: I'm glad you asked about deterrence. Our goal is to build awareness and to encourage people to make the right decision before they drive impaired - that's why we promote highly publicized and highly visible DWI enforcement efforts, such as sobriety checkpoints. We want people to make alternative plans before they begin drinking - either a cab ride home, staying overnight at a friend's, etc. Regarding penalties, suspending drivers' licenses can be effective. Impounding cars is another alternative.
Atlanta, Ga.: I have a friend who can drink a ton and still seem perfectly fine. Me, I'm tipsy after a couple. Do some people have a higher tolerance or hold their liquor better than others?
Amy Berning: A person's BAC (blood alcohol concentration) is based on a number of factors. These include the number of drinks and how fast the alcohol was consumed. Other factors include the person's gender, weight, and amount of food in the stomach. Because of all these factors, it's hard to self-assess your own impairment. And although someone may say that are "OK to drive" after several drinks -- errors in judgment is a typical symptom of impairment.
Frederick, Md.: Friends have always told me that drinking beer doesn't affect a driver as much as hard liquor. Is this true?
Amy Berning: I'm glad you asked that as a lot of people think the same thing. Actually, "a drink is a drink is a drink" - and approximately the same amount of alcohol will be found in one shot of distilled spirits, or one five-ounce glass or wine, or one 12-ounce beer.
Gettysburg, Penn.: Not to sound biased, but I've always noticed that liquor seems to hit women faster and harder than men. Does alcohol affect women differently than men?
Amy Berning: It can. A person's BAC (blood alcohol concentration) can vary based on a number of factors - and you're right - gender is one of them. Women typically have less water and more body fat per pound of body weight than men. And alcohol does not go into fat cells as easily as other cells, so more alcohol remains in the blood of women.
Vermont: I drink regularly, but will always get a sober ride home. What percentage of NHTSA's "alcohol-related" accidents actually involve drunk drivers? It is my understanding that an accident will be categorized as "alcohol related" if an involved passenger or pedestrian has been drinking. Is the government really representing the true numbers of drunk drivers or pandering to MADD's neo-prohibitionist agenda?
Amy Berning: The great majority of alcohol-related crash deaths involve a driver over the legal limit. In 2004, 86 percent of the 16,694 alcohol-related fatalities involved at least one driver who had a blood alcohol concentration of more than .08, the legal limit in every state.
NHTSA counts a crash as alcohol related if a driver - or someone else who could have caused the crash - a pedestrian or bicyclist - had a positive blood alcohol concentration. We do not count a crash as alcohol related if only a passenger had been drinking.
Arlington, Va.: I have a mustache, and when I drink from a glass the alcohol soaks into it. I recently got pulled over and accused of drinking and driving because the fuzz smelt the suds on my stache. Other than shaving ... any suggestions?
Amy Berning: Well, I doubt you were pulled over because of the mustache. The officer would've needed a driving-related reason to initiate the stop. So I suggest maybe you not drink and drive. And keep the "stache"!
Washington, D.C.: Hi Amy! I think it is completely irresponsible for the District of Columbia to not keep the Metro running later than it does. Everyone knows that the party doesn't stop at 2:00 a.m. Most D.C. clubs don't close until 3:00 a.m. or later. I really wish city officials could take a trip to Germany and see how a real metro is run!
Amy Berning: We agree that alternative transportation is needed after partying and drinking. In the Washington, D.C., area, we have the benefit of the SoberCab program which provides free cab rides home until January 1. SoberCab's number is 1-800-200-TAXI
McLean, Va.: When I was a student at Va. Tech, my roommates and I witnessed a pedestrian get hit by a car on a Friday night. He walked out from one of the rows of cars that line the streets in downtown Blacksburg and never bothered to look out for cars in the road. The girl that hit him was hysterical and a bunch of people ran up to try to help them out. It wasn't the prettiest scene, and as it turns out, he died a few days later in the hospital. The driver was never charged, so my guess is that the kid was drunk and probably not paying attention to his surroundings. I just remember thinking that maybe he was trying to be responsible by not driving that night. It's easy for people to understand how drinking and driving are a bad mix, but how can you try to prevent pedestrian-caused accidents that involve alcohol and vehicles?
Amy Berning: You raise a good point. In 2004, a total of 1,570 pedestrians were killed in alcohol-related crashes. In two-thirds of these cases, it was a driver who had the positive blood alcohol concentration. But in the other third, it was the pedestrian who had the blood alcohol concentration above .08.
Washington, D.C.: Just a warning to others working in government and contracting. I was denied my security clearance because of a DUI and I lost a high paying job because I couldn't get cleared. It does happen ... even to "professionals" like me for whom this sort of thing is very uncharacteristic. Big price to pay for one night of bad judgment.
Amy Berning: That's a good point - thanks for letting others know. It's important for everyone to know that DWI arrests can impact both the driver, family, and friends, in many long-term ways.
Vienna, Va.: What can we do if we see a driver on the road and we suspect that they are drunk?
Amy Berning: We can use all the help we can get - this is everyone's problem. You should call your local law enforcement agency (you can carry their number in your car). If you don't know your local number, call 911 and report the incident. Make sure to give as complete information as possible regarding the location, vehicle, and driver. You'll want to pull over to the side of the road first before you make the call.
Rosslyn, Va.: I've read a little on those breathalyzers that are hooked up to the car ignition and they seem like a great idea. Do you think we'll start seeing them required by law anytime soon?
Amy Berning: Ignition interlocks can be an effective strategy to keep convicted DWI offenders from driving their cars -- when the ignition interlock device is installed. However, research has shown that recurrence rates often go back up after the devices are removed. We are studying the optimal period of time that the devices should be used. Many jurisdictions throughout the country allow the use of interlocks for repeat DWI offenders, and New Mexico this year became the first state to require interlocks for first-offenders as well. We are studying the effectiveness of NM's law.
Arlington, Va.: In the U.K., the issue of drunk driving is taken far more seriously. Police have check points where they can administer random breathalyzers, and if a person is found to be over the limit, they are given an automatic one year ban on driving. A friend of mine found it almost impossible to get insurance after he was caught drunk driving. These may sound draconian measures, but the effects are positive. There is a huge stigma that exists for drinking and driving. Young people simply do not think it is acceptable for friends to drive. And people are much more accepting of alternatives, e.g. drinking non alcoholic drinks, taking taxis. In fact when I came to live here I was shocked (as my ex pat friends are) by the general social acceptance of drinking and driving. could this country adopt similar measures? Why don't they? And why isn't there the same stigma attached to this behavior as in the U.K.?
Amy Berning: Things are a lot better in the U.S. than they used to be. For example, in 1982 there were were nearly 10,000 more alcohol-related crash deaths than in 2004. Over the past 25 years, penalties and law enforcement here in the U.S. have increased dramatically and the social stigma of drunk driving is now much different than it once was. But we have a long way to go. We're all going to have to work together to get the problem under control as well as in some other countries.
Durham, N.C.: "Well, I doubt you were pulled over because of the mustache. The officer would've needed a driving-related reason to initiate the stop."
I've read this and heard this so many times people actually believe it. An officer's choice to pull you is based on a subjective reading of your driving behavior. Did you stop too quickly? Did you swerve? Did you slow down when you should have sped up? etc. He/she is the only one to decide. You could be lost or momentarily blinded by another's lights or changing radio stations or taking a swig from your coke. Last I checked none of those is illegal. If the cop wants to pull you he can find a reason. You may have had a drink and be perfectly sober and simply caught up one officer's subjective application of the rules.
Amy Berning: Officers are trained to identify driving cues (including some of the things you mentioned). Officers are also trained to conduct standardized field sobriety tests which have proved to be highly effective. Breath tests are also typically given before a DWI arrest is made.
Washington, D.C.: I heard that some states let the police draw blood to test for alcohol, even if the person doesn't want to give it. Is that really true?
Amy Berning: All states have some form of implied consent laws, which means that when you get a driver's license from a state you are consenting to provide a breath, blood, or urine sample when lawfully requested. Some states do seek a search warrant when a suspect refuses to provide a breath test.
What is affected first when drinking: speech motor skills, physical stamina, or reasoning ability?
Amy Berning: As blood alcohol concentration increases, most people first experience some loss of judgment and muscle control. At higher levels, reaction time slows and speech begins to slur.
Martinsville, Va.: What time of day is an alcohol related crash most likely to occur?
Amy Berning: The rate of alcohol involvement in crashes is more than 3 times higher at night than during the day (60% vs 18%). The largest percentage of alcohol-related fatal crashes typically occur between midnight and 3 am.
Amy Berning: Thanks for the great questions. Enjoy the holidays but be sensible. Please don't drink and drive, and remember to buckle up!
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Post Magazine: The Exiles
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Barbara Kenny and Tibby Middleton wanted to be certain they could stay together until death. Then Virginia's new law against same-sex marriage made that impossible. So they moved across the Potomac, fromFredericksburg to Frederick.
Michelle Boorstein, whose article about the lesbian couple appeared in yesterday's Washington Post Magazine , was online to field questions and comments.
Michelle Boorstein is a reporter in The Post's Fredericksburg bureau.
Michelle Boorstein: Greetings and thanks to everyone who has taken time to write. I'll try to answer questions if I feel I can add anything productive, but there are also people who simply commented and I will try to get as many of those out there as I can....
Harrisonburg, Va.: Comment: I am saddened to see this couple leave the state, but I am troubled they experienced the state's interest in the traditional family (married mother and father, children) as "hate." If medical records and public health statistics are accepted, the health risks and related costs that go along with nontraditional partnerships --lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered partnerships, some brief, others lifelong, are incalcuably high. The state has an interest on many fronts in seeing the norm remain one man and one woman living together, bearing children. This is the best route to a healthy society. Our laws should reflect and promote that interest.
Individual choices for lifestyles outside that norm should find some limited protections under the law. That is consistent with the right to pursue happiness we hold dear in this country. However, as I see it, the logical next step to Tibby and Barbara's story the attempt to make sure bisexuals are given (the same) legal status and economic rights. That is a nightmare, since, by definition, bisexuals must be free to live in a chainlink of relationships that extends indefinitely.
The pain this couple has taken to make their point is not something to argue, only mourn. Fredericksburg is in many ways a poorer community for their departure. Tibby's slammed fist saying, "I'm not a victim" is, as you note in the same paragraph, the tragic irony. Of course they are acting like victimes! Covering their story, while interesting reading, may cause other couples like them to take the same course. I suspect that many caring and openminded Virginians will not be swayed to change sound laws for the sake of expressions of individual choice, no matter how many contributions those persons make to their community. I'm also sorry some people are deported from the US, but that too is a legal necessity that promotes the long term interest of the state, and one I will vote to continue for the sake of the our country and indeed the world.
Michelle Boorstein: Your comment raises a few points. One is the point that it is in the interest of the government to promote "traditional" families -- one man, one woman, children. This assumes that heterosexual, lifelong monogomous, fertile couples are the only "natural" family. This assumes conclusive scientific data that doesn't exist proving that homosexual behavior is aberrant or can be changed. It also raises questions about why people are allowed to divorce, use birth control, move away from their families, and on and on.
Springfield, Va.: This article saddened me greatly. I have gay friends and family, and I know in my heart that they deserve the same rights as the ones I take for granted as a hetereosexual. What can be done? Given our current political climate, the minute anyone takes a centrist or leftist approach to any issue, they're branded a liberal freak and the negotiation process shuts down. I'm not gay, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, I just believe that two people who commit their lives to one another through love deserve the same rights as the contestants on "Meet Joe Bachelor" who make a mockery of theirs. Why isn't anyone trying to take away their rights to marriage?
Michelle Boorstein: I think Mrs. Phillips (from Concerned Women of America) tried to answer that point in my discussions with her. She would say that people concerned about "traditional" marriage also need to work to promote healthy relationships and to made divorce a last-out, not an easy option. This is based both on the desire to promote what they see as the "ideal" (heterosexual couple with kids) but also because many of them believe gays and lesbians are inherently more likely to be unfaithful and uncommitted.
First of all, thank you so much for writing this article. I was so excited to see that it featured on the front cover of the Post Magazine. My girlfriend and I read it together and it brought us both to tears: the suffering that Barbara and Tibby endured while hiding their relationship; the injustice of the VA law; and most of all, their courage in allowing their story to be told.
My question: for two women who are uncomfortable with political marches and have only recently begun to reveal their relationship, why did they allow you to write such a personal article? (I am so glad they did!)
Michelle Boorstein: I first met Barbara and Tibby one year ago, when I first heard that they were leaving Fredericksburg. The first time I tried to speak to them, Tibby barely let me in the door. Then they agreed to talk, but not use their names. It went on like that, step by step. They said they decided that, at their age, and having nothing left in their closets, they had nothing to hide. They sometimes said: If not us, who?
Herndon, Va.: You talked with Patricia Phillips. Does she really believe that Barbara and Tibby are "exceptions"? Did you get any sense that she had empathy for the precarious situation in which the law put Barbara and Tibby?
Michelle Boorstein: Proponents of the law take the position that people like Barbara and Tibby are not in any legal danger. They don't get into these other questions of paying twice for health care or right to adopt or whatever -- they are simply saying that documents like wills and medical directives are not inherently "marital" documents and can't be affected. However,
Michelle Boorstein: Proponents of the law take the position that people like Barbara and Tibby are not in any legal danger. They don't get into these other questions of paying twice for health care or right to adopt or whatever -- they are simply saying that documents like wills and medical directives are not inherently "marital" documents and can't be affected. However, most legal experts I spoke with agree that it's not clear what will happen until it plays out in court. They point to the fact that the law was cited earlier this year in a well-publicized case about two women who had entered into a civil union in Vermont and had a child. They split up and one returend to Virginia and went to court to sever the parental rights established under Vermont law. The Virginia judge said the new law here in Virginia clarifies that the other mother is not legally related to the child and has no right to her, even though their relationship was codified under state (vermont) law. They also point to how similar laws have been used around the country. Among those situations is in Michigan, where the attorney general said earlier this year that the new, anti-civil union law made it impossible for state-run agencies to offer health benefits to gay people's spouses. Another situation was in Ohio, where a judge ruled this month that the new anti civil union law there made it impossible to enforce domestic violence cases between unmarried heterosexual people. His point was that the new Ohio law made clear: unmarried people are not family and therefore aren't entitled to "domestic" protections. You can see it's all still playing out, and Barbara and Tibby didn't want to be the test case.
Silver Spring, Md.: Since same sex marriage is illegal in both Maryland and Virginia, why is this couple better off in Maryland? Power of attorney documents, wills, and so on are valid in both states.
Michelle Boorstein: That's a good question. Their feeling - which is, course, based partially on legal advice and partially on gut feeling -- is that there is a difference: Maryland law has not gone as far as Virginia's in referencing contracts between same-sex couples. It isn't as broad. Some people who worry about Virginia's new law argue that it opens a door to judges who wish to discriminate, that it makes clear Virginia's policy is not to honor those relationships.
Michelle Boorstein: I'm now going to send out some comments that are simply comments, not questions... just to get more voices out there...
Sterling, Va.: The person from Harrisonburg misses the point about "individual lifestyle choices." Who we sleep with (straight or gay) or get into a relationship with is always a choice, no matter who we are. How we act is a choice to a lesser degree. Being homosexual or heterosexual is not a choice, and really thats where they miss the big point. I am a gay man. I could sleep with a woman for the rest of my life and even have kids. I would still die a gay man.
Alexandria, Va.: I'm a straight, married, father of two who read the story yesterday. My question - more to the readers of this chat - why do so many people care so much about restricting the rights of two people who obviously care about each and have committed their lives to each other?
Takoma Park, Md.: I read this article, but thought it did not discuss the real issues very well, nor present any factual information on the topic. Perhaps that was the point, merely to be a character study, but given the topic, I would expect a little more research and "journalism" involved to tell the reader something. For example, Maryland doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, either, so what benefits does this couple think they are getting that they didn't have in Virginia? Furthermore, the title of the article seemed inflamatory and is actually inaccurate. They were not forced to go anywhere, they merely chose to. Why they felt this was so important if they really liked their old neighborhood was not examined -- whether merely their feelings, or any actual basis. The only couple of instances given for their reasoning had to do with things that are not legal issues, but policy decisions of employers or companies, or private enterprises. Their big issues mentioned were being afraid of not allowed to visit one another in the hospital, and complaining about not getting discounts on car rentals or "having to pay two health care bills", whatever that means. As far as I know, there is no law that regulates who hospitals can choose to give visitation rights to. I would think it possible to choose a hospital that allows a patient to decide whom they want on a visitors list. As for discounts on car rentals--what's that all about, do they really rent cars so much that this is a big reason to move for them?
In sum, I prefer Maryland myself, and think it a more liberal environment, but if they liked their community otherwise, no good reasons were given for them to move. No reason or facts were given in the article as to whether their reasoning made any sense (ie, finding out from hospitals what their policies were and whether this had anything to do with the law).
My bottom line is that I am single, and am getting rather tired of the slant of these kind of articles, and the character's apparent bias themselves, which imply that being married is the only state worth having, and that being married is preferable to everything else, and that it is okay to discriminate against single people. I don't get discounts on car rentals, and I am certainly legally allowed to write a will with whomever I want as a recipient of my goods, and I don't get time off work because a friend of mine is sick (another thing that has nothing to do with the law, but an employer's choice). This couple themselves seems biased against single people. Do you realize how offensive these kind of arguments and articles are becoming that present being single as basically a fate worse than death?
Michelle Boorstein: I agree with you that some readers of the story might like to know: What are the laws? How do they work? What are my rights as a single person? And hopefully the Post tries to answer that in other stories. This piece was a straight narrative about them and their experience. And to try again to clarify about what the difference is between Virginia and Maryland.. it's true that Maryland has long defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. However, the legislature hasn't gone further in clarifying what public policies should stem from that. Virginia has. What exactly will happen now is not clear.
Michelle Boorstein: Here are a few more comments..
What value does society derive from restriciting loving couples the chance at a legally recognized family? And if you are so concerned about this issue, please make the argument for stricter marriage licsensing laws throughout the country. Please argue that only educated couples with stable incomes without a history of drug abuse should be allowed to procreate. Please argue for the abolition of drive-through wedding chapels.
I fail to see what is so harmful in two loving men or women raising a child in a stable family. In fact, research has shown that gay couples are more likely to have more money, be more committed, and raise more open-minded children. Why, exactly, is that detrimental to society?
Millersville, Md.: I just moved to Maryland from Pennsylvania. In PA I did lose a lover to breast cancer. We had the living wills and power of attorney papers all set by a lawyer. How can a state official NOT recognized these documents. Lots of people who are NOT gay would be affected too. No one batted an eyelash with my partner and I.
Being a lesbian is one thing.... being there for another person is another thing that the law should not be able to touch and I don't see how it can. Yes I paid higher inheritance taxes but even that one can get around to minimize the blow.
Yes we need a constitutional amendment guarenteeing more rights for us and the Gay and lesbian community needs to make their own financial structures to insure our rights.
Fairfax, Va.: I have read the following commentary on Barbara and Tibby's insistence on "certainty" about the new law's impact before they would consider staying in Virginia, and I would like your comment:
"According to Michelle Boorstein's story, the people they consulted --legislators, lawyers, activists -- could not tell them "for sure" or give them "an ironclad guarantee" that medical directives and wills would not be adversely affected by the passage last year of HB 751 -Code 20-45.3] until the courts actually say so. They should have been told the rest of the story, which is that both legislators and property law and family law practitioners are virtually unanimous in their view that HB 751 was not aimed at contracts and other documents which unmarried people of any gender have traditionally been able to make in order to dispose of their property, nor to the newer device of an advance medical directive, often arranged between unmarried, even unrelated people. That was also the express view of the one family law expert, Edward Barnes, quoted in the story."
"It is one thing to emphasize, as a political matter, a bill or law's lack of crystal clarity and potential for mischief when fighting against its passage or for its repeal; it is quite another to order one's personal affairs based on those political arguments. Someone should have told those women, 'Look, until our courts and eventually the Supreme Court of Virginia actually construe the statute and apply it to the kind of documents which most concern you, no, I cannot tell you with absolute certainty what will happen. But I can tell you that the chances of this statute's being held to invalidate your will or advance medical directive are about as close to zero as you can get without an express court ruling to that effect. If some disgruntled family members want to challenge your document because they don't approve of your lesbian relationship, believe me, they can find dozens of lawyer who will do that for them, based on a claim that you were mentally incompetent when you signed your will, or that you acted under duress, or something. If that's the family situation, you'll have litigation all right, with or without Code 20-45.3, but the chances that a judge will invalidate your will, or deed, or power of attorney, or advance medical directive, or your joint bank account, simply because HB 751 became law, are probably less than the chance that you'll be struck by lightning when you leave my office.'"
Michelle Boorstein: I think many people who are worried about this law are worried on a few levels... 1) What message does it send? What does its broad wording say to same-sex couples? 2) Why would I want to be the test case? 3) What about people who can't afford to go to a lawyer and get these documents created (most people, gay or straight haven't had medical directives or wills written) 4) what if the documents aren't properly done and can be challenged?
People who worry about the impact of this law note the cases I have cited -- with the Vermont couple, with the Michigan benefits, with the Ohio domestic violence law -- to say: We don't know how this will shake out and we don't want to be the test case. That said, I would assume vast majority of gay people in Virginia are staying put and are having faith that their documents will be honored.
Washington, DC: For those who keep asking "why Maryland versus
Virginia?": there is a big difference in the two, and the
article, I thought, made it pretty clear. It's that even the
PRIVATE contractural arrangments made between two
people of the same-sex -- powers of attorney, wills,
medical directives -- are of dubious legality in the state of
Virginia. It is the only state in the country with such a
draconian law. My partner and I live in DC. Every time we
cross the Potomac we have to wonder: if we get in a car
accident, will the hospital respect our legal contracts
giving each other decision-making power?
We try to avoid Virginia for that reason, even for breif
trips. I can't imagine a same-sex couple voluntarily living
there. And, there's also the small issue of choosing to live
in, and pay taxes to, a state which takes every opportunity
to communicate it's hatred of you and your family.
Los Angeles, Calif.: I would like to know why Ms. Phillips believes that the purpose of marriage is to facilitate raising children? If that's the only reason two people chose to marry, then the State of Virginia should have denied a marriage licence to my 71 year old father and his 70 year old bride. Ms. Phillips needs to come out of her affluent McLean cocoon and learn about the world.David
Maryland: Maryland has several laws under consideration (some vetoed by the Governor) which provide greater protections to gays. I agree that it is a better environment for gays.
Alexandria, Va: You may be a "reporter" but you hardly seem objective. Out of about ten pages, you gave barely half a page to the conservative side. The rest were filled with fawning words and pictures for your heroines, "exiles ... chased across the Potomac" by heartless Virginia lawmakers. Even when one of the lesbians abandoned her husband and kids in Utah, it was glossed over as a somehow unavoidable decision.
To legalize gay marriage -- enshrining a rare, physically unnatural act -- is to redefine a vital institution into superficial nothingness. As scholar Stanley Kurtz pointed out in the National Review, marriage in general collapsed after gay unions were recognized in Scandinavia. Male-female cohabitation skyrocketed (not good for their kids). If two guys down the street can dance in and out of "marriage", shacked-up couples see no need for a silly piece of paper. And so goes civilization.
What is next on your liberal agenda? A tender tale of a farmer and his four devoted wives? A harried family man finds happiness in cocaine? Or in the eight year old boy next door? His horse? What will those intolerant Virginians think of that?
Clifton, Va.: How stupid is the couple you profiled? What state did they think they lived in MA? Come on they live in VA where rabid conservative homophobes like Del Marshall want to save themselves from the possibility that they will get lonely one night and end up in bed with someone of the same sex. Its not like this was not predictable in VA! VA didn't all of sudden become a red state after being blue for the last 3 centuries. Come on VA wouldn't allow interracial marriage back 40 years ago and oral sex between a married hetero couple is still a felony as is sexual intercourse in anythin besides the missionary position. The WP wasted too many trees publishing a story about a bunch of knuckleheads.
Richmond, Va.: Hello. And thank you for taking our questions.
First, when you talk about marriage are you seeking civil or religious recognition?
Second, can't the same domestic protections that marriage gives be gained through simple legal contracts?
Michelle Boorstein: Barbara and Tibby never had any interest in getting married. I think that was partially because they focused on the religious aspect and partially because I think a part of them didn't see themselves -- until recently -- as deserving of legal protections, responsibilities and privileges. It was only because of Barbara's aneurysm that they looked as hard as they did at the new law. They went to attorneys in Virginia and Maryland to see if they would be protected under the new law and were told: We don't know. Some attorneys say that emphatically, others less so. But they felt they couldn't take that chance.
And as for whether it's possible to gain the protections of marriage through legal contracts -- what you can get as a partner or a parent very much varies depending on what state you live in. But there are dozens or hundreds of aspects of marriage that have nothing to do with legal contracts, such as the federal rights to share a nursing home room (under Medicare) or the right of heterosexual federal employees to get discounted insurance for their spouses.
Houston, Tex.: I have a question for the person complaining about your "liberal bias." What exactly is the conservative viewpoint on what will happen if same sex marriage is legal? No one ever says. There's rhetoric about "redefining marriage" (though the definition has steadily changed over the years - so which definition do they want? The one where women were property of their husbands? It's never been constant.) but nothing concrete. Would Virginia end up like Massachusetts, with one of the nation's lowest divorce rates?
They predict disaster but they don't say what that disaster will be... and in the countries and US state where it's legal, disaster has failed to materialize.
The Hague, The Netherlands: I would like to respond to earlier comment that "the logical next step to Tibby and Barbara's story the attempt to make sure bisexuals are given (the same) legal status and economic rights. That is a nightmare, since, by definition, bisexuals must be free to live in a chainlink of relationships that extends indefinitely."
This is simply not true. I am bisexual, and in a monogamous marriage. Monogamy is monogamy, no matter whom you are not sleeping with!
I believe that in 30 years, people who oppose same-sex marriage now will be as ashamed as present-day segregationists are or should be. It's a simple issue of fairness.
Farragut West, Washington, D.C.: I'm curious about your comment "This assumes that heterosexual, lifelong monogomous, fertile couples are the only "natural" family." Yes, heterosexual fertile couples are the ONLY natural family. Babies created in petrie dishes, babies carried by surrogates, babies creatd by donor eggs--that is completely unnatural. To contend, however, that untraditional loving families can raise happy, healthy children can function is a completely different assertion. But no, it's not as mother nature intended.
Oklahoma City, Okla.: I would also like to comment on the points made by Harrisonburg, Va. I'm afraid the 'statistics' that people in non-traditional relationships have higher health risks and relating it solely to the non-traditional relationship is somewhat flawed. This is more likely due to the facts that at least one of the 2 may not be able to get appropriate health care, due to such partners not being covered by complete health care in many places or companies. Also, just the stresses felt by people like Barb and Tibby are known to increase the risk for many diseases, not just heart disease. It is not the homosexual or bisexual lifestyle per se that is the risk. As I recall, more heterosexuals get AIDS/HIV these days than homosexuals, so even that has fallen out of the equation.
Raphine, Va.: Most Virginians are happy to see the homosexual element leave the state with their radical agenda. Let Vermont or Massacusetts take them in, since they seem so anxious to legalize unnatural behavior. Does this couple know that many of us believe the purpose of the law was to see them leave the state, exactly as they have done?
Michelle Boorstein: I know there are people who suspect what you say, but that contradicts what the law's authors say its purpose is. This was a comment Del. Dave Albo, a Northern Virginia legislator who co-sponsored the law, made to me about the motivation behind it:
"I love gay people. They're fantastic, lovable people and I want them to live in Virginia. But the law says two people of the same sex cannot get married."
Kitty Hawk, NC: Comment: With over 50 percent of the marriages today ending in divorce, it seems to me that heterosexuals need to be more concerned about hetersexual marriage than about same sex unions. If two people choose to commit to each other, then what could be wrong with that.
Reston, Va.: I thought your article raised interesting points, but probably didn't go far enough in explaining what the issues facing gay and lesbian couples are. Not only can you be barred from your loved one's bedside when he or she is ill or dying, but you are denied myriad benefits that accrue automatically to married partners. Your partner receives no Social Security based on your work history, and unless you work for a progressive organization, you have no shared benefits. This costs thousands of dollars every year for health insurance, car insurance, and so forth. When are people going to wake up and realize that most committed gay and lesbian couples are very similar to their heterosexual, married counterparts, and therefore should have the same rights?
Washington, DC: Thank you for this article. What types of arrangements would be void under the VA law? If health care proxies and wills would most likely be upheld in court, what types of contarcts might a couple put in place that VA would consider an attempt to simulate marriage?
Michelle Boorstein: That's a very good question that I wish I could clearly answer. However, Virginia -- as every state does -- lays out a host of "rights and responsibilities" of marriage. This includes the areas of spousal financial support, child care responsibilities.
When I spoke about this with Del. Dave Albo (as I said before, he is a Northern Virginia legislator who co-sponsored the new Virginia law) he said he believed gay couples could access many of the rights heterosexual couples get automatically, so long as they spell out their desires in contracts.
"Actually, there are certain rights they can never get, like barring a creditor from seizing a house, or automatically receiving all the property of a partner, like married couples ... Look, if everything was black and white this job would be easy. You either support gay marriage or you don't. I agree there are arguments on both sides, but my conscience says: I don't believe gay marriage is appropriate and there is only a green button and a red button."
San Diego, Calif.: To Alexandria, Va. -- a news flash: Heterosexual couples have been shacking up and procreating and resisting the need for a "silly piece of paper" for decades --actually far longer -- and civilization is still standing.
and to the woman who feels that couples like this are bashing being single: are you serious? these women probably don't consider themselves single. they're life partners who aren't married. there's a difference in being single (no significant other) and having a partner in life (married or no).
finally, to all those who keep insisting that there can't be gay marriage because marriage is a religious rite. it's not. the state issues marriage licenses, not civil union licenses (unless you're gay). if i get married by a justice of the peace with no mention of religion or god it's a marriage. in fact, it was only in fairly recent history (think a few centuries) that the church became involved in marriage at all. it was previously a civil arrangement between two households (property exchange and all that.)
Arlington, Va.: Just a comment: I have never really bought into this Virginia-Maryland border war; it seems petty and small, in a "my toys are better than your toys" way. There are opponents and supporters of laws like this in both states. For people to automatically write Virginia off as a backwater redneck state is to completely miss the point. There is no state in the Union, including Maryland, where the GLBT community is recognized as fully human. This is a national problem, not a state-to-state problem. Maryland residents shouldn't get complacent and smug; it could happen in your state, too, especially with your current governor. Maybe if we stop bickering about whose state is better, we'd actually be able to achieve real change for everyone...
Arlington Va.: to Raphine who said "Most Virginians are happy to see the homosexual element leave the state with their radical agenda." Which radical agenda would that be? The one where my partner and I pay our taxes, work in our yard, pay our bills, and wash our cars on Saturday? How can you logically argue that whatever legal recognition our relationship has will in any way whatsoever affect yours?
Burke, Va.: The law was passed at a moment of stupidity, and I belive many Virginian politicians would like their vote back. Several Viriginia politicians lost their election in part because of their vote for this.
Ithaca, NY: In response to Raphine:
Thank you for sharing. The Taliban would be proud.
Los Angeles, Calif.: What people are missing here is the message sent when a constitutional ammendment is passed that says one group of people and their relationships is more valued than another. From this bully pulpit it becomes easy to openly debase, devalue and attack verbally. Then the ball starts rolling for some to justify homophobic violence as what is good for society after all to keep those gays in check. Gay people now have more civil rights in South Africa than they do in Virginia. I truly consider Virginia a hate state and will be vacationing in Canada, Spain, England, South Africa, etc. where I am valued as a human being and can breathe free air for a change. I guarantee you that I will only retire in a state or country that gives me equal rights. With liberty and justice for all has become a big lie in this country of ours. It has now fallen to others to carry this banner high for the world to see.
Waldorf, Md: Tibby and Barbara - I know you are reading these comments and please don't let any of the negative ones get to you. You made a choice to leave VA (it's their loss b/c of all that you did - volunteer and career-wise - in their state) and you moved to MD (welcome - our gain, heads up Frederick) and now you shared your story. A love story between two people who obviously enjoy each other's company, get along very well, raised a little boy to become a fine man and more.
I wonder how many heterosexual couples, married for 1, 10, 30 years can say the same thing. Hmmm, I'm sure many of the divorces today are because couples don't enjoy each other's company or get along well enough to make it last.
Good for you both, enjoy the rest of your lives together and I hope that when the first of you departs this earth that the other will be able to receive all that is rightfully hers.
Merry Christmas and Happy 2006!
Washington, DC: Comments like the very first make me the saddest of all. There are all types of aberrant behaviors -- rapists, child molesters, drug addicts who have behaviors that cost the state a great deal of money. I don't see anyone suggesting that they should not be allowed to marry or have children. To state that a monogomous lesbian couple who have raised a healthy son, contributed to their community both as respected professionals and devoted volunteers should not be given the same rights -- well, it just makes me very sad. I suppose that since my husband and I are unable to have children makes us less desirable to society, too, according to the first commenter.
Baltimore, Md.: This story illustrates the inevitable heartbreak that comes with discrimination. These antigay statues further erode our sense of humanity and fellowship with neighbors. We should be promoting and upholding couples who are in loving, longstanding relationships.
The antigays bills and laws do not protect marriage. If these folks want to protect marriage, they should pass legislation that protects the family like universal health care, pro-education bills, and fair wage laws, anti poverty legislation. Antigay bills are smoke screens used by folks to the right of center to divert attention from substantive issues (i.e. fighting domestic and global poverty, environmental concerns, i.e.). Let's get down to the real issues instead of scapegoating people who are in mature, loving relationships.
Annandale, Va.: What a beautiful bittersweet story. It left me sad and angry that we have come aways but not far enough -- my two great aunties lived together from the 1930s until the death of my "Auntie Frances" in 1992. My family never questioned their relationship but all the same they were simply "roommates" to anyone who asked.
Owings, Md.: My partner and I are a gay couple of 11 years and moved to MD some years ago from Fairfax County, VA. Your article resonated with us. Like the lovely couple you profiled, we are church-goers, fairly private, and became very worried about VA's increasingly anti-gay climate. The one disappointment in the article was your brief profile of the bigoted women who is volunteering to help promote anti-gay laws in the Virginia General Assembly. As she and other anti-gay bigots own the Virginia General Assembly, U.S. Congress, and the White House, why bother to include her perspective in the article? That point of view gets more than its fair share of airtime.
Fredericksburg, Va.: Hi Michelle,As a FredVegas resident yourself I am sure you would agree that the 'Burg is a wonderful place to live. My husband and I have lived here for years. I tell my friends that I live in Peyton Place because everyone knows everything about everyone else. I am glad that your article was able to convey the uniqueness of Fredericksburg, which is a progressive oasis surrounded by the increasingly conservative areas of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. Fredericksburg is a town that is very secure in it's own identity, a sleepy southern town with a tremendous amount of diversity and traditions. I am so sorry that Tibby and Barbara felt the need to move. I am very concerned about this law. Your article has prompted me to find out more about this law and work to ensure it's demise.
Arlington, Va.: I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how same-sex marriage is harmful to my marriage. If someone can provide such an argument without using religious texts, I could be persuaded. Until then, I will consider anyone who opposes same-sex marriage to be no better than those who taunted the freedom marchers of the 1960s. Equal Justice Under Law must apply to everyone or it applies to no one!
Double discrimination: My BF & I are not married (yet) but we qualify for many of the rights that this couple do not simply because my status is not questioned. We live together so people just assume we are married. When we travel, the rental car place assumes we are married because our license has the same address (the fact that we have different names is so common now a days that no one thinks twice). When I had surgery, they assumed he was my spouse & didn't challenge his coming back to talk to the doctor with me. We even travelled through customs together as if we were married because it was easier & no one would know the difference. We aren't married any more than the two people in the article, but we certainly have an easier time anyway.
Owings, Md: Thank you so much for your marvelous article. My partner and I moved from Virginia into Maryland five years ago. Although there are more anti-gay laws in Virginia now than there were then, we could see the writing on the wall. My partner is an 11th generation Virginian and I am a 7th generation Virginian, but we were troubled years ago by the Sharon Bottoms case. Since we were getting ready to go through the adoption process, and since my partner's parents are very anti-gay, we couldn't risk living there when, if anything happened to him, his parents would absolutely try to take any children and property we had. They might have succeeded, they might not, but as you stated, who wants to be a test case? We also had a run-in with Alexandria Hospital when my partner had a bad flu come upon him at work, they took him to Alexandria Hospital, and I had to jump through hurdles to get back to his room when I got there. Now they just as likely wouldn't let me in at all. People from other places don't understand the way Virginians feel about Virginia - we're taught to be that way from elementary school on - but I'm not sorry we left, and I pray every time we drive through that we won't be in an accident or otherwise have need of medical care or legal help.
Oakton, Va.: Can you people at the Post PUH-LEEZ stop beating to death these topics of gender and race and gay promotion. You obsesss over PC. Stop trying to change people's moral and family values. Gay people are nice, and I know some very nice and friendly ones. But that doesn't mean that the citizenry and community at large wants to soclally and publically legitimate every aspect of their behavior.
Virginia: I thought the article was good, but the situation of these two particular women failed to highlight a big problem with the current Virginia laws: let's say that one of them had a daughter or son who was NOT okay with homosexuality. Let's say they hadn't spoken in years, and the child hated the mother. If the child decided to fight the mother's legal will that left everything to her partner, or to fight the power of attorney that left end-of-life decisions to the partner, the child would have a decent chance of winning, despite the mother's wishes, simply because they have a relationship that is recognized by the state.
Michelle Boorstein: Our hour is up! Thanks to everyone who wrote. I will post more comments that we didn't get to. Michelle
Red and Blue and Gray All Over: The arguments being made against same-sex marriage very much mirror those that were made against interracial marriage not-so-many decades ago.
To be even more controversial, arguing the merits and morality of same-sex marriage can be incredibly frustrating for both sides, almost as much as the issue of abortion. There is a fundamental disagreement on its morality--no one side will convince the other that it is correct--so a political debate must revolve around its legality. Pro-choice advocates argue that it will be done regardless of legality, so it is best that there is a safe and legal method for doing so. Pro-life advocates' most effective arguments are those that teach the alternatives and implications to and of making that decision.
Personally, I think that if marriage (or any relationship conferring the same rights as marriage, as many states have legislated) is to be prohibited to one group of people, it should be prohibited to all people. Let churches grant marriages and the state grant civil unions between any two people who have the ability to make a legal commitment to each other.
Speaking of which, a consenting adult is COMPLETELY different than an eight year old boy or a horse.
Deciding to Commit: I would like to disagree with Harrisonburg's assessment of bisexuality "...bisexuals must be free to live in a chainlink of relationships that extends indefinitely." Identifying as bisexual does not necessarily mean that one engages in multiple relationships at a time, but rather as the attraction to people of more than one gender.
It is my understanding that a heterosexual person can be attracted to more than one person over the course of one's lifetime, or even at the same time, but it does not necessarily impede that person's ability to make a commitment to love and honor one person and one person only through marital agreement. Certainly some bisexuals (and homosexuals) do not live lives that are conducive to marriage, but it is true that many heterosexuals do not either. Why does the state get to make the distinction for some people, and not for others?
Committed same-sex couples will enter into relationships regardless of their legality, and I feel it is the duty of the state to protect these commitments by providing legal recognition thereof. It is the responsibility of society to promote a healthy respect for what commitment means, regardless of the sexuality of the person making the commitment.
Staunton, Va.: I fail to understand how a heterosexual married couple (I am half of one) could possibly be threatened by a homosexual married couple.
My marriage doesn't succeed or fail on the merits of anyone else's efforts but mine and my husband's.
And saying that it's only for heterosexual procreation is stupid--does that mean the minute I am no longer fertile I am no longer a wife? What about my 92 year old grandfather who wants to marry his 88 yo girlfriend? What children are they going to have that the state of VA needs to protect? Or anyone else, for that matter?
Marriage is about love (now, wasn't ALWAYS like this)--divorce is about money!
Arlington, Va.: How exactly did Barbara and Tibby select Frederick as a place to live? No offense to the good folks who live there, but it strikes me as one of the less-"tolerant" cities for gay people in Maryland.
Springfield, Va.: Although I enjoyed reading your article and the rest of the post yesterday, I'm concerned about statements in the Post such as " until Virginia's lawmakers chased them across the Potomac." and "Then Virginia's new law against same-sex marriage made that impossible." The inflamatory wording in these statements - which were not quoted from the subjects of your articles, and are not supported by any facts cited in the piece - indicate a lack of objectivity on your part. Please explain how you came to write this story, and and how statements like these made it through any progfessional editor.
Vienna, Va.: Most journalists resort to labeling the Affirmation of Marriage law and the soon-to-be-passed Marriage Amendment as a vote against same-sex marriage - end of story. You did a much better job than most at informing people how much further both pieces of legislation go in maintaing (and in some cases cutting back) the status quo on restricting rights to gay couples, or as someone at Concerned Women for America might put it, "protecting" society from thinking that being a homosexual is an acceptible "alternative" in life.
The wording of this language is what hurts me the most. Unlike the one in Oregon that simply bans gay marriage, the one in Virginia is spitefull and hatefull as it bars even "the obligations and significance" of marriage to gay couples. My relationship is every bit as significant to me, as my parents is to them. I am a tax paying citizen who offers as much to society as the next. If Americans working hard to deny other Americans their pursuit of happiness isn't hate, I don't know what is.
Richmond, Va.: The person who sent the first comment said: "If medical records and public health statistics are accepted, the health risks and related costs that go along with nontraditional partnerships --lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered partnerships, some brief, others lifelong, are incalcuably high."
This is a classic example of opinion presented as fact, and I'm not buying it. There may be health risks that go along with "nontraditional" (presumably non-monogamous) sex lives, whether straight or gay, but partnerships per se cannot possibly create health risks. If anything, they provide the social support that endless studies have shown is crucial for good health and long lives.
Washington, DC: Very riveting article. I empathize greatly with the very fine ladies, but remain conflicted. I have a few peronal friends who share that lifestyle and are raising families. It is clear, that many like me share the conflict in supporting our friends while feeling a need to hold somewhat firm to the traditional view of marriage.
Springfield, Va.: I look forward to your follow-up article in which you spend 8-10 pages describing Heterosexual couples who decided to either stay in VA or move there because they were comfortable with the defense of marriage amendment. Please be sure to include less than a page from people opposed to the amendment, so as to be as evenhanded and fair as you were in yesterday's article.
Washington, D.C.: While I could support civil unions, I don't think I could support gay marriage.
Still, has it dawned upon those fighting for gay marriage that one of the problems could be that many folks oppose both civil unions and gay marriage could be concerned unrelated people are getting rights that people with familial ties can't get.
While some of us can't place our parents on our health insurance policies and are struggling to pay for elder care and our own children. Health insurance and life insurance companies don't recognize my mom as my parent. But if we were two unrelated people in a "committed relationship" then fine. There is something wrong with that.
Arlington, Va.: As a native Virginian, I am mortified by the behavior and actions of my state's officials. I want to applaud Tibby and Barbara for courageously sharing their story and let them know that they are role models not just for gays, but for everyone, on how to live an honest and true life. If more heterosexual couples emulated the loyalty and quiet conviction these women have for their lives and for each other, I firmly believe this world would be a better place. Best wishes to you both, forever.
St. Mary's City, Md.: I'm a straight man who has been married for seven years, and I don't understand how same-sex marriage supposedly undermines straight marriage. I have no problem with people who have personal religious objections to homosexuality. But I do have a problem when opponents of same-sex marriage use scare tactics to demonize gays and lesbians. To hear opponents talk, you would think there is some vast left-wing gay conspiracy to make straight men leave their wives and children and run off with Raoul the pool-boy.
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Talk About Travel
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2005121819
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The Post's Travel Section Flight Crew will take your comments, questions, suspicions, warnings, gripes, sad tales and happy endings springing from the world of... the world. Of course, the Flight Crew will be happy to answer your travel questions -- but the best thing about this forum, we insist, is that it lets travelers exchange information with other travelers who've been there, done that or otherwise have insights, ideas and information to share. Different members of the Crew will rotate through the captain's chair every week, but the one constant is you, our valued passengers.
We know you have a choice in online travel forums, and speaking for theentire Flight Crew, we want to thank you for flying with us.
You may also browse an archive of previous live travel discussions.
Cindy Loose: Welcome to the Travel Section chat. If you have urgent questions, ask em now, cause we won't be back at this site until Jan. 9. (Even travel writers get a holiday now and then.)
On board today we have editors K.C. Summers and John Deiner, plus Gary Lee, Anne McDonough, Carol Sottili, Steve Hendrix and your captain today, me, Cindy Loose. (Andrea Sachs is visiting Bhutan and Carol Sottili just stayed home.)
I for one am about to put together my story wish list for the next six months or so, and thought it might be useful to hear where you're thinking you'd like to go in the next year. I.E., What should I be writing about to help you plan your own trip? (If anyone is thinking about saying Brazil please don't hestitate, but don't mention I solicited that comment. These story wish lists of mine involve very delicate negotiations with my boss, who reads the chat, but probably not this intro.)
I during the chat will tell a particularly helpful person that they should email me their name and address to loosec@washpost.com, and if they do, I in turn will send them a very nice big candle. Why a candle? No deep meaning attached. To be perfectly honest, we're re-gifting, as always. Still, it's nice. So let's go.
Anonymous: The restaurant at LAX (L.A. International Airport) you couldn't recall the name of is Encounters. The Web site (www.encounterrestaurant.com) describes it as "intergalactic-themed." Modern, if you consider lava lamps and Star Trek music in the elevators modern. Great place to watch planes land, especially at night. It is part of the airport complex, though not the easiest place to reach on foot from some of the terminals. Opens about 11:30 a.m. Closes fairly early (10 p.m., I think).
Anne McDonough: Thanks, Anon, for jogging our memory! Hope the poster from last week is logging in today!
London UK: For the Washington resident looking for accommodation at London Heathrow airport, most hotels are grossly overpriced when after a day flight, all you want is somewhere to lay your head.
Best value at Heathrow are Jurys Inn, around 59 per room, Ibis at 65 and the Travel Inn around the same price. Unless we get snowed in, in which case you may either not arrive, or perhaps worse, wish you had booked in advance, there are nearly always rooms available at the last moment. The airport gets its kick back by charging all hotel customers 3 each way for the Hotel Hoppa buses that are the only means of getting to most of the hotels in the area. If you only have carry on bags and arrive at Terminals 1, 2 or 3 but not 4, you can use the local buses from the Central Bus Station to both the Ibis and Travel Inn free of charge, but the airport doesn't like tourists to know secrets like that!
Steve Hendrix: Thanks for the tip, LUK. I've stayed in one the Jurys Inns (near Covent Garden) and found it imminently okay.
Cruising: I have a very good dilemna. My friend won a cruise for two and she's taking me with her. We have $3,000 to take a 7 day cruise anywhere that leaves from Florida. Where we go and which cruise line we use are up to us. We are in our late 20s and like to have fun and adventure but not necessarily get too rowdy. What would you recommend?
Cindy Loose: I'd say you should visit a travel agent who knows cruises and cruise lines. Their commission is paid by the cruise company, so it doesn't cost you extra to get expert advice. You can search for a agent who claims to know cruises by going to a site maintained by the American Society of Travel Agents, www.travelsense.org or www.astanet.com. To judge if they're really good--if you ask them about the personalities of various lines and they don't know, they aren't expert and try again.
Hotel suggestions: My husband and I are going to St. Kitts over Easter. We have the flights booked and are looking at lodging. I've tried looking online but there isn't much information on St. Kitts out there. I thought I'd try this group to see if anyone has any suggestions for places to stay in St. Kitts or any other info they'd like to share. Thanks for letting me pick the brains of the peanuts!
Cindy Loose: HELP!!! We don't know hotels on St. Kitts, but hope a reader out there can help.
Costa Rica!: Hello! Love the chats.
My friend and I (2 girls in our late 20s) are planning a trip to Costa Rica at the end of February. We've found tickets for around $450 from JFK to San Jose - will these prices get any lower? What is the best beach area (and warmest in February)? And lastly, how safe is Costa Rica and how safe are hostels? Thank you!!
Gary Lee: You might get a little bit lower on the tix, but not much. In terms of beach areas, I highly recommend Manual Antonio. In general, the country is pretty safe and tourist friendly. However, in San Jose and the heavily touristed areas, mind your ps and qs. Anyone else have Costa Rica recommendations...
Washington, DC: Hi Flight Crew,
Just wanted to say thanks to the Flight Crew and the readers for giving me great advice on how to deal with traveling through Miami airport. I am happy to report that I was able to clear immigration and customs in about 10 minutes on my way back to DC from the Caribbean. I was prepared after reading what everyone else had experienced. I have learned a valuable lesson to try and book flights through another airport if possible to avoid Miami. I got quite the workout getting from one gate to the next. Thanks again!!
Gary Lee: Hey, glad it worked out for you. Any particular tips that might help others going through the same ordeal?
Chicago, Ill.: I will be traveling to Central America over the holidays with some friends. It was strongly recommended that we rent a 4 wheel drive SUV to get across some of the more treacherous parts since we will be driving for 3 weeks. We made a reservation with a rental car company a few months ago. I've often shown up at rental car counters only to be told that they were out of what I reserved, so they have to give me a completely different vehicle. How do we guarantee that we actually get what we reserved since it would be next to impossible to drive a car rather than an SUV?
Cindy Loose: That's a tough one. And you're right--companies do sometimes give you what they have, instead of what you reserved.
Are you dealing with a major agency with U.S. offices? I suggest you'd better, and I'd call them to see if they have suggestions about how to guarantee a type of vehicle. Hertz and Avis both now have cool cars they rent, and they must have some system for making sure you get the special car you ordered. If the company with which you booked can't give you an answer that gives you some level of comfort, try another. Then, know what other companies there are you can call if the first one let's you down.
Washington, D.C.: Hi, How would you resolve this? I suffered a DVT following a flight about 5+ years ago. The Dr. says it's not a problem to fly, but I cannot keep my leg still for a long period of time in a tight cramped position.
I fly without problem for short distances (less than 3 hours or so) and even flying to the west coast from here has been okay. I just get up more often and walk around.
International flights are another story however. Up until now, I'd been blessed with enough frequent flyer miles to be able to upgrade to business class on overnight flights so I'm not cramped. But those days are just about over.
Now I need to figure out how best to handle flying in coach on transatlantics and the like. Exit row is a natural solution. It has more legroom for me to be able to stretch out. However, there's a catch 22. To sit in the exit row, you cannot be disabled. So how do I go about telling the airline that because of a past DVT, I'd like them to make the exit row available to me?
Steve Hendrix: That's Deep Vein Thrombosis, to you and me.
I don't think being prone to blood clots counts as the sort of disability that they consider an exit-row issue. Just tell them your problem (get a note from your doc) and hope for the best. Lots of people complain of this now, so you may have to get in line.
Also, make sure you're familiar with all the in-flight exercises that are supposed to help alliate DVT. Most of the flight mags describe them. And getting up to walk as often as possible is big one, so maybe you should request an aisle seat.
Bethesda, Md.: We're taking our two young children on the auto train to Florida next week to visit my grandmother. Any advice for the train trip or activities around Boca Raton for a 2 and 6 year old? Thanks in advance.
John Deiner: Hey, Beth. Boca is a beautiful neck of the woods, but it's not exactly packed with kid-friendly activities. One great attraction is the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex, set in the middle of the area with a nature center. Lots of things for kids to explore, and there's always the beach (actually, is there anything better than the beach?). Since you'll have a car, you could always drive down 95 to Fort Lauderdale, where there's theres a butterfly farm and Wannado City, at Sawgrass Mills (the giant outlet center). At Wannado, kids can role-play in jobs they want to do when they grow up--sounds really fun. I understand it's not really meant for 2 year olds, but the 6 year old would probably really dig it.
As far as the auto train, Steve Hendrix tells me that the coach area is pretty darned comfy, if you want to avoid paying the ultra-steep fees for a sleeper compartment. He says pack some linens into your car and use them in your seat.
Washington, DC: Did Belize get hit hard by Hurricane Wilma? Is the country generally open for tourism, or is it better to wait a year or two?
John Deiner: Hey,DC. From what we understand, while Wilma wreaked havoc in Mexico, Belize was largely spared. Can anyone out there report otherwise?
Washington DC: Help! I just did the unthinkable. Had a Chicago-Frankfurt ticket, with a second leg that I can no longer use (personal reasons at original destination). They wouldn't refund the (consolidator) ticket, so I bought a separate ticket from Frankfurt to Venice and back. BUT, this means I now have a return trip that looks something like Venice-Rome-Frankfurt (Al Italia), Frankfurt-Chicago (Lufthansa), Chicago-Washington (Independence) ALL IN ONE DAY. I have horrible luck with airlines. What are the chances I'll catch all the flights, and any suggestions in making it happen? Thanks!
Cindy Loose: I understand your angst. In fact, did you know that when you buy a separate ticket, if you miss the second leg, you're considered a no show, so nothing is done to help you. (When you have a stopover on one ticket, the airline will book you on a later flight cause you missed it through no fault of your own.)
So, only advice I have---try to get an advance seat assignment that is a far forward in the cabin as possible so you don't have to wait for people fumbling around in the overhead compartment. Is there any way you can get by with just carryon luggage? Waiting for luggage can be a really time stealer. If you can't get by on the trip with one bag of carry on size, check into sending your luggage home. In that case, pack in some old suitcase you're ready to ditch, and just send home whatever is inside that you can't part with. Good luck.
Sunnyvale, Calif.: Hi. I am traveling to Penang, Malaysia for a week in January on business and would like to plan some leisure time before or after the trip. Luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur look lovely and surprisingly cheap. The luxury resorts in Langkawi are more expensive, but may be more restful. Do you have any recommendations?
Gary Lee: I like the Rasa Saying and it is usually not that expensive. However, it has been closed for repairs and still might be. Another highly recommendable place is the Lone Pine.
To Costa Rica!:: $450 is about what we paid last year after a lot of looking. Is JFK your preferred airport? (You don't say if you're local.) You should be able to get about that price from the any of the DC-3 if you want.
I agree with the Manual Antonio area for warm beaches.
When booking flights, make sure to allow ample transfer time in Miami. You have to retrieve your luggage, go through Customs, and re-enter security. 1.5 hours is the bare minimum.
Gary Lee: Thanks for the tips...
Capitol Hill, Washington, DC: Hi Flight Crew,Happy Holidays! On a whim, my husband and I booked a flight to Ireland, leaving Dec. 30, returning Jan. 7. We read a Post travel article about how glorious Ireland is in the winter and figured what the heck. With little time to research, we're wondering how long to stay in Dublin, and really whether there will be much to do besides shiver and pub crawl while in the western area of the country. Any suggestions? We're also looking for cozy places to stay that are not too expensive. Thanks for your help!
KC Summers: Hi CH. Good for you for following your whim. I'd go to Ireland any time of year. Yes, the weather will likely be daunting (average winter temps in mid-forties, but the damp makes it seem colder -- so pack lots of layers) and many attractions will be closed, especially in the west. But the scenery is stunning year-round, there's no one as warm and friendly as the Irish, and there's a lot to be said for pub crawls. Especially in the west, focus on cities -- Galway is wonderful any time of year.
Important: Make sure the B&Bs you stay at have heat. Some don't, and others do but charge extra for turning it on.
The Irish tourism web site has a good primer on touring in winter, with lists of what's open and closed by region (e.g. the amazing region known as the Burren is explorable, but the visitors center is closed). Check it out: http://www.irelandforvisitors.com/articles/your_winter_destination.htm.
Costa Rica: Manuel Antonia is great but just a few things to consider - best beaches are actually in the park and there is a fee. Can't remember how much but it's worth it - lots of critters hanging out by the beach. The bus which travels from Quepos to Manuel Antonia runs every 20 mins or so and you can flag it down along the road and it only costs about 50 cents. Lots of hotels to choose from on that road in all price ranges.
Gary Lee: All of that, in my experience, is good info. I don't think the entrance to the park is exhorbitantly high.
Dupot/Washington, DC: It's been reported that supposedly there are several bidders for Independence Air.
Does this mean that IA will be confidently flying thru the end of the year? Some other low fare airlines suddenly stopped flying? Or, might IA suddenly shut down?
Cindy Loose: Bidders for Independence would be good news indeed--even from a selfish point of view, I'd hate to see them go away, since the competition has pushed down prices significantly.
But it's too early to say what's up with Independence, beyond my earlier prediction that it would be fine through the end of this year--a predictions that has stood up pretty well for a few months so far.
I think it's wait and see. Even if a bidder bought Independence, there is no guarantee they'd keep the same routes and such.
Bolivia Bound: My husband and I plan to visit state department friends in La Paz in March. With the recent elections, should we take any precautions for our safety? Aside from that, what -must- we do? How will I fare as a vegetarian?
Steve Hendrix: I haven't been to La Paz in about nine years, but I still follow the fascinating politics there pretty closely. I wouldn't worry; none of the demonstrations that I'm aware of have become in any way threatening to international visitors (unless maybe you're the Chairman of Exxon come down looking for oil industries to buy at bargain prices). And whatever you think of the new Socialist-Indigenous president, it looks so far like the he'll take power without any fireworks.
Bolivia is probably still pretty tough for a vegitarian. In the highlands any way, the cuisine is based on pitiful potaoes, usually floating in a broth with some Quinoa grain and a gristly knuckle of some kind of livestock. I ate a lot of rice and fried eggs. Go a bit lower, though, and you enter the Amazonian fruit basket. Much easier there. You'll be fine in La Paz, if your friends steer you around.
Dulles travel: I'm a bit concerned about traveling this week. I am leaving for the holiday on Thursday out of Dulles. Last time I was there (this summer) it took HOURS to get checked-in and through security- there was no organization to lines whatsoever. My flight departs at 12:30, and I was planning on getting there around 10. Am I overly concerned, or is 2 1/2 hours early necessary this time of year? I know TSA has their average security wait times, but I didn't think those were based on holiday travel... your thoughts are greatly appreciated!
John Deiner: Hey, there. Ahhhh, those darned security lines. If I were you, I'd go 2 to 2.5 hours ahead of time, too. Assuming lines to check in and get through security, then take that tram out to the terminal, you may have extra time on your hands at the gate, but (and maybe I'm alone on this), I'd rather kill time at the gate than fret about missing a flight. I've read a couple of places that Dec. 23 (Friday) is going to be the big travel day (including our CoGo column), so that should be a little reassuring. Plus, travel over Christmas is usually a little more spread out than during Thanksgiving, and even at Thanksgiving, things went pretty smoothly. Happy holidays!
Story Wishlist: I'd love a story on Alaska, a story on the Pacific coast of Mexico (especially south of Puerto Vallarta), and a story on travel in Japan (a much-longed-for vacation-destination)
Cindy Loose: Hmmm, I've traveled norht of Puerto Vallarta, and both times kinda wondered what was south of there. I have no idea. You're right to long for Japan--you really know you've left Kansas once you land in Japan. Fascinating place. Thanks for the input.
Re: Jordan: Wanted to respond to the question from last week (discovered it while reading the transcript) about whether to go to Jordan attached to a trip to Egypt. My husband and I just returned from both countries a couple of weeks ago. We didn't use a tour company for either countries except to book a Nile cruise. We didn't hesistate to keep our plans even after the bombings, but I certainly can't make that decision for anyone else. I thought it might be helpful to describe what we encountered and let the questioner decide how he/she feels about the level of security and friendliness we found. (I'll concentrate on Jordan, since that was what the question was about.) We booked the entire Jordan trip on our own and didn't interact with a tour company at all. When we arrived in Jordan there seemed to be only one other American who was also a solo traveler. The other Americans seemed to be with a small (15-20) tour group. We arranged for a car to take us from Amman to Petra (couple of hour drive) and splurged on the Movenpick in Petra right at the entrance to Petra. (I would highly recommend the hotel.) The security at the hotel was tight -- asked for ID from our driver, searched the trunk, armed guards, gated entrance, metal detectors to enter and exit the hotel -- but I don't know what the situation was at other hotels in town. The security at the entrance to Petra and inside seemed almost non-existent, but we felt perfectly comfortable. We did see a couple of guards at a barcade on the road, but didn't really see anything at the visitors center or the entrance to Petra or inside. The people were incredibly welcoming. Tourism is way down, so I would encourage anyone who feels comfortable with the situation to go. Support the local people and economy and go at a time when it isn't overrun by tourists, but obviously people have to know their comfort level with the situation there. We may have felt more comfortable with all of it because we were visiting a friend who does democracy building in ther region -- if she can live in Cairo and work in Jordan/West Bank/Gaza, then we figured a two week visit would be fine. It was an incredible opportunity for cultural learning and understanding.
Cindy Loose: Thanks for the first hand account.
Washington, DC: I have not in a long while read something as completely inane as that piece by the German Ambassador's wife. What on earth was that doing in a real newspaper? Not to mention that it's basically contemptuous in tone. Please explain, i'm dying to hear this story. (does she own some cheeky photos of the editor or something? sunday wasn't thick enough this week?)
KC Summers: Sorry you didn't like the piece, Wash. We thought it was funny and an interesting perspective on how some Europeans view Americans. I think the Ambassador and his wife discovered things that they liked about our country as much as things they disliked, and I admired their curiosity and willingness to leave their embassy trappings behind and see the "real" America.
Anyone else have thoughts about the story?
Spain & Italy: My wife and I are planning for a trip to Italy and Spain during late March/early April. Ideally we'd like to fly from DC into one country and out of the other rather than a typical roundtrip flight. We're finding flights for a little less than $600, but is there any chance those fares might decrease between now and then?
I'm also concerned that our timetable is too aggressive. Right now this is a two week trip, and we have Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, Florence, Venice, and Rome on our list of places to visit. We definitely want to visit each of these cities, but would also like to be able to enjoy them. Is that doable in 14 days? Thanks for the help!
Gary Lee: The flight rates sound decent for that season. If a dip in prices comes, it probably won't be by much.
As for your schedule, yes, it seems pretty heavy. If take into account two days for travel between the cities, you're basically spending two days per city. These are mostly places you could easily spend 5-7 days in and still not see everything.
As someone who has visited all these places and without knowing what you look for in travel I would suggest that you consider cutting out Madrid and or Venice. I love both these cities but both could be the focus of another trip.
Bethesda, Md.: I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for all the tips on inexpensive Paris. But damn you folks for mentioning Chanel. I went in there looking to buy lipstick for a gift, like the article said, and just got caught u in the atmosphere and walked out having spent about 120 euros.
What would I like to see in your stories for the next year?
Aruba. Seriously, I think that those of us who think the Alabama governor is a damn fool for calling for a boycott of that country could find some sweet deals and on top of that, we could avoid people like him which is always a plus.
Cindy Loose: We accept all responsibility for everyone who spends more than planned during a trip. We do it all the time ourselves, and find it quite pleasant.
You might miss the governor of Alabama when visiting Aruba, but you might run into a lot of Fox reporters. Just a word of caution......
RE: Costa Rica: My husband and i went to CR two years ago for 10 days. Absolutely fabulous. The people are wonderfully kind and helpful and there is lots to do, two highlights: stay in a beach "hotel" in Puerto Jimenez down south where everything is solar powered and there are no phones but the rainforest and beach are spectacular; see the active ARenal volcano up north where it's touristy but worth it and stay at the old Smithsonian Observatory lodge. Also, best place I've ever stayed anywhere: the Finca Rosa outside of SJose (which is not worth 15 minutes of exploration).
Gary Lee: Thanks for your insights. I would say that a day in San Jose would be fine...
Springfield, Va.: Next year suggestions:1. Cancun - how's the rebuilding going2. Turin - last minute to the Olympics3. Germany - World Cup fever4. Asia - 1 year after the tsunami5. Brazil - because we all want to go.
Cindy Loose: I did a Cancun is rebuilding really quickly and is ready for all except the most perfecting perfectionist. Turin last minute is a good idea, although I think the story would end up being about how you'll have to stay far from Turin. Post tsunami---good idea.
It's interesting to hear that everyone wants to go to Brazil. I've been thinking that Brazil is up and coming. Glad to know someone agrees we don't do nearly enough about Brazil.
Send me your email if you want the candle.
Rockville, Md.: The super shuttle is picking me up from my home at 12:30 for a domestic 3:45pm flight (Continental airlines) to BWI this Friday. Is this enough time?
John Deiner: Gee, Rock. Good question. Assuming you're going directly to BWI and not picking up 12 other people scattered around the metro area, I'd guess . . . oh, I wouldn't want to guess. SuperShuttle has been in the biz a long time, so I'm assuming (stupidly??) that they know what they're doing. Can anyone out there set me straight and/or put Rockville's mind at ease?
Falls Church, Va: Please help! My family is looking to go on a Friday to Sunday ski trip. We would like someplace within a 4 hour drive (flying adds too much to the cost) and since my wife doesn't like to ski that much, we need a place with other things to do preferably skating or cross county skiing. Any suggestions?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Steve Hendrix: Sounds like Canaan Valley to me, FCV. There are other ski areas within that range (Ski Liberty, Seven Springs, Whitetail). But the one I know the best is Canaan, which offers all the winter sports you mention (some of the best cross country trails in the east.).
We'll try to link to an Escapes I did last year about Canaan.
St. Kitts: I loved St. Kitts, and I have been to most of the Caribbean. I can't recommend a hotel since I arrived by sailboat (sorry!) but I would advise you not to discount staying in or near Basseterre, the main town. On most islands I try to stay away from town as much as possible, since I am not into cruise ship crowds and duty-free shopping, but Basseterre is not like that at all. Charming town, great locals, and don't miss cruising the lovely little art galleries. Also, you can't miss the Carib-El store, the famous batik artists.
To Carol's request -- I am interested in comparisons of the live-aboard SCUBA diving operators. There are only 3 or 4 main companies, and I would love to hear about the differences in attitudes, luxury, and support.
Cindy Loose: Thanks, re St. Kitts. And does anyone know these SCUBA companies to which St. Kitts refers?
Re: Where I Want To Go: I think it would be great to do an or articles on getting around places without a car. I am a driver's license-less person here in WDC and am apprehensive to travel to places because I am not sure about how to get between places. Answer questions like if it's a walkable town or not, how pervasive the subway system is, if any? Taxi cab fares can really add up. Cheers!
Cindy Loose: Very good idea; we should do it. By the way, I've heard that Brazil is very walkable.
I'm the person that flew through Miami with little trouble. Some useful tips that seemed to help me are: on your flight to Miami, try to get an aisle seat and as close to the front of the plane as possible, only take a carry-on bag, try to ask what the gate # for your connecting flight is before boarding the plane (I was lucky the pilot announced gate numbers before we landed in Miami), study the layout of Miami airport either online or in the free magazine provided by the airline during the flight, and when I was there immigration officials said one could go into any line even if it didn't say for Visitors or US residents. It's also a good idea to fill out customs forms before exiting your flight and having your passport ready and open for inspection.
Gary Lee: Thanks for the advice...
Costa Rica Recommendations: Why does everyone always immediately think of the Pacific Coast when it comes to where to go in CR? I much prefer the Caribbean coast, particularly the Puerto Viejo area. For the late-20's CR travellers, in late February the water at Playa Cocles (just south of PV) is warm and beautiful...I spent two weeks there last February. The atmosphere is mostly relaxed and laid back, but if you want to go have fun, head into PV and Sanford's Disco, Jhonny's (and yes, that's how it's spelled on their sign), and Cafe Bambu for great fun, music, bonfires on the beach some nights. Very much a mellow surfer atmosphere. I didn't want to leave EVER!
Gary Lee: Thanks for your perspective...
Manassas, Va: For Costa Rica travelers two real nice and reasonable west coast beach areas are Mal Pais on Nicoya peninsula - lots of surfers. And below Dominical, Punta Uvita another surfer low price area with a great village with Canadian ex-pats and a wonderful French restaurant. A lot of rip tides in many areas but these seemed safe, not crowded and relatively cheap. Road to first definitely four wheeler, second not so but under construction as of Mar 05.
Gary Lee: These ideas sound great. Much thanks...
Washington, DC: Oh, how I wish that Christmas were not a big deal. My partner doesn't want to be with his local family by default, but didn't come through with a plan. Anything I can do for a very last minute plan for the three-day weekend? One could fly anywhere on Independence Air for $39 on the 25th, but nothing's available on the surrounding days to get out or back.
John Deiner: You're a mean one, Mr. . . .
No, I agree with you. It's a tough time to travel if you haven't planned far far in advance. Have you tried to Priceline or Hotwire a trip? Sometimes you can get some great deals that way. Perhaps some of the airline midweek deals will fit the bill--check www.washingtonpost.com/travel Wednesday for some a list of some of the best. Also check airline Web sites. Another option: www.site59.com, which packages last-minute weekend trips. Check the site now for trips next weekend; again, maybe there's something there that will work for you. Good luck!
Love the chats! Cindy, if you are looking for suggestions on future stories to help us with our trips, i have one. My mother and i have talked for years about going to Norway to see the homeland of her grandparents, and i think there may be others who go to explore their roots. I've never traveled to Norway, but understand that many speak English, so we aren't worried about that, but are there any tour groups that specifically address the immigrant history of the country? Maybe such tours would let us explore the country but still gain information about the general history of Norwegians? Thanks.
Cindy Loose: I met a guy who does history/roots tours of several countries in Europe, but Norway wasn't among them. But with all those Minnesotans in the U.S., that must be a common desire. I might even do an internet search for a big Minnesota travel agency, then email them and ask if they do this. The Norweigan tourism office might have heard of such tours, if in fact they exist.
I've had just one encounter with a number of people from Norway, at a series of embassy briefings. They were sooo nice. In fact, I was the only non-Norweigan reporter at the briefings, yet they did translations of everything they said, just for me.
Washington, D.C.: Two quick questions regarding a Texas friend's upcoming trip to this area. (1) In Boston, are there on/off tour buses like we have here? (2) She wants to see Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and the WTC site - can we take the ferry to the two Islands and then to Manhattan and back to the New Jersey shore?
Anne McDonough: In Boston, I was going to say ditch the bus for the Duck, but those tours don't start up again until March 27, and they're not hop-on, hop-off. Try Beantown Trolley (800-343-1328) and Old Town Trolley (617-269-7150). Coming up is a link to a Boston tour piece from last summer, albeit one of just the North End.
For NY: Personally, If you don't want to go into the Statue of Liberty Monument itself, I'd suggest just seeing it from the (free) Staten Island ferry. Otherwise, time passes are needed enter the monument itself; there is a limited numbner of passes available on a first-come first served basis at the ferry ticket office or reserved by calling 866-782-8834. Wait, I just reread your question: You want to drive to Jersey, then take a ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and then head to Manhattan to see the WTC, and then go back to Jersey. There's only one company that offers a ferry service to the islands, and there are two places you can pick it up: in Battery Park City, at the tip of Lower Manhattan, and Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ (http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/liberty.html). The fery costs $11.50. You could park in Jersey, do the round trip on the ferries, then take the PATH train to and from Jersey City to Manhattan and back again. but that seems kinda convoluted since as far as I can tell you'd have to transfer in Hoboken. For more info, check the NPS site for the Statue of Liberty (www.nps.gov/stli) and the Circle Line site: www.circlelinedowntown.com. Does anyone out there have a less convoluted answer?
washingtonpost.com: North End Food Tour , (July 1, 2005)
Anne McDonough: For the Boston-bound Texan. Thanks, Kim!
Ann Arbor, Mich.: What are some good resources for researching trips to London and/or Paris? We are a couple of travel novices (never been outside the US, except Canada) and are looking to go sometime early February. And we're not dead set on Europe, so if you have other ideas . . .
KC Summers: AA, you're smart to go in the off season. It's a great time to travel -- if you're willing to sacrifice some warmth, you can find amazing deals and, best of all, no crowds. You're also smart to focus on European capitals because there'll be no lack of stuff to do, and plenty of warm places to duck into. As for planning, I like to do a combination of online research and travel books. You can't beat the Web for immediacy and (hopefully) up-to-date info -- start by looking at the official tourism sites for the countries you're interested in, branch out from there (e.g. About.com and Lonely Planet have good online guides), and don't forget the Post's fantastic free archives of all our Travel stories. If you go to our home page, www.washingtonpost.com/travel, scroll down to Travel Archives and click on International Destinations, you'll find lots of advice on what to do in London and Paris.
But it's also fun to park yourself in front of a good travel store bookshelf and check out the guidebooks till you find the ones that suit you -- e.g. Let's Go for budget travelers, Lonely Planet for indie types, Time Out for hipsters, Frommer's or Rick Steves for mainstream info.
As for other ideas -- it kind of depends what you're looking for. Warmth? Head for the Caribbean. Mayan history and culture? Central America. Exotic? Bangkok. Etc. Have fun and let us know where you end up going!
Fortaleza, Brazil: Tell your editor that readers are clamoring for you to cover this region. I'd like to get some back copies of the print edition of the "Post" delivered to me. We can put you up for a few days, in an apartment overlooking the beach, as well.
Cindy Loose: Hi--If you're only talking about a few back copies, email me what you want later at loosec@washpost.com and I'll see if I can rustle them up.
I don't think my editor's going to send me to Brazil just so I can hand deliver some back copies. But thanks for the kind offer.
washingtonpost.com: Raising Canaan , (Feb. 16, 2005)
Steve Hendrix: Here's a link to that piece on skiing in Canaan Valley, W.Va.
United flying to Anguilla: Hello Travel Crew! You guys wrote an article in October about direct flights to the Caribbean. I was under the impression that United was starting direct flights from Dulles to Anguilla on December 17th, but my searches are working. Do you know if this was postponed?
Gary Lee: According to our reporting, there was never a United Dulles-Anguilla flight in the works. There are flights to Aruba and St. Maarten that kicked in around that time. At the moment, the best ways we see of getting to Anguilla are via Miami or San Juan.
Story Ideas: I'd love to see you all continue to bring us stories on close-by locations that you can get to directly on relatively short flights. I often get a hankering for a 3-4 day trip and am always wondering where I can fly so I can make the most of a city (like Charleston, Memphis, Nashville, Miami, Boston, etc.) Keep those stories coming!!!
For international trips, I would love to hear more about African trips, too. Where are people going these days in Africa and what are they doing besides going on safari?
Cindy Loose: Great Africa questions, and yes, we've been talking about doing a series of stories about places you can get to cheaply and quickly from here--as opposed to the occassional pieces we slip in here and there. Thanks for the input.
Costa Rica: I went to Costa Rica last February and loved it! We spent time in Jaco, Manuel Antonio and Arenal. Jaco is a lazy beach town, kinda hippy, very laid back. We loved the hotel Mar de Luz. It's not directly on the beach but the rooms were nice and air conditioned! Manuel Antonio is absolutely gorgeous and if you're willing to hike of the beaten path there are a ton of empty beaches all over the place in the park. Arenal is where the nearly constantly erupting volcano is located and there is the coolest hot springs (Tabacon) built into the side of the volcano. Just don't be freaked out by the "Incase of a volcanic eruption, walk, don't run..." signs. The volcano does spew smoke all the time but only spews lava every once and awhile. You can watch it from the hot spring. Magnificent.
Gary Lee: Thanks much for your enthusiasm and information!
SCUBA live-aboards: I am the original requestor...the companies I know of are Peter Hughes, Agressor Fleet, and Blackbeard's (sailboats). I know these exists but don't know the real reasons to choose one over another. I have looked on some SCUBA message boards, but they tend to just have people saying which they liked without giving any real basis for comparison. This is why I thought a journalistic approach would help me.
Alexandria, Va.: If you could visit only one city in Africa, which one would it be?
Gary Lee: My vote would go to Capetown.
I'd like to see stories on...: 1. Slovenia. I spent a few days there a couple of years ago (took the train down from Vienna) and have been pining to return ever since.
2. Mauritius (sp?). It sounds like a little bit of paradise.
Cindy Loose: I loooove Slovenia, and did a story on it a few years ago. Mauritius---I don't know how to spell it either. That's how far away and exotic it is.
Story wish: I'd love to see a story on the state of Oaxaca in Mexico.
Anne McDonough: Coming up should be links to at least three Oaxaca-related pieces from recent years. Perhaps one of them will inspire a trip?
Bethesda, Md.: I would LOVE to see a story on the Algarve area of Portugal. I'm in the process of convincing ANYONE in my family to join me and it's just not working yet. Help me out you guys! Please!
Cindy Loose: Coming up in one second: I story that at least touched on the Algarve region. Hope it's enough to help sell the idea. It's really a cool area of the world--but best done NOT in summer, when the European hordes descend.
washingtonpost.com: It Takes a Villa , (March 10, 2003)
Cindy Loose: Portugal, for the Algarve dreamer.
Alexandria, Va.: I wasn't fond of the article from the German Ambassador's wife either. I lived in Germany for 8 years and loved it. I could include a long list of things I didn't like, but also things I loved. But the author only seems to have liked on thing - lobster in ME. The rest just seemed to be a list of how much she hated being conned into this trip. She was in one of the most beautiful parts of the country and she had nothing to say beyond Americans are fat and smoke? Has she been to Bavaria? I have also sent it to friends in Germany and they were a bit embarassed by it as well.
KC Summers: Thanks for your feedback. As a non-camper and non-RV person, I found the author's snarky observations amusing. Let's face it, some of those RV campgrounds are pretty unappealing to nature lovers. She also made it clear that when they got away from the full hookup campgrounds, she liked the trip a lot -- compared our scenery to parts of Sweden and Italy, etc.
Anonymous: I'm thinking of going to Brazil and would particularly like to visit (fill in names of places you want to go so you can tell your editor), and hope you can give me some firsthand information.
We're actually planning on going to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for an event in October, and hope to visit Cambodia beforehand, and Mae Hong Son (in Thailand) afterwards. We're not big-ticket (big-spending) travelers, but also beyond backpacking ages.
Cindy Loose: Hey, thanks. Sorry I already gave away the candle, but you know, you're being a little too obvious.
Have a great time in Thailand. I think you'll find inexpensive things some notches above backpacking.
Rockville, Md.: Story idea: A story about strage places people go on their honeymoon. Places like Hawaii are great, but overly done, and can be expensive, but perhaps a romantic resort in a less expensive place? Or someplace that's off the beaten path and can be enjoyable as well?
washingtonpost.com: In Oaxaca, It Takes Seven Villages ,(April 17, 2005); Oaxaca, Where the Cooking's Hot and Cool , (Oct. 21, 2004), Postcard From Tom: Oaxaca . (Nov. 20, 2005)
Anne McDonough: For the Oaxaca-wisher. Thanks, Kim!
Arlington, Va: I, too, disliked the Ambassador-in-RV story.
Getting out of the Embassy and exploring? She
didn't make that point with me, at all. Also, I used
to work in an Embassy and found that many of the
diplomats, at all levels, took advantage of their
time here and saw a lot of the "real" America. It's
not all that unusual and they should not get a
feature story out of it, especially if it's trite and not
all that funny (I THINK she was trying to be
KC Summers: Another anti-ambassador vote. Thanks for your comments. I have to respectfully disagree and say that I found the concept of an ambassador hitting the road in an RV unusual and appealing.
Richmond, Va.: What's the deal with bulkhead seats? I was always told that they were reserved for people with small children or a physical disability, or the elderly. Now I have a baby, and we've been flying a lot recently. Each time, I've requested bulkhead, only to be told that those seats already have been taken. And each time we get on board, I notice that they usually are taken up by people in their 30s-50s with no visable disability. Then I watch people with babies and small children, an elderly man who had to take a wheelchair to the plane, and a 20-something woman on crutches all struggle to get into the regular coach seats.
Why aren't those seats going to the people who need them? While it's not a lot of fun to deal with a baby in a regular row, I can handle it. But I couldn't believe the man in a wheelchair and woman on crutches were stuck there.
Cindy Loose: I don't know what's up with that, but I need to check into it. Will do.
State of Confusion: Someone handed me a clipping of your November 27 "Travel Q&A" column on "Flying with Disabilities." I didn't see that it came up in any of the subsequent chats, so I thought I'd take the time to offer some corrections.
First, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) does not cover air travel. That's because air travel was already covered by the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986.
Rather than linking to the ADA website maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice, you should instead have consulted with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Their Office of Aviation Enforcement has all sorts of information available online for air travelers with disabilities. Here are some helpful links:
Information for Passengers with Disabilities:
"New Horizons" (a sort-of "pocket guide" to the ACAA):
Toll-Free Hotline For Air Travelers With Disabilities (general info, not just complaints):
I'm surprised that the source you cited in the article, the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality, didn't mention or wasn't aware of any of this...
I'm not a frequent flier, but on those occasions when I do find myself boarding an aircraft, I always have a pocket-size copy of "New Horizons" in my jacket pocket.
John Deiner: Thanks for the update. We printed a letter a few weeks back from the DOT in our section making the same points you do, but I appreciate you explaining them so clearly for the readers of our chat as well. And also, thanks for the additional info sources.
Annapolis Junction, Md.: Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to see your thoughts... I happen to have enough points accumulated from a business Visa to take have an "around the world plane ticket". I believe this means that we can choose up to four continents to visit. Anyway, wanted your opinion on the least amount of time needed to take this trip (there is only so much vacation time to go around).
Steve Hendrix: Hmmmm. How much time to go around the world? This is a philosophical question, or a Bob Dylan lyric. In one sense, obviously, the more time the better. But since it's a freebie of sorts, I could see a whacky approach as well--Around the world in 8.0 Days!
Personally, I try to take at least three weeks and be very conservative in my itenirary.
Bowie, Md.: Hey Crew: Here's a story idea for you....something about driving from city to city in Europe and the feasibility of certain routes (where to stay/stop/eat). I'm thinking about flying into Paris then driving to Venice and flying back from there. Another trip might be Madrid to Lisbon. It would be a great guide for a first time trip like this! Happy 2006 to all!
Cindy Loose: cool idea. thanks.
Washington, D.C.: Just got a call from Independence Air that it is cancelling flights to/from o'hare starting january 5. . .so, there goes one flight. at least they're offering refunds.
Cindy Loose: I did a brief mention in the Coming and Going column about five routes Independence was ending, including Chicago.
For upcoming stories: Cool question!
I love to walk, but am not into backpacking. Stories about cool places to walk and companies that will cart your luggage for you would be welcome. For some reason it never occurs to me to look for something like that in the US, but I've been dreaming about walking across England, and wondering about places in Latin America, and you mentioned that Brazil is very walkable, and...
Stories about finding the unusual would also be helpful. What are the best ways to find the coolest walks, the most unusual geography, the least crowded vantage point for XYZ, hidden gem museums, etc?
Cindy Loose: England and Wales have lots of guided walks. U.S. of course has the Appalachian Trail, but I remember a friend asking me about walks in the u.s. similar to those in England, and i came up blank. The rules about public access through fields makes Great Britain kinda of unique, far as I know.
Buzzard Point, Washington, DC: For the person flying on a bunch of different airlines back to DC - I hope your Chicago to IAD flight on FlyI is before 05 Jan, otherwise your string of bad luck on flights is about to continue. Didn't Indy just cancel that route as of that day???
Cindy Loose: Yep--readers of the Coming and Going column knew about that as soon as it happened. I hate to say i told you so---Not.
Layover in London: Hi Crew! Love your chats and I hope you can answer this 2 part question. I have a 5 hour layover at Heathrow Airport on my way to Egypt this Christmas Eve. Do you think that is enough time to go in to London..or is that cutting it too close?
AND, any "unusual" suggestions of things to do during my 12 day trip going through Egypt? Things that the usual tourist wouldn't do...just because, maybe, they don't know to do it? (I'll be in Cairo, Aswan, Luxor and Sharm El-Sheikh)
Anne McDonough: The overwhelming concensus here is for you to stay in the airport. It's a holiday, unless you splurge for the Heathrow Express it takes at least an hour to get to the city, and you'll have luggage and have to back at the airport and be ready for another international flight. As for Egpyt, we've got a link coming up to a recent piece on exploring Egypt beyond the Nile...hopefully there'll be some tips for you there.
S. Rockville, MD: I totally agree with Washington, DC, about the ambassador's wife's piece. As a 30-something RV owner who is originally from the northeast, I felt personally insulted by the tone that came through the article. While it was great that they got out to experience "real" America, the attitude was totally unnecessary. I doubt you would have published a similar piece by our folks representing us in Germany.
KC Summers: Thanks for responding. Seems like a consensus. To repeat, I like a bit of attitude in our writers, and she did find lots of things to like. If those of you who feel strongly about this story would like to email us at travel@washpost.com, we'll run a selection of letters in the paper. Don't forget to include your name and hometown.
Central California: Cindy I'm thinking a series of articles on French Polynesia would be extremely helpful to DC area readers . . . about the end of January
Really though South America seems hot and I'd like information on Peru. . .
And if you or any readers have tips for immersion spanish classes from Mexico to South America, I would appreciate it.
Cindy Loose: French Polynesia would be nice. As to immersion Spanish classes---they are so legion its hard to isolate one. Pick a place you'd really like to be, then compare the quality of programs in that place, and you'll likely do all right.
Columbia, Md.: Just a comment on the story on Tremblant. We went there 2 years ago for our honeymoon. I think you did a great job describing it. You missed our 2 favorite parts though. There is a pool complex in the center of the village with a pool and several hot tubs that you can by day or a week pass to. We spent a couple of hours there everyday, it was very relaxing and nice. Also, outside of Tremblant is a spa called Le Scandinave - it has massages and a series of outdoor hot tubs, cold pools and saunas that you're supposed to alternate between. Overall we had a good time, but the food was definitely a disappointment. It seemed like every restaurant had the same menu.
KC Summers: Thanks much for your comments, we'll pass them on to Carol Sottili, the author. I don't think she's warmed up yet from that trip -- she couldn't stop talking about how cold it was!
washingtonpost.com: Beyond the Nile Cruise , (Oct. 16, 2005)
Anne McDonough: For the Egypt by way of London traveler... Thanks, Kim!
RE: Story Ideas: I don't have a destination request so much as a concept request...family vacations with young children. We've got two kids under the age of 3 and I find that most travel articles in parenting-type magazines seem to focus on blockbuster trips to theme parks and the like. I'd love to read about something low-key and affordable that families with little kids can tackle. I'm happy to volunteer my clan if you need guinea pigs!
Cindy Loose: Gott cha. As you seem to have picked up intuititively: huge amusement parks are the worst places to take really small kids. They'd much more enjoy a place with half a dozen kiddie rides and a pony, all within a few feet of each other.
RV article: I agree - it was terrible. It really sounded snide and maybe even a touch pompous.
KC Summers: A lot of Europeans feel that way about Americans. I come across that attitude all the time.
Singapore: Last month I had two tickets on Continental to fly round-trip LAX-Houston (with a 5-day layover)-Lafayette LA. We flew the first leg, then, while in Houston, I called CO to advise them I would not be flying the IAH-LFT leg (needing to drive instead) and to make sure they would not cancel the rest of my itinerary.
Imagine my shock & horror to be told that indeed my return flights would be cancelled, and I must purchase two, new, one-way tickets LFT-IAH-LAX for $400 each for the return! The reservation agent never mentioned anything about a credit for the unused portion of my itinerary.
After stewing for a week, I called CO back to make sure an error had not been made, only to be told that since I had used one portion of the ticket, this was indeed CO policy. That's when I found out that the unused portion could be used by Feb 3, 2006, but only for the exact route and flights. When I asked if the credit period could be extended three months, I was told no, because of the fare class (H & I). I asked that the credit be applied toward the flights I was forced to purchase, forfeiting the IAH-LFT leg, but the agent refused this request.
This seems like a very capricious and confiscatory policy on CO's part. I would have been willing to pay a change fee and any fare class difference, even forfeiting the leg I was not using, but to charge me twice for a ticket I can only practically use once seems to me to be extortion.
To add insult to injury, CO takes the most restrictive baggage allowance policy and would not honor the international connecting flight carrier, Singapore Airlines, checked baggage allowance of 70 lbs. I was forced to pay $25 each for two checked bags...twice! When I asked why I was not charged on the inbound portion, they said it is dictated by where travel originates.
It is getting to where I have a migraine BEFORE I get on the flight, worrying about the ways CO might try to get more money from me! Imagine my derision when I hear the pilot thanking me for chosing CO because he knows I have a choice in air travel. As much as I would like to exercise that choice, I don't have any confidence the next carrier won't try the same!
Thanks for listening to my rant! I will be writing to CO to air my complaint. Any suggestions?
Cindy Loose: Well, keep in mind that any other airline also would have cancelled the remainder of your trip if you didn't show up for one of the legs.
Cheap Flight Sources?: Hi Flight Crew,
I used to use the WPost ads to find cheap flights out of the DC area. Now that I live in the hinterlands, that's not a realistic option. So what are my best sources for info? The local rag doesn't have much info/ads, and I always found better deals through your paper than on expedia, etc. So help me out, how to be in the loop now that I'm so far outside the beltway???
Steve Hendrix: I like those little ad guys, too. Booked many a flight on them.
There are on-line consolidators. We wrote about them last August. We'll try to post a link, but if we run out of time (and we nearly are) Google Carol Sottili and "Consolidators: Can You Get A Fare Deal" and you'll find some vital info.
Washington, D.C.: I'm planning a trip to South Africa in April. How can I find the cheapest fare on South African Airlines, which goes direct from Dulles? Also, my main destination is Durban, but I figure I'll fly to Jo'berg and transfer. I also want to see Cape Town. Any tips on traveling within the country?
washingtonpost.com: From someone who traveled within South Africa a few times, look at budget domestic airline kalula.com. Nationwide is another domestic airline, and South African Airways has a low-cost operation as well.
Cindy Loose: Thanks so much for joining in today, and sorry we couldn't get to all the questions. See you Jan. 9, same time, same place.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Judge Alito on Civil Rights
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SUPREME COURT nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s most important civil rights decisions collectively show an inclination to protect businesses from marginal civil rights claims and to make it more difficult for those who say they were discriminated against to win redress in the courts. In several prominent cases, Judge Alito has displayed a more skeptical attitude than have his colleagues toward claims of race and gender discrimination and has tended to embrace narrow readings of important federal anti-discrimination laws.
In one race discrimination case dissent, for example, Judge Alito would have set a troublingly high burden for a plaintiff passed over for a promotion when the employer claimed to have been seeking the "best" candidate for the position. His opinion, as the majority noted, seemed to ignore the fact that racial hostility can easily influence one's view of who is, in fact, best. In another case, he was the lone judge to argue for keeping a gender discrimination case from a jury; in that case, though, the Supreme Court later adopted a view of the question arguably closer to his than to the majority's. In a death penalty case in which the convict argued that the prosecution had improperly struck blacks from a jury pool, Judge Alito was blithely dismissive of statistical evidence of black jurors being excluded in the Delaware county at issue.
As is the case in much of Judge Alito's work, his opinions in these cases are carefully crafted efforts to apply precedent and statute. In none does he run wildly off the rails. But he does seem, where there is play in the legal joints, to push the law toward greater skepticism of civil rights lawsuits -- except, that is, when he doesn't.
Indeed, Judge Alito has not been a predictable opponent of civil rights plaintiffs. He seems to adopt a more solicitous approach to claims of religious bias. He wrote a strong opinion in the case of an Orthodox Jewish woman who alleged she had been pushed out of a college teaching job because of her religious practice. He also ruled for Muslim police officers in Newark who challenged their department's ban on beards.
And he has sided with civil rights plaintiffs in cases involving race. He dissented from a decision barring a race bias lawsuit because of a statute of limitations -- not what you would expect from a judge unblinkingly keen to protect businesses from civil rights litigation. He has voted to overturn convictions because of racial manipulations of juries. And he declared unlawful the search of a car whose driver had been stopped because police were looking for two black men driving a black sports car following an armed robbery; such vague knowledge, he wrote, "could not justify arrest [of] any African-American man who happened to drive by in any type of black sports car."
Judge Alito, in short, has sometimes taken a narrower view than we believe healthy of statutory civil rights protections, but his record does not support the frequent descriptions of him as a knee-jerk reactionary. The question for senators considering the nomination is how his instincts would translate into performance on the high court, where the justices have greater latitude to construe protections narrowly than do circuit judges. This is an area where senators should question him closely.
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SUPREME COURT nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s most important civil rights decisions collectively show an inclination to protect businesses from marginal civil rights claims and to make it more difficult for those who say they were discriminated against to win redress in the courts. In several...
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House Votes to Toughen Laws on Immigration
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The House last night passed tough immigration legislation to build vast border fences, force employers to verify the legality of their workers and tighten security on the nation's frontier, but it rebuffed President Bush's entreaties to include avenues for foreign workers to gain legal employment.
The bill passed 239 to 182, with 36 Democrats joining 203 Republicans to vote yes. Seventeen Republicans, 164 Democrats and one independent opposed the measure.
The bill was designed to demonstrate to voters a new resolve on border security before the House adjourns for the year. But it also revealed deep divisions in the Republican Party between lawmakers who agree with Bush that a strict clampdown alone cannot work without a guest-worker program for noncitizens, and others resolutely opposed to any plan that would keep undocumented workers flowing into the country.
Bush had made the immigration issue a top item on his domestic agenda, hoping a carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with a growing number of illegal immigrants and undocumented workers would satisfy conservatives while advancing his efforts to reach out to Latino voters. But in the face of unyielding conservative opposition in the House, leaders abandoned the president's guest-worker plan, which would have allowed foreign workers into the country under temporary work visas.
The House bill was adamantly opposed by an unusual coalition of business lobbies; ethnic groups, such as the National Council of La Raza; religious organizations; and labor unions that contend the measure is too harsh on illegal immigrants and imposes unworkable requirements on employers. Supporters -- including the House Republican leadership -- are convinced their measure has the ardent support of constituents fed up with illegal aliens flooding through the border. The Senate will probably consider a very different version next year that includes a guest-worker provision.
"For the first time, I can go out on the stump and say our party has done right on the issue of immigration," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a firebrand on illegal immigration who drove the debate. "And I feel good about it."
Opponents from both parties said the House had approved a punitive measure that could criminalize not only undocumented workers but also their families and employers, while doing nothing to bring some 11 million illegal aliens out of the shadows and into lawful society.
"We owe a little more honesty to our constituents," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), whose efforts to pass nonbinding language endorsing a guest-worker program were rebuffed by GOP leaders. The bill "means those who are here illegally will stay in the shadows," he said. "That's unacceptable. That's not enforcement. That's a charade."
The future of the immigration bill is unclear. In the Senate, bipartisan support is growing for legislation co-authored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would combine border enforcement measures with a guest-worker program. But a large number of House conservatives say they will never accept such a measure.
"I really worry that anything we do over here will be a vehicle for a guest-worker program," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.).
Tancredo agreed: "Now the fight begins."
Under the House bill, employers would have to confirm the authenticity of employees' Social Security numbers against a national database of legitimate numbers or face stiff new fines of as much as $25,000 per violation. The measure would end the "catch and release" policy for immigrants other than Mexicans who are caught entering the country illegally and then released with a court date. All illegal immigrants apprehended at the border would have to be detained, and deportation processes would be streamlined.
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The House last night passed tough immigration legislation to build vast border fences, force employers to verify the legality of their workers and tighten security on the nation's frontier, but it rebuffed President Bush's entreaties to include avenues for foreign workers to gain legal employment.
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At the Times, a Scoop Deferred
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The New York Times' revelation yesterday that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct domestic eavesdropping raised eyebrows in political and media circles, for both its stunning disclosures and the circumstances of its publication.
In an unusual note, the Times said in its story that it held off publishing the 3,600-word article for a year after the newspaper's representatives met with White House officials. It said the White House had asked the paper not to publish the story at all, "arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."
The Times said it agreed to remove information that administration officials said could be "useful" to terrorists and delayed publication for a year "to conduct additional reporting."
The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday's story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.
The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times' Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story's path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.
In a statement yesterday, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller did not mention the book. He wrote that when the Times became aware that the NSA was conducting domestic wiretaps without warrants, "the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security."
"Officials also assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions," Keller continued. "As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time."
In the ensuing months, Keller wrote, two things changed the paper's thinking. The paper developed a fuller picture of misgivings about the program by some in the government. And the paper satisfied itself through more reporting that it could write the story without exposing "any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record."
Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said it was conceivable the Times waited to publish its NSA story as the Senate took up renewal of the Patriot Act. "It's not unheard of to wait for a news peg," he said. "It's not unusual to discover the existence of something and not know the context of it until later."
Yesterday's article was a dramatic scoop for a newspaper whose national security coverage has been marked by some turmoil in recent years. The Times admitted last year that much of its reporting on Iraq's weapons programs before the war was flawed. The principal author of those stories, Judith Miller, later spent 85 days in jail to protect the identity of an administration source in the CIA leak case.
More recently, the Times has been scooped by the Los Angeles Times on a story that the U.S. military has been secretly paying to run favorable stories in the Iraqi media, and by The Washington Post on the revelation last month of a secret network of CIA prisons for terrorism suspects in foreign countries. The Times announced last week that it was replacing its deputy bureau chief in Washington, which outsiders read as a sign of the paper's dissatisfaction with its Washington coverage.
The Post was in contact with senior administration officials before publication last month of its story on the CIA prisons. But officials did not seek to stop publication of the article, only to remove information that could jeopardize national security, said Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor.
The story said the officials argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and could make them targets of terrorist retaliation. The Post honored one request by not publishing the Eastern European countries that permitted the prisons.
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The New York Times' revelation yesterday that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct domestic eavesdropping raised eyebrows in political and media circles, for both its stunning disclosures and the circumstances of its publication.
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Chinese Evade Censors To Discuss Police Assault
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HONG KONG, Dec. 16 -- At first glance, it looked like a spirited online discussion about an essay written nearly 80 years ago by modern China's greatest author. But then again, the exchange on a popular Chinese bulletin board site seemed a bit emotional, given the subject.
"In Memory of Ms. Liu Hezhen," which Lu Xun wrote in 1926 after warlord forces opened fire on protesters in Beijing and killed one of his students, is a classic of Chinese literature. But why did thousands of people read or post notes in an online forum devoted to the essay last week?
A close look suggests an answer that China's governing Communist Party might find disturbing: They were using Lu's essay about the 1926 massacre as a pretext to discuss a more current and politically sensitive event -- the Dec. 6 police shooting of rural protesters in the southern town of Dongzhou in Guangdong province.
In the 10 days since the shooting, which witnesses said resulted in the deaths of as many as 20 farmers protesting land seizures, the Chinese government has tried to maintain a blackout on the news, barring almost all newspapers and broadcasters from reporting it and ordering major Internet sites to censor any mention of it. Most Chinese still know nothing of the incident.
But it is also clear that many Chinese have already learned about the violence and are finding ways to spread and discuss the news on the Internet, circumventing state controls with e-mail and instant messaging, blogs and bulletin board forums.
The government maintains enough control over the flow of information to prevent an event like the Dongzhou shooting from causing a major public backlash or triggering more demonstrations. But the Internet appears to be weakening a key pillar of the party's rule -- its ability to control news and public opinion.
"I learned about it on the 7th," one bulletin board user wrote Monday of the Dongzhou shooting. "Some day, I believe, this incident will be exposed and condemned. Let us pay tribute to the villagers . . . and silently mourn the dead."
At Kdnet, a large bulletin board site based in Hainan province, users flooded forums with more than 30,000 messages of protest and sorrow in the days after the shooting. The site deleted almost all of the messages Sunday night, but a top editor felt compelled to post a note pleading for forgiveness.
"Please understand, what other Web sites cannot do, Kdnet also cannot do," he wrote to the site's users, promising to convey their anger over the shooting to "the authorities in charge."
The party relies on private Internet firms to monitor and censor their own sites, and can shut down those that don't. But officials at these companies often look the other way or drag their feet when they think they can get away with it, because they know customers are drawn to Web sites with less censorship.
Even after the purge of messages on Kdnet, people continued expressing their views on the site by disguising their comments. More than 140 notes and poems were posted in one forum on Lu Xun's essay, for example, almost all of them without any explicit reference to the shooting in Dongzhou, a coastal town about 125 miles northeast of Hong Kong.
"I heard about it a few days ago, but I wasn't surprised. I think it's because I'm already numb," wrote one Internet user. "But now that so many other Internet friends know about it, I am able to feel grief and indignation together with everyone."
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HONG KONG, Dec. 16 -- At first glance, it looked like a spirited online discussion about an essay written nearly 80 years ago by modern China's greatest author. But then again, the exchange on a popular Chinese bulletin board site seemed a bit emotional, given the subject.
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Google to Buy 5% Of AOL for $1 Billion
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Google Inc. is buying a 5 percent stake in Dulles-based America Online Inc. for $1 billion as part of a far-reaching business and advertising partnership aimed at boosting AOL's financial prospects as the Internet service struggles with the loss of millions of subscribers.
The five-year deal gives AOL new life by offering it numerous ways to garner more of the billions of dollars being spent on Internet advertising. It also deepens AOL's relationship with Google, the leading gateway to Internet sites for millions of computer users.
Google has been the search engine on AOL for several years, but rival Microsoft Corp. made a bid to take its place, offering AOL hundreds of millions in cash annually if it dumped Google for MSN Search. But Thursday night in New York, Google presented Richard D. Parsons, chief executive of AOL parent Time Warner Inc., with a more lucrative proposal that gave AOL numerous ways to grow along with rapidly expanding online ad spending.
Under the agreement, Google will remain the search engine on the AOL service for five years and Google will give AOL millions of dollars of free advertising on the search engine to promote its network of Web sites. AOL also will get the exclusive right to sell online banner ads for Google. AOL will keep about 20 percent of the proceeds from those ad sales, while Google will get about 80 percent.
"This is our dream come true. Our fates are intertwined," said a person familiar with AOL's strategy to link its future to Google's. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Time Warner's board still must vote on the transaction when it meets next week.
While AOL has been losing subscribers, it is still the nation's biggest Internet service, with about 20 million users who pay for Internet access; e-mail; and an array of music, news and other content. AOL has been increasing the size of its audience by giving away content and e-mail addresses for free on AOL.com and by attracting users to Moviefone, Mapquest and other Web sites it owns.
With more than 110 million unique visitors monthly to its network of Web sites, AOL has been the largest source of ad revenue for Google. AOL's most popular feature is its free instant-messaging service, which has about 43 million users who chat online through text messages and provides an attractive platform for Google to dramatically expand its presence in free telephone service over the Internet.
"AOL is a valued partner," Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox said yesterday. "We look forward to continuing to work with them."
AOL has provided Google with more than $400 million in ad revenue so far this year, according to public filings. And AOL itself has taken in far more than that from its existing partnership with Google this year.
Google stock rose $7.62 yesterday to $430.15 a share after news of its deal with AOL leaked. Google went public in August 2004 at $85 a share.
Time Warner stock closed at $18, up 16 cents. Corporate financier Carl C. Icahn, who has been pressuring Time Warner to consider the sale of a majority stake in AOL, spin off its cable division and use cash to buy back tens of billions of dollars worth of its stock, criticized the AOL-Google agreement yesterday. He noted that Time Warner previously had rebuffed overtures from Yahoo Inc. to purchase America Online, and he argued that shareholders would have been better off with an outright sale.
"I call it a travesty," said Icahn, who is waging a proxy fight to replace Parsons and other members of the Time Warner board. "They should have allowed others to bid who wanted control of AOL."
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Google Inc. is buying a 5 percent stake in Dulles-based America Online Inc. for $1 billion as part of a far-reaching business and advertising partnership aimed at boosting AOL's financial prospects as the Internet service struggles with the loss of millions of subscribers.
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World Bank Reconsiders Trade's Benefits to Poor
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As thousands of trade diplomats meeting in Hong Kong this week struggle to break an impasse over a global trade agreement, some surprising new economic research threatens to throw a fresh damper on their efforts.
In a recently released book, the World Bank says that the potential benefits for the world's poor of a far-reaching trade deal "are significantly lower" than it had previously thought.
The bank has long served as a source of authority for claims -- by commentators, public officials and others -- that the ongoing trade negotiations, known as the Doha round, could lift multitudes of people out of poverty. The scaling back of the bank's projections is noteworthy, and comes at a sensitive time, as the Hong Kong meeting of the World Trade Organization remains stalled due to fierce disputes among the WTO's 149 member nations.
The bank estimated three years ago that freeing international trade of all barriers and subsidies would lift 320 million people above the $2 a day poverty line by 2015. Now, however, bank economists project the figure at between 66 million and 95 million people. And even that assumes the WTO negotiators would completely abolish tariffs, quotas and other obstacles to commerce -- a fanciful scenario, calculated only to show what a maximum deal would produce.
Assuming a more plausible outcome in which the WTO members agree to some deep cuts in tariffs and subsidies while stopping short of pure free trade, the reduction in the number of people below the $2-a-day line by 2015 would be only about 6.2 million to 12.1 million people, the bank now reckons. That is less than 1 percent of the people living below the line.
"This is a windfall for anti-globalists," said William R. Cline, a scholar at the Center for Global Development. "They can say even the World Bank doesn't think free trade would do much for reducing poverty."
Cline's study, published last year, projected that full trade liberalization would lead to significant increases in income for developing countries, with roughly 440 million people rising out of poverty. Although some critics have attacked his work, Cline is sticking by his estimates and said he is perplexed that the World Bank, given its influence, is now using assumptions that he regards as excessively conservative.
Whatever the merits of the arguments, free-trade skeptics are indeed seizing on the World Bank's new figures to question the value of the Doha round.
"On the eve of the WTO's Hong Kong ministerial, the so-called gains from trade seem to have evaporated," said Timothy A. Wise, deputy director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. "There are very good reasons why the [WTO] talks have lost momentum. For most countries, there is very little development left in them."
World Bank officials take issue with such conclusions, arguing that their new figures still support the case for negotiators to strike an ambitious deal because that will generate much greater gains for the poor than a modest compromise.
"While it's important not to oversell the impact, it's hard to think of any single measure that countries could take collectively that would have a more significant effect on poverty than a successful Doha round," said Richard S. Newfarmer, an economic adviser in the bank's trade department.
But L. Alan Winters, the bank's director of research, conceded: "Are some of these [new] numbers small? Clearly, smaller than one would wish."
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As thousands of trade diplomats meeting in Hong Kong this week struggle to break an impasse over a global trade agreement, some surprising new economic research threatens to throw a fresh damper on their efforts.
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Military Cites Drawdown in Parts of Iraq
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BAQUBAH, Iraq -- The U.S. military is scaling back combat forces in regions of Iraq's Sunni Triangle that were once fiercely contested, freeing thousands of troops to shift to other trouble spots or to go home without being replaced, according to senior military officials.
The U.S. drawdown in parts of central Iraq is a new and important indicator of commanders' confidence in Iraqi security forces in a region long ravaged by lethal insurgent attacks. In Iraq's east-central Diyala province, for example, the U.S. military expects by next month to have cut the number of ground combat units by two-thirds -- a reduction of about 3,000 troops, according to U.S. commanders here.
"We've already off-ramped a great deal of our combat power," said Col. Steven Salazar, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, based in Baqubah. "I would anticipate you would see an even greater reduction after the election," said Maj. Mark Borowski, operations officer for the brigade.
The shifting of U.S. forces is a precursor to widely anticipated announcements of troop cutbacks following Iraq's national elections, which were held Thursday. "After the elections you will hear about off-ramping as a result of Iraqi capability," said a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. Still, commanders stress that the insurgency's grip varies widely from region to region; some argue that any decrease in U.S. troop strength would be premature.
On Friday, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, confirmed plans to shrink the number of U.S. forces from about 150,000 troops to the base level earlier this year of about 138,000 by early February. Pentagon officials had been saying for weeks that such a move was likely.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon in a video link from Baghdad, Casey declined to predict when any further drawdown of forces would occur, saying he would continue to assess the Iraq situation. But other senior officers said recently that two 3,500-troop brigades previously slated to move into central Iraq early next year as part of a fresh rotation of forces probably would be held back.
In Diyala, the partial pullout has allowed the U.S. military to test the ability of Iraqi forces to assume greater responsibility in once highly volatile areas where insurgents continue to fight. "It's about transitioning the counterinsurgency fight to them," Borowski said. This contrasts with other regions where U.S. troops have been reduced -- the predominantly Shiite south and the Kurdish north. Those regions have been relatively peaceful since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, despite flare-ups in violence.
Last summer, for example, the military shifted most of one tank unit, the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, out of western Diyala, replacing it with a small U.S. task force and Iraqi army troops. "We didn't see the wide-scale violence we expected when we pulled that unit out," said Borowski. "This was our first big success in turning over a significant piece of the province to an Iraqi army unit with very little U.S. oversight or presence," he said. The tank unit was moved to Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, where the insurgency continues to rage.
Then in November, an armored cavalry regiment of more than 3,000 troops from the Tennessee National Guard left eastern Diyala and returned to the United States, replaced by a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division that is one-third of its size.
The thinning of U.S. forces in central Iraq will continue at the end of December, when the 101st Airborne takes charge of a much bigger swath of Iraq, expanding its command from the central provinces such as Diyala and Salahuddin to encompass northern Iraq, including Nineveh province and Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.
The military is also consolidating its bases in the region as part of a broad strategy to pull American troops out of Iraqi cities to outlying bases, where they can provide backup as the Iraqi army and police take the lead in urban areas. Since February, U.S. forces have moved out of 30 of their 110 bases in Iraq, transferring 17 of them to Iraqi security forces. In the longer term, the U.S. military plans to fall back further into a handful of large "contingency operating bases," each with an airfield and logistical capabilities and able to accommodate at least one U.S. combat brigade.
In Diyala, the U.S. troop reduction has not led to any major deterioration in security so far, according to officers here. Overall, the number of attacks has dropped compared with last year, said Maj. Dean Wollan, an intelligence officer with the 3rd Brigade.
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BAQUBAH, Iraq -- The U.S. military is scaling back combat forces in regions of Iraq's Sunni Triangle that were once fiercely contested, freeing thousands of troops to shift to other trouble spots or to go home without being replaced, according to senior military officials.
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Suicidal Guantanamo Inmate Moved Out of Isolation
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2005121819
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Military officials at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have moved a suicidal detainee out of his isolation cell after he said he was trying to kill himself because of the "intolerable" conditions of his incarceration.
Jumah Dossari, 32, a Bahraini detainee who attempted to kill himself during a visit from his attorney in October, was moved from a segregation cell at the prison's Camp Five to a steel-mesh cell in Camp One, where he can interact with other detainees, government lawyers said. They informed Dossari's attorneys of the move on Thursday afternoon, a day before a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington that was scheduled to address Dossari's case.
Dossari's attorneys have been asking the court to order Guantanamo Bay officials to improve his living conditions, which they argue have led him to attempt suicide at least nine times. In a letter to the lawyers Thursday, Edward H. White, a Justice Department lawyer, described what appeared to be a 10th suicide attempt Monday, when Dossari tried to open an existing gash on his right arm.
Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, one of Dossari's attorneys, said in court yesterday that his client is in imminent danger because of the extreme stress caused by captivity in a tiny isolation cell.
"The purpose of Guantanamo is to create a sense of hopelessness in detainees," Colangelo-Bryan said. "That appears to have worked on Mr. al-Dossari."
In declassified notes from a meeting with the lawyer last month, Dossari said that he "wanted to kill himself so that he could send a message to the world that the conditions at Guantanamo are intolerable" and said he tried to do it in a public way "so that the military could not cover it up and his death would not be anonymous."
Dossari slashed his arm and tried to hang himself during a bathroom break while he was meeting with Colangelo-Bryan, who found him. The suicide attempt left him with a fractured spine and 14 stitches in his arm.
Dossari reported that he felt on the "brink of collapse" and "destroyed" and said all he wanted was to interact with other detainees.
White said Dossari has been diagnosed with four different psychological disorders, including depression, and has been receiving regular treatment from a psychiatrist and a psychologist. He said it is unclear whether Dossari arrived at Guantanamo Bay with the psychological problems.
"Despite the fact that petitioner has repeatedly attempted suicide, he is getting extensive medical treatment," White said, adding that the move to Camp One allows Dossari adequate human interaction. "If anything they're being very diligent about monitoring the petitioner and treating him."
Camp One is a group of cell blocks that hold approximately 150 -- about 30 percent -- of the detainees at Guantanamo. Detainees live in their own cells, which are constructed of steel mesh, and can see and speak to others on the block. They also share an exercise yard.
By moving Dossari out of Camp Five -- the equivalent of a U.S. maximum-security prison -- the government effectively sought to remedy the problem before a federal judge stepped in. Judge Reggie B. Walton is still considering an order that would force the prison to put fewer restrictions on Dossari.
But Walton said yesterday that if judges begin issuing such orders, "we become the warden."
Human rights groups and lawyers are watching a proposal under discussion on Capitol Hill that would strip detainees of the ability to file habeas corpus claims and other cases with U.S. federal courts.
The proposed legislation, sponsored by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), would instead direct a federal appeals court in Washington to review the decisions of Guantanamo Bay military panels that determine whether a detainee is "an enemy combatant." The measure would, however, allow those panels to use evidence against enemy combatants that was obtained by coercion.
Detainees also could appeal the verdicts of Guantanamo Bay military trials in the same court. No detainee has yet been tried before those "military commissions," whose authority is being challenged in a case that has gone to the Supreme Court.
"We're not going to turn the war on terror over to the judges," Graham said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. He has advocated, instead, for congressional oversight.
The legislation would effectively dismiss pending federal habeas cases on behalf of more than 300 Guantanamo Bay detainees.
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Military officials at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have moved a suicidal detainee out of his isolation cell after he said he was trying to kill himself because of the "intolerable" conditions of his incarceration.
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Rock-and-Roll Yoga Instructor
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2005121819
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HARdcORE ROOTS: The audacity of doing something like a rock-and-roll yoga class definitely comes from my punk rock roots. When I was 14, I hated everything and discovered punk. My parents quickly figured out there was nothing they could do about it. My dad [Joseph Tydings, a former Maryland senator] stopped making me go to fundraisers, because I had purple hair. My first hardcore show was Rites of Spring at the Chevy Chase Community Center. So much of punk is teenage rebellion, and there were certainly racist skinheads running around, but somehow the D.C. hardcore scene was really smart. If someone started to fall down in the pit, everybody would pick him up. Nobody was going to get trampled.
WARRIOR PRINCESS: I was in L.A. for 10 years and the more I was acting, the more I needed yoga. Hollywood can be a little superficial, to put it mildly. Yoga is a good place to get out of your head. Acting is wonderful, working is fantastic, and auditioning is hell. I was really lucky from the beginning because I got to make my living as an actress on "Xena: Warrior Princess."
BEGINNERS BEWARE: The class is growing for sure. It's attracting a lot of new people, which is fun but also tough because it's an advanced-level class. It's really loud music, so I'm not going to be able to walk you through all of the important beginning steps. I tell beginners they are welcome, but I want them to be very careful. I want them to listen to their bodies, come to child's pose all the time and take beginner classes throughout the week.
BODY BLISS: If you read some of the ancient texts of yoga, the point is to reach a state of bliss. It's not about doing the perfect backbend or the perfect handstand. It's about getting your whole being to a state of oneness with the universe. Listening to great music is inspiring. For me, it's right in alignment with classical yoga even though it's not what you'd expect.
MUSICAL MANTRAS: The music you hear in class doesn't have to be happy, but I want it to make you feel good. U2 works really well for yoga. I'm not a huge U2 fan, but I think it works, because it's so big and it has that "it's a beautiful day to be alive" feel to it. We've had some Clash, some Beastie Boys, some Dr. Dre. I try to talk loud over the misogynistic parts. The best music, from a creative point of view, is not about the words. It's about the melody, the bass line, the groove. You don't want to be listening to the words in yoga. If the words snap you into thinking in a verbal way, then that defeats the purpose.
NAMASTE: America is so results oriented and competitive that people get so nitpicky that they miss the whole point. Yoga is about spirit and feeling connected to something bigger than yourself. When you're more lighthearted, you end up having fun and actually working harder. Then, you get those results you were going for. I really like that a lot.
As told to Rachel Beckman
Rock-and-Roll Yoga is Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. (Luzzatto teaches the Sunday and Monday classes.) Hot Yoga, 3408 Wisconsin Ave. NW. $15. 202-468-9642.http://www.hotyogausa.comorhttp://www.rockandrollyoga.com.
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A DIFFERENT VIBE: I've been a yoga instructor since April, but I started practicing yoga 12 years ago in Los Angeles. One of my teachers was this guy named Steve Ross. His class was jampacked, and he played really loud music all the time. It was just a really different vibe. People laughed in class,...
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Just Say No to Microsoft
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2005121819
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Bove traces the company's rise from tiny startup to monopolistic juggernaut, maintaining that the company's practices have discouraged innovation, stunted competition, and helped foster an environment ripe for viruses, bugs and hackers.
Tony Bove edits the Inside Report on New Media newsletter and writes for magazines including Computer Currents, Nextworld, the Chicago Tribune Sunday Technology section, and NewMedia. He co-founded and edited Desktop Publishing/Publish magazine and has written 20 books on computing, desktop publishing and multimedia.
Tony Bove: Hello, I'm Tony Bove, the author of "Just Say No to Microsoft", a book from No Starch Press, available in stores and online. You can go directly to the book page on Amazon by clicking the book link on my site, http://www.tonybove.com/.
Tony Bove: Chances are, you already use Microsoft software. And you think you have little or no choice but to use it. But you can get off this unsafe habit and even save a few bucks in the process. You can live in the Microsoft-dominated world, work with others who use Microsoft software, participate in Microsoft-based networks and even share Microsoft-related resources, all without having to suffer like a typical Microsoft user.
"Just Say No to Microsoft" tells you how to get out of the way of the Microsoft juggernaut and avoid getting sucked into the monoculture of virus attacks and bad software. It also shows you how to work successfully with computers and people who are still hooked on Microsoft software -- even to convince them that you, too, are using Microsoft products -- without ever coming into direct contact with the stuff.
This book is for you if you think for yourself. If you don't buy the party line. If you recognize the necessity of functioning in this Microsoft-dominated world but are willing to try alternatives. At the very least, the book shows you how to minimize your likelihood of being a victim of Microsoft dominance, and perhaps become even more productive with Microsoft software by making it crash less.
Don't think you are immune as a Mac or Linux user. You still have to deal with the Microsoft world -- opening Microsoft Word or Excel files or Windows Media files from other people. You may have to create files for others to open with Microsoft products. You may have already strayed from the Microsoft Way, but you should arm yourself with the tools you need to deal with the output from the Microsoft world.
Tony Bove: "Just Say No to Microsoft" was released in October, 2005. To keep readers up-to-date on new issues, and to provide links to alternative software, I've set up a web site and blog for the book at:
Just click on the "Get Off Microsoft" button.
Greensboro, N.C.: Mr. Bove, Linux and the Open Source community, in general, are gaining more and more ground over closed technologies as companies like Microsoft continually shrug off open solutions, but do you think they will ever cover enough ground to be a threat to corporate powerhouses like Microsoft?
Tony Bove: Microsoft is essentially held back by its monopoly and the complexity of its products, and can't innovate fast enough without hurting its existing business. That wasn't always the case -- in the early days of the monopoly, Microsoft was invincible. There was so much activity on so many fronts that the company was a moving target. The reason I can write this book, "Just Say No to Microsoft", now is that the company has become a big fat target. Office has matured to the point that it is not only easy to clone but easy to improve upon. Windows is under constant attack from Linux and Mac OS X. The reason people give for needing to use Windows -- because they need to run certain applications -- is quickly eroding. To use the new Internet services, all you need is a computer that runs a browser.
I think missteps by Microsoft in the coming year -- with Vista, and with advertising-supported software -- will reduce the Microsoft monopoly enough to enhance competition and spark more innovations. At some point a low-cost non-Windows computer will be very popular for the consumer market, and so will Apple Macs on the "high end". It's only a matter of time.
Zurich, Switzerland: I'm a Linux user and I just installed the latest SUSE version 10.0. It is perfect. I actually enjoyed setting up my system and installing all the free software. And it is so easy.
It's unfathomable how someone could choose Windows over Linux. There is no contest. It's free, faster, more stable, completely compatible with loads of free software. (Buy an installation package for 40 dollars that would cost you several hundred for Windows versions)
I think it really has to do with a sort of phobia people have for new technologies that they feel will overwhelm them.
How else can you explain such poor consumer choices?
Choosing the most expensive and worst technology simply because it's the only one they know?
So much for the efficacy of the open exchange of information. People still choose crap over greatness.
Tony Bove: During the two decades that PCs have ruled the industry, I've heard the same excuse time after time from people who thought they needed a Windows PC for home or travel, but would have used something else (such as a Mac) if they knew they could. Or, they thought they needed to use the same software they used at the office, which meant Microsoft Office applications (such as Word and Excel) for at least 9 out of 10 users. Even when these applications migrated to the Mac, people were wary.
Then, during the last decade and a half, custom "client" applications available only for Windows appeared in many offices, locking people into using that software at home and while traveling. Microsoft's dominance grew, and the Mac lost market share. Alternative desktop systems faded away.
But things have changed in just the last few years. With the Internet as the primary information carrier and the Web as its primary interface, it no longer matters which operating system you use or even which applications. All most people need is a computer that runs a browser, an email program (or just your browser with online email), and your suite of "office" applications. You can determine what works for you and then use what you like.
The revolutionary new model of software distribution called open source -- in which software is given away for free and volunteers contribute to its development -- is changing the dynamics of the software industry and offering the first real threat to Microsoft dominance.
You now have choices. That's what freedom and capitalism are all about, right?
Pirkkala, Finland: Big companies such as Microsoft and Apple have always been eager to protect their businesses by limiting the use of their software. For instance Windows Media Player doesn't work with Firefox when trying to watch streaming media on several websites providing it (CNN, Comedy Central...), it works only with Explorer. On a larger scale the compatibility of technology is a huge problem and the companies aren't willing to do anything to change it.
How can these kinds of obstacles be overcome considering stubborness and the dominant role of Microsoft in the current situation?
Tony Bove: I am against using software that doesn't conform to agreed-upon standards. People should vote with their dollars. The Microsoft formats are by no means "open" as in Open Source software. They are, in fact, part of a crafty scheme to maintain the bind that ties business and government customers to Microsoft Office. This is what Microsoft (and, by reporting it, the mainstream press) calls "open"?
While competitors can support Microsoft's "open" format, they can't improve on it without risking a lawsuit. They can, on the other hand, improve on the standard OpenDocument Format (ODF). Therein lies an important distinction. Software can be written years from now that will still be able to read today's ODF documents, and those software vendors can offer improvements to ODF. Those vendors will also be able to read the "standard" Microsoft formats, but not improve on them. Microsoft, of course, will be able to improve on them, and charge for an Office upgrade that takes advantages of those improvements.
Myersville, Md.: I understand the security concerns associated with using Microsoft products that are riddled with millions of lines of secret bug-ridden code, but is switching to open source software the best solution? The idea that there are many people out there that are willing to fix problems with open source software for free is great, but there remains a tremendous accountability issue.
At least with Microsoft everyone knows who is responsible for reparing security breaches. With open source software there is no one that is ultimately repsonsible for problems that occur.
Tony Bove: The freedom to work with the source code is its own reward. The pioneers of the open source movement give away their software and source code with one caveat: Any improvements have be incorporated back into the software and made available to everyone for free, including the source code for the improvements. Companies can build on the original source code as long as they donate their improvements back to the project.
A programmer annoyed with an open source product can "scratch the itch," as software pioneer Eric Raymond describes it (in "Free For All" by Peter Wayner) and improve the software. With something as complex as an operating system, very deep, serious flaws might be hard to reproduce and identify, and it takes many more people working with the system with different hardware configurations to find these flaws. Raymond likens the difference between corporate-built software (such as Microsoft's) and open source software as the Cathedral versus the Bazaar.
In the Cathedral method of building software products, a talented architect runs a well-focused team of engineers to build the product. However, finding and fixing bugs takes months of scrutiny by the elite team, which guarantees long intervals between software releases. The Bazaar, on the other hand, acts like free marketplace of small merchants competing with each other. Programmers around the world can use the source code to fix bugs and add new features. The best new features and bug fixes are adopted by the larger community after rigorous testing, while the worst ones fall by the wayside. New releases occur more frequently, bringing these bug fixes and features out to the public more quickly than corporate software.
Which is not to say that this undisciplined approach to system debugging produces the best code. Sometimes programmers create fixes that are just good enough for them and their specific problems. But even if a programmer fixes a problem in a way that breaks other parts of the system, the effect is to place a giant arrow on the entire problem, forcing other programmers to create better fixes.
What motivates these programmers? Many do it to show off; others use the experience to pepper their resumes with significant accomplishments. Most do it to make open source software better for themselves and, incidentally, for the rest of the world.
Wichita, Kan.: Microsoft is such a power house it seems when it comes to operating systems. How can other companies create operating systems, that computer manufactures will bundle with new PC's, while enabling various systems to "communicate" with one another.
An example of this would be at work I use Word Perfect but at home I use OpenOffice. OpenOffice can open word documents and save documents to mimic Word however Word currently doesn't offer users the luxury.
Tony Bove: Standards such as the OpenDocument Format (ODF) can help. You can save in ODF and then use it with different applications that support it (such as OpenOffice.org). It pays to adhere to standards that are developed by and supported by multiple vendors, and not to be stuck with Microsoft's formats.
Isn't this easier said than done. Microsoft is so embedded in todays computing world that for the most part it is easier to just go with the flow. Take Windows as the main example. Do you foresee anyone other than advanced users ever trying an alternative OS like Linux?
I think the true advantage to Msoft alternatives like Firefox and Open Office is that they give some competition and help speed along development and improvement of Microsofts products, and hoepfully will prevent them from getting lazy with updates like they have been lately.
Tony Bove: Yes, many people, especially folks with older hardware configurations, are checking out the new Linux distributions that are easily installed from CD or DVD and provide a graphical interface that looks much like Windows.
St Paul, Minn.: As Linux distributions gain more traction in the workplace desktop environment, what are the prospects Microsoft losing market share due to excessive costs of Redmond products--over the next 2-4 years? An example of a smooth & seamless Linux distribution is SuSE/Novell 10.0--which appears competitive with XP or W2000--and which automatically configures nearly all hardware & network connections--at a fraction of the cost of any Microsoft OS.
In other words, how long can the marketplace ignore an essentially free product which is at least as good as anything being shipped by Microsoft?
Tony Bove: They are not ignoring the value of Linux. Large corporations are already discovering the lower cost advantage for large installations--it's not uncommon for a company with over 5,000 PC users to pay more than a million dollars in license fees to Microsoft. Software vendors bidding for large installation contracts can charge much less if they provide a free operating system. Migration to Linux is a no-brainer for companies that run relatively few applications, especially if these applications are fixed-function or low-function, such as data entry, call center, or bank teller/platform automation. Office workers are using Linux on their desktops without knowing it's Linux. Microsoft is cranking up its PR machine to fight Linux because, frankly, it costs a lot less to outfit an office with Linux and a suite of free applications than it does to outfit an office with Microsoft Windows and Windows-based applications.
Stone Mountain, Ga.: Most people are not sophisticated enough to maintain Windows because all the updates required for Windows, Explorer, antivirus, anti-spyware, and applications. Most of these people know someone like me who is not IT expert, but can repair most problems and make recommendations. If they switch to Linux and supporting software, they will probably loose their "free" IT help. How will the average person maintain a Linux computer for its 5 year or longer life?
Tony Bove: There are plenty of ways to support Linux and plenty of people who know how to do it. A Google search on Linux support shows that there are free as well as paid alternatives. Check out Dr. Tux (www.doctortux.com) or a similar free service that answers questions.
May I also suggest the Mac, which by and large requires very little support.
Laurel, Md.: Being a person of generally pro-labor political bent, I resent any company whose sheer bigness translates into defining what the market is. Obvious M$ is such a business.
However, a few years I played with Linux for a couple of weeks and got it to run... sort of.
How much computer knowledge does it take these days to use non-MS products on a non-MS machine?
Tony Bove: The Mac is a better alternative for most people than Linux. It takes very little computer knowledge to run a Mac -- much less than what you need to run Windows and keep Windows secure.
Linux is a powerful system that is attractive to developers and programmers but is not hard to use. However, it can be complex to tailor a Linux system to a particular hardware configuration.
North Potomac, Md.: If I move to open office, then is it possible for me to move to Linux or another OS?
Tony Bove: Yes. OpenOffice.org runs on the Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can also try NeoOffice (a version of OpenOffice.org) for the Mac -- it works better and uses the Mac interface entirely. All these programs save in the ODF (OpenDocument Format) so you can use documents interchangeably with them.
Washington, D.C.: Have you thought about writing more on the latest addiction: "Just say No to Apple" yet? I mean from what I can tell they appear to be visibly more about entertainment these days than education.
Tony Bove: Apple sells proprietary technology at a higher price. But there is very little public outcry over the ironclad control of its products or its arrogance toward companies that want to build upon its products--because Apple does not have a monopoly. In a better world, there would be three or four Apples, each with more than five percent market share, and you'd have choices that are truly different. The Microsoft monopoly prevents other Apples from existing.
Washington, DC..: Aside from not having a monopoly over personal and business computing, how has Macintosh avoided to "discourage innovation, stunt competition, and foster an environment ripe for viruses, bugs and hackers" (as per your description of Microsoft)?
As many of us consider switching to Mac, it would be helpful to understand this angle in terms of how they best Windows.
Tony Bove: One reason for getting a Mac, and perhaps the most important reason for beginning computer users, is that it is less susceptible to viruses and other nasty security breaches that can reveal your identity, your Social Security number, and the password to your bank account. You can keep your digital life safe with a Mac.
I have used Macs for two decades without ever getting attacked by a virus successfully. While I always follow the "rules of engagement" whenencountering email--don't open strange messages and never click on attachments you don't already know are safe--I don't use any anti-virus programs and don't need any spyware protection. Why not? I use a Mac.
McAllen, Tex.: Mr.Bove, I recently added a Linux desktop at home, which is exceptional, but anybody without a fair amount of computer savvy will eventually surrender because of the difficulty with adding drivers for basics such as video cards, and wireless cards.
Until this is improved, how can Linux become widely accepted?
Tony Bove: The companies that package Linux in a distribution--either on CD-ROM or for downloading--often include automatic installation programs or wizards that help you through the process of configuring the system for different hardware configurations. Distributions such as Xandros, Sun's Java Desktop System, and Lindows' Linspire offer easy Linux installations or PCs preloaded with Linux, and all the software you need for the desktop. You can even get inexpensive preloaded Linux PCs for under $300 from Wal-Mart. While Linux itself is free, companies make a profit selling packaged versions of the system on CD-ROM that include device drivers, utilities, and applications. Some of these companies, like Red Hat and Novell, offer services on the Internet for downloading software updates and obtaining support.
Millville, N.J.: Given Apple's current and upcoming products, do you think the company has a good shot at recovering over 5-percent PC marketshare from Microsoft in the next 3-5 years? Also, do you see a desktop Linux solution coming that can lure a good portion of the non-geek, average Joe/Jane consumer from Windows anytime soon? Thank you.
Tony Bove: Apple has an excellent chance of reviving the "home" market with a home entertainment network and system that is better than the Windows Media solution -- because Apple spends far more on design and gets it right. Why is the Mac recognized as a clearly superior machine to any PC on the market? "Style" is what most people think. "Grace under pressure" is what I think, and what I've experienced after two decades of using desktop and portable Macs.
As for Linux, I think in about a year we will see more computers arriving with Linux preinstalled -- such as the $100 laptop that the M.I.T. Media Lab is developing for third-world countries.
Washington, D.C.: Are any computer manfacturers making optimized Linux laptops? I'd like to try Linux, but I'm not interested in searching for the right drivers for every piece of hardware (wi-fi, sound, drives, power-save, etc.)
If not, are there distributions that are more user-friendly for certain manufacturers?
Tony Bove: Dell offers a Linux laptop, and I believe Wal-Mart is selling a Linux PC.
Some people, believe it or not, find installing Linux on a PC easier than installing Windows, because most Linux distributions install the applications, utilities, and tools along with the operating system. Depending on the distribution, it is possible to have a fully operating system in anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. It is true that some Linux distributions are crude and ask too many cryptic questions about your graphics card, sound card, Ethernet hardware, and so on. But others, such as SimplyMEPIS (www.mepis.org), can recognize your PC components automatically and install the proper software drivers.
SimplyMEPIS and Knoppix are good examples of Linux distributions that offer the goods. Both are distributed on a single CD with everything you need, and you can even run the system off the CD without installing it on your hard disk. Mozilla is typically provided as the default browser, and in some cases (such as SimplyMEPIS), Macromedia Flash, Real Player, Mplayer, and Java are all set up to work automatically. These distributions also install OpenOffice.org, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office.
St Paul, Minn.: With Microsoft churning out OS after OS every year it seems, are there any alternatives for an OS on the PC? I am not one of those people who needs to upgrade my OS every time a new one comes out. I still use Windows NT 4 on two machines and I just finally just upgraded my 3rd machine to 2000 Pro after using 98SE for over 4 years, only because I needed a better system for burning DVDs.
Tony Bove: Linux is a great way to squeeze a few extra years out of an aging PC that is still chugging along with the crash-prone and highly insecure Windows 98. To migrate from Windows 95 to Windows XP, you most likely need more memory or even a new PC. But you can install Linux, a web browser, e-mail, and other applications on an older PC for about $50. Computers starved for RAM (under 32 MB) can't really use it, but computers with 64 to 128 MB of RAM can run Linux with all its bells and whistles. By comparison, Microsoft Windows XP needs 128 MB or more.
Atlanta, Ga.: I would love to switch entirely to Linux, but my two main concerns are compatibility of OpenOffice with Word and Powerpoint, and the lack of reference software like Endnote for Linux. I need to be able to write documents and make presentations that are portable to Windows and Mac. I have thought about switching to Mac, since it's got Unix underpinnings and is compatible with Office.. but I don't like the high cost of Mac hardware.
Tony Bove: OpenOffice.org offers a complete alternative to Office, including an alternative to PowerPoint -- OpenOffice Impress imports and saves PowerPoint files so that you can move your files into a non-Microsoft system and still share them with PowerPoint users. You can also use the OpenDocument Format for files, thereby guaranteeing that they can be opened in the future by OpenOffice.org and other open-source applications, or use Microsoft formats because most applications will support them somehow.
Have you also checked the "low" cost of the new Macs? For some, the cost difference between a fully-loaded Mac laptop and a fully-loaded PC laptop (with everything from large-capacity hard disk to wireless) is not much more than a night in a fancy hotel in Washington, D.C.
Mitchellville, Md.: Which word processing software can compete with Microsoft Office suite?
Tell me and I will consider it.
Tony Bove: I use OpenOffice.org on a Windows machine and a Linux machine, which offers everything I ever needed in Office. I use NeoOffice on a Mac, which is a version of OpenOffice.org. This stuff works very well.
King George, Va.: MS Office products are moving to xml in the next release; how will that affect compatability with other products?
Tony Bove: The creation of a fully documented standard derived from the formats, called Microsoft Office Open XML, will likely take about a year, according to Microsoft. Microsoft is submitting the format to the European standards body ECMA International (ECMA is a Geneva-based standards organization which issues standards and recommendations). While Microsoft wraps its public announcement in the mantle of "openness" the formats submitted are not open. Microsoft doesn't relinquish control of the Office formats to other companies. All Microsoft is promising to do is provide information about the formats and not sue anyone for using them.
Microsoft's strategy is to confuse the public by obfuscating the details involved in the standards process and in legislative actions, and by claiming its move will "open" these file formats. We're all supposed to wait another year while Microsoft finishes Office. The company could have supported OpenDocument in order to remain competitive with OpenOffice.org and other Office rivals, but instead, Microsoft is maintaining its monopoly position with Office by sticking with its own formats. How will this affect you? As you move your documents into future systems, you may want to rid yourself of Microsoft formats that lock you into using Office. At this point it seems that the OpenDocument standard is the only truly open standard that is guaranteed to work with other applications.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: I agree with your basic premises and conclusions, but I think that changes need to begin with training. I believe that the major impediment to any changes in corporate policies is determined largely by what is currently "known."
What are your suggestions for changing how training is done? Are there any resources that might subsidize the teaching of alternate computing tools in the technical schools and community colleges?
Tony Bove: I think the simplest approach is the best, with regard to training: Google the Internet, which offers an extensive amount of information about open-source software. Linux and open-source software is already very popular at the university level. The next generation of programmers will all be savvy with open-source software.
Lubbock, Tex.: Are there really alternatives to Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Office Professional? Which programs compare to MS ACCESS and Powerpoint? Is Linux an alternative to XP Professional?
Tony Bove: If you can afford to buy a new computer, get a Mac as an alternative to Windows XP (or wait another year and buy the new Intel-based Macs that will offer both the Mac OS X operating system and Windows side-by-side). Download OpenOffice.org as a replacement for Microsoft Office (on any machine, or try NeoOffice for the Mac).
Anonymous: Isn't the use of non-MicroSoft products the only way to make MicroSoft improve their products?
Tony Bove: Good idea. Competition is healthy. That's why I wrote this book, "Just Say No to Microsoft" -- to promote competition.
Frederick, Md.: Will Microsoft ever consider using celebrities, such as Jeff Gordon, to promote their products?
Tony Bove: Microsoft would probably get it wrong and pick the wrong celebrity. In 1995, the company launched Windows 95 with the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up," which, as Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, noted at the time, "is better known for its catchy refrain 'You make a grown man cry.' This is a phrase you may hear a lot of over the next few days as millions of people start trying to install Windows.
washingtonpost.com: Don't miss our discussion on OpenOffice.org , live at noon ET.
Arlington, Va.: Just saw a survey of top 10 IT truisms. Something to the effect of "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft" was on it. Microsoft has been the target of criticism for a long time -- why isn't anyone listening?
Tony Bove: Microsoft has a history of using Microspeak to manipulate the press -- such as the announcement on April 16, 1997 that it would continue to make its email service more useful by doubling its servers. In reality, the company was doubling its servers in order to recover from a failure that caused emails to be lost. America Online had similar email problems at that time and was skewered in the press, while Microsoft got off without even having to offer a refund, as AOL did.
The press generally accommodates Microsoft's "bum steers" about Longhorn -- now called Vista -- as if they were facts. Case in point: When Apple introduced Tiger (version 10.4 of Mac OS X) at the end of April 2005, a fanfare of stories appeared that compared it to Microsoft's future Longhorn. CNET News even ran the headline "Longhorn on Tiger's tail" and described some of the new features of Longhorn, many of which are supposedly Tiger-like. And yet, Longhorn won't be available until the end of 2006! Some of the features Gates demonstrated in April 2005 won't even be in the first release. Gates said himself at the press conference, "When I see those demos, I think, 'Gosh, let's get Longhorn done.'" Gee whiz, Bill! The press awaits with baited breath.
Silver Spring, Md.: You wrote "new Intel-based Macs that will offer both the Mac OS X operating system and Windows side-by-side"...last I heard, Apple wasn't planning on including Windows and wasn't planning on facilitating that.
I'm sure that enterprising folks will figure out a simple way to do this, but you make it sounds like Apple will sell Intel-based Macs with Windows, which simply isn't the case. Have things changed very recently, or are you just speculating that Apple will shift directions?
Tony Bove: Everyone is speculating -- no one has any real answers as to what Apple will offer. However, people had spoken publicly that the Intel-based Macs will be able to "drop you into Windows" if you wish to use Windows. There is no prediction -- yet -- that Apple would offer Windows. But it would not be difficult for a version of Windows to run on the machine.
Columbus, Ohio: I'm an attorney and manage my own small law firm. I've been able to avoid MS in many applications -- I use WordPerfect, Firefox, avoid Windows XP as much as possible, etc., but here are my hurdles:
1. Learning curve for Linux. I've set up a Linux box to play with and bought several books on Linux, but where does one find the time?
2. Many applications I need as an attorney only run on Windows. Many peripherals don't have Windows drivers. Macs? Pretty cool but I'm used to generic parts -- I swap motherboards, graphics cards, etc. all the time.
Suggestions? I won't be able to be on-line at 11 so I hope to read responses later.
Tony Bove: Actually I find it hard to believe that you would spend more time learning Linux than the time you already spend swapping motherboards, graphic cards, etc. A lot of the PC hardware we use today will look quaint and operate less than optimally when compared to new hardware coming tomorrow. I typically save time by getting the best hardware configuration all together (such as a Mac) and then running the best software. The learning curve is part of the problem, indeed, but so is the learning curve with new upgrades to Windows and hardware configuration problems.
Baltimore Md.: With recent beta-launches of MSN's Adcenter and web service portal live.com, is the public aware of how Microsoft plans to use their user's passport information - the information they're required to enter when they purchase a new computer and/or register with windows XP - to target advertising and study individual web surfing habits?
Tony Bove: How about this for an idea: Let's give Microsoft all of our personal information to make sure it stays secure. Yeah, great idea. . . Given Microsoft's track record with its Passport authentication system, you'd have to be crazy. In 2001, software flaws in the security of Microsoft's Passport authentication system left consumers' financial data wide open. The company got slapped on the wrist for this security lapse. As part of a settlement agreement with the FTC, the company agreed to make "sweeping changes," which were, in reality, just changes to the company's privacy statements and promises to submit to audits. Fortunately, real punishment was meted out to Microsoft by the industry itself, which, for once, decided to say no.
At issue is Microsoft's Passport, a set of technologies that acts as a centerpiece for web services. Passport accounts are central repositories for a person's online data and can include personal information such as birthdays and credit card numbers. They can also act as a single key to access many online accounts. Microsoft uses Passport authentication for its Hotmail email service and its MSN Messenger instant messaging service. Other e-commerce services also rely on Passport; it's used in transactions in online gaming and for purchases of Microsoft Reader e-books.
Another flaw, discovered in 2003, could have allowed attackers armed only with a Passport user's email address to get that user's name, address, and credit card number. Passport lost its credibility quickly. Privacy organizations galore rejected it outright. The European Union demanded changes to give users more control over how their personal data is shared with partner sites. Then, in early 2005, eBay officially notified customers that it would no longer let them log on through Passport.
Today, Passport use is limited to Microsoft-owned sites and a handful of close partners.
New York, N.Y.: I worked for Sun and never had a problem with Solaris running on my laptop, but now that I'm working freelance, how can I switch from Windows when the applications I need run only on Windows, or maybe Macs (FrameMaker, for instance)?
Tony Bove: FrameMaker used to be avail. for the Mac. Maybe it isn't supported anymore... But I would suggest moving on to a FrameMaker alternative. If what you want are multiple book support, check out the features of OpenOffice.org. I used to use FrameMaker for writing and publishing documentation, but I've moved on as most documentation is now in HTML format.
I'm a long-time Linux user (since kernel 0.94). I used to work in a Unix environment, so I was familiar with Unix configuration and administration.
Now I'm working in a Windows environment and I'm finding it harder to keep my Linux machines up to date. What I really want is one personal machine that will let me work with my Windows-bound peers and still give me the freedom and flexibility I have with Linux
Some friends have suggested switching to Mac as the best of both worlds --- ease of use through OS-X with a BSD-ish Unix underneath for which I can compile many (or even most) Open Source applications (such as Emacs, TeX, SciLab, Python, etc).
Tony Bove: I completely agree with using the Mac as the best of both worlds. It is the most reliable form of BSD and hardware configuration, so that everything just works.
Annapolis, Md.: You had answered a previous question about security and responsibilities of a vendor versus the OSS community.
IMHO, you missed a critical point in your answer in that while MS has a responsibility to address bugs they also have little incentive to do so. Their monopoly position is well protected, and barring really major security issues (i.e. lots of people lose money directly attributable to a security bug) they will never have the incentive to fix bugs.
OTOH smaller vendors, in this case Linux/OpenOffice/Firefox, must build a better product if they are to succeed in the marketplace.
Tony Bove: I agree completely.
Burke, Va.: The "accountability" argument against open source is just silly. What benefit from accountability are you seeing when Microsoft holds back security patches in order to release them once per month (because the embarrassment from releasing the patches multiple times per month was killing them)?
When an open source program such as Mozilla is patched, the patch is available to everyone, immediately, and you (and the entire security community) can verify that the problem has really been fixed, and not just had a security-through-obscurity bandaid slapped on it that will become exploitable next month.
Tony Bove: I agree. Microsoft's "patch tuesdays" are reported dutifully by the press. But does anyone really understand why Microsoft can't fix software that is several years old now?
Greenville, N.C.: Tony, and the rest of the audience,
Might I suggest a Macintosh as the best and most viable alternative to any Microsoft product. Apple's Mac OS X is secure, stable, and most importantly has an established and award winning support structure.
Also, let's not forget that Apple does make a desktop machine that retails for $499.00.
I can think of very few downsides of choosing Apple, and if there are any, they far outweigh the donwsides of Microsoft products, as well as "grass roots" products such as Linux.
Tony Bove: I agree. The Mac is usually the best solution for an individual, and a Mac network is usually the best solution for a small business or profession.
Greenville, N.C.: What about backend corporate systems? It amazes me the number of large corporations that dump tons of money into proprietary Microsoft systems such as Exchange and Active Directory. Tony, do you think open source systems such as open directory, posfix, and such are ready for prime time?
Tony Bove: Yes, I think these technologies are ready. Linux users can use Samba (http://us1.samba.org/samba/), a free open source suite that provides filesharing and print services with Windows on a network. Samba uses the TCP/IP protocol to interact with a Windows client or server as if it is a Windows file and print server. It enables a Linux or Unix system to move into a Windows Network Neighborhood without causing a stir. Windows users can access file and print services without knowing or caring that those services are being offered by a Linux host.
Samba cannot only share directories on a Linux machine on a Windows network, but it can also manage a Windows domain as its domain controller.
Apple provides a server version of OS X that competes with the best Linux servers on the market as an alternative to Windows Server, supporting all industry standards and even proprietary "standards" such as Active Directory. In fact, Mac OS X Server can access account records stored in Active Directory without requiring any modifications to the Active Directory schema. Based on open source BSD and Mach kernel, Mac OS X Server includes a number of open source projects, including Mailman, Tomcat, JBoss, Apache, Postfix, Perl, Samba, and BIND, and integrates many of them into a central console application to make the entire system easier to use. It provides Mac-easy file management, user management, and print, Internet, and mail services for small business settings. It is a capable website server, grouping together simple hosting, broadcasting, and streaming controls.
Columbia, Md.: I think MS' monopoly has spawned other monopolies in the sense that my organization is held hostage by the IT dept. I am fairly competent when it comes to getting this beast up and running. However, I am inundated with constant updates, software auto installed on my computer, warnings about not having the mandatory backup software installed (I backup every evening onto a USB drive), etc....
These people are incompetent for the most part because they have no inherent interest vested in the os. A stupid certificate is all it takes to join the IT team.
Tony Bove: I agree to a certain extent. Many IT professionals owe their jobs to having considerable Windows expertise (though the same could be said of Linux). They don't have a vested interest in alternatives.
Nashville Tenn.: Is it true that Windows 98 and 98 SE are not as vulnerable to todays viruses, worms and spyware? Is this because the ActiveX vulnerability in XP?
AND why publish a list of known vulnerabilities like Microsoft does? Does that not make it even EASIER for the bad guys to exploit our code and violate our PCS? I have had a flood of keyloggers and spyware infections lately by the way.. !-!
Tony Bove: No, Windows 98 and older versions are MORE susceptible to viruses for a lot of reasons, including the fact that Microsoft does not offer patches. ActiveX, on the other hand, presents a whole slew of new vulnerabilities. You can't win.
Why publish a list? The bad guys already know this information -- the list is for good guys and innocents like us.
Greenville, NC: How can you say Apple comes at a premium? They sell a desktop that retails for $499.00.
Even their $1299 - $1699 iMacs show great value once you factor in all of the software, I/O options, and functionality.
Apple certainly isn't perfect, but I think is the best alternative to Windows - especially for the general public.
Tony Bove: Thank you, online questioners!
My book, "Just Say No to Microsoft" (No Starch Press) is for everyone to read, but not necessarily to follow in all ways. Only the brave might try Linux on a desktop. Many of you might switch to Macs, because it's easy to do and nearly always a rewarding experience. Still more of you will stick with Microsoft systems and software--but you can learn techniques gleaned from anecdotal experience that will help you avoid viruses and other catastrophes.
Thank you for participating in this discussion. You can follow this topic further by logging into my "Get Off Microsoft" blog at this address:
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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South Korean Scientist Denies Faking Stem Cell Data
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The scientific and political maelstrom surrounding a renowned South Korean stem cell researcher intensified yesterday as the scientist vehemently denied a co-worker's accusation that he had faked much of his data.
Adding to the confusion, editors of the scientific journal that published the research said yesterday that the accused scientist, Hwang Woo Suk of Seoul National University, has asked them to retract the report because some of the data "could not be trusted."
The new events did little to clarify the facts behind one of the bigger scientific scandals in recent memory -- one that has put the already controversial field of embryonic stem cell research in unprecedented turmoil. At issue is the validity of seminal experiments that purported to show the practical usefulness of embryonic stem cells as treatments for disease.
At a news conference in Seoul, Hwang admitted there were technical problems in the contested work but aggressively denied any wrongdoing. He said he was in the process of thawing several cell cultures saved from the experiments and would perform tests on them to prove the veracity of his work.
Saying he was "surprised and embarrassed" by the public assertions of scientific misconduct leveled by his former colleague, Roh Sung Il of the MizMedi Hospital, he lashed out at his critics, suggesting that Roh or perhaps one of Roh's co-workers had fudged results.
Hwang also told reporters that he has two new scientific reports containing "very significant and important results" that have been submitted for publication in a scientific journal. Those results, he said, would confirm his historic, but now questioned, findings: that he produced embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos genetically matched to patients who could benefit from them.
"Our research team made patient-specific embryonic stem cells, and we have the technology to produce them," Hwang asserted.
Facts were still scarce yesterday as the high-profile meltdown left scientists around the world wondering how the story -- a rare blend of cell biology, reality TV and soap opera -- would play out. The one point on which Hwang and Roh publicly agreed yesterday was that the research article describing the work, co-authored with 23 others and published in the journal Science in May, ought to be retracted.
Editors at Science said yesterday that they had received a formal request for retraction from Hwang and Gerald P. Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, the sole American author on the paper. "After analyzing the data our team concluded that the data . . . could not be trusted," the request said, according to Donald Kennedy, Science's editor in chief.
Journal policy demands that every author agree to such a request and sign on to a statement detailing what was wrong with the paper, Kennedy said, adding that Hwang has informed the journal that he is undertaking that task now.
"It is clear the authors are going to need to provide more details as to where the errors lie and how they arose," Kennedy said, expressing hope that such a document might reveal the truth behind the crossfire of allegations. Seoul National University and the University of Pittsburgh are conducting investigations.
Kennedy defended the journal's review process, saying innocent errors and even fraud can be very difficult to detect in a manuscript. At some point, he said, a journal must take scientists' reports at face value with the knowledge that errors will typically become apparent as others try to duplicate the work.
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The scientific and political maelstrom surrounding a renowned South Korean stem cell researcher intensified yesterday as the scientist vehemently denied a co-worker's accusation that he had faked much of his data.
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2nd Senator to Return Abramoff Funds; Lobbyist Paid Columnist
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Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) said he plans to return $150,000 in campaign contributions he collected from controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates, reversing a position his office had taken days earlier.
Also yesterday Copley News Service syndicated columnist Doug Bandow admitted accepting money from Abramoff for writing as many as 24 op-ed articles favorable to some of Abramoff's clients. Copley suspended the column pending a review and Bandow resigned as a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Montana Democrats and watchdog groups have been attacking Burns for holding onto the Abramoff donations despite a federal probe examining the lobbyist's ties to at least half a dozen lawmakers, including Burns. In a statement, the senator said he was returning the money because the contributions "served to undermine the public's confidence in its government."
Four days earlier a Burns spokesman, James Pendleton, had told the Associated Press that the lawmaker would not return the donations. "There's nothing to return -- the money has been spent," Pendleton said about one of the senator's campaign committees.
Since January 2002, at least 25 lawmakers and two Republican Party committees have either returned or given to charity thousands of dollars in contributions received from Abramoff, who is under investigation for collecting $82 million from Indian tribes and spending the money in allegedly improper ways. Abramoff is also charged with fraud in an unrelated case in Florida.
On Monday, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said he had returned $67,000 in donations from Indian tribes represented by Abramoff and his associates. Dorgan said he never met the lobbyist and did not take any actions on his behalf but he wanted to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.
Dorgan is the senior Democrat and Burns the chairman of the appropriations panel overseeing Interior Department agencies that deal with Indian tribes.
The Washington Post has reported that, under pressure from Burns, a $3 million grant from a federal program intended for impoverished Indian tribal schools went to one of the richest tribes in the country. The tribe that received the money in 2004 was at the time a client of Abramoff.
Burns said he did not champion the funding because of Abramoff. He has also asserted that the Abramoff contributions to him were legal and fully disclosed. At the same time, however, he said that he wanted his constituents to know that he was maintaining "the highest integrity in public office."
"From what I've read about Jack Abramoff and the charges which are pending or about to be brought against him, he massively deceived and betrayed his clients," Burns said in his statement. "Plus Abramoff appears to have deliberately lied to dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike."
Abramoff, through his attorney, has denied any wrongdoing.
Burns went further and called on other lawmakers to return contributions from Abramoff, his clients and his associates. "This is an important step that all public officials should take in order to renew the faith of . . . all Americans, in their government," he said.
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Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2006 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.
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Bush Picks Controversial Nominees for FEC
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President Bush nominated two controversial lawyers to the Federal Election Commission yesterday: Hans von Spakovsky who helped Georgia win approval of a disputed voter-identification law, and Robert D. Lenhard, who was part of a legal team that challenged the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
In addition, Bush proposed a second term for commissioner David M. Mason and nominated Steven T. Walther, a Nevada lawyer with close ties to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).
Von Spakovsky and Mason are Republican appointees, while Lenhard and Walther are Democratic picks for the bipartisan six-member commission.
In a letter to Senate Rules Committee Chairman Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) wrote that he is "extremely troubled" by the von Spakovsky nomination. Kennedy contends that von Spakovsky "may be at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the [Justice] Department's enforcement of federal civil laws."
Career Justice Department lawyers involved in a Georgia case said von Spakovsky pushed strongly for approval of a state program requiring voters to have photo identification. A team of staff lawyers that examined the case recommended 4 to 1 that the Georgia plan should be rejected because it would harm black voters; the recommendation was overruled by von Spakovsky and other senior officials in the Civil Rights Division.
Before working in the Justice Department, von Spakovsky was the Republican Party chairman in Fulton County, Ga., and served on the board of the Voter Integrity Project, which advocated regular purging of voter roles to prevent felons from casting ballots.
In a brief telephone interview, von Spakovsky played down his role in policy decisions in the Civil Rights Division. "I'm just a career lawyer who works in the front office of civil rights," he said. He noted that the department has rules against career lawyers talking to reporters.
In a 1997 policy paper, von Spakovsky wrote, "Georgia should require all potential voters to present reliable photo identification at their polling location to help prevent impostors from voting."
Asked if it was a conflict for von Spakovsky to work on a case involving a Republican plan in his home state of Georgia, Justice spokesman Eric Holland said: "Many of the dedicated and professional attorneys in the Voting Rights Section have worked in advocacy roles involving voting issues prior to their arrival at the Justice Department. . . . Justice Department attorneys are always mindful of their responsibility to perform duties in ethical matters, including recusing themselves as necessary under standards of ethical and professional conduct."
The Lenhard nomination, first proposed in July 2003, has provoked strong opposition from advocacy groups seeking tough enforcement of campaign finance laws, especially the 2002 McCain-Feingold bill.
Meredith McGehee, president and executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns, described the prospect of Lenhard replacing Thomas as "beyond disappointing" when it was first proposed.
Reid issued a statement yesterday saying that he is "very pleased the president acted today upon my two recommendations for Commissioners on the Federal Election Commission," Walther and Lenhard.
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President Bush nominated two controversial lawyers to the Federal Election Commission yesterday: Hans von Spakovsky who helped Georgia win approval of a disputed voter-identification law, and Robert D. Lenhard, who was part of a legal team that challenged the constitutionality of the...
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Rogers in Question, Springs Probable
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Washington Redskins starting cornerbacks Carlos Rogers and Shawn Springs were the focus of yesterday's last injury report before tomorrow's showdown with the Dallas Cowboys at FedEx Field, and for Coach Joe Gibbs, the news was something of a split decision.
Rogers, the former first-round draft pick who started at left corner the past two games but is nursing a bruised left biceps muscle, was downgraded from probable to questionable. He began the week wearing a sling and did not practice this week.
"It's very painful. He can't straighten his arm out," Redskins Director of Sports Medicine Bubba Tyer said of Rogers. "There's a lot of time between now and Sunday and maybe something happens and he makes a great recovery. But we're just now getting to a point where we can work him a little bit. It's still touch and go at this point."
Springs, who saw his back tighten in Arizona and injured his left groin, was listed as probable for the entire week, even though he only practiced yesterday, meaning playing is a virtual certainty. Springs did not practice Wednesday and Thursday, but said he would be on the field tomorrow.
"I'll be ready. I know Keyshawn will be ready. I know T-Glenn will be ready," Springs said, referring to the Dallas wide receiver tandem of Keyshawn Johnson and Terry Glenn. "Terry was my college teammate [at Ohio State]. He's the reason I went so high in the draft, he helped me so much. I know Sunday, I'll be ready to ride onto the field. This is it. Big game Sunday."
Walt Harris, who started nine games before being replaced by Rogers in the first half of the San Diego game, is slowed by a calf injury that forced him to miss the Arizona game. Harris did not travel with the team last week and, like Springs, only practiced once this week.
"By Sunday, I'll be good. I'll be fine," Harris said. "This is the whole season, so I'll be ready."
In addition to Rogers, starting weak-side linebacker LaVar Arrington was downgraded to questionable, meaning he has a 50-50 chance of playing. Arrington has been hobbled by a right quadriceps injury suffered against Oakland but re-aggravated in St. Louis. The thigh injury is both curious and frustrating for Arrington, because it appears to be a variation of the injury that sidelined him for much of last season, and because after the injury recurred in the first half of the 24-9 victory over St. Louis, Arrington returned to action.
But he did not play Sunday against Arizona and, having suffered a setback, did not finish practice Wednesday and didn't practice at all Thursday and yesterday.
"He's been around a long time. This is a big game for him," Gibbs said. "All I can say now is we'll have to see."
Where Springs was in positive spirits, Arrington has not talked about his condition since Monday, an apparent sign that he is not comfortable with his level of recovery. It was a contrast as well from the mood of defensive tackle Joe Salave'a, who has missed the last two games because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot but said he will play.
"All I need is for the coaches to let me go," Salave'a said. "It feels much better than when I first injured it against Kansas City. I couldn't put any weight on it, couldn't even walk. But I feel ready to go now. Now's the time where the injuries are going to have to wait until March."
The Redskins have not played down the importance of tomorrow's game. If anything, the players seem to recognize that the injury factor could be the difference.
Gibbs also said that backup safety Matt Bowen had been downgraded to questionable. Bowen is suffering with a ruptured bursa sac on the knee, and seemed to have a setback in practice Thursday. Bowen did not practice yesterday.
Offensively, left tackle Chris Samuels did not practice except for walkthroughs yesterday and Gibbs said he did fine. Samuels injured his right ankle and knee in Arizona and did not practice during the week.
"I feel good. Ready to go," Samuels said. "All I can tell you is that I'll be out there. For how many plays, how long and all that, I really don't know. But I'll be playing."
Gibbs said James Thrash had done more work and could be ready. The return of Thrash would be felt on special teams, but especially offensively, where the Redskins have been depleted at wide receiver.
Thrash hasn't played since Nov. 20 against the Raiders and the combination of Taylor Jacobs, Antonio Brown and Jimmy Farris has combined for seven catches in the three games, four of which came from Jacobs on Nov. 27 against San Diego. The result has been defenses focusing heavily on top wide receiver Santana Moss and H-Back Chris Cooley without much fear of quarterback Mark Brunell throwing to other options.
Still, Gibbs did not appear to be overly optimistic. "With James, we're going to have to see," Gibbs said.
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Info on Washington Redskins including the 2005 NFL Preview. Get the latest game schedule and statistics for the Redskins. Follow the Washington Redskins under the direction of Coach Joe Gibbs.
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Outlook: The Economic Tide
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Gene Sperling , a visiting fellow at The Council Foreign Relations, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former head of President Clinton's National Economic Council, was online Monday, Dec. 19, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss his Sunday Outlook piece, How to Refloat These Boats , ( Post, Dec. 18, 2005 ). Sperling is also author of "The Pro-Growth Progressive."
Read Gene Sperling 's previous Live Online discussion, "The Pro-Growth Progressive." , ( Nov. 16, 2005 )
Potomac, Md.: The intro says you believe, "The unspoken American economic compact -- promising a measure of economic security and advancement in return for hard work and study -- is in danger of being shredded." Perhaps to your surprise, I agree with this. My question is why exactly this is a bad thing. My children are in private schools while children smarter but poorer flail about in inferior public and private schools. I use our family's long-standing resources to leverage favorable treatment for myself and my children. In other words, teachers think twice and three times before they give my children a B+. Third, I profit handsomely from this war, yet there is no chance that my children will be suckered into it as they have far better things to do. The lack of opportunity ensures we have a low-paid, stable workforce in our military and in the service professions. So, where exactly is the bad in this for me, and why would I question President Bush's resolute, strong leadership in these times?
Gene Sperling: From the questioner from Potomac:
I am hoping you question is tongue and cheek. If not, the reason I ask you to care is that while of course we all want what is best for our families, I believe we can do so while still encouraging our nation to reflect the American value we would like to teach our children: that we are a nation built on the values of justice, of fair chances for every child regardless of the accident of their birth -- and a belief in some larger way we are all in this together and that our lives and our nation should be about something larger than just our personal self-interests.
And even from a self-interested point of view, I believe we will all be more well-off, if we are raising all boats in our society.
Chicago, Ill.: What can be expected to happen in the next decade to the current American teenager from a middle to lower socioeconomic background with only a high school education? Not everyone is equipped to be an engineer or inventor; what will happen to the traditional working class?
Gene Sperling: It is going to be tougher -- it already is -- to have just a high school degree, though no doubt there are always some with great spirit who still go far. What we may be seeing is not so much that you can't get a skilled job without a college degree -- but that if you are going to just high school you are going to need to link up with a strong apprenticeship or certification program that gives you the higher level skills needed in certain areas. Many manufacturing jobs, construction, plumbing can pay well and not need a college degree, but they do provide the additional skill training and certification needed in these areas. Key is that even the jobs that seemed more basic in the past -- still need a higher level of technical and technological skill than the past -- especially in manufacturing.
Bethesda, Md.: When you urge government actions to reduce health care costs born by U.S. business, what steps do you believe would have a material impact? Cost reductions, government-financed health insurance/care, or some combination of the two? Aren't both fraught with elusive benefits? Government funded insurance, for instance, just means that the burden is shifted away from favored companies to some other mix of productive assets within the current or future federal tax base, i.e., it is a zero-sum game, fundamentally.
Gene Sperling: To Questioner from Bethesda:
One of the real changes in the policy dialogue is the degree that rising health care costs are becoming a jobs issue. Higher projected costs of health care do seem to be inhibiting permanent hires. One medium term suggestion is Kerry's idea of taking the catastrophic costs off employers if they carry out a number of well-ness and other proven strategies to lower costs. The big issue for the future is whether or not we move away from employers being the providers of health care as part of some larger coverage movement. I don't have all the answers here yet, but it is worth studying in terms of job creation -- but we would have to find resources to deal with subsidies for coverage.
Laurel, Md.: Mr. Sperling, I'd like to interpret this change politically, if it's not too speculative.
On Friday, we had a chat about how the Republican Party is more coordinated than the Democrats. The Republican majority consists of the business community (including agri-business) that wants to increase the return on capital at the expense of, among other things, the return on labor; and social conservatives who give them votes. Basically, the deal is "we'll support you on tax cuts for the rich, and you support us on gay marriage."
The Democrats, meanwhile, suffer a splintered dichotomy between economic and cultural liberals. A flag-waving, gun owning, religious blue-collar worker doesn't feel at home with Jane Fonda and Al Sharpton. I get if you looked at who voted for Clinton and Bush the younger, "whites without college degrees" would describe them pretty well.
How are the Democrats going to put a coalition together of those who want economic justice, but don't think belonging to a victimized demographic group ought to be a prerequisite?
Gene Sperling: One of the core messages in my book the Pro-Growth Progressive is that while Democrats must and should always be the party that stands up for the poor and working poor and those who have lost jobs, we can't limit ourselves to that message: we also have to be the party of people's dreams and upward aspirations. I believe that we can craft policies that are both pro-growth and progressive and that this notion of the rising tide lifting all boats is the right way for us to be. One thing we should do is be for a broader social insurance for those who lose jobs, but also be stronger for ownership and savings and wealth creation that helps the overwhelming number of working families that are falling through the cracks.
Philadelphia, Pa.: Mr. Sperling, having lived off of savings, unemployment, part-time work, credit cards and the goodwill of family after being laid off from a highly-engaging technology position, I have a good idea of where I do not want to be when our economy lurches downward again. In hindsight, obtaining a degree whilst employed would have helped me get on my feet more quickly for two reasons: the extra education and knowledge afforded by my studies AND the additional people in my personal/professional network. Sure, extra training is generally a good idea, but having an extra group of people with whom I can communicate about job opportunities is golden. Any system whether it is a government provided venue or otherwise which gets people communicating their skill sets out to those in need will be invaluable. I can only imagine how my intellect, while not that amazing, could have been put to use during my two-plus year-long job hunt.
One last point: in order to encourage our citizens to pursue additional training while working, something has to give in terms of the demands on their time. Currently, workers are putting in serious hours at the office or workplace and may even manage a family, too boot. Facilitating those workers ability to take classes through day/night care support, work-place sponsored blocks of training time, etc. will go a long way towards enabling positive training conditions.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in today's discussion.
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Philadelphia:
This is an excellent question. One of the issues I discuss in my book, The Pro-Growth Progressive is that everything we do for workers threatened by change is AFTER one has lost their job. We need more "pre-emptive" ideas (p.73-75)-- and one I have written about is giving people more encouragement to look at getting more education or even thinking about how to be entrepreneurial why they are still in their current job. A Flexible Education Account which would allow you to get a 50% credit on $15,000 of education a decade -- any time you thought it was best to use. Also, there has to be more quality, accountable on-line opportunities so that you can access such education while you are working and caring for kids -- pretty heavy load to be doing all that and traveling somewhere three nights a week for classes. You raise a point I did not discuss in my book -- the networking effect. Thanks for the note and good luck going forward
Gene Sperling: Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Philadelphia:
This is an excellent question. One of the issues I discuss in my book, The Pro-Growth Progressive is that everything we do for workers threatened by change is AFTER one has lost their job. We need more "pre-emptive" ideas (p.73-75)-- and one I have written about is giving people more encouragement to look at getting more education or even thinking about how to be entrepreneurial why they are still in their current job. A Flexible Education Account which would allow you to get a 50% credit on $15,000 of education a decade -- any time you thought it was best to use. Also, there has to be more quality, accountable on-line opportunities so that you can access such education while you are working and caring for kids -- pretty heavy load to be doing all that and traveling somewhere three nights a week for classes. You raise a point I did not discuss in my book -- the networking effect. Thanks for the note and good luck going forward
St. Michael's, Md.: Potomac hits the nail on the head. A school like, say, "Groton" is always going to have a valedictorian. My kid has a better chance at making valedictorian if you get rid of talented scholarship students and make students pay their own way. Then, universities will be more likely to accept my kid because they know that now "Groton" only accepts students who pay tens of thousands in annual tuition. Why on Earth would you blow scholarship money on some kid from, say "Eleanor Roosevelt" when you can pick up a full-tuition private school student with better parental resources and connections? You get to do this with no sacrifice in the honors you pump up for your students. Who will be a more successful alumnus and reflect better on "Groton"? Exactly.
Gene Sperling: You do it because we are Americans and we believe that we represent the beacon of hope and opportunity to the rest of the world and we should make those values real in our own nation. And I would think your child will have a more well-rounded background and be more understanding and smart about the diversity of people he will deal with as an adult if he has a chance to know some of those young people as a young adult.
Lyme, Conn.: What are some of the potential long term consequences of this growing wealth imbalance when it comes time for today's young to retire? At that point, unless something changes, the imbalances are going to grow even more. Fewer jobs have promises of retirement and health care benefits, especially among lower paid professions. Aren't we headed towards a national economic disaster unless we can increase the economic viability of the lower economic classes?
Gene Sperling: To my Questioner from Lyme:
This is a big worry for me. What really concerns me as well is that the current Administration is moving our tax system toward one that exacerbates -- not moderates -- wealth inequality and winner take all outcomes. By making the tax code less progressive and allowing well-off Americans to pay lower taxes on dividends and capital gains than hard-working moderate income families pay on their income, we are further moving toward division -- and not a rising tide lifting all boats.
I enjoyed reading your opinion piece. I agree with you that increased emphasis on education and our country's infrastructure are vital to our future security. But I believe you failed to include an important point: Iraq.
We are currently spending one billion tax dollars each week on Iraq. Money being spent in Iraq cannot be spent on U.S. education or the U.S. infrastructure.
Supporters of the war would argue that Iraq is worth every dime. Others see the war as sucking the oxygen from the American economy and U.S. foreign policy.
It is conventional wisdom that inflation and the U.S. economic downturn in the 1970s was due, in part, to the vast sums spent on Vietnam. Do you think Iraq will impact the U.S. in a similar manner?
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Annapolis:
One thing for people on all sides of the war to remember is that at least in the gulf war, the senior President Bush had a coalition and because he had global support had huge cost-sharing by other nations. Our go it alone strategy has been costly in terms of our international image, but also in terms of our fiscal standing. Nonetheless, it is the long-term deficits caused by tax cuts -- particularly for the most well off -- that pose the most significant long term fiscal damage.
Several of my friends have graduated from a very good college in the last couple of years, and find themselves without a job. The diploma doesn't seem to help. I can't imagine what it's like for someone who doesn't even have that. People now spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on college educations, and they don't seem to even get one into an interview any more. How can we have gotten to this place? What could/should the government do? Great book, by the way...
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Washington DC:
Thanks for the nice comment on my book. Your question is a big one -- and it is an issue that I discuss there. The point is this: we need more and more people now to take risks on higher education so we have a higher skilled workforce. Yet, if people lose faith in our economic compact, they may decide it is not worth the risk, and settle for less ambitious jobs and educations. We could start by recognizing the problem and having national leadership that says we are going to put away these ideological agendas and look at how we create more incentives for job location here, and how we vastly expand the investments that have traditionally laid the foundation for the next big breakthroughs that have lead to new middle class jobs.
Washington, D.C.: Hello Mr. Sperling,
In a story last week, The Washington Post detailed the impact of high U.S. tariffs on poor U.S. families.
Are there any compelling social or economic reasons for U.S. tariffs? Or are tariffs just political pork?
Yes, there was a good article by Paul Blustein where he cites Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute. I discuss these issues in pp.51-54 in my book the Pro-Growth Progressive.
I am a global realist not a free trade purist. There are times where temporary tariffs can help respond to unfair trade practices or too quick a flood of imports that gives no one time to adjust. What is the painful balancing that has to be made in the open, is that lower-cost imports can have painful impacts on hard-pressed working families, but unfair tariffs can hurt the pocketbooks of lower-income families the hardest -- and can hurt jobs of those who need low-cost inputs in their products. As a progressive, I believe we must be able to talk about these trade-offs openly.
Ypsilanti, Mich.: Mr. Sperling, the wage guarantee you mention intrigues me. You propose that, for someone starting a new job after being laid off, we should prevent his or her income from being less than 75% of what it was in the previous position. I assume that this would be funded by taxes or insurance premiums that companies are forced to pay. You could have two people, A and B, working side by side in the same job, each earning, say, $20,000 per year, with some of the income of A (either in the form of taxes or generally higher costs of goods and services) being handed to B because B used to make considerably more than $20,000 in a previous job. And this would be for life?
Gene Sperling: To my questioner form Ypsilanti:
First I have to mention that I am an Ann Arbor boy and that my dad, Larry Sperling, has had is law practice in Ypsi for 40 plus years.
The idea is that if a worker makes $20 and gets a new job for $10, that 50% wage insurance would allow him to get $15 -- so that is wage loss is not more than 25%. This may be most important for older dislocated workers.
Yet you raise good questions: how long it would be for is both a work incentive and fiscal issue. And one would need to work through the horizontal equity issues you raise -- but presumably the worker by his side, would also like to know that if he lost a job he or she would have this same protection.
The main point is that we are going to have to make dislocation less painful in our nation -- and this seems like a promising proposal, though no doubt the issues you raise would have to worked through carefully.
Washington, D.C.: Have you ever considered that highly progressive tax rates penalize those of us who have relatively high/modest incomes ($100k) but little wealth. Of course I should pay my share of income tax, but my income is the only way for me to fund my and my children's needs: food, education, health care, retirement. Think about it: if I have a better ability to pay for my long-term needs, I don't need our grandchildren to pay for them. And, instead of paying for my stuff, they have a better chance to pay for their own needs.
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from DC:
I pay those higher progressive tax rates too -- and of course it is important to not go too high and hurt incentives or support for our system -- but I also would point out that all most of us on the progressive side have called for is returning to where things were in the 1990s when we had rising wages across the board, record investment and small business creation, a stock market that tripled. Budgets reflect our values and we have to balance the desire for low taxes even for relatively high income Americans with the need to have fiscal stability, a strong investment climate and investment in all our people to make us a more progressive and pro-growth nation.
Fairfax, Va.: Your statement that the Democratic party is divided on an optimistic vision for our future economic security may be getting ahead of the game. In order for the Democrats to regain power and implement any vision don't they first have to stop being divided on how to speak out against Bush's ongoing ruination of our economic security? Right now the only place I find a continuous focus on, for example, declining wages and rising corporate profits, is the liberal blogosphere (Sirotablog, etc.) not from the centrists who run the Democratic Party. When for example have the Clintons, Liebermans, or Bidens spoken out reminding everyone that our pensions are disappearing, our wages are declining, or that our current and long-term health care costs are surging beyond our ability to pay? Why aren't Democratic leaders drawing clear economic policy distinctions between themselves and those of Republicans?
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Fairfax:
I do not identify myself as a particular wing of the party: I am writing as someone who wants to promote the progressive values of all boats rising, economic dignity, fair starts and upward mobility as best and realistically as I can in a tough, global economy. My book hits hard on rising winner-take all, wealth inequality outcomes, lower wages and the threat of a thinning middle class.
If you look at Thinkprogres.org, or Bloomberg.com you can find my many, many pieces discussing how poor wages and jobs have been in this recovery and how Bush's tax policies have failed us in the long-term and the short-term.
Austin, Tex.: When is someone going to do something about the health insurance crisis? It seems to me that it has serious economic (apart from human) consequences. Two things spring to mind:
1. One hears of manufacturers opening plants in countries such as Canada rather than the U.S. despite higher taxes and stricter labor laws, simply because they don't have to face the health insurance issue.
2. It's always said that small business is the backbone of the economy. How many people are working in dead-end, paper-shuffling jobs rather than going out and starting businesses because they need health insurance for their families?
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Austin:
There questions are very compelling. It is true that Canada is the only major nation to see rising manufacturing jobs. It is hard to believe that the fact that they do not have to bear the health care costs is not at least a reason.
Your question on small business is right on point as well. If we want to promote our entrepreneurial spirit, we need to make it easier for people to take risks and fear of losing health care costs I believe does inhibit such willingness to try a new, more productive job or business.
My point as I said in an earlier reply today is that health care is becoming more of a jobs issue - for many of the reasons you are implying in your question.
Arlington, Va.: Maybe this is over-simplifying it, but even if everyone was to get an education, would that merely change the face of the poor. In other words, have a group people who are educated but unemployed, and that education itself can't help you overcome obstacles set up by the growing divide between haves and have nots?
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Arlington:
One thing to consider: if we have a more educated workforce it makes the United States a more attractive place to local high-value added jobs in an increasingly globally competitive labor market. That overall is a good thing.
Hartford, Conn.: It would seem the best way to pump the economy would be to give bigger tax cuts to the lowest tier of taxpayers or even to people getting earned income credits. These are the people that will take their checks out and immediately spend their new found money. While it may be unfortunate that lower income earners will not save either for a rainy day or for their kid's education as the more affluent might; the fact that they will blow the money is what will pump up the economy.
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Hartford:
There are many good reason to have a strong Earned Income Tax credit: it provides work incentives, it encourages people to move into the formal, taxpaying economy, it provides economic dignity for the working poor. And as you mentioned, when you are at a point in the economy where you want to have a stimulus effort -- giving tax cuts to the working poor, is not only progressive, it is pro-growth because as you mention they will spend a higher proportion -- so it will have a greater bang for the buck.
One caveat: even for a good cause, stimulus tax cuts should be short-term, if they are long-term they should be done in a way that does not drive up the deficit too high.
Scottsville, Va.: Your statistics about the lack of wage growth out of the recession, etc. gloomy, and yet your over all tone is optimistic.
Gene Sperling: To my questioner from Scottsville:
The wage story was very positive in the second half of the 1990s, but has been very, very disappointing since then. In my book I say that I am in the "humility" party: willing to acknowledge that I do not have all the answers to where the economy is going, but who believes that things are worrisome enough that we should be taking all efforts to ensure we are not letting the middle class thin out or weaken.
I remain an optimist if we are making the right type of long-term investments -- but do not feel this Administration is taking these issues seriously.
Gene Sperling: To all the unanswered questioners:
I am so sorry that I have to get a plane and cannot get to the rest of the questions. I read every single question -- even a couple of times -- so I do want you to know you have me thinking even if I did not get to it. This just goes to show that one old-economy skill that is still important in the new economy is -- TYPING SPEED! I'll work on it for next time.
Thanks for the great questions. The Washington Post Online always has the most thoughtful and well-informed questions.
Thanks again, and Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or Happy Hannukah or whatever you find most agreeable.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Stephen Barr: Thanks for joining us here today. Only a few spending bills are left to be finished in Congress, but some of the disputes involve tough issues (torture abroad, for example) and it's possible that the Defense Department's appropriations and authorization bills could slip into 2006. The pay raise, however, appears on track, and we are awaiting the president's executive order, which will trigger publication of new pay tables. Happy Holidays!
CBP officer: I am a CBP officer in the southeast and the subject of your column today really hits home for me. The showdown over work assignments is really about the government not hiring enough officers to do the job properly. I can understand that management may need officers to work overtime occassionaly when unexpected situations arise. But when every day you are required to work "unscheduled" OT because they are shorthanded even though they know well in advance what the needs are it becomes tiresome. This administration talks out of both sides of its mouth about family values. Tell me what kind of family values are promoted when you never get to see your family because you are required to work 3-4 hours of overtime after your regular shift ends every day. Management allows the increase in vessels or planes inspected and then cries that don't have the staff to take up the load. The whole situation benefits no one and only causes low morale, stressed out supervisors and irate passengers.
Stephen Barr: Thanks for explaining the key issue here in a nutshell. Our nation is growing, the government's responsibilities are increasing, and yet I fear Bush administration officials are not paying enough attention to the everyday workload demands being placed on some front-line public servants, such as the fine folks at CBP.
Washington, D.C.: Per your column today, is there no hope for labor-management relations in this government?
Stephen Barr: There is always hope. Many parts of the government enjoy cooperative relationships with unions. There are places where management and unions have engaged in legal warfare for ages and will probably continue. Time may resolve some of the hard feelings; one union official told me that he expects "one face at the border" to finally start working in 30 years, when the current generation of employees is long gone. I'm hoping it is not that long, of course.
Alexandria, Va.: Follow up remark to your NSPS comment last week that indicated a discrepancy between the conversion guidance and the sample pay charts in the town hall briefing. The town hall briefing doesn't show how grades convert into NSPS. The grades and steps listed on the sample pay chart are there to identify where the salary ranges are derived from the Title 5 pay tables. They aren't the parameters for conversion of current employees. That is spelled out in the conversion guidance. Its apples and oranges. For example, YA-III salary is GS-13/5 to GS-15/10; however, for conversion purposes, only current GS-14s and GS-15s will go in YA-III. Seems like the goal is to give maximum flexibility to setting pay for new hires. Perhaps an agency has someone new to federal service selected for a YA-III position with average equals or the manager wants wiggle room, the range allows to pay a little under the GS-14 salary and to grow the salary, incentivize the employee. Hope this clarifies or is it still clear as mud? I'm an NSPS enthusiast and look forward to the flexibility in the new system.
Stephen Barr: Thanks, Alexandria. I noticed some of that, too, and believe you are right. The town hall briefing slides seem geared to bringing in hew hires, while the conversion document seems more specific to current employees.
NSPS officials hope that the changes will allow greater flexibility in hiring entry-level employees and a chance to better compete with the private sector on salaries. I'm hoping that's the case.
Arlington, Va.: A lot of feds here in Washington are in the upper pay grades. How long before the AMT, since Congress currently needs money for Iraq, starts to hit fed salaries? I imagine in some two-income homes it won't be long. And, would that help an AMT roll-back, that feds, who everyone says are underpaid, will be soon getting hit by the AMT under current rules?
Stephen Barr: The alternative minimum tax is hitting them now--I would think anyone earning $100,000 or more needs to be aware of this. Hard to say, since it depends on your tax filing status. Washington-area federal employees are finally starting to see some handsome salaries, thanks in part to locality adjustments. So, yes, this will be an issue for feds and non-feds.
Washington, D.C.: Dear Stephen, you provide all levels of feds with vital information; thanks be for that. I'm looking at retirement under FERS, which means, besides the TSP, a small "pension" (1%/year high three average - less than Social Security!) per month. Queries: is that "pension" taxable and will it be eligible for a yearly COLA? Many thanks again.
Stephen Barr: Thanks for the kind words. A federal annuity is made up of two parts--the money you put in yourself, which has already been taxed; and the government share, which has not been taxed. The government share will be taxable, and your share will not.
The way to figure this out is to consult IRS publication 721, which has lots of information about how these shares are determined. But it is also a good idea to consult with a professional tax adviser if you get as confused by IRS publications as I do.
Yes, federal pensions are eligible for COLAs, but there are restrictions under FERS, which make then generally not payable until age 62. The COLAs are generally smaller than those paid under CSRS. Don't forget that you'll also get a Social Security COLA if you are in FERS.
Bowie, Md.: The current rate of the TSP Annuity interest rate index is 4.250 percent for annuities purchased in December 2005, and 4.250 percent for annuities purchased in November 2005. Do you know what data the TSP Board uses to arrive at this multiplier?
Stephen Barr: As I recall, it is based on the G Fund annualized rate of return, which, in turn, is based on the market basket of Treasury securities that the TSP uses to create the G Fund.
It's been my experience watching the G Fund that it is very stable and doesn't swing around all that much, month to month.
Nokesville, Va.: Hi Stephen,I really don't have a question but I am a retired U.S. Park Policeman that has had his retirement changed back in 2000 from a bill H.R. 4880 was enacted as the Law Enforcement Pay Equity Act of 2000, P.L. 106-554 Subsection (f) which excluded other U.S. Park Policemen and Secret Service Uniformed Service Officers retirees from the adjustment in their annuities based on the pay raises which were received by the active officers. What this means is that for the first time ever, these federal police officers retirees have been excluded from receiving annuity increase benefits. Our annuity increase benefits have not changed for 80 years until now back in 2000. We have had bill before the 107th and 108th Congress to correct this but have not been successful. And again this year in the 109th Congress we have a bill H.R. 960 that is apparently going to die. As the private sector is changing their retirees and active employees retirement it is happening to federal employees. These police officers entered law enforcement careers and gave long years of service based, in part, on the promise from the U.S. Government that they and their families would be cared for when their years of service were completed. The commitment and loyalty of these law enforcement public servants never changed. Why should the commitment of the Federal Government change? The financial burden for the retirees will not continue forever as we have already lost over 21 retirees since the enactment of the Law Enforcement Pay Equity Act of 2000. So my question is I guess what ever happen to the promise of the government made to us and why should their commitment change?
Stephen Barr: Thanks for taking the time to write about this. I know this is a big concern for Park Police and Secret Service retirees and that some members of Congress, such as Rep. Steny Hoyer, have tried to address it.
I would encourage you to write Rep. Jon Porter of Nevada, who is pulling together a team to rethink law enforcement pay and retirement rules, with an eye to bringing some consistency to how various LEO groups are treated.
I'm also sure that Linda Springer, the OPM director, would like to hear about this issue. OPM will play a key role in deciding whether the administration will sign off on Porter's effort and his possible bill next year.
Washington, D.C.: Steve, it is clear industry will not be able to afford pensions and employees will have to rely solely on 401 plans. Is there any chance that the government will change or restructure this the retirement benefit for federal employees ?
Stephen Barr: I don't think so. No. 1, the federal government should be a model employer and demonstrate the importance of an array of benefits for workers; No. 2, members of Congress receive these pensions. That's a glib response, but I'd venture there is something to it.
Washington, D.C.: A year ago I took a residential TSP loan for a down payment. I'm contributing 15 percent to TSP and paying a lot extra each paycheck on that loan (about $500 above the minimum). However, I just had to get a new car. The 12-year-old clunker bit the dust. I now need to cut back on the TSP and extra loan payments. Am I better off cutting my TSP to 5% and paying as much as I can on the loan or paying the minimum on the loan and 15 percent into TSP? Any suggestions?
Stephen Barr: This is a personal decision, as you fully realize. (I, too, drive an old car.)
There is a school of thought that you should always take advantage of any tax break available to you. The money you put into the TSP as your regular contributions effectively cost you less because they are pre-tax salary dollars. Still, one hates to be in debt for longer than necessary.
Bowie, Md.: "Yes, federal pensions are eligible for COLAs, but there are restrictions under FERS, which make then generally not payable until age 62. The COLAs are generally smaller than those paid under CSRS. Don't forget that you'll also get a Social Security COLA if you are in FERS."
Re: your above statement to a previous questioner, are federal law enforcement retirees, 1811 series, immediately eligible for COLAs under FERS even though they may retire at age 50?
Stephen Barr: Yes, they are. (Note the clever use of generally in the response; you'll see it a lot in the column too. I also like the words usually and typically. This is one big government with lots of exceptions to every rule.)
Washington, D.C.: Presentation of the Federal FY 2007 Budget is about two months away. Any hints as to who's out for FY 2007?
Stephen Barr: I've not had a good leak, to be blunt. But everyone acts like the non-defense agencies took a big hit in the passbacks over Thanksgiving and that budgets will be very tight in the next cycle.
Washington, D.C.: What an outrage. How does OPM and DoD get away with denying information that every taxpayer should be able to know--what federal employees make and where they work.
Stephen Barr: I'm taking this as a reference to a report on today's Post Federal Page. The administration appears to be arguing national security concerns, but I assume any fight, if it develops, will be decided in the courts.
Washington, D.C.: Hello quick question, I haven't heard ANYTHING about the 2006 pay increase. Are the new pay charts out and it somehow missed me?
Stephen Barr: My goodness. Congress and the president have approved a 3.1 percent average raise. We're waiting for an executive order that will trigger publication of pay charts, probably at the end of this year or the start of next year. Cheers.
Washington, D.C.: I saw an ad by the American Federation of Government Employees saying that CBP officers don't receive the same benefits as other law enforcement officers. What is this all about?
Stephen Barr: What's it all about is interpretation of the law that governs who is deemed to be a law enforcement officer for purposes of the special retirement benefits provided those officers. The law describes duties such as investigation, apprehension and detention of suspected criminals, and traditionally the CBP positions have not been deemed to fall under that definition. Don't ask me why. It seems that they do the same types of duties as many other law enforcement officers who do get special retirement benefits.
This is one of the things that Rep. Jon Porter is trying to sort out as part of an overhaul of LEO benefits.
Oklahoma City: How can anyone say that the government has shown any fairness in forming the NSPS regulations? They haven't negotiated in good faith in one instance during the whole process. It has nothing to do with National Security, it has to do with using terrorism to take rights away from federal workers.
Stephen Barr: Well, Secretary Rumsfeld wants to create a more flexible civil service cadre at Defense that can take on new jobs and responsibilities and get higher pay. It's an ambitious effort, and Deputy Secretary England thinks it can be managed, step by step, so that few employees end up feeling their rights have been violated.
Congress did not require the Pentagon to negotiate with unions over the NSPS, only to consult with them. It's an effort at a fast-track approach to reform.
Clifton, Va.: Excuse me, D.C., you have right to know what a Federal employee in a certain grade makes but not where I work or exactly what I make. If you don't like it move to Canada, punk!
Stephen Barr: According to the Post's report, the name, job category, salary and workplace of every public employee has been deemed public information since 1816.
Federal employees are paid with taxpayer dollars, and those dollars are a part of the public record, as I understand the law.
Anyone else out there have a view on this?
Anonymous: Yesterday's article on the dwindling Postal Service Board was interesting. But the problem goes beyond the PSB - there are way too many agencies and commissions that are running close to losing quorum. Why does this happen, especially in agencies to which Congress seems to be giving more and more responsibility?
Have you done a story on all the agencies who are in danger of losing quorum? It just seems like the PSB is a minor one compared to others who may lose quorum in the next year.
Stephen Barr: A good idea. Frankly, in many cases, the White House does not think the agencies amount to a high enough priority to make these appointments. Two other things to consider--many appointees get bogged down in background checks, and, in second terms, fewer and fewer Americans volunteer for consideration to a board, commission or job that requires them to disclose their financial information and histories to the Senate.
Pittsburgh, Pa.: I assume the efforts to repeal the social security WEP is dead this year. Any idea what will happen to it?
Stephen Barr: Yes, it looks dead for this year, and I've not a clue about what will happen next. Repeal or modification of the WEP has been a top priority of NARFE members, but the broad-based support that NARFE has cultivated does not seem to be translating into legislative success.
Washington, D.C.: Good afternoon Stephen:
Anything new on ridding the system of us pesky, albeit expensive CSRS employees,early?
Stephen Barr: Pretty quiet. OPM projects that most of you will retire, of your own will, between 2008 and 2010. With agencies short of budget dollars, I don't think we'll widespread buyouts (although there will be some). Agencies also want to retain experienced hands right now, given the competitive job market for some occupations. Hang in there!
Patuxent River, Md.: Any new word on the continuing resolution? I may get my Christmas shopping done after all...
Stephen Barr: Don't know about that shopping; there appears no chance the government shut down; only two appropriations bills are left to be enacted and Congress hopes to deal with them this week. If it does not, lawmakers will pass a CR stretching into January, when they will try again.
I assume you work for Defense, given your location, and that is one of the bills still hanging out there. The other is Labor-HHS. If Defense gets stuck on a long-term CR, I suspect you'll hear groans across the Potomac and Patuxent rivers.
Once again, we've run out of time for today. Thanks for joining in the discussion and reading this transcript. We'll see you here at noon next Wednesday, just before Santa comes to town.
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Dirda on Books
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2005121419
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Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or rediscovering some minor Victorian classic. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. Heparticularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts.
These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003) and his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland" (Norton, 2003). In the fall of 2004 Norton will bring out a new collection of his essays and reviews. He is currently working on several other book projects, all shrouded in themost complete secrecy.
Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Montaigne, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell, P.G. Wodehouse and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, The Ghost Story Society, and The Wodehouse Society. He enjoys teaching and was once a visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Central Florida, which he misses to this day.
Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! The weather here is gloomy--gray skies, frigid air, bleak, bleak, bleak. I sip tea and hot cocoa all day.
On the plus side: Last week I announced the discovery of Volume 9 of the tales of Henry James--but in the English edition. Well, since then, another poster, who wishes to remain anonymous, has discovered a copy of the American edition. So my set is now complete. Search no longer for volume 9, my literary friends! But do not despair: Doubtless some other needed volume will soon become apparent to me, and the endless odyssesy shall continue.
But let's turn to this week's questions. I wonder if anyone remembered that we were going to share favorite books read in 2005?
Downtown, Washington, D.C.: Michael,The books that I enjoyed most this year were:
Nickel Mountain by John Gardner--a sweet book about a person who grows by taking on obligations that are not really his. It left me with a similar feeling of warmth to the one I had on finishing The Shipping News. Do you recommend anything else by him?
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler--I have rarely laughed so much as during this purported caustic memoir of the narrator's three marriages (with footnotes by the narrator's son). While Richler is best known for Duddy Kravitz, this is far richer.
Ghost Wars by Stephen Coll--about U.S. Afghan policy before Set. 11. I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but became interested in this when it won a Pulitzer. I know that you don't care much for book awards, but I think they have some value. With not enough time to read all that is out there and of interest, the prizes serve to identify books that an (experienced) panel finds to have some particular merit. (In that, they are like your chats.)
Michael Dirda: What an appealing list. Coll is, of course, my former colleague at The Post. Gardner is, I would have thought, almost forgotten. But he wrote a good many novels, and you might like October Light, or the better known Grendel (Beowulf from the monster's point of view). His thoughts on writing were collected into two or three volumes, the best known of which is On Moral Fiction.
I own three or four of Richler's books--and have never read them. But clearly I should and must.
Lovettsville, Va.: Michael, what do you think of 'Tartan Noir'? I'm thinking of Ian Rankin. I'm a huge fan of the Rebus series - would you consider this 'literate fiction'? I find it hugely entertaining and somehow touching.
Michael Dirda: Again, I haven't read Rankin, though he is much admired--holding roughly the same position in ENgland that Michael Connelly does here in the U.S. I think part of my problem was keeping Rankins apart--there's also a Robert Rankin, perhaps two Robert Rankins.
Which book should one read first of the Rebus novels? Ie. which is the best?
Judiciary Sq, Washington, D.C.: Michael:
Regarding best books of 2005, I read and very much enjoyed all of the Booker nominees (except Banville's winner). In fact, my favorite book of the year was Sebastian Barry's "A Long Long Way" about an Irish soldier in WWI. I've read many WWI novels both old (Graves, Sassoon, Blunden, Remarque) and new ("A Very Long Engagement," "Birdsong") and thought this was terrific.
Greatest letdown of 2005 was Doctorow's "The March," which felt lightweight and choppy.
For 2006, I'm ready to dive into Proust and just read the NY Review piece comparing translations. I'm tempted to try Davis, but recall you endorse Enright. Is that correct?
Michael Dirda: I think you can safely read any version. I still think the Scott-Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright version is probably the best, but mainly because it offers a single consistent voice through the text. The other version uses a different translator for each volume, with varying degrees of success. Good luck.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole came out for Christmas 1764. It was said to be the translation of an old manuscript. Sounds like a bibliomystery to me. To my knowledge there has never been a US of UK movie made of this first Gothic novel. What do you think, have you ever re-read this for Christmas along with Box of Delights?
Michael Dirda: I like Horace Walpole as a letter writer and gossip, but Otranto is a bit camp and heavy-handed, I think. But I haven't looked at the book in a long, long time. Still, I've never heard any real endorsement of its literary qualities.
John Berryman, the poet who killed himself up there in Minnesota, always regarded M.G. Lewis's The Monk as the great gothic novel--he wrote a long introduction to one edition and compared it to Shakespeare.
Of course, Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer--the other great Gothic extravaganza--gave rise to a number of sequels about the Wandering Jew (including one by Balzac and, I suppose, Eugene Sue's momnumental novel of that name).
And then there's Frankenstein, that philosophical romance. But for me the great spooky novel of the romantic period--and I know Walpole was only proto-romantic--is James Hogg's Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. I think I've got that title right. It is a chilling account of schizophrenia or deviltry, but largely about the seduction of evil.
Still, I don't know that I'd read any of these at Christmas. You do want somewhat more soothing ghostly tales. You can't, in fact, beat M.R. James and his ghost stories of an antiquary.
Alexandria, Va.: Summer '05 I hit the jackpot in terms of reading. Hart Crane's long poem The Bridge, John Cowley's Little Big, and Larry McMurtry's Last Picture Show. One more standout for me was a bizzare little graphic novel, a collaboration between Neil Gaiman and spooky metal dude Alice Cooper, of all people, called, I think, the Last Seduction. Hardly great literature, but it's stuck with me since Halloween, when I read it cover to cover in a NoVa Barnes and Noble.
Michael Dirda: Well, that's quite a list. One of the treasures of my library is a first edition of The Bridge, a fairly scarce book. "High above the chained bay waters/Liberty. . . "
Favorites: Pride and Prejudice and Emma - guilty pleasures.
Mr. Strange and Dr. Norrel - fun fantasy.
Harry Potter- the best of the lot.
Michael Dirda: An interesting list. I can agree with the Austen, though I don't think there should be anything guilty in reading P and P or E.
Now, Harry Potter might be a guilty pleasure, especially if you are, say, 74.
I know I read some enjoyable books in 2005, but I'm currently reading the City of Falling Angels (?) by John Berendt. Now, ever since seeing Venice first at the age of 4, I've found it a magical place. I have been forcing myself to read the book slowly, to savor it. I allow myself only one chapter at a time. What is truly amazing to me is the candor with which people talk to him. I can only imagine what they are thinking now...
Michael Dirda: Oh, John is a reporter as well as an artist, and he knows how to charm people. His prose certainly does that too--though my wife found the book didn't grab her, despite an interest in Venice. I found this surprising.
Ann Arbor, Mich: Mr. Dirda - I recently read Louis Menand's 'The Metaphysical
Club' and was thoroughly entertained and impressed (a killer
combination, really). I notice in your "Interests," you have
intellectual histories listed. What do you think of Menand's
book, and might you be able to recommend something in the
same vein for my reading pleasure? Thanks.
Michael Dirda: Sure, you might try The Lunar Men, about a similar group in 18th century England, by Jenny Uglow; John Brewer's The Pleasures of the Imagination, about 18th century English culture; Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings, about Tolkien, Lewis et al; Peter Washington's Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, about the theosophists and their offshoots. All are fun books.
Ashcroft, B.C. (BR): Most memorable books of the year:
Non-Fiction: I've read 25 non-fiction titles, and already mentioned UP IN THE OLD HOTEL as being my favourite of the year; if you can only read a little bit of Joseph Mitchell (although I defy anyone to stop at just a little), read MCSORLEY'S WONDERFUL SALOON and JOE GOULD'S SECRET. Other excellent non-fiction books read in 2005 were Claire Tomalin's SAMUEL PEPYS: THE UNEQUALLED SELF and two autobiographies dealing with the war in Burma: THE RAILWAY MAN by Eric Lomax and QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE by George MacDonald Fraser.
Fiction: Of the 44 fiction titles I've read this year, none impressed itself on me more than John Buchan's SICK HEART RIVER. Intelligent, haunting, and deeply personal, this was a wonderful book. Other fiction highlights were THE CLUB DUMAS by Perez-Reverte, 44 SCOTLAND STREET by Alexander McCall Smith, THE GOLDEN SPUR by Dawn Powell, and THE NAVIGATOR OF NEW YORK by Wayne Johnston.
Hope you, and your readers, find lots of good books in your stocking come Christmas morning!
Michael Dirda: There's that fellow Smith again. I guess I tried the wrong one. What is 44 Scotland Street about?
If my math skills haven't deserted me, that means you've read 69 books this year--can anyone beat that record?
Fair Oaks, Va.: I have been reading many mysteries by British lady writers (Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, etc.) this year. I do one writer at a time and read all of her books that are on the shelf at the local branches of Fairfax county Public Library. A few observations:the British postal service was impressive in the 1950s. There were two deliveries per day, and if a letter took more than one day to arrive, it meant that someone was probably murdered. Ngaio Marsh burdens many of her characters with lumbago. Never visit the Hebrides in March. Old radios needed to be "warmed up" before you could listen to them.
If I'd known that last factoid, I coulda solved that crime.
Michael Dirda: WHat a lovely posting! I love that sentence about the postal delivery as the angel of death.
Oh yes, those old tubes had to warm up--I remember them at the back of our old radio. In fact, you used to be able to take tubes to the drug store and test them there at a little machine.
Annapolis, Md.: My favorite book read during 2005 was John Banville's "The Sea." I have been unable to focus on reading since the unexpected death of my husand earlier this year, but Banville's book with its central character of a man who has lost his wife and is examing his life, along with Banville's beautiful prose, got me back on the reading track.
Michael Dirda: My condolences to you, truly. Of course, consolation has long been one of the chief reasons that people turned to books of all kinds. I talk about this a bit in Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life. I hope you have friends or family to be with in the coming month.
Washington DC: Talk about guilty pleasures --- My New Year's resolution for 2005 was to re-read all the John D. MacDonald T. McGee novels in the order in which they were written. Haven't quite gotten through the list due to interuptions of other necessary reading, but it has been quited enjoyable to follow the development of a series character and the MacDonald's social comments over a period of several important decades in a pop-culture sense.
Michael Dirda: I love these kinds of reading programs. See the earlier posting about reading all the mysteries by various authors available in the library. I used to do such things as a kid, but now I'd go out and laboriously assemble all the novels and then they'd sit on a shelf for years before I started reading any of them.
Favorite books : Here are my favorites for the year (that I read this past year, not necessarily published in 2005). Everyone on my Xmas list is getting at least one of the following, depending on their personal taste.
1. Out by Natsuo Kirino. This is the best crime novel I've read in years. It takes place outside Tokyo, and the central characters are working class Japanese women. The writing(/transalation) is masterful, and as a result the characters are very complex. (Incidentally, if any chatters who read this have similar books to recommend, I am dying to hear about them.)
2. The Time Travellers Wife, by A. Niffenegger. The plot is non-linear--it jumps around in time, like a time traveller. This book was incredibly fun to read. I was sorry it had to end. (And even if you think you "don't like sci-fi," don't be put off. It's a book about relationships with a single discrete central sci-fi element.)
3. The Diviners, by Rick Moody. Very entertaining if you like his sort of irony. Will win no new converts, however.
4. Bound to Please by M. Dirda. No elaboration necessary.
Michael Dirda: What an interesting group of books, aside from that obvious clinker. I know that the Japanese are great mystery fans--one of the most active scions of the Baker Street Irregulars is Japan and I've long meant to read Edogawa Rampo (just say the name a few times).
I'll try to remember Natsuo Kirino.
Looking forward to this week's theme - best books of 2005 as I'm hoping for some good xmas gift suggestions.
My favourite reads this year seemed mostly to do with WWI -- Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road was a spectacular novel about two Canadian native snipers in the trenches. I also loved Sebastian Barry's A Long,Long Way about a young Irishman's experience, first fighting the war and then getting caught up in the Easter uprising while home on leave. Two great WWI-themed mysteries also make my best reads list - Jacqueline Winspear's latest Maisie Dobbs mystery, Pardonable Lies (she's a former WWI nurse turned detective) and Ben Elton's latest, The First Casualty in which a British war poet is murdered at the front. And for a classic along these themes, I just read Sean O'Casey's play The Silver Tassie.
Other really enjoyable reads were Ali Smith's The Accidental who just does extraordiary things with language and is awfully funny, Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Jonathan Coe's A Closed Circle, again just a fabulous British writer who I wish were better known this side of the pond.
Michael Dirda: What a great list. I like the sound of that mystery about the poet killed at the front. THis year I read Jonathan Coe's super biography of B.S. Johnson, and so it's just a matter of time before I start reading his fiction.
Herndon's 2005 Favorites: My favorite reads of 2005 were all published in previous years:
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
A fascinating mix of historical novel, mystery, science fiction.
A brilliant look at the intertwinings of history and sexual identity
Yes, I'm very late getting to this one, but it actually made baseball interesting to me again
Secret of the Bees by Susan Monk Kidd
Another one I'm late getting to but really enjoyed.
Ashamed to admit I liked it: I read almost the entire Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. They're sort of like that old Lays potato chip ad -- Betcha can't read just one. Great to listen to while commuting.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I agree that mysteries seem to make the best audio books for commuting and travel. I like Christie and Dick Francis in particular on tape.
Plano, Tex.: My best reads for 2005 were:Rider Haggard's King Solomons Mines - A great adventure story that I never read while growing up.Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger - This book follows the 1988 football season of a West Texas high school. It's a great commentary on the intense focus our society puts on sports and how it impacts our youth.Another Sort of Learning - This book by James Schall (who is a priest that teaches philosophy at Georgetown) is an overview of books that can be read when we are trying to answer questions such as "what is the purpose of my life". Will help lead you to good books on religion, philosophy, and education.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I wish I'd known about Schall's book when I was working on mine--or maybe I don't. But it sounds very good.
Ashcroft, BC again: Yes, that's 69 books so far this year, not counting the books I've read for work, which I can't quite bring myself to include.
44 SCOTLAND STREET was written by Smith as a daily serial in a Scottish newspaper, as a challenge; each episode could only be so many words in length but had to advance the overall plot, be self-contained enough to stand on its own, and yet end on a note that left the reader wanting more. It's about the tenants of the eponymous building in Edinburgh, and their assorted friends, relations, and business partners, seen through the eyes of a young girl starting to make her way in the world. Very funny, very perceptive, and a good tale well told. I understand a sequel is imminent.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks. It sounds a little like a more popular version of Georges Perec's Life a User's Manual, which is built around the inhabitants of an apartment building in Paris. There's also a number of contraints to each chapter.
Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda, My 25 Most Enjoyed Readings of 2005: Wawro's "The Franco-Prussian War," Adams' "Watership Down," Haigh's "Baker Towers," Burroughs' "Running with Sissors," Mitford's "The Pursuit of Love," Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" (finished in 2005), McEwen's "Saturday," Tartt's "The Little Friend," Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," Eliot's "Middlemarch," Simenon's "Dirty Snow,"/"Monsieur Monde Vanishes"/"Three Bedrooms in Manhattan," Queneau's "We Always Treat Women Too Well," Trevor's "A Bit on the Side," Gorey's "The Unstrung Harp," Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," Irving's "Until I Find You," Hornby's "A Long Way Down," Berlin's "The Man Behind the Microchip," Wright's "The Outsider," Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces," Mosely's "The Man in My Basement," Banks' "The Darling," and Firbank's "Considering the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli," Spot your fingerprints?Thanks much.
Michael Dirda: Well, Lenexa--as usual, you astonish by your range and appetite. I feel like a piker compared to you and Ashcroft.
New Bedford, Mass.: Thank you so much for writing about the Box of Delights and for reminding me to re-read it this year. It's a magical. Are you familiar with Gwyneth Jones? She won an rthur Clarke for Bold As Love which I just finished. It's a mix of very hard core fantasy and rock music. Underneath the flash she's looking at "The Matter of Britain" In some ways as good as T.H. White. Love to know what you think or if you haven't read it you'll be intrigued.
Michael Dirda: I"ve got some of Gwyneth Jones's earlier books, staring with Divine Endurance. I sometimes mix her up in my mind with Mary Gentle. Still, I haven't actually read either. I see that this is "Dirda confessing his shameful ignorance week."
Lexington: Michael, A good idea for a year-end chat, your audience picking their favorite books of the year. Especially with all the talk of whether 'art' matters or not. I just finisshed John Carey's book 'What Good Are the Arts', a contentious, argumentative book ( worth reading ) that argues that 'high' art vs 'mass' art is a specious divide made by moralists of the 19C like Kant who were essentially employing art to improve people. His conclusion: that literature is still the best art form though if it does not make us 'better' morally does help us criticize who we are and enlarges the mind. This is the kind of book that needs wide margins for the reader's thoughts. Philip Roth in a recent interview suggested a moratorium on 'literature talk'-shut down the lit depts, close the book reviews, ban the critics...readers should be left alone with the books. Well, he's wrong. Book talks like yours are what allow readers to share and argue out their impressions of their reading. And, discerning critics like you are what spread the word about interesting books. So on to favorites:
The Summer Isles by Ian Macleod: an alternate history of the rise of a fascist movement in England in the 30s, beautifully written, poignant and topical.
The People's Act of Love by James Meek: written with a Pasternak passion about a disparate group of isolated people in Russia in 1919 settling what kind of country it will become.
Kidnapped by R. L. Stevenson: chosen to read while touring the Scottish Highlands; still an exciting tale of adventure while backgrounding 18C Scottish history. What a combination!
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro:Again, beautifully written, but really about growing up in a strange near-future world and about our mortality.
And, I'm currently rereading Pickwick Papers because Dickens and Christmas seem to go together.
Michael Dirda: I understand both Carey and Roth. In some ways, I too advocate following your whims and pleasures. But I thank you for the kind words about my reviews and this chat.
ANd what are terrific list. Pickwick--yes Christmas in Dingley Dell.
Washington, D.C.: You seem to review mostly books you like or admire. Paulene Kael, the late film reviewer of the New Yorker, was noted for her insightful reviews of bad, or at least "B" movies. Along that line, have you ever considered reviewing some bad books, maybe even best sellers, telling us why they're bad, and perhaps attempting to draw some sociological or cultural insights from their popularity?
Michael Dirda: I've occasionally reviewed popular books, but then I've tried to choose "good" ones. I write the occasional negative review, and try to do just what you ask, but I would personally rather spend my time on books that are good, that matter to me in some fashion. I recognize that a critic is supposed to "correct" taste. But I prefer to find good things to say about those B books, to use Kael's term. Indeed, on January 22, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Howard, I plan to write a piece about his Conan the Barbarian stories.
Nashville, Tenn.: Notable reading from the past year? Hmm, so many good books to choose from. Boswell's Life of Johnson has to head my list. The keeness of the observations of humanity compete with the bon mots that litter almost every page for pride of place in my memory. What a great book. What a universe reconstructed. The descriptions of Johnson and blind, "peevish" Miss Williams as they age are heart rendingly beautiful. A wonderful book.
Michael Dirda: Thanks. Yes, that's a fave of mine too.
Washington, DC: Hi I cannot find anywhere (library, bookstore) a book you recommended on Sunday -- Box of Delights by Masefield. Any suggestions?
Michael Dirda: Sigh. It used to be in print. Have you tried the various used book search engines on the internet? Alternately, you can ask a used bookdealer to find you a copy. Or try interlibrary loan. I didn't realize The Box of Delights was out of print when I wrote about it.
Evanston, Ill.: Hi, Michael, I learn about most of my books from your column, and I thank you for it. My best read this past year was by far, "Shadow of the Wind." Also loved, "Middlesex" and "The Kite Runner." In my opinion, the most over-hyped book was "Never Let Me Go;" it was dreary, depressing and totally unbelievable. May our coming year be filled with wonderful books; happy holidays to all.
The Best in Poetry: Michael, let's not forget the poets. Jack Gilbert's Refusing Heaven: stark, elegaic, erotic. W.S. Merwin's Migration: New and Selected Poems: a gathering of beauties.
Jean Valentine's Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003: urgent and intimate.
Michael Dirda: Thank you. Yes, poetry does tend to be overlooked by general readers. A pity. I urge people to go to their local bookshops and browse around the new books of poetry and buy one. HOw else will poetry be kept alive?
Arlington, Va.: I know you don't run the Book World anymore, but could you suggest to the powers that be that a good New Year's resolution for them would be to beef up their coverage of sceince fiction? I feel that the Book World's interest in that field has dropped off noticeably in recent years.
Michael Dirda: I never ran Book World. I was responsible for a lot of the arts and letters coverage, however, including science fiction. THat column was my baby, and I'm afraid my successors--brilliant and knowledgeable though they are--don't have a passion for fantasy, sf and other forms of genre fiction. But I will continue to remind them to work harder. I feel bad about this.
Tysons Corner, Va.: We know you despise the impact of Best Sellers lists, but what about year-end "best of" lists? Do you read them? If so, what purpose do they serve beyond alerting readers to books they might have missed? What I'm getting at, I suppose, is the commercial impact of these lists. Do you think they generate lots of sales of the books that are mentioned, and if so, how do commercial pressures factor into what is and isn't included?
I know there are several questions buried in this post, but there you have it.
Michael Dirda: I do read lists of all sorts, and in general the books that make those end of the year selections are chosen by the editors themselves, relying on personal taste or on the reviews that appeared earlier. I think they are a pretty reliable way to gain an overview of the previous 12 months, though they do miss things.
Arlington, Va.: Michael, I seem to have hit a point where I'm tired of reading. Normally, I'm a voracious reader, with several books going at once, but over the last couple of weeks, I've just been bored whenever I go to the library, and I've had to struggle to open anything new. I find myself reading magazines or doing puzzles from time when otherwise I might have been reading.
Does this ever happen to you? Is it just a phase? Should I try turning to books in my usual comfort zone, to engage me as they usually would, or should I strike out in some new direction and hope for a spark?
Michael Dirda: Hey, I'm always tired of reading. It's just that I don't know any other way I'd rather spend my time. I've reviewed books for going on 30 years and I sometimes need to flog myself to get back into harness come Monday morning.
My recommendation: Don't read anything for a while. Don't even try. Find a new hobby--watercolors, home improvement, wine-tasting, whatever. Eventually, you'll feel like reading again. There's more to life than books.
Anonymous: I have read all the praise for Garca Marquez's "Memoires of my sad whores" in the Books Section of the Post, in particular the review by Marie Arana. Nowhere I have seen the reference to Yasunari Kawabata's "The House of the Sleeping Beauties." Garca Marquez himself said that that would be a novel he would like to have written.
Question: Being the two stories so close to each other, Kawabata's obviously preceding Garca Marquez's, when a homage turns into plagiarism? Thanks
Michael Dirda: Writers always borrow or steal from each other. G-M acknowledges Kawabata's work, just as Zadie Smith in On Beauty acknowledges E.M. Forster's Howards End. But the books are still their own. I suspect that Kawabata's book will outlast G-M's.
Potomac, Md.: Do you know of any good anthologies of plays akin to Bevington's "English Renaissance Drama" that focuses on Continental drama?
Michael Dirda: John Gassner used to do these big anthologies of world drama. I bet that you might find these in the library or at a used bookstore. Alternately, you can make up your own anthology from paperback editions of Ibsen, Strindberg, Buchner, Pirandello et al.
The Hinterland, Md.: Hi Michael,
It's so cold today that I am wearing my coat in the house! I recently read "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" by Betty Smith to see if it was a good one for a kid. I was so engrossed in it that I let the kids order pizza for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook (husband is out of town). Now I really need a good title for an 11 year old girl. I can't believe that I was able to get this old without reading that book! I feel cheated out of something.
Michael Dirda: What a lovely story! I gather you can't give the 11 year old Betty Smith? Perhaps you should try another Smith, Dodie Smith: I Capture the Castle or, if you wnat something slightly more juvenile, 101 Dalmations. If she likes fantasy, I also recommend the Dido Twite novels of Joan Aiken.
Madison, Wis: Now that C.S. Lewis is in the news thanks to the Narnia movie, what are your thoughts about his work? I'd be especially interested in your comments on English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.
Michael Dirda: Unlike most histories of English literature, this one can be read for pleasure. This is true of virtually all of Lewis's scholarship--The Discarded Image, THe Allegory of Love, his various papers. THe 16th century is a wonderful book, but it does, of course, exclude the drama, which for most people is the real heart of 16th century English literature.
Cambridge, Mass.: Do you think American publishers would be well advised to publish more literature in translation?
Michael Dirda: Yes, but I would also want more Americans to read literature in translation.
Tallahassee, Fla.: What do you think of my observation that loving books, and loving what you learn from them, has precious little to do with schooling, that for those who read like they breathe, reading is a passion and not a teachable "subject?" My teenaged kids and I all are intense book-lovers although I attended traditional public schools while the kids never went to school at all (legally it's homeschooling but in reality, it's just book-loving to our hearts' content.)
Michael Dirda: Well, you learn a lot from books, but you don't learn everything. Getting on with other people is one important aspect of school life. And sometimes it helps to be able to hate your teacher in a way you can't hate your Mom. All that said, virtually all real education is ultimately self-education.
Michael Dirda: Okay, there are lots more questions and I'm just not going to get to them this week, alas. But I did publish all the book lists, so I hope those will be of help to people looking for holiday gifts.
I'll be back next Wednesday, and maybe we can continue this exercise: What books did people find under their tree or among their Hannukah presents?
So till Wednesday at 2--keep reading!
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
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Beyond The War Spin
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After this week's elections in Iraq, will our national debate be about what the United States should do to salvage the best outcome it can from a war policy that has been riddled with errors and miscalculations? Or will we mostly discuss how politicians should position themselves on the war?
Here's a bet on the triumph of spin. Politicians, especially Democrats, will be discouraged from saying what they really believe about Iraq for fear of offending "swing voters." Slogans about "victory" and "defeatism" will be thrown around promiscuously.
The administration's defenders have enjoyed short-term political success by turning attention away from President Bush's Iraq policies and toward divisions in the Democratic Party on the subject. The Republicans particularly enjoy assailing Democrats who have called for the rapid withdrawal of American troops.
The neat summary of the new Republican home-front offensive was the tag line on a Republican National Committee ad: "Our country is at war. Our soldiers are watching and our enemies are too. Message to Democrats: Retreat and Defeat is not an option." Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert helpfully explained: "The Democratic Party sides with those who wish to surrender."
Attacks of this sort on Democrats are effective because Democrats help make them so. Democrats are so obsessed with not looking "weak" on defense that they end up making themselves look weak, period, by the way they respond to Republican attacks on their alleged weakness. Oh my gosh, many Democrats say, we can't associate ourselves with the likes of Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who recently called for a troop withdrawal within six months. Let's knife them before Karl Rove gets around to knifing us. Talk about a recipe for retreat and defeat.
But the Democrats' problem is not just one of political tactics. It's also rooted in a simple reality: Democrats in both houses of Congress have been divided on this war from the very beginning. House Democrats are, on the whole, more dovish than Senate Democrats. And the party's rank and file are, on the whole, more dovish than its congressional wing.
There is no magic solution to this problem, and Republicans will continue to exploit it. But if they do nothing else, Democrats have to stop being defensive in the face of Republican attacks. To suggest that the United States might be stronger if it found a way out from under an open-ended commitment in Iraq is neither weak nor unpatriotic. For a party to have differences over how to solve the seemingly intractable problems the Bush policy has created in Iraq is neither surprising nor feckless.
And to question this administration's optimistic claims is simply good sense in light of what has happened in Iraq up to now. After all, it's the administration's wildly optimistic assumptions that led us to fight a war with too few troops, too little planning, and Rodney King-like expectations that the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds would all just get along. In any event, why shouldn't Democrats be divided on the war? So is the rest of the country. And so are Republicans.
What's gone largely unnoticed is that while Democrats show their divisions on the war in Congress, Republicans are more divided at the grass roots. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, 76 percent of Democrats favored reducing our commitment to Iraq -- 40 percent were for pulling all the troops out, 36 percent for decreasing their numbers -- while 13 percent favored keeping current troop levels and 6 percent preferred increasing their ranks. Among Republicans, 16 percent favored increasing our troop levels, while 37 percent would keep them constant. On the other side, 41 percent supported decreasing our commitment, including the 10 percent who were for full withdrawal.
These are remarkable numbers: 16 percent of Republicans are more hawkish than the president, 41 percent are more dovish. Even in the president's own party, a majority has doubts about our current course.
The real patriots are not those who fall into line behind everything Bush says. They are the Republican and Democratic doubters who have pressured Bush into realizing that he has limited time in Iraq and an imperative to speak more realistically. In his speech yesterday, Bush actually admitted that "things did not always go as planned" in Iraq and that last January's elections "were not without flaws." From an administration that never admits mistakes, that's progress.
Message to Democrats: Buck up. Message to Republican ad makers: Democracy is about improving government through the uninhibited exchange of ideas. And, yes, our soldiers and enemies are watching.
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After this week's elections in Iraq, will our national debate be about what the United States should do to salvage the best outcome it can from a war policy that has been riddled with errors and miscalculations? Or will we mostly discuss how politicians should position themselves on the war?
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Post Politics Hour
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2005121219
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Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
Washington Post White House reporter Peter Baker was online Tuesday, Dec. 13, at 11 a.m. ET .
Peter Baker: Good morning everyone. Lots of interesting, even provocative questions await us this morning. The blogosphere is awake and hungry, so let's get started.
Arlington, Va.: Greetings - enjoyed your article on Bush' speech yesterday - you packed in a lot of good information. However, when I went back to read the transcript, I noticed that the question about casualties in Iraq was quite explicit -
"Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators."
Whereas most articles covering the speech have linked Bush' estimate of 30,000 dead to other similar estimates of civilian casualties (exclusively). It would appear that the number Bush cites references the "collateral" damage, and doesn't include the targets. Any thoughts on the apparent death gap?
Peter Baker: Good question. If he's referring to the estimate of a group called Iraq Body Count, they're counting civilians, not Iraqi police or army. Presumably many more were killed in the shock-and-awe bombing during the initial campaign to dislodge Saddam Hussein.
Lawrence, Kan.: Did Jim VandeHei misspeak on Hardball when he attributed Rove's knowledge of Valerie Plame to Hadley?
Peter Baker: Thanks for the question. Jim informs me he did misspeak. He meant to say chatter between Rove and Libby, not Hadley. That's the trick with television, it's hard to correct. Appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight here.
Lindenhurst, N.Y.: President Bush said to Brian Williams, he reads the newspaper every morning and his staff fills him in on news items as well. Does he read only The Washington Times?
Peter Baker: I'm sure he has a subscription. But I get the sense he reads several papers, or at least the clippings from several newspapers. From time to time, he says something that's clearly a response to something in that day's paper.
Barstow, Calif.: Blogsters and some foreign media put the Iraqi death toll at over 100,000.
Why is President Bush using a figure of 30,000 - for what purpose at this point?
Peter Baker: Any kind of firm count is very hard to come by. There was an epidemiological study printed in the British journal Lancet last year that posited that 100,000 figure based on door-to-door surveys in several neighbors and extrapolating nationwide. Other experts and even groups such as Human Rights Watch consider that exaggerated, though.
Camilla, Ga.: With all of the investigations surrounding the White House at all levels of government personnel, could there be an impeachment of the President on the outer perimeter of these allegations and trials?
Peter Baker: I wouldn't expect an impeachment of a Republican president by a Republican Congress. And frankly, a lot of Democrats in Congress were left with a bad taste after the last impeachment and would probably be reluctant to go back down that road even if they were to take over Congress in the 2006 elections.
Bethesda, Md.: Monday the President acknowledged for the first time the big picture of carnage in Iraq from this war, quoting (presumably) the Iraq body count figure of 30,000 deaths. Their figure is a lowball estimate, limited to violent deaths confirmed by two media sources (in a chaotic country where the media was sometimes shut down by the CPA for just that type of reporting).
There have been two major studies of the overall death toll (inclusive of those attributed to deteriorated health care and other infrastructure) - one published in The Lancet estimating 98,000 deaths in the first year of the war, the other by an Iraqi humanitarian organization finding 128,000. Why didn't The Post include these numbers in their coverage of the President's speech?
Peter Baker: In fact, our story this morning did cite the Lancet study, but as mentioned above, a number of experts and even human rights groups doubt it because of the methodology. That said, there are obvious flaws in counting in other ways as well and it's certainly quite plausible that the 30,000 figure tabulated by Iraq Body Count misses a lot of other deaths.
washingtonpost.com: Bush Estimates Iraqi Death Toll in War at 30,000 , ( Post, Dec. 13, 2005 )
Redondo Beach, Calif.: Political Editor John Harris wrote yesterday on the washingtonpost.com blog that Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" column that "-the confusion Dan's column unintentionally creates about the reporter's role has itself become an obstacle to our work." As one of the aforementioned White House reporters, can you give your readers an example of how Froomkin's column has impeded your ability to report on the Bush administration?
Peter Baker: Okay, lot of questions on this topic today, so let's go ahead and get into it. John's point is only one of clarity. Let's make sure there's no confusion. There shouldn't be any debate about that. We don't put Richard Cohen or George Will on the front page, we put them on the op-ed page where everyone understands what they write is based on their own opinions. The web site is less clear simply because we don't have the traditional design of the newspaper with a front page and an op-ed page.
Freeport, Ill.: Mr. Baker, I was wondering if you are one of the insecure, jealous, Washington Post reporters who feel threatened by Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing. Sir, would you please comment on getting a life, doing your job relentlessly and not being so afraid anymore? Thank you. I look forward to your reply.
Peter Baker: Insecure? Jealous? Need a life? All of the above. Threatened by Dan Froomkin's column? Hardly. Dan compiles links to other people's work and throws in some thought, analysis and opinion of his own. There's great value in that. But it's a different thing from being a White House reporter.
Austin, Tex.: I might as well ask (I'm sure you're getting a lot of this) - but what is your take on Froomkin and his column?
Do you get a lot of flak about it from peers and sources at the White House? Do White House staffers ever comment on his column to you?
Peter Baker: Can't say any White House staffer has ever mentioned Dan's column to me, at least not that I recall. They're pretty sophisticated over at the White House and understand he's not a reporter. I think the concern on the part of our ombudswoman and political editor is about readers more generally, including some in the political class who may not be as closely attuned to how this works as the White House. John Harris has told us that even some of his normally savvy contacts have been confused over this.
Madison, Wis.: Connected with the brouhaha surrounding Froomkin's opinion blog, I for one would appreciate disclosure of your background in reporting and any personal political connections you have that may color your reporting of the White House. Thank you.
Peter Baker: Okay, fair question. My background in reporting goes back 17 years at the Post and a couple years before that at the Washington Times. I've covered the Clinton White House and now the Bush White House. I don't have any personal political connections to speak of, other than a family that, like many, includes liberals, conservatives, independents, Republicans, Democrats, socialists, Christian conservatives, libertarians and quite a few who, to use the president's term, might be called rejectionists. None of them, to my knowledge, works in politics. As for myself, I'm not a member of any political party nor any organization other than a few professional ones. And I stopped voting a number of years back to avoid taking sides even in the privacy of a voting booth.
Spring, Tex.: You mention that Bush sometimes cite articles he has read, I think I could count on one hand the number of times Bush strays from whatever his speechwriter has written. Does he really have any cognitive thoughts of his own?
Peter Baker: You're right that he doesn't stray from the speech text often, but he does take questions, usually from a press pool and from time to time at news conferences. These less-scripted moments can sometimes show what he's reading. Just yesterday, for instance, he drifted off a question posed after his speech and began rebutting critics who "say, well, he's making it up that they want to establish a totalitarian empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia." That seemed to refer to critics quoted in an article yesterday morning by Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times. (I'm sure Dan Froomkin has linked to it.)
Northfield, Minn.: The blogosphere has gone insane. Harris's comments about Froomkin seemed totally sensible to me.
Anyone who read his book Clinton knows that he is a fair-minded writer. Froomkin's rabid supporters on the left do not appreciate the value of independent, non-objective journalism.
Keep up the good work.
Peter Baker: I happen to think John is a fair-minded journalist as well, and not just cuz he happens to be my boss at the moment. But it's normal if you feel strongly about a subject or a political figure to view everything through a prism and take offense or assume the worst in those whose job is only to provide information, not serve as advocates. I was overseas for four years and came back last year to discover a sharply more suspicious readership and it's distressing that motives are automatically assigned to journalists even in circumstances with no reason.
Columbia, Md.: I do not understand why anyone is confused about Froomkin's column if they read it. He has time and time again stated that he is not a White House reporter in it.
Peter Baker: I would hope there wouldn't be confusion, but some readers may not be paying as close attention as you are.
Ellicott City, Md.: RE: Froomkin. It is labeled opinion (has been for a bit), it is obvious when he is commenting and when he is quoting, very much like Howard Kurtz's Media Notes pieces, I feel your savvy person purposefully didn't "get it" as opposed to innocently.
Peter Baker: If I'm not mistaken, it was labeled opinion, in fact, after John Harris raised his concerns. That was helpful and we were glad there was a move toward clarity. On the site today, for instance, Dan's column is in the same pull-down as other opinion writers, such as George Will, E.J. Dionne and others.
New York, N.Y.: Wow, you don't vote? That surprises me. I realize reporters need to be objective in their work but certainly are entitled to an opinion of who'd they want to represent them in their government. Is this a common thing among reporters?
Peter Baker: No, it's not common. Most reporters believe strongly that they should do their civic duty as voters and I'm very respectful of that. I just found it was easier for me to try to keep from being invested emotionally or otherwise in one candidate or another.
Cedar Glen, Calif.: Have you really been able to avoid having a political viewpoint? Wasn't it clear in your own mind how you would have voted in the last Presidential election, had you been willing to vote?
Peter Baker: Of course it's hard to avoid having a political viewpoint and obviously reporters come into their jobs as human beings with experiences and feelings and opinions. But it's our job to sublimate the personal for the professional to the extent that we can. And no, I honestly don't know how I would have voted in the last election, and I'm glad not to have had to make a decision. In whatever small way, it helps keep my mind clearer.
All conditions the same in Iraq, do you think the Republicans would be complaining about the way things are going now if a Democrat were president?
Are White House reporters at all intimidated or do they worry about their careers because of Bush's history of retaliation when he feels betrayed, for the lack of a better word?
Peter Baker: Thanks for the questions.
On the first, it's a fair point. There were certainly Republicans who complained when President Clinton went to war in Kosovo and things did not go according to plan at first.
On the second, no I don't anyone who feels intimidated by the White House. The benefit of a White House where there's no access is there's nothing to lose if you write things they don't like. But our job isn't to make people mad or happy necessarily, but to inform, and I think that's the source of a lot of this consternation since a lot of readers would like us to take sides.
Rochester, N.Y.: You mentioned that you used to work for the Washington Times. Couldn't a liberal reader argue that makes you suspect? Or were you working there before it was bought by Reverend Moon?
Peter Baker: Readers can draw anything they want from it. But the Washington Times is a good paper in a lot of ways and has much to offer both readers and young journalists who started out there, as I was fortunate to do.
Kansas City, Mo.: I think I read one of your bosses also said he doesn't vote but even though you are a reporter I would encourage you to vote. I think it's really important people vote. If they see people giving reasons for not voting I'm afraid it only encourages not voting.
Peter Baker: Fair point. Appreciate the input.
Miami, Fla.: Why isn't Cillizza's column listed under the opinion heading?
Peter Baker: Chris Cillizza's column, The Fix, isn't an opinion column but a compilation of items and information from the political world that you can't find anywhere else. There's certainly analysis in there but it's not Chris's personal opinions, it's a reflection of the dialogue in the political world. For those who haven't, check it out. It's a terrific addition to the site.
Toronto, Ontario: "I was overseas for four years and came back last year to discover a sharply more suspicious readership and it's distressing that motives are automatically assigned to journalists even in circumstances with no reason."
WE have been given many reasons to be very distrustful of journalists in the past while. Miller, Woodward, most reporting leading to the Iraq War, etc.
I think it is very unfair to place the blame on the readers.
People want less discussion of politics, left-right, liberal-conservative; less on this hand, on the other hand, less protecting confidential sources, and more actual reporting on the truth.
Peter Baker: The trick is truth isn't so easy to identify. Your truth might not be the same truth as Judy Miller's. Journalists are certainly flawed but most of the ones I know try very hard to get at truth to the extent that we can. Readers keep us honest when we fail, and that's certainly fair too.
Peter Baker: Boy, we could go on and on, but I'm into overtime already and like the Redskins it looks like I'm behind. Thanks for participating today. Come back tomorrow for our crack congressional correspondent, Chuck Babington (who has nothing to do with the current dispute, so go easy on the guy).
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Weight Loss Supplements
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2005121219
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Pills for Losers (Post, Dec. 13)
Ephedra: It's Back! Sort of (Post, Dec. 13)
Saper is a member of Boston University Medical Center's Family Medicine Department's research faculty. His interests are to develop research, educational, and clinical programs that explore how complementary and alternative therapies can be responsibly integrated with conventional medicine. Prior to joining BUMC, he completed a three year Complementary Medicine Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He currently is developing a curriculum in complementary medicine for BUMC's residency program. Saper graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1988. After completing a family medicine residency at UCSF, he practiced in the San Francisco Bay Area for 8 years.
Columbia, S.C.: Do overweight people tend to eat more nutritionally deficient foods (i.e. white bread, pasta)?
Which nutritional supplements curb cravings for nutritionally deficient foods?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Hello,
It does often occur. Many people with abdominal obesity eat a great deal of "white carb" eg bread and pasta which do not have a great deal of vitamins and minerals. Moving to a diet with more lean protein, increased fiber will decrease these cravings. There is some evidence that chromium picolinate 200 mcg daily may be of help too.
Washington, D.C.: Are products like Trim Spa OK to take. I'm slightly over weight and trying to loose about 10 to 15 pounds. I've changed some of my eating habits, and have started w/mild workouts. Does Trim Spa help w/the aid of weight loss, or should I stay away from products like these?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Hello
I would discourage it. There are several trimspa's but the X32 contains:
Citrus Naringin which has compounds similar to ephedra, which have been linked with high blood pressure, palpitations, even heart attack and death.
houdia- there is really is no substantial evidence supporting its efficacy
Glucosamine - no evidence for weight loss
This supplement has got a lot of hype that in my opinion is not supported by good data.
Charlotte, NC: Virtually every weight loss product advertisement contains some version of the line noting its effectiveness when combined with healthy eating and exercise. Of course, healthy eating and exercise by themselves are effective and the supplements could be doing nothing at all. I want to ask you about two possible psychological effects. It's possible that people taking a weigh loss product end up eating the same, or more, because they think the magic pill will make the weight disappear.Almost equally likely, I suspect, is a placebo effect where people on a weigh loss supplement decide they feel more energetic and disposed to exercise, and feel less hungry, when actually it's all in their heads. The first group would end up gaining weight, the second losing. Do you know of any studies that look at these potential effects? Is one more likely to occur than the other?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: That's an excellent point that you're raising, i.e. placebo ( a positive benefit) or a nocebo effect ( a negative result). Both are possible theoretically. Double blind placebo controlled trials of various weight loss products almost always show that the placebo group also lose weight! Ted Kaptchuk is an investigator at Harvard Medical School who has written extensively on placebo effect. I would recommend doing a pub med search on him (www.pubmed.com)
Baltimore, Md.: I lost 28 lbs last year through diet and excercise. I am having problems losing the last 15 I want to lose. Almost all my fat is around my stomach and waist. I am considering liposuction to help get rid of this stubborn weight. I feel my metabolism slows when I try to lose this weight and exercise doesn't help because I am just too fatigued it seems to do it, whereas when I had the extra lbs before I had energy.
My question is, if I lose those fat cells to liposuction, will this help?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: First, congratulations on losing the 28 lbs! It is difficult to lose that remaining amount. My recommendations would be to first calculate your Body Mass Index (weight in kg squared divided by height in meters). There are calculators for this on the web. This will help guide your next step. Liposuction would certainly reduce the cosmetic aspect, but not effect your metabolism. I would recommend seeing a certified nutritionist before your next steps, as well as discussing with your MD
Washington, D.C.: Are the popular fat burning supplements better suited for people who are fairly active and want to lose the 'last few pounds', as opposed to sedentary and/or obese people? My guess is the former would benefit more.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Which supplements specifically are you referring to? CLA, carnitine? If so, there is some modest evidence that they help reduce body fat mass but not total body weight. I do not think they are terribly effective with either active or sedentary people.
Washington, D.C.: There is a "doctor recommended" LeanLife-PM that claims to burn fat and suppress appetite while you sleep. Is this possible? With diet and exercise, can this help at all? Are the ingredients safe: Apple pectin, ginger root, garcinia cambogia, bromelain, citrus aurantium, willow bark and cayenne?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I'll run down the ingredients
Apple pectin - essentially sugar
ginger root - good for nausea but not tested for weight loss
garcinia cambogia - aka HCA, equivocal studies, some showing benefit and some not
bromelain - purported anti inflammatory, not studied for weight loss
citrus aurantium - as I wrote to another person, related to ephedra compounds.
willow bark - the botanical basis of aspirin. In studies of ephedra, aspirin and caffeine + ephedra does lead to weight loss more than placebo, but with 2-3 times the side effects, some of which can be extremely serious or even fatal. With dietary supplements, safety issues need to trump efficacy issues.
To summarize, my answer is no (sorry!)
Formula studies?: With the rise of obesity in youngsters, is anyone looking into infant formula's for possible links? I see such a difference between the weight of breastfed children and those who were formula fed. The formula babies seem to have less muscle tone, more fat, even after they pass through toddlerhood. Could the popular formulas be 'too nutritious' in their content leading to overweight among the very young?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: This is a fascinating question. I went to Pubmed.com, which is the free database of all medical articles published since 1966 at pubmed and did a search and this is the review article I found just published in May. It shows that adult obesity is less in breast fed infants. See below:
Effect of infant feeding on the risk of obesity across the life course: a quantitative review of published evidence.
Owen CG, Martin RM, Whincup PH, Smith GD, Cook DG.
Department of Community Health Sciences, St George's Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, United Kingdom. c.owen@sghms.ac.uk
OBJECTIVE: To examine the influence of initial infant feeding on obesity in later life. METHODS: A systematic review of published studies investigating the association between infant feeding and a measure of obesity was performed with Medline (1966 onward) and Embase (1980 onward) databases, supplemented with manual searches. Data extraction was conducted by 2 authors. Analyses were based on odds ratios of obesity among initially breastfed subjects, compared with formula-fed subjects, pooled with fixed-effects models.RESULTS: Sixty-one studies reported on the relationship of infant feeding to a measure of obesity in later life; of these, 28 (298900 subjects) provided odds ratio estimates. In these studies, breastfeeding was associated with a reduced risk of obesity, compared with formula feeding (odds ratio: 0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.85-0.89). The inverse association between breastfeeding and obesity was particularly strong in 11 small studies of <500 subjects (odds ratio: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.33-0.55) but was still apparent in larger studies of> or =500 subjects (odds ratio: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.85-0.90). In 6 studies that adjusted for all 3 major potential confounding factors (parental obesity, maternal smoking, and social class), the inverse association was reduced markedly (from an odds ratio of 0.86 to 0.93) but not abolished. A sensitivity analysis examining the potential impact of the results of 33 published studies (12505 subjects) that did not provide odds ratios(mostly reporting no relationship between breastfeeding and obesity) showed little effect on the results. CONCLUSIONS: Initial breastfeeding protects against obesity in later life. However, a further review including large unpublished studies exploring the effect of confounding factors in more detail is needed.
Arlington, Va.: Are there any weight/fat losing products that are good for people (with exercise of course)?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: There are some supplements that are certainly safe, or maybe even helpful for non obesity medical issues, but there are none that I currently believe have robust scientific evidence for me as a physician to proactively recommend for my patients. Glucomannan shows some evidence for efficacy. For example, green tea may have very beneficial health effects but has not been shown to lead to weight loss.
Washington, D.C.: With all the hype and millions of dollars surrounding the weight loss craze, why don't the federal regulators simply put out the skinny on weight loss rather than re-introducing more supplements?
The burning of more daily calories thru activities than what is taken in daily = successful weight loss. Why not inform the public to decrease their caloric intake by 300 k/cal per day and watch for the results naturally?
Sherman W., CPFT, CSNS, CSCS
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I couldn't agree further! The answer in my opinion is more political and economic than medical. There are tremendously powerful lobbying groups that represent supplement manufacturers in certain states (eg Utah) that have influence on law makers. Also, the FDA and FTC have made some strides on removing some of the products from the market that have made the most extreme claims, but that still leaves a lot to be done. Currently these products are governed by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act passed by Congress in 1994 which does not require supplement manufacturers to test for safety or effectiveness prior to marketing! This has to change for any utility to come out of supplements.
Re: informing the public re reducing calories, they are trying, but often less with confusing results - see the new "food pyramid" published by the UDSA - very confusing. I recommend the Walter Willet pyramid from Harvard, that can be read about in his book "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"
Washington, D.C.: The weight loss pill that Anna Nicole Smith took has a few different variations, what is the difference between them and what is the risk to a person's health if taken correctly with diet and exercise?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Hi. It's trim spa - Please see my comment on it previously. There are different variations:
The lipo sap has chitosan and vitamin C. For chitosan to truly cause weight loss, you would have to eat several pounds of it per day!! not 500 mg.
Chitosan causes minute clinically insignificant weight loss.
Carb blocker has white kidney bean extract. This is purported to inhibit amylase, an enzyme in the gut that breaks down starch. There is one preliminary study that shows after 8 weeks the bean extract group lost about 2 lbs more over 2 months than placebo, a small but possibly meaningful difference. It appears safe. See below for the study abstract, again found on pubmed and also through natural medicines database (www.naturalmedicines.com)
Blocking carbohydrate absorption and weight loss: a clinical trial using Phase 2 brand proprietary fractionated white bean extract.
Udani J, Hardy M, Madsen DC.
UCLA School of Medicine, Integrative Medicine Program, Northridge Hospital, 8250 Roscoe Blvd, Suite 240, Northridge, CA 91325, USA. Jay.Udani@CHW.edu
Background: Phase 2' starch neutralizer brand bean extract product ("Phase 2") is a water-extract of a common white bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) that has been shown in vitro to inhibit the digestive enzyme alpha-amylase.Inhibiting this enzyme may prevent the digestion of complex carbohydrates, thus decreasing the number of carbohydrate calories absorbed and potentially promoting weight loss. Methods: Fifty obese adults were screened to participate in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the effects of treatment with Phase 2 versus placebo on weight loss. Participants were randomized to receive either 1500 mg Phase 2 or an identical placebo twice daily with meals. The active study period was eight weeks. Thirty-nine subjects completed the initial screening process and 27 subjects completed the study. Results: The results after eight weeks demonstrated the Phase 2 group lost an average of 3.79 lbs (average of 0.47 lb per week) compared with the placebo group, which lost an average of 1.65 lbs (average of 0.21 lb per week), representing a difference of 129 percent (p=0.35). Triglyceride levels in the Phase 2 group were reduced an average of 26.3 mg/dL,more than three times greater a reduction than observed in the placebo group (8.2 mg/dL) (p=0.07). No adverse events during the study were attributed to the study medication. Conclusion: Clinical trends were identified for weight loss and a decrease in triglycerides, although statistical significance was not reached. Phase 2 shows potential promise as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of obesity and hypertriglyceridemia and further studies with larger numbers of subjects are warranted to conclusively demonstrate effectiveness.
Rockville, Md.: I am fascinated by the bad press that milk and orange juice (no sugar added) have among parents. I keep thinking that these two, and of course lots of water, are the best possible drinks for children and teenagers, and should be the only drinks available at school cafeterias. What do you think?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: What I most agree with you is that for kids, the high use of sugar-containing beverages (sodas, fruit juices, gatorade etc) contribute substantially to our obesity problem in kids. These products are often easily available in the school cafeterias. Hidden sources of sugar (eg 'high fructose corn syrup') often are used.
Washington, D.C.: What are your thoughts on senna, an ingredient comment in "diet teas"? I have found information which suggests long-term use of senna and its many derivations can be harmful. However, I have friends who swear by it as a compliment to the mainstays of cutting calories and exercising more. As a long distance runner, I tried it for a very brief time and found that while using it (drinking the tea at night, before bed) I no longer had the energy reserves to complete any run over 4-6 miles. Is this a common complaint of senna users?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I strongly discourage patients from using senna for weight loss. It is a powerful laxative that can be used rarely (eg 1x/week max) for chronic constipation. With chronic use, important electrolytes such as bicarbonate, chloride, and potassium can get lost through the stool and lead to weakness, etc.
NEW JERSEY: I am 21 and want to loose about 30 pounds. I do not eat poorly and I am moderately active. Even when I took up a strict six day a week gym schedule for tree months I was only able to loose about 3 pounds. My trainer told me that taking a supplement with Ephedra would help but have no harmful effects. I wanted to know what you think about this.
Also, do you believe that Leptoprin could be of some use to me?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Certainly do not take ephedra. Some of the serious case reports on ephedra were in patients without any preexisting risk factors for heart problems and taking recommended doses. I would recommend seeing a nutritionist to carefully review your diet. Are you getting adequate aerobic exercise. Exercise has 3 major components: aerobic, strength, and flexibility. We need a balance of all 3.
calcium - no effect of weight loss
vit b 6 no effect
green tea - see previous comments
l tyrosine and kelp (source of iodine) may support thyroid function, but it has been shown that increasing thyroid levels does not lead to weight loss (and can be harmful).
If you're interested in a comprehensive review of most common weight loss supplements, try to get a copy of a review article I wrote in the Nov 1 2004 American Family Physician Vol 70 p 17311738, available through the publisher at http://www.aafp.org/afp/20041101/contents.html
Alexandria, Va.: What about supplements for purposes other than weightloss? I've had good success with glucosamine helping with some joint issues (both my own and my dogs') and I've heard that other sugars can help boost the immune system. Is there any evidence to support this? Are there any dietary supplements that you believe are supported by the data?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Thank you for this excellent question. It allows me an opportunity to not appear that I am completely against all dietary supplements!
Yes, there is growing promising evidence for the helpfulness of a number of supplements for chronic problems. Notable examples include:
ginkgo biloba for dementia (not the more common age associated memory loss which many of us experience)
saw palmetto for benign prostate hypertrophy
fish oil for elevated triglycerides
soy protein for elevated cholesterol and hot flashes
Some good resources for this are:
and the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Web site (www.nccam.nih.gov)
Columbia, Md.: I've quit smoking for 6 months now. I have already gained 10 pounds without changing my lifestyle or increasing my calories.
I've started walking 1/2 hour several times a week. Is there ANYTHING I can take to slow down the weight gain!
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Congratulations on quitting smoking!!! Although I know you're unhappy with the weight gain, you should know that the relative health gain statistically and subjectively you receive from quitting cigarettes (dramatic reductions in risk of cardiovascular disease and many cancers) is far greater than any increase potential health complications from the 10 lbs. Having said that, your situation is unfortunately common. Nicotine can suppress appetite some, and I would speculate that your calorie consumption may have actually gone up. Is this possible? Also learn to check you pulse, so that you know when you are walking if you are reaching an aerobic heart rate range. You can estimate your maximum heart rate range by subtracting your age from 225. Your target range should be 60-80% of that.
Ideally for weight loss, 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise is needed.
Arlington, Va.: Hello, Thanks for taking my question. I exercise at least 30 mins. everyday -- sometimes more. My diet consists mostly of fresh veggies, lean meat and whole grains (make my own bread,etc.), skim dairy (make my own yogurt). By following the volumetrics' way of eating I have lost just over 30 lbs since April. Since September I have hit what appears to be a serious plataeu (I only have about another 5-10 lbs to lose). I feel that my metabolism has slowed from the lower calorie intake (even though I have been exercising religiously) what do you think about the supplement guggulipid? Would it be worth a try? Is it dangerous?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Guggulipid has been touted especially for weight loss and high cholesterol. It has not been studied in the former, but yes in the latter with not great results. Some products manufactured in India (it is native to India) have been found to contain heavy metals such as lead.
Louisville, Ky.: Thank you for doing this chat.
I'd hate to give up (whole wheat) bread and pasta, but I would love to lose 15 pounds. I should take it that no supplement will assist in my goal without me first sacrificing grains?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Many people have caught onto the idea that carbs are the enemy. Interestingly a study that compared the Atkins (low carb), Zone (balanced 40,30,30 ratio of pro, carb, fat) and Ornishy (10% fat) all lead to weight loss equally. The key is total calories. Also, if you want to eat bread and pasta, using whole grain sources of both are better. It causes a slower rise in blood sugar, then a slower rise of insulin which may lead to weight loss.
Cleveland: DHEA for aiding weight loss? Yes or no.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: No. Excellent question
DHEA first hasn't been shown to lead to weight loss. More importantly, it is a hormone related to testosterone and we do not know the long range effect of supplementing it on hormone sensitive tissues, eg breast or prostate.
ludhiana, INDIA: I am 44 year-old-male assigned a computer job. I get an early morning walk for 100 min. a week. MY sugar level is up by 15-20 point above normal every time. Please advise me medicine. I seldom use GLYNASE-MF OD. My body-weight ratio is ok.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: It is good to hear from you in India. Do you live close to diabetic specialist. I do not know where ludhiana is. Please contact a colleague of mine Dr. V Manohan, an expert diabetologist in India who can refer you to someone in your area. With diabetes the keys are:
Eat and drink foods with no or minimal sugar
Regular exercise as you are doing.
High fiber diet slows glucose absorption
Often start with a medicine like metformin which reduces insulin resistance, or in combo with glynase is helpful.
Potomac, Md.: I've been using a variety of hunger suppressants with little or no effect toward long-term maintenance. Are there any supplements that actually make certain high-fat foods taste terrible to the palate? Maybe, if enough of those existed, I could survive on a rabbit diet!
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Great idea
Not to the best of my knowledge
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: What are the side effects of weight loss supplements in the short and longer term?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Please see my review article that I mentioned earlier. this will provide a more comprehensive answer
Jacksonville, Fla.: What are those dietary supplements that make you lose weight? Thanks in advance for your response.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: See previous notes please
McLean, Va.: The discussion topic is of much interest to me -- more especially the use of alternative medicines.
My question: Can improved liver function help in weight reduction? If yes, do you think that using Ayurvedic medicines can result in success, e.g., a brand product called "Livorest" which is available in India. Also, please suggest any other medicines or alternative products which one can easily obtain in the USA. Many thanks and Cheers.....
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Not directly. I have not seen literature on Livorest. I do know that a large manufacturer of Ayurvedic products, Himalaya has a branch in the US but I cannot speak to the quality of their products.
Toronto, Canada: Re Washington's question - in my experience the attraction of supplements is also pure escape from the hard reality of diet and exercise. Every year (so far) I have successfully lost in spring and summer the weight I'm gaining right now. It is nothing less than sweat and being hungry all the time. Where is that magic pill?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I agree. There is a tremendous desire for a magic bullet. Our society has become very oriented to quick results from a pill, in large part due to our medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. If interested, please see a book called "Overdosed America."
Washington, D.C.: Dear Dr. Saper,
Which supplements actually work to promote weight loss? And how effectively? (Pounds per month if taken correctly.)
Is anyone (Consumer Reports?) checking to see which supplements have the effects they claim to have?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Yes, see consumerlab.com; consumer reports has done some studies on supplements - I'm not sure re weight loss supplements
Formula studies?: Thanks for the synopsis of the breastfeeding/formula feeding study. Perhaps it is not the formula itself, per se, but the fact that breastfed babies learn to stop eating when they are full. Bottle fed babies are permitted to stop eating when that bottle is empty...and often given more. Maybe that's when the cycle is set up for them to lack satiety, feeling forever hungry.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: That may very well be.
Rockville, Md.: What do you think of energy drinks for weight loss? Red Bull, Fizzy, Fuze Slenderize... They all seem to have some citrimax supplement, green tea and/or guaranara. Are they safe to drink?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: All of these contain either caffeine or botanical sources of caffeine. Sometimes the amount of caffeine is equal to 5 times the amount or more of caffeine that is in a cup of coffee. Palpitations, head aches, insomnia, anxiety are all possible complications. I discourage use of these.
Washington D.C: What fat burning supplement do you think would be most effective for active people?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: none
Mechanicsville, Md.: As a former ephedra user, I am extremely cautious with taking supplements now. However, I did achieve great results while using an ephedra-based product. While using the ephedra-based products, I would literally sweat while sitting at my desk. I lost approximately 30 pounds and achieved the body that I had always desired. Now, without the ephedra, I lack the energy to workout as hard, and, to a certain extent, the desire to workout as hard knowing that my results will not be comparable to those I achieve while using ephedra. Is there a product out now that can achieve the same results?
Thank you in advance for your response and advice.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Your story is very telling. Thanks for sharing it. I would be cautious about using the new supplements with citrus, bitter orange etc as these cause similar effects.
Washington, D.C.: I have heard that Omega-3 fatty acids may assist weight loss. Any support to that? If so what Omega-3 sources and dosages are safe?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: No evidence for weight loss, but these can have substantial health benefits: doses of 1-3 grams per day are usually safe.
Frederick, Md.: I thank you in advance for answering my question, Dr. Saper.
Can you recommend a vitamin designed specifically for teenagers? My two girls love the gummi vitamins I buy for my 6-year-old son, but they each have to take two a day, which means the supply doesn't last long.
And they hate vitamins for adults.
Does anyone make vitamins specifically for teenagers--great taste, cartoon characters, but with a more adult dosage?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I don't know the answer - great question. I know consumerlab.com has looked at multivitamins. that's where I would look
Anonymous: I have taken Ephedra on and off for over 10 years. It has been my contention over the years that it is the only supplement that actually works, and the proof of that is the people who take too much and injure themselves.
My point being, there is a certain percentage of the population, especially the young, who will take 2 and 3 times the amount of anything they are taking, just to get extra effect. After a while, any supplement that actually does what it is billed to do is going to hurt someone.
I might have missed it, but I have not seen any instance of ephedra hurting someone who took a responsible dosage and who did not have a pre-existing heart condition of some kind.
This stuff really works to help kill appetite, raise the metabolism, and give energy throughout the day. I bought a bunch before the ban, which I still take.
Am I just an idiot? I am a professional with 3 kids. No heart condition. Why can't I continue to take it?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Thanks. I sympathize, ephedra with caffeine has been probably the only supplement combination to reliable lead to weight loss, but the literature supports the fact that safety concerns outweight this.
Please find the following articles for examples of cases of people without risk factors and taking recommended doses.
Shekelle PG, Hardy ML, Morton SC, Maglione M, Mojica
WA, Suttorp MJ, et al. Efficacy and safety of ephedra
and ephedrine for weight loss and athletic performance:
Haller CA, Benowitz NL. Adverse cardiovascular and
central nervous system events associated with dietary
supplements containing ephedra alkaloids. N Engl J
New York: I have about 5-10 lbs. to lose to get at an ideal weight. Will stimulants like coffee or appetite suppressants help (along with healthy diet and exercise), and what are the risks of taking them? What are the effects of such medication on pregnancy?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: In pregnancy, it is essential to discuss any medication or supplement use with your doctor. In general, we do not have adequate safety information for any supplements regarding pregnancy and therefore should be discouraged.
Washington, D.C.: What do you think of Lipovarin?
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: see previous note please
Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C., but traveling: I want to ask the exact opposite question - what supplements will help weight gain? My elderly father has been losing a lot of weight over the years, but finds it difficult to consume a lot of food. I have been trying to figure out how to increase his calorie consumption without increasing (much) what he eats.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: Focus on caloric dense foods. I would recommend seeing a nutritionist with him.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH: I've enjoyed speaking with many of you! I very much apologize for not answering all your questions, but I have to leave now. Best of luck to all of you in your quest for a healthy lifestyle!
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Chatological Humor*
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Gene Weingarten's controversial humor column, Below the Beltway , appears every Sunday in The Washington Post Magazine. He aspires to someday become a National Treasure, but is currently more of a National Gag Novelty Item, like rubber dog poo.
He is online, at any rate, each Tuesday, to take your questions and abuse.
Weingarten is the author of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death" and co-author of "I'm with Stupid," with feminist scholar Gina Barreca. "Below the Beltway" is now syndicated nationally by The Washington Post Writers Group .
New to Chatological Humor? Read the FAQ .
A very short intro today, in honor of the passing of Richard Pryor, the greatest standup comedian who ever lived.
It's short because I wanted to fill it with Richard Pryor quotes, but found, when I reviewed the tapes, that it is impossible. It's not what he said so much as how he said it. It's also his complete audacity, which was explained magnificently today in Gene Robinson's column. Liz will link to that, below.
Here are a few quotes that survive the translation to print:
"I went to Zimbabwe...I know how white people feel in America now. Relaxed! Cause when I heard the police car, I knew they weren't coming after me."
White people be going, "Why do you [black men] hold your [private parts]? Because you took everything else, you &$#@!s."
Let me tell you what really happened [with his freebasing accident] Every night before I go to bed, I have milk and cookies. One night I mixed some low-fat milk and some pasteurized, then I dipped my cookie in and the s--- blew up.
I'd like to die like my father died... My father died f---ing. My father was 57 when he died. The woman was 18. My father came and went at the same time.
In the memory of Richard Pryor, I'd ask that everyone here buy or rent "Richard Pryor Live at the Sunset Strip." It's not nearly his best work. At all. He was mostly off his game. But there is on that tape five minutes of the greatest standup you will ever see. It is where Pryor is describing the time, at 19, that he worked in a club in Youngstown, Ohio, that was owned by the Mafia. And what happened when he tried to extort money from them with a cap pistol. Richard Pryor does the best Mafioso impression you will ever see, and his body language -using the mike stand to represent his skinny-else self - is also the best you will ever see. He was the best you will ever see. I really hate multiple sclerosis.
Take the poll. There are correct answers. Dave Barry and I collaborated on them, so you will know they are right. I will explain Dave's choices and mine (we didn't entirely agree) midway through the chat.
Yesterday was "Black Ink Monday," in which 100 newspaper editorial cartoonists drew cartoons decrying newspaper penny-pinching that has eliminated many of their jobs, including that of Pulitzer Prizewinner Michael Ramirez of the LA Times. Liz will link to a site, below, in which all of the cartoons are posted. Here is what is interesting: There are some excellent ones, but for the most part, they are not very good. Many are waay over the top. Hard to keep things in perspective, when you are writing about you.
It is difficult to believe that I am typing the following sentence. It's hard because there is NO muscle memory for it. The Comic Pick of the Week is Saturday's On the Fastrack, and the first runner up is today's Broom Hilda. Gad.
These two are probably not as good as today's Frazz or today's Pearls, which are runners up merely because I had to go for the stunners first.
washingtonpost.com: Comic Pick of the Week: On the Fastrack , ( Dec. 10 )
First Runner Up: Broom Hilda , ( Dec. 13 )
Honorable Mentions: Pearls Before Swine , ( Dec. 13 )
Frazz , ( Dec. 13 )
Pryor the Pioneer , ( Post, Dec. 13 )
Dear Mr. Weingarten: I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in Mr. Weingarten's chat, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Gene Weingarten: You blew it. Your place name should have been "Virginia."
However, I shall answer your question.
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. Why, there is a Santa as surely as there is a Virginia! Go to any shopping mall, and behold him. True, he may often look like some homeless guy with a false beard earning a few bucks for booze by forfeiting his self-respect for the further enrichment pf corporate bloodsuckers trying to trick customers into overspending money they don't have on presents they can't afford for people they think they love.
It's love that doesn't exist, Virginia. We all die alone.
Olsson's Audience: Obligatory: Thanks, Gene, for your lovely intro. I laughed, I cried, only without the crying.
Sincere: Thanks, Jef, for coming to town and being such a nice guy. We're not used to that around here. Thanks also for helping me take care of lots of my Christmas shopping.
Most Sincere: Thanks, Patti, for making sure Jef was wearing pants.
Question time: So who else of colossally minor fame was in attendance? There are rumors...
Gene Weingarten: There were several Style Invitational Stars, including the incredible (and sadly retired) Jennifer Hart of Arlington. Also Paul Kondis and Mike Connaghan. The most famous attendee was the brilliant Richard Thompson, who (as is his custom) wished anonymity, so I did not introduce him. My son, Dan, was also there. One attendee complimented him on having gotten his mother's looks.
Gene Weingarten: Chatwoman was also there. Actually, she was the most famous attendee.
As you may recall, I met you last night at Ollson's. I was the young lady, who despite my misgivings, purchased your book "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death."
As a hypochondriac, I was hoping that a book geared towards hypochondriacs and written by a former hypochondriac might give me some insights into managing my mental affliction (despite the fact that the author autographed my book with "Don't read this book!").
After perusing such chapters as "How Your Doctor Can Kill You" and "Hiccups Can Mean Cancer," I am now convinced that I have erythema multiforme. Thanks, Gene!
Nonetheless, I still believe you to be a genius. I am no longer reading anymore of your damn book, however.
As a side note, I once wrote into you asking what a man's greatest fear was. You replied public speaking (after death and failing in the sack, of course). You did great last night!!
Gene Weingarten: Thank you. There is a pretty dramatic drop in intensity of fear from "failing in the sack" to "public speaking," though.
It is wise to stop reading the book before you get to Wegner's Granulomatosis. Just don't go there.
Wifely Duties: Gene, there is something my wife will not do for me that I need done. Ex-girlfriends have done it willingly (one, with great gusto). But my wife lets me down.
She will not pop the pimples on my back.
I am no jerk. I know it's gross. But it has to be done, and I can't reach 'em.
Am I being unreasonable? Pimples can hurt. And not being able to reach a big one drives me nuts. If she won't pop it, who will?
She won't even let me get the ones on her back. She is against the whole idea of popping.
Unfortuately, circumstances dictated that popping pimples become a major hobby of mine in high school. So I have gotten past my squeamishness. Why can't she? I have needs!
Thanks Gene. You're the best.
Gene Weingarten: This reminds me of the great infantile joke about the Professional Pimple Sucker. And, by extension, the More Adult Version involving the man seated next to a woman on a train.
As for you, I recommend a belt sander. You can mount it on a pole, like a backscratcher.
You're column this weekend reminds me to ask a question I've been meaning to raise for a long time. What's the best knock-knock joke you know?
My five-year-old daughter loves them, but tells them horribly. For example, she goes directly for "knock-knock, who's there?, orange..." without ever having prompted you with the "knock-knock, who's there?, banana..." refrains.
Terrible, I know. But, I want to teach her a good one nonetheless.
washingtonpost.com: Humor Cop , ( Post Magazine, Dec. 11 )
Gene Weingarten: Hm. I think knock knock jokes are so idiotic, that the best are ones that subvert the form. Like, asking someone to say, "Knock knock" and when they do, you say, "who's there?"
I once wrote a knock knock joke. Knock-knock. Who's there? Your underwear. Your underwear who? Your underwear the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.
That is not the best knock knock joke ever.
Iowa: Artificial or real? Your holiday tree, I mean.
Gene Weingarten: Real. Gimme a break.
Rockville, Md.: I'm a nurse that works the night shift. The following really happened to me. I was making the 5 a.m. rounds when I found a patient not breathing. I called a code and started CPR. There was only one other nurse with me on the station and she was helping with the code. Meanwhile another patient of mine suffering from Alzheimer's got out of bed, walked into the bathromm in her room, removed her poopy diaper, spilling its contents on the floor. She stepped in it on her way out of her room and wandered down to another station leaving poopy footprints along the way. By the time I was finished with the code and came out of the room, another nurse had walked my wanderer back to my station. I started laughing when I realized what had happened. Was I wrong to laugh?
Gene Weingarten: No. Humor is a reaction to the fear of death and the knowledge of the fact that we are trapped in an insane and absurd world. I am writing a cover story this very minute on that very subject.
Potomac, Md.: This is not really the sort of question you usually get, I think, but as a writer I would find your position on the issue very interesting.
How do you view and propose the public view art (by this I encompass literature, movies, etc.) from the past which are very good in many ways but because of the time in which they were written/created, they are inherantly racist to one degree or another? (Or in some other way no longer politically correct.)
I am thinking specifically of "Gone with the Wind," though I would personally partially defend it on the grounds that many characters, both black and white, are rather one dimensional. (Scarlett saves it. Rhett helps, but it is her.)
As a very feminist, I also sometimes wonder at the irony in that there is so much taboo surrounding sections of history which are racist, while many still produce such in which women (or racial groups) are stereotyped or shown as second-class or one-dimensional (though less blatantly in many cases).
By the way, I am a high school girl. Totally for equality of everyone. But those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it...
Gene Weingarten: Three of my treasured possessions are of this type. They are treasured because they carry lessons.
1. A first edition paperback of Agatha Christies "Ten Little Niggers." Yes, believe it or not, that was the original title. it also has blatantly antisemitic writing in it.
2. A photo from 1860 Atlanta with a sign advertising "Negro Sales."
3. A Victrola recording of one of the most objectionable songs ever written, "Massa's in de Cold, Cold, Ground."
I don't believe in erasing the past. I believe in learning from it.
Taos, NM: Hy Gene --
Taosim guy here, again. I've been thinking about whether Taosim is funny. The great teachings are all stories that have little twists at the end, sort of like a punchline. But upon review, few of them are funny. An example is Chuang Tzu's "Three Friends":
And know nothing of it?
Can they fly around in space
The three friends looked at each other
Thus they were better friends than before..."
So yeah, I guess you had to be there.
Judaism, on the other hand, easily wins my vote. The Old Testament is actually very humorous, even ribald in spots. God speaks out of Balaam's ass -- and that's as funny today as it was 4,000 years ago. People have been sniggering over Song of Solomon for centuries ("You are like a stately palm tree, and your breasts are like coconuts...", etc.). Even the book of Job has a witty sort of feel to it.
Gene Weingarten: I chose Judaism, too.
I seem to recall another Taoist homily, about how hell is a table of people trying and failing to eat, because their chopsticks are three feet long. Heaven is the same thing, but they are feeding each other. Ew.
Washington, D.C.: Gene, don't you mean LEIbniz-, not Liebnizianism?
Gene Weingarten: Yes, I do.
Jeanne Marie, Alaska: Gene,Your column is always the first thing I read each Sunday, but I am not sure how to treat the "Significant Others" column that is on your backside. (or maybe you are its backside?) While I do read it, about half the time I wonder why I bother. It has exactly two story arcs: either the I-feel-smugly-superior-until hoisted-on-my-own-petard, or the I-worry-myself-into-a-dither until-others-reveal-me-for-a-ninny line. I often get the feeling it's not really intended for the Y-chromosome set. (I'm a 44-year-old male, btw.) In fact, it seems like the print equivalent of, say, almond-scented moisturizer -- I would be mortified if my buddies caught me reading it. And yet every so often it contains some little kernel that redeems it. Am I a girly-man to read it? Or, to get meta, am I a girly-man for even wondering such a question? Is it permissible as a guilty pleasure, or simply verboten? I'm sure you have an opinion, and I will accept your judgment as definitive.
(Actually, it wasn't until after I wrote all this that I had a brainstorm: why don't you do a column together, a la the great Gene & Gina ones?)
Gene Weingarten: Oddly enough, I have just had a spirited discussion with Tom The Butcher about Jeanne Marie's column! It involved the fact that, for my column, I have to go places and interview people and make a fool of myself and, sometimes literally, drop trou (upcoming column, whereas Jeanne Marie merely has to, like, interview her daughter. Tom sensitively pointed out that I could get away with this, too, if I had a scintilla of her talent.
Jeanne Marie is an excellent essayist. You don't have to feel guilty about reading her stuff. If you send me your name and address, however, I will mail you a tampon.
(Speaking of which, will the LAST guy I promised to mail a tampon to please ID himself again, and for verification, identify how he won this gift? I will comply.)
Washington, D.C.: Gene,You have a Christ-mas tree? I got the impression from the chat with your kids that you were Jewish. What holidays do you celebrate?
Gene Weingarten: The rib was born Roman Catholic. We are pagan. We have a tree. We love Christmas.
Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C.: My brother has Wegner's Granulomatosis. Not pretty. He does claim that his use of alchohol stopped the disease from killing his liver. It just hit the rest of his organs.
Gene Weingarten: Oh, man. Sorry. It really is dreadful. The worst thing about it, is that it usually presents as an ordinary cold. So anytime you get a cold, Wegener's is a possibility.
Holiday tree?: Please tell me that whoever wrote that was being tongue in cheek.
I don't mind wishing people a Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings, even though I celebrate Christmas. Not everyone does, that's fine. But I can't think of any other reason to put a tree in your house in December other than Christmas. The holiday spruce downtown (until this year) was just a joke. Both sides of the "war on Christmas" need to lighten up.
Gene Weingarten: There is no war on Christmas. That is totally ridiculous. Are people actually accusing George W of being anti-Christian?
Hey, Lizzie, can you link to Ruth Marcus's excellent oped piece from yesterday, I think, on this subject?
From the WC Yahoo Group: Gene, FYI, in addition to the notables you mentioned who were in attendance last night, there were several members of the Yahoo group of Weingarten Chatters, or WC. Mike of the Style Invitational Losers is a WC-er as well, and there were at least two others of us (I was the one with the sign that read "Poop."). Sorry for failing to throw panties, but we figured it might disconcert Jef.
Gene Weingarten: Jef would have fainted. I saw no poop shirt. Dan, however, tells me you hid it on your lap!
washingtonpost.com: What 'War on Christmas'? , ( Post, Dec. 12 )
IMHO, It's Only Money: If the editorial cartoonists don't think that their employers should put money ahead of their cartoons, perhaps they should work for free.
Gene Weingarten: Let's not go overboard. They are basically right. The money managers tend to dislike editorial cartoonists, because no one offends the rich and powerful more than editorial cartoonists do (at least the good ones.)
There is great hypocrisy in canning them for financial reasons. Their cause is just.
Brain Teaser from NPR: Hi,
I heard a brain teaser on NPR and I didn't hear the answer and I can't figure it out -- HELP!
Take the word DEBUNK. Read forward from the B and you get bunk. Read backward from the B and you get bed. Put it together and you get bunk bed.
There is a word with an M in the middle. Using the same logic used in the bunk bed/debunk example -- figure out the word that describes a job title.
Gene Weingarten: This seems a bit nerdy and random, but I will put it out there, for the random nerds.
I began by assuming it would begin and therefore end with "man," but the dic didn't supply any words. Yes, I spent some time on it.
Defeca, TE: I actually did the poll before the chat today, and I noticed something interesting about the last question.... Colace, Surfak, Docusate and Doxidan are all the same medication. (I know this because I am a doctor, not because I am a really constipated person). This did not harm the humor of the question... poop.
Gene Weingarten: I didn't know that!
Arlington, Va.: Hi Gene,I had to write in after taking your poll this morning. For your last question about stool softeners, I had to say Doxidan only because I had a key chain when I was little (my dad was a pharmaceutical sales rep) that, on one side was a smiley face, the other side said:"Doxidan in the AM for a BM in the PM."
To this day, I like to repeat this fun, little saying in my head. I used to, on a regular basis, ask one of my parent's friends what BM meant because I always enjoyed making her feel uncomfortable and thought it was so funny! I think my parents still have the key chain in their basement. I need to find it.
You know how in elevators they have a plaque with the name of the elevator manufacturer like Otis or whatever? Well a couple of days ago I got on one where the manufacturer was named Schindler. It was then that I realized I was on Schindler's Lift.
Interesting ombusperson column this weekend, Harris and new ombuswoman vs. Dan Froomkin.
A few minutes ago there were 600+ comments posted to the blog on the subject, 99.99 percent in favor of Froomkin.
Care to weigh in on the controversy?
washingtonpost.com: The Two Washington Posts , ( Post, Dec. 11 )
Gene Weingarten: Yeah. The Post reporters are wrong. Deborah is wrong. Froomkin is right. His column is really good, and I don't much CARE if people get confused about whether he works for the Post or dotcom. Fact is, he works for both, and he is a columnist, and columnists have opinions, and people understand that.
New Winsconsin Motto: I'm really torn over Sunday's contest about making up State Mottos since I know a great one, but it's not original-- so I'll send it to you. A motto for Wisconsin: "Eat Cheese or Die".
Gene Weingarten: That may be the worst ever.
Siberia, NY: Hey dad. I am sitting in class bored right now. Pathology is boring. Though I do like the term "liquifactive necrosis."
Don't put this up or anything. I am just writing in.
I wouldn't dream of posting this. However I am going to cut and paste the email you sent me this morning.
Why Vet School Is Hard
We are expected to conduct ourselves in a professional and businesslike fashion in front of her owners while discussing Little Muffy's "vaginogram." Just try saying the word without laughing. I thought so.
Washington, D.C.: Gene,When I was 19, I got my belly button pierced. I wore little skimpy shirts that showed it off, and men thought it was hot. Now I am 30. I'm not sure if a belly ring on a 30-year-old woman is considered hot. Plus, I don't ever wear skimpy shirts anymore.
Should I get rid of the belly ring, or keep it, just in case it would ever come in handy? It's mostly just annoying to me at this point. I am fairly certain that you are the only person qualified to answer this question. Thanks.
Gene Weingarten: This, I think, requires an important discussion. What are the most revolting and disturbing piercings?
I am something of a curmudgeon on this question. I recall being a little bothered when Molly got a second ear piercing at the age of 16 or so. Two little studs of different colors in each ear. My wife had to talk me off the ledge. I never communicated this to Mol, but my fear was that this was the first step toward a career giving BJs to strangers on 14th Street NW. Or something.
I have become much less uptight about this subject. I have seen five-stud ears that didn't make me lose my lunch. It is when the piercings migrate from ears to other areas that I get queasy.
Here's my list, in increasing order of lunch-losing:
4. Below the mouth and above the chin. (Surely this area has a name, right? If not, I would suggest "Nopiercingzone.")
5. Through the septum of the nose, like a bull.
The complete insanity of tongue piercing, of course, involves the simple fact that IT LEAVES YOU UNABLE TO TALK COHERENTLY. Have you ever tried to understand Today's Specials from a waitress with a tongue stud? Yes, children, I am aware of the supposed sexual benefits. The binding of 18th century Japanese ladies' feet also delivered supposed sexual benefits. It doesn't make it right.
To answer the chatter's question directly, lose the ring.
Washington, D.C.: I may have a new category for you to explore regarding gender differences. When my wife and I go to a restaurant with other couples, I notice that the men can, and do, scan a menu of great length and make their selections in a matter of minutes. The women, on the other hand, invariably have to ask the waiter to come back in about, oh, 10 minutes. They (the women) have to compare the possibilities with each other and with the men, discuss the relative merits of each, complement each other's potential selections, etc. In your experience, is this the norm?
Gene Weingarten: I hate to miss an opportunity to perpetrate outrageous gender stereotyping, but in my experience, no.
Just last night for example, I was at dinner with Chatwoman and Patty Mallett, both of whom are female, and my son Dan, and Jef Mallett, both of whom are male. Patty and Chatwoman made their selections in seconds, without consultation. Dan and I had some small discussion. Jef, as I recall, didn't even look at the menu but just ordered Meat, and ripped it apart with his bare hands.
So, no. The women of my acquaintance are not restaurant fussbudgets.
Lansing, Mich.: No, thank YOU, Olssen's audience, for making our trip to D.C. so worth it. I was delighted to come along for the ride as a wholly unnecessary appendage to my kind-of-famous husband, who has not yet forgotten to wear pants in any of his appearances. (There's still time, though.)
(I also want to thank the woman, bless her, who heard my frantic phone calls to Olssen's while we were on the train on our late way to dinner with Gene and Dan and Liz and who tore an ad for the Thai restaurant we were trying to find out of her magazine and passed it to me so we could let Gene and Dan and Liz know we were going to be late...)
And Gene -- Jef's digital watch DOES have an alarm. Handy when you need to get up at 5 a.m. to catch a flight back to the snowy Midwest.
Gene Weingarten: Jef was funny, but the funniest thing about the evening was the Thai waitress, trying to explain to us that Jef had called, and that he was going to be late. Her English was somewhat substandard, and it was extremely difficult not to snort won ton soup through my nose.
The second funniest thing goes to the nature of journalists. When it became apparent that Jef and Patty were really delayed, and we hadn't heard from them, Liz said she hoped that nothing terrible had happened.
There was a brief silence, and then I said, "Man, I hope they're not dead. I would have to entertain the audience all by myself."
Insignificant others: Gene, I am certifiably female, and I also find Jeanne Marie Laskas's column unbearably cloying. (I do, however, read it every week. Not sure what that says about my gender.)
Gene Weingarten: She is insidious, that way. That means she is good.
Silver Spring, Md.: Regarding the laughing nurse: I've got a cancer that's incurable at present and have spent many a night in the hospital oncology ward listening to the nurses laughing -- I mean, really busting-out laughing. I understand why they're laughing -- I laugh, too -- but good form does say they should try to keep the volume down.
Knock Knock: Funniest has to be the Interrupting Cow, no? Genre-subversive and brilliant in its simplicity.
Plus you get to moo.
Gene Weingarten: Yes, that is a very good knock knock joke, and subversive.
Arlington, Va.: Gene, I couldn't care less what Froomkin writes, but the issue of the column was that it's labeled as "White House Reporting" or some such garbage. And that is wrong.
washingtonpost.com: That'd be "White House Briefing "
Gene Weingarten: What's wrong with White House Briefing?
Fairfax, Va.: Gene, I asked last time about what's become of Joe Martin (Mr. Boffo, Cats with Hands). I guess you didn't have time to check into it? I miss him.
Gene Weingarten: Oh, I did check it. Joe has parted company with his Syndicate, and is syndicating himself. A gutsy move. He hasn't lost his newspapers, but he has lost his Web connection. It is tragic.
Pat the Perfect, ME: Let it be clear that the ombudsman did not say it was a bad idea for The Post's Web site to have a highly opinionated columnist. She was arguing that the name of the column should not be "White House Briefing." "Briefing" is indeed a lousy word for "my personal opinion on."
Gene Weingarten: Well, why? First off, most of the column is links to what others have written. It is "Brief." I don't get it.
Fairfax, Va.: Since we're discussing the ombudsman, I noticed a letter to the editor in Saturday's paper referring to a past ombudsman column, in which she stated that if it was obvious that complaints were part of a concerted effort, she'd be less likely to pay attention to them.
To me, that meant that if she got 1,000 e-mails with the exact same wording -- a cut and paste complaint organized by some group just as "hey, e-mail them this exact letter" -- then yeah, she should ignore it. The letter writer interpreted it as meaning if some organization said "The Post wrote such-and-such, here's where you should complain" then it would be ignored.
What's your interpretation, and what's your opinion -- are organized complaints less worthy of attention?
Gene Weingarten: Yes. Of both sorts.
Alexandria, Va.: Are you sure you attended Bronx Science? I looked at their Prominent Alumni Web page and it doesn't include you. Apparently you are outclassed by such luminaries as Marissa Piesman, co-author of "The Yuppie Handbook," and Lisa Schiffren, "Author of VP Quayle's Murphy Brown Speech."
Or maybe you aren't listed because you were never there. If so, you can tell us; we would never hold it against you.I'm sure we can all understand why a man of such limited intellect would need to embellish his academic credentials.If (when) your false statements get you fired, we should be able to get you a job scooping dog poop off the sidewalk. That would be an improvement on the work you currently shovel out.
Gene Weingarten: I was there. I have strenuously avoided mention in their Prominent Alumni Web page.
Not Pola, ND: Wish you had given us Thailand as a choice for funniest country. This is the land that has given us food that burns twice (arriving and departing) a place named Phuket, people with names like Upakit Utnapipipoonporn (yes, those syllables are for real in Thai names), and more ways to enjoy oneself than are strictly appropriate.
Gene Weingarten: Just yesterday, Dave Barry emailed me with a link to a now deceased (I think) Thai scholar named Bhalachandra Dikshit.
Wilmington, Del.: Please explain holiday tipping to me. Are we really supposed to give every service worker that we have crossed paths with in the last year a minimum of $20?
Am I just a grinch because I think that if I can't pick a single one of my garbage men or apartment office staff out of a lineup, that maybe I shouldn't have to get them a gift?
I really am curious to hear your take on this because I am not entirely sure what it will be. Unlike your stance on weddings, I really don't know this.
And do you think engagement rings are ridiculous as well? What about wedding rings?
washingtonpost.com: Did you miss yesterday's tipping discussion ?
Gene Weingarten: Well, I don't know what my newspaper delivery guys look like, because I am generally staggering into the bathroom to brush my teeth when they arrive. But they do me a service, and they do it well. Same with the garbage guys.
There are about five such people who affect my life, and a hundred bucks once a year doesn't seem like an extraordinary thank you, does it?
Wedding rings are not ridiculous, because they are a semaphore. They impart information. I am opposed to engagement rings for the same reason I am opposed to engagements, for the same reason I don't think much of big weddings, for the same reason I haven't a whole huge amount of respect for getting married.
Belly But, TN: Oh, Gene, Gene, Gene...
I heartily disagree with your advice to 30-yo. navel pierce.
As a 40-year-old male, I feel qualified to comment, because I'm too old to be one of the pierce-everything crowd, and I agree with your top-10 gross piercings for the most part. But you make two mistakes: One, you leave out nipples, which skeeves me no end; and two, in failing to realize that pierced navels are like VPL: On the properly tuned body part, they are as sexy as all get out.
Gene Weingarten: How did I miss nipples? They would be number five. I have to say, I have never seen one, except in pictures. And even the pictures bother me.
Silver Spring, Md.: Side of nostril as the least repulsive? You are aware that the stud has to have a back to it right? A back of an earing in your nose? Care to see what that looks like whne they take it out?
Gene Weingarten: That's THEIR problem. The look doesn't bother me much, at all, though. I like the asymmetry of it.
Funniest Country: In today's poll, you forgot to list Equitorial Guinea in the list of funniest countries. I believe this is the only country name that requires an adjective as part of the name. That's got to be worth something.
Gene Weingarten: Um, you seem to have forgotten about "United" States.
Butte, MT or Rect, AL: Your stool softener question emboldens me to inquire about the proper pronounciation of the useful product spelled Anusol. And can you imagine the brainstorming session that resulted in that name?
Gene Weingarten: It's my favorite product. They pronounce it AN-you-sol, but really, that is like the SNL skit about Mr. Ahs-wee-pay, or the (mythical) kid named Shi-theed.
McLean, Va.: So Gene -- What are your thoughts about the story in this morning's WP about the expensive Bar/Bat Mitzvahs? I found it appalling and I think the parents need to be cracked across the skull with a baseball bat to knock some sense into them. These excesses just reinforce stereotypes that we as a people have been working for years to overcome.
washingtonpost.com: 13 and Counting , ( Post, Dec. 13 )
Gene Weingarten: Well, I think you know what I think about this. A shanda for the goyim.
Fuzzy Math: The quote below is from a story in The Post a couple of weeks ago. As a former editor yourself, can you please explain it for me?
"Estimates for the total debris left from Katrina reach nearly 100 million cubic yards, with one cubic yard ROUGHLY equivalent to the volume of a three-square-foot box." (emphasis added)
Gene Weingarten: Frankly, that's idiotic on a number of levels. Why is the second sentence even necessary?
Maryland: This week's Doonesbury strips have me teary-eyed for some reason. I think he's set things up nicely, and is showing part of the way, way under-reported issues dealing with soldiers when they come home, injured or not.
And, for the record, I am one of those cold-hearted, meat eating republicans. But, obviously, I am female.
Gene Weingarten: Agreed. These are brilliant.
Kensington, Md.: Gene, I picked Uttara Mimamsa because for some reason, the two words reminded me of uterus and mimosa. I am female. I love mimosas. Every woman I know loves a good mimosa. I may have to pop a bottle of bubbly and squeeze some OJ right now. Mmmmmm mimosa!
Gene Weingarten: It is a good rationale, and a good choice, but not the right choice.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, the poll.
I believe the correct answer is Latvia. Dave chose Burkina Faso. To me, you got to go with Eastern Europeans with babuschkas.
I say Taoism, for two reasons:
1. I don't think any Taoists live near me.
2. I once wrote a column about a guy who could lift REALLY heavy weights with his penis, and I'm pretty sure he gave the credit to Taoism.
This is a pretty good answer. I chose Judaism, for obvious reasons. More to come in a second.
Gene Weingarten: On question 3, Dave says:
Tough call, between Uttara Mimamasa and the Philosophy of the Post-Nicene Fathers, but I am going with the latter.
Dave is correct. It is simply wonderfully pompous sounding, overly complicated and self-important.
You did well on the sports one. The answer is baseball, obviously, because of the stunning lack of inaction that is taken so seriously.
And lastly, we also agreed: Surfak. Just because. It's the sound. If you don't get it, you don't get it.
Learning about the Newspaper: How do you? I mean, where is it explained that there is a difference between journalists and columnists? And what exactly does Op-Ed mean?
Gene Weingarten: Op ed is a complicated term that simply cannot be explained to non journalists.
(It, um, means "the page geographically OPposite to the EDitorial page.)
Dunn Loring, Va.: Re: declining revenues -- The Post...
Y'know, if washingtonpost.com put up one of those Pay Pal "Donate" buttons on their home page, I would happily chip in $100, maybe even more. I have enjoyed several years of access to the Post for free, and would be more than willing to pony up my share.
I'm sure other folks feel the same way. There are 8 million readers, the Ombudsman says -- sounds to me like the Post could make a few bucks this way.
Gene Weingarten: Hm. That's actually interesting.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: Seconding the fact that deliberate mass mailings to an organization (like a Member of Congress...) get less notice than one real and thoughtful note. We chuck those "sign here and send it to your Congressman" letters/postcards/emails. We respond diligently to the nice veterans who hand write or type a letter, even if they are complaining about something we did.
Gene Weingarten: yeah. It's obvious.
Laurel, Md.: "The rib was born Roman Catholic. We are pagan. We have a tree. We love Christmas."
Exactly! Christmas (and to a lesser extent Easter) is the perfect expresion of exactly what Christianity is... a merge of equal parts Judaism and the paganism of the Roman Empire.
Gene Weingarten: True. There is no info, in fact, of when Christ was born. The holiday was placed in December to correspond with already existing pagan rituals.
Ge, EK: I got annoyed trying to figure out the Sudoku puzzles, so I wrote a Java program that will solve one in 10 seconds. Took me about an hour to write it. Does this make me a genius for coming up with the most efficient way to solve the puzzle, or just a serious geek?
Gene Weingarten: I am guessing the puzzles are generated precisely the same way. But you ARE a geek.
Just a Bill on Cap Hi,ll: I'm actually posting this late but found out that if I get my car up tp 88 mph and get struck by lightning, I appear to be posting it early. Are you still shaving with a straight razor? If so, you could use these to hide any cuts. People will think you just hurried through breakfast. Or perhaps just walk around with one in your mustache for fun! Now, where did I put that flux capacitor??
Gene Weingarten: I am, in fact, still using a straight razor. And this product is excellent. Thanks.
Which is the deadest name?: A. Busta
Over the river and past the pentagon: Gene, it's interesting that the demographic poll a couple of weeks ago revealed that 75 percent of the women in the chat don't have kids. That could explain the neurotic bathroom behaviour of participants here -- once you've gone through childbirth (ladies, when you push, it's not just the baby that moves out) and taking care of a child's bathroom needs, being emabarrassed about using the loo just seems silly.
I've probably just scared most of your female audience into requesting c-sections.
Gene Weingarten: Actually, I was surprised by that poll result myself. I meant to mention it. I think the reason may be that the chat audience is substantially younger than the general audience.
Froomkin fan: A more apt title might be "White House DE-Briefing," for showing us how naked the little emperor really is.
Say, why does the Post's Ombudswoman have any role here, if the website is a different entity?
Lansing, Mich.: Jef just wrote and sent a REALLY NICE NOTE, and then our computer puked. Didja get it?
Gene Weingarten: Try again. But if it's TOO nice, I won't post it.
Pat the Perfect, ME: briefing:
1. The act or an instance of giving instructions or preparatory information to someone.
2. A meeting at which such information is presented.
3. The information conveyed at such a meeting.
The key word is INFORMATION. not opinion. "White House Briefing" is a play on the announcements given by the White House to the press. It doesn't give the slightest idea of being an opinion; in fact, it implies the opposite.
washingtonpost.com: To me, "briefing" communicates exactly what Dan produces -- a round up. It's opinionated, yes, but I would argue that "White House Briefing" is not alone in failing to clearly identify a column as opinion content.
Gene Weingarten: I vote for the solution from the previous poster. De-Briefing.
Canada: I've been looking through the 101 Black Monday editorial cartoons and see several references to what's obviously a historical analogy with somebody saying "Stop those damn pictures" - do you know what that's about?
Gene Weingarten: I believe it is Boss Tweed complaining about Thomas Nast's cartoons.
Do you know that Nast was responsible for coinage of the word "Nasty"?
Fairfax, Va.: Countries with adjectives -- Saudi Arabia, East Timor, South Africa, North Korea, South Korea -- the list is endless! Has the previous poster ever looked at a map of the world?
Gene Weingarten: Well, I would argue that geographic adjectives don't count. United States is the best of all of them, though.
Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.: The piercing question reminded me of a friendly quarrel my girlfriend and I have carried on intermittently; she put the question to her co-workers at her holiday party this weekend, so I put it to you:
When parents get little girls' ears pierced (really little, like infants), doesn't it seem a little cheap?
Gene Weingarten: Yes. I think it is ooky.
Washington, D.C.: You had wonton soup at a Thai restaurant?
Gene Weingarten: Thai wonton. A very different thing. Really good.
Laskas: Only for women who are feeling particularly emotional. No one is allowed to read her column unless they wear a pink robe while doing so.
Gene Weingarten: Only for women who are feeling particularly emotional.
I won't touch that line with a fork.
Jef tries again quick: Thanks. To lotsa people. That was pretty much it, but with more gushing.
Also I found the analog watch in my luggage, and it seems not to be working. Not that the fully functional digital watch got me anywhere on time the whole weekend.
Also you didn't sign your portrait of me, and you didn't take mine of you. You have to promise to sign the one or I auction the other off for charity on the WC Yahoo group.
But yeah, thanks to everyone. But especially to the magazine-page lady on the subway and the earnest waitress at the Thai place.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, okay. And with that, off I go.
The tragic news is not only that there is no chat next week, but that live online will go dark AFTER that, too. Liz will tell you when to meet us back here.
Farewell. See you in the new year.
washingtonpost.com: Gene makes it sound like we got canceled. Sheesh.
Live Online will be dark the week of Dec. 26 - Jan. 2. Gene's show will be back Jan. 3.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005120819id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/12/02/DI2005120200802.html
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Dr. Gridlock
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2005120819
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Dr. Gridlock was online Monday, Dec. 5, at 1 p.m. ET .
Dr. Gridlock appears Sunday in the Metro section and Thursday in Extra. You can write to him at 1150 15th St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. He prefers to receive e-mail, at drgridlock@washpost.com , or faxes, at 703-352-3908. Please include your full name, town, county and day and evening phone numbers. If you included your name when submitting a question or comment to this discussion, your question may appear in an upcoming column, and may have been published in this discussion.
Your Take: Commuter Survival Skills (Post, Dec. 4)
Dr. Gridlock: Hello, folks. Welcome to another online chat with Dr. Gridlock. Lots of anxiety being expressed today about the predicted snowfall this afternoon and in evening rush hour.
The storm is moving up from the south, and I heard a WTOP radio report of snowflakes falling in Fredericksburg at 11:30 a.m. So far, no flakes here at my office in the City of Fairfax. Tell me when you see snow falling in your area.
Here are posts from folks in the noon-to 1 p.m. slot, and we'll go live from here.
Falls Church, Va: What would be your prediction for commute times for the snowy rush hour this evening? Double, Triple or Quadruple commute times.
Dr. Gridlock: Well, first it has to start falling. My external temp gauge says it's 37 degrees outside.
If we do get three inches or so during evening rush hour, travel could be much slower. However, a lot of people will bail out early, spreading out the rush hour.
Too many variables to predict, but plan on a longer rush hour.
I'm posting early because I'm planning on fleeing like a scared child as soon as I see a flake of snow.
Dr. Gridlock: Big snowflakes reported at 11:30 a.m. in Fredericksburg. Coming our way. Schools getting out early, even before the first flake falls here. Wonder how the folks in colder climes would feel about that...
Clifton, Va.: If anyone from Northern Virginia really believes Tim Kaine is going to make a difference on transportation issues in gridlock in this area I have some bridges to sell you. Money for transportation projects is controlled by Republicans in the liegislature and they will take care of down state projects before NOVA sees a penny. Remember in Fairfax County we only see about 22cents of every tax dollar we send to Richmond. Only solution is secession or the threat of secession. The roads are in great shape in CLifton Forge, Danville, Roanoke and Blacksburg becasue of NOVA tax dollars.
Dr. Gridlock: Thanks for your view
Washington, D.C.: I have a cousin serving in Iraq, so when I bought a car, I made sure it was a hybrid (Toyota Prius) to lower the influence that oil-producing countries have on our foreign policy. Recently people who don't know me have approached me in parking lots claiming I'm never going to see cost savings and the cars don't make economic sense. One quoted the Washington Post. They support our troops more than any sticker does and make pro-American sense. What's your take on this cost-effectiveness rumor?
Dr. Gridlock: You have to factor in the additional cost to buy a hybrid. For instance, a Honda Civic hybrid costs $3,000-$5,000 more than a regular Honda Civic. While you will be superior gas mileage with the hybrid (somewhere around 50 mpg), it can take years of gas savings to offset the higher purchase price....
Bristow, Va.: Dr G - Submitting very early...The Governor elect in wanting to talk to the people in VA is having town hall meetings across the state - a week or so ago he had one in Manassas Regional Airport, right next to the VRE Station - he closed down a portion of 28 to get into the Airport!! It took me 2 and 1/2 hours to get home. Normal commute time from there is 25 minutes. Way to go Gov!! Here is the question doesnt anyone tell Pols that is not a good way to impress the people? I sent an email the next day and of course no response.
Dr. Gridlock: Pretty poor planning. Nothing like causing more gridlock while explaining how to get out of it.
D.C. motorcycle parking meter rates RAISED: Hi Doc. I used to take Metro for years to work from MD to downtown, but with rate hikes, snotty Metro employee attitudes, arrogant and rude DC school kids, unruly crowds, and just an overall negative sentiment I have for Metro, last year I opted to get a motorcycle as a way to commute cheaply, conveniently, causing less pollution and road damage and to avoid any bioterror attacks on the subway and not have to be on anyone else's schedule. It was great for the past year because the meters charged only a quarter per hour. THEN last month they snuck the rates TO THE SAME RATES AS AUTOMOBILES!! The meters I'm referring to are located at 6th and Indiana Ave. Along with about 10 other regular motorcycle commuters, we happily parked there all day for about $2.00. It was a great incentive to ride a motorcycle to work....until now. I spoke to two supervisors, Larry Brown and Jerry Lyle, at DPW's parking meter enforcement division (or something like that) and they both gave me this run around and the famous "let me check that and get back to you" schpiel. Of course, NO call backs and when I called them back I got nothing but voicemails. VERY VERY VERY frustrating. The meters literally went from $2.00 to just about $10.00 a day. The incentive to commute by motorcycle has completely disappeared and without any explanation. I think thats what upsets us the most, no explanation, no warning, it was just done and thats it. Well surfice it to say, this has forced me BACK onto metro starting this week as its cheaper to ride that than my motorcycle. And now that I think about it, THAT is probably exactly what the impetus was, to force more folks to ride Metro. For many, many reasons, I hate riding Metro but I hate giving DC any more quarters even more. I'm now actively seeking employment outside the city. I just want to know why it was done in such a sneaky manner.
Darnell Privott, Capitol Heights, Md.
Dr. Gridlock: I'll ask. Discouraging motorcycle use doesn't make sense to me.
Alexandria, Va.: On a day when a snow storm seems likely, it seems like a good time to ask drivers to show a little consideration to pedestrians who are forced to walk in the streets in business and residential areas during snowy conditions because of failure to enforce sidewalk shoveling rules. Many times I have been forced to step into the snow to give way to drivers who insist on driving only on the snow-free part of the street even though changing their direction slightly to put one wheel on an inch or two or snow would would cause them no hazard and would let me get by without getting my shoes soaked.
Dr. Gridlock: Yes. More concern for pedestrians would be appropriate. But we are asking motorists of the "me-first" mentality to show that consideration. I wouldn't count on it.
Arlington, Va.: Dr.: On Metro's web site today there's a page on preparations for today's weather. It contains the following statement: "Rail and bus riders may experience delays if more than two inches of snow falls." Metro seems to be ratcheting down the amount of snow it can handle before there are problems. While the government urges people to take mass transit if there is bad weather, Metro's statements make me think twice.
Dr. Gridlock: Good point. I'd like feedback on Metrorail and bus travel if we have two inches of snow or more.
Fairfax, Va.: Is anyone taking bets on what time the VDOT sanding/plowing trucks will begin work this afternoon/evening? I'll place my money on "some time after it's too late to get the trucks through rush hour traffic!" Hope I'm wrong!
Dr. Gridlock: So far, at 12:45 in my office in the City of Fairfax, no flakes are falling.
So, can cops basically do whatever they want in traffic and parking, whether emergency or routine, off-duty or on? I live near a police station, and civilian cars with their little "Don't ticket me -- I'm a cop" dashboard signs are constantly parked illegally.
Aren't parking laws intended to provide safety and fairness? Or are they intended to create a two-tiered society in which non-cops have to cowtow but cops can do whatever they please?
(If MY car would be a hazard too close to a corner, why isn't a police car or a police officer's civilian car also creating a hazard?)
Dr. Gridlock: You are assuming that there is some level of traffic enforcement in the city. I don't see it, whether you are in police or civilian vehicles.
Arlington (Ballston Metro), Va.: Dr. Gridlock,
I read the article on the Metro's efforts to improve foot traffic flow in busy stations, and having lived in London I wonder if they have ever taken a trip over there to see how efficiently the Tube handles this problem.
The "Stand on Right" signs on the escalators is a good first step, but the layout of the Metro stations themselves is the real culprit. The Tube has distinct paths for passengers entering and exiting the platforms, where they do not run into each other at all.
And, as for the constant breakdowns of the escalators, why does Metro have them exposed to the elements? Again, look to the Tube for the solution, where the entrances (and I am specifically thinking of South Kensington and Kensington High Street) lead into some shops and then the actual station entrance is well-protected from the outside, with the escalators completely indoors.
washingtonpost.com: Helping Riders Pick Up the Pace (Post, Dec. 2)
Dr. Gridlock: Thanks for the link, Katie (my producer).
When Metro was first designed, some consultant (from Sweden, I think) assured planners that they could built stations open to the ice and snow, and escalators would still work.
Now, you and I would never construct elecrtical machinery open to the elements.
Metro did, and has never caught up with repairs.
Stations were also constructed without overhead housing because the District fine arts folks though that would be uglier than open stations.
We're all paying the price...
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: Red-light cameras I can see -- running a red light is a clear-cut, deliberate and dangerous violation of law and safety.
But how can the District justify setting unreasonably low speed limits (40 or 45 on a FREEWAY??) that aren't enforced or obeyed by live cops -- but then set up cameras at some of these spots and entrap people?
Speed limits, like it or not, are not cut-and-dried. And to obey a 40 mph speed limit on a freeway would be LESS safe than driving 60 or so. To take something that is normally enforced with discretion and subject it to the unblinking eye of a camera strikes me as very, very wrong.
Dr. Gridlock: I see your point. A number of people believe speed limits are set too low. The speed on city streets, unless otheriwise marked, is 25 mph.
The city sees this as a moneymaker and valuable tool to discourage speeders.
If we start redirecting such law enforcement efforts to other traffic enforcement, such as illegal parking in rush hours, and intersection blocking., we'll have a long list.
Vienna, Va.: Why D.C. government does not encourage motorcycle commuter by keeping meter parking rate low? Motorcycle metered parking rate is as high as that of cars now.
Dr. Gridlock: They should keep it low. I'm sorry to hear it's the same as four-wheeled vehicles.
Sometime last month you did a story on the traffic backup at Fredericksburg, VA, due to the large volume of traffic crossing the two bridges (route #1 and I-95) that cross the Rappahannock River.
My folks live in Richmond so I go that way all the time and really get frustrated when I get to F'burg and wait in barely moving traffic to cross either bridge (especially Rt 1).
Well guess what? There is a third bridge that I discovered over the pass holiday. I was coming back to DC from Richmond on route #1. I got to F'burg and the traffic came to a virtual stop (before crossing the bridge, shopping centers, KFC and the BB&T bank were on the left). Something told me to take a risk. So I took a slight right on the road that goes by the 7-11 (on my left), then I cut through the Captain D's parking lot and got on that road (it becomes one-way, but don't ask me it's name) that runs parallel to the river. I took that about a mile and made a left on another one-way street (don't ask me it's name). This street took me across a third bridge (don't know it's name). Once I crossed the bridge I came to a stop light and took a left (on a street, don't ask me the name). This took me to another street (don't ask me it's name) on which I made another left. This street took me to route #1. When I got to the intersection of this street and route #1 I looked over to my left and I saw all the traffic that I had been grouped with now sitting on the bridge. I made the right onto route one and cruised back to DC. I was so pleased with myself.
Dr. Gridlock: Thanks for the tip.
Washington, D.C.: A couple weeks ago, I was at a busy suburban intersection, waiting to turn right on red. There were enough cars coming at a fast speed that I didn't feel safe trying to slip in between them.
Apparently the driver behind me thought I was being too cautious, because after honking a couple times, he went around me on the right (on the dirt shoulder) to make a right turn while I was still waiting for a large enough break in traffic. When I did turn, I nearly hit him because I wasn't expecting there to be a car pulling in front of me from the right.
People need to realize that right turns on red are not mandatory. If I don't feel I can safely turn on red, I am legally required to stay where I am until I can safely turn. Also, since I am in front I can probably see the oncoming traffic better than the person behind me, so he shouldn't assume that he can judge whether or not it's safe for me to turn.
Dr. Gridlock: Another instance of trafffic anarchy. Sounds like this impatient person violated traffic laws by using the shoulder to get around you.
Kensington: In the snow... is it better to take a backroad (one lane but not much traffic during rush hour) or a main road like Wisc. Ave?
I am thinking the main road- better chance of it being treated but I am missing something in the obvious?
Dr. Gridlock: The larger the road, the more likely it will be treated/cleared of snow. I'd stay off the back roads.
Silver Spring, Md.: Dr G.- I have a right-of-way and safety question for you about the intersection of Colesville Road and East West Highway in Silver Spring. The timing of the traffic light at this intersection is always the same. At the start of the problematic section of the cycle, westbound on East West Highway has a green light. Once the light turns red, there is an immediate right green arrow that lights for the right turn lane (from westbound East West to northbound on Colesvile). At the same time, southbound Colesville Road receives a green light for its through lanes AND a green arrow for its left turn lane (southbound on Colesville to eastbound on East West). My question is this: since both right turners on East West and left turners on Colesville have a green arrow at the same time, who has the right-of-way if the southbound Colesville Road driver wants to make a U-turn onto northbound Colesville? Though I have only seen one accident caused by a U-turner, I see near-misses on a weekly basis. This seems to be a safety problem. Thanks!
Dr. Gridlock: Send this to my good friend Chuck Gischlar, spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration,at 1-410-545-0311. Ask for his e-mail address. Tell him Dr. Gridlock sent you.
Have you gotten much feedback about the Park Service's plan for Rock Creek Park? I've got my own reservations about how the Park is used (or under-used), but am curious about what you think.
Dr. Gridlock: I haven't studied it enough to have an opinion. However, the Park Service traditionally prioritizes hike/bike and recreational use over traffic considerations.
Haymarket, Va.: Several major highways across the United States (including our own Interstate 95, close to home) establish a daily change in traffic direction, providing additional lanes dedicated to facilitate the flow during rush hour. Why hasn't this technique been incorporated along I66?
Dr. Gridlock: Reversible lanes on an interstate highway work best when the lanes are cordoned off regular lanes, like the HOV facilities on I-95/I-395. I 66 has no such barrier-divided lanes. To make conventional lanes reversible is dangerous.
Alexandria, Va.: Hello, thank you for taking my question. Apparently there was another accident, with injuries, at the intersection of Belle View and the GW Parkway. How does the NPS handle dangerous intersections? Do they keep statistics? Is there an address or something concerned citizens can use to express their concerns? Thanks, Alexis Abernathy
Dr. Gridlock: Start with explaining where this location is. Then call Bill Line, the National Park Service spokesman, with your question.
Washington, D.C.: I know a lot of D.C. folks are dependent on their blackberry devices, but you really need to look into drivers who use these devices while driving. I bike commute down 17th Street in the morning, and the first time I saw a driver furiously working their thumbs while steering, I was surprised. But it's now becoming a common sight. Pedestrians are going to get squashed like an overripe blackberry!
Folks, put down the blackberry and steer!
Dr. Gridlock: That strikes me as more dangerous even than hand-held cell phones, which are illegal in the city. Use of Blackberrys should be illegal also. What do you folks think?
On a day trip to Manhattan a few days ago, our tour guide said to be especially careful about not jay walking since they do enforce the law in New York. Well I saw lots of crossing when it was not illegal, but perhaps they are a bit better than in DC. Driving in the District on Thanksgiving day, it was just before sun down and at nearly every intersection I had the green light and had to wait for people walking across the road against the light.
I could hardly see them.
Is there any hope of ever getting people to walk safely? Right now they are dying to get across the road.
Dr. Gridlock: D.C. Police will have to consistently enforce the rules against jay-walking. Right now that's not happening.
Me and come friends have been dicussing this and we can't figure out where the Tyson's and Dulles metro will be coming from. We heard it will be an orange line car, but are they going to make a loop from fairfax to tyson's or come straight from West Falls Church. Thanks.
Dr. Gridlock: It will point westward from a location between the east and west falls church stations. Advocates are saying you can have one-seat travel from Dulles to downtown D.C.
Cleveland Park, Washington, D.C.: The westside storm sewer and Conn and Devonshire (the south side of the Klingle Valley bridge in Cleveland Park) is blocked and creating a lake in the closet lane that will soon ice over. Who to call? Does it matter that it is on the bridge?
Dr. Gridlock: CAll (202) 727-1000
Springfield, Va.: What do you think about Tim Kaine's Transportation Town Hall Meetings? All he seems to be doing is listening to people vent about the area's traffic woes without any intention of fixing anything. Typical of what's been happening around here for the last 25 years.
Dr. Gridlock: He is giving the appearance that he understands, and that something will be done, without saying what will be done.
The best we can hope for is that his attention to transportation will carry forward in the next session of the Virginia General Assemply.
Damascus, Md.: Dr. Gridlock, I want to report a notorious hole (dip, sinkhole, or whatever you want to call it) that has plagued the Clara Barton Pkwy (aka Canal Road) for many years.
As you head into D.C., during the morning period when traffic is one-way inbound in both lanes, the hole assaults you in the left lane, a short distance after the lane that veers off to the left up to Reservior Road.
The hole is very deep, and gets progressively worse with age. This hole causes most cars to violently bottom out on their suspension. Many drivers that are aware of its existence take evasive maneuvers to avoid it, often crowding into the right lane temporarily. And in other cases when an unsuspecting driver sees the car immediately ahead bounce violently up and down, they sometimes jam on their brakes or dodge into the right lane, creating an unsafe scenario.
In the 20 years I've been traversing this road, the hole was repaired about 10 years ago, during a repaving project. But its now returned again worse than ever. It appears to be the consequence of some underground erosion problem that's never been properly addressed. Strangely, the shape of the hole seems to affect outbound traffic much less when the road is in 2-way configuration. And that may be why it is being ignored.
What is the best way to bring this to the right party's attention to try and correct, before waiting for someone to get hurt (or worse)?
Dr. Gridlock: CAll 202 727 1000. Dan Tangherlini, director of the District Department of Transportation. promises potholes will be filled within 72 hours of a report.
Centreville, Va.: What is the status of the hybrid HOV exemption in Virginia? I know it's set to expire in July 2006. Any chance this will be extended?
Dr. Gridlock: I'm getting an update. I doubt it will be extended because VDOT is firmly against it. It is easier for VDOT to crack down on law-abiding citizens (hybrid users) than the more serious cause of HOV congestion, the HOV violators...
Reston, Va: I'd like your thoughts on the following scenario: You're planning to turn left at a light with a long cycle. As you approach, you see the left turn arrow change from green to red. Rather than waiting through an entire cycle of the light, can you legally go straight through the light, make the next available U-turn and then turn right onto the street in question?
I get dirty looks doing this all the time, but I thought it was prefectly safe and legal, and saved me a couple minutes.
Thanks for hosting the chat!
Dr. Gridlock: You can enter an intersection on a green light. However, if you are mergeing right suddenly from a left-turn lane in order to go through, that can cause some safety problems...
Springield, Va.: Dr. Gridlock, I've been staying over at my Boyfriend's in howard county. I have been using the MARC train system (Dorsey Station.) I was wondering why the trains move so slowly. They are slow from when I board until I disembark at Union Station, but they are especially slow after the Greenbelt station. Is there a reason they go so slow? Also, is MARC planning on adding more trains to the schedule? It would be nice to have a few more departure choices, especially after 7am.
Dr. Gridlock: I don't know. I'll ask...
Bethesda, Md.: When two emergency vehicles approach a light-controlled intersection at the same time, with sirens blaring, which one has the right of way?
Dr. Gridlock: Not likely to ever see this. I'd say they should both yield and move slowly through the intersection.
Dangerous Intersection: How would someone go about alerting Montgomery County to a dangerous intersection for pedestrians? I routinely get almost-run over by southbound cars turning right onto East-West Highway from Colesville Road in downtown Silver Spring. There is a green turn arrow, but at the green light cars speed around the broad corner very fast without regard for crossing pedestrians. Due to the corner being so wide and also a planter and traffic box, the cars' visibility is obstructed. But there are no caution signals or signs (a flashing yellow arrow might be good, at least).
Dr. Gridlock: Write to Thomas Pogue, Community Outreach Manager, Montgomery County Department of Public Works and Transportation, 101 North Monroe Street, 10th Floor, Rockville, Md., 20850.
I commute daily from N. Bethesda/Rockville to Ashburn and take 495 to either Georgetown Pike (then to 28, Nokes) or the toll road. Since the commute seems to be against the main traffic (from VA to MD), I am usually OK in the mornings. In the evenings, however, when I try to exit 18 from Toll Road to 495 and the Legion Bridge back to MD it is a nightmare. Any recommendations? My employer strongly frowns on telecommuting and I'm a new resident. Thanks again.
Dr. Gridlock: See if your employer will allow you to work in a regional office center near your home, rather than in your Ashburn office.
Also, try ride-sharing opportunities by calling 1-800-245-RIDE.
I believe our ever-increasing gridlock will force employers to allow more telecommuting (working from home).
Steubenville, Ohio: RE: People in colder climes. I too, don't like driving in the frozen stuff and actually save some vacation days so I can stay home if the road people do not make it around with the plows and anti-skid products fast enough for me. I have slid sideways down lots of our hills over the years, and as age progresses, my bravery gets less and less.
Washington, D.C.: Are more people going to take metro if there is snow tomorrow morning?Shouldn't the news stations be advocating it as an alternative to super jammed up traffic?
Dr. Gridlock: I don't know. Another poster today warned of Metro cautioning bus and rail riders that if there is two inches of snow, Metro will experience delays.
Well, if there is just two inches of snow on the roads, crews should be able to clear that away pretty fast...
Bethesda, Md.: How come there are all these untagged motorscooters running around D.C. and Montgomery County -- I assume uninsured as well?
Dr. Gridlock: Guess if they can get away with it, they will.
Derwood, Md.: About the Metro extension to Dulles, you say "Advocates are saying you can have one-seat travel from Dulles to downtown D.C.".
What is this "seat" thing that you speak of?
Dr. Gridlock: It means you don't have to leave your seat to get from Dulles into the city.
Downtown Washington, D.C.: For the record, those of us from colder climates routinely laugh at the DC response to snow. There might be --THREE INCHES!-- by rush hour. We'd better close the schools, the government, the Metro, etc.! Stock up on canned goods, buy four new snowblowers, prepare for the end of the world!
Three inches was nothing more than a light dusting where I'm from. If people here had any sense on how to drive in snow, things would be much better, but instead they cruise around in their sports sedans and SUVs thinking they are above the rules of physics. If everyone just used some common sense and patience, went at reasonable speeds, and didn't get into that panicked mentality, things would be much better here.
Dr. Gridlock: Of course, evening rush hour would still be gridlocked even if we drove sanely. More so, when you add a little snow.
Montgomery County, Md.: Why isn't Beach Drive open on weekend evenings so people can get to downtown venues like the Kennedy Center easier?
Certainly no one is biking or jogging in the roadway after dark, especially in the winter.
Dr. Gridlock: I don't know. Has it always been closed on weekend evenings?
Suitland, Md.: Can anything be done to alleviate the traffic around Stanton Road and Suitland Parkway? That intersection always causes major jams during rush hour.
Dr. Gridlock: I don't know of anything in the workw.
Fairfax, Va.: Doc: as one of the many suburbanites who got caught in Thursday evening's traffic woes in the downtown area due to the lighting of the National Christmas Tree on the mall, I was struck by the absurdity of a report I was listening to on NPR or WTOP at the exact same time. It was talking about how the city is making great strides in being prepared for smooth evacuation of the city in the event of another terrorist attack.
My thinking: we can't even light a CHRISTMAS TREE without creating gridlock on the K Street corridor; how in the WORLD are we ever going to smoothly evacuate the city if another 9-11 happens?
Dr. Gridlock: Best to hunker down in your D.C. home or office and wait for the end.
D.C. should have posted officers in intersections to reroute traffic around the christmas tree lighting. but to do that, they'd have to care.
Hybrids and Sense, Md.: Good Afternoon, Dr. Gridlock!
I don't think hybrids have to make economic sense to be desirable. The real goal is reduced fuel consumption, which is certainly attained. Of course, the regular Civic also has great fuel economy...
I find it funny that anyone would accost a hybrid driver about the economic sense of his car, when there are so many SUVs and light trucks on the road. For many of these vehicles, you pay more for the car, more for the gas, and get only improved visibility on the road: a higher stance that wouldn't be necessary if so many people didn't drive SUVs! You certainly can't put more people in most of these vehicles...
Vienna, Va.: Kindly tell all the SUV and van owners on the road in Northern Va with less than four kids--who contribute especially to low visibility in traffic and congestion in parking lots--to SHOVE IT!! You're not Santa Claus and you're not welcome by normal-size car drivers.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas to you too.
Dr. Gridlock: Seasons greetings to you, too.
Stuck on M st.: Any updates on the status of Whitehurst Fwy?
Dr. Gridlock: No decision yet, although if officials on high didn't want it, there wouldn't be public hearings.
City did a survey, and something like 80 percent of the vehicles had Maryland or Virginia license plates. Suburbanites taking valuable waterfront development opportunity.
So the city is looking at knocking down the Whitehurst and redeveloping the area. Still unresolved: what to do with all the traffic?
Motor scooters: The question depends on your location and the size of the scooter. In DC, if it's less than 50 ccs, it doesn't need to be tagged and you don't need a motorcycle license. Also, a lot of scooter drivers will attach their plates with Velcro and remove them upon parking; it becomes too much of a hassle for police to ticket them.
Snow Panic!: I just don't get it. One mention of the word snow and the D.C. area gets into a frenzy. Come on people. Its snow!
And to respond to you question, Dr. Gridlock, how would some of the colder climates rate this areas handling of snow...I think very poorly. For example, I was in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. The day I arrived it started snowing. They probably received 2-3 inches of snow. I asked my Uncle, who was driving in the mess at the time, where were the plows? Know what he said... "Plows! What do we need those for? This snow is nothing!" I told my Uncle, had this been CD instead of Wisconsin, plows would be out, schools would be closed, and people in a panic.
Dr. Gridlock: And all after-school activities canceled, even before the first flake has fallen. 1:30 p.m. and no snowwflakes here in Fairfax City.
Arlington, Va.: RE: Haymarket, VA's question about reversible lanes on interstates:
They do this on the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin. 6 lanes total, with 4 lanes into the City in the morning, and 4 lanes out in the evening. There are no barriers; just flimsy foot-high metal sticks between oncoming traffic whizzing at 60+ mph. Do I also need to mention that there have been horrific head-on crashes on the GGB, and that there have been repeated calls for a movable barrier (like on our TR bridge) to prevent these tragedies. Trust me -- it's a really bad idea.
Washington, D.C.: In response to N. Bethesda, Md., think about White's Ferry as an alternative to the Legion Bridge. Hard to say whether it'd be faster for you at night, but you could time it a few times to find out.
Dr. Gridlock: Right. It's worth trying.
Dr. Gridlock: Bulletin, bulletin: Light Snow falling here in the City of Fairfax at 1:31 p.m.!
Colder Climes, Mass: Dr. Gridlock, you were wondering what the folks in the colder climes would think?
On some small level, it's hilarious, but then you have to remember that even up here in Colder Climes (tm) everyone seems to forget how to handle driving in snow and ice over the summer. Today, I'm including myself in this assessment, I almost hit a guardrail in my office park this morning. Then I left for gas, came back, hit the same patch of icy pavement, and came even closer to hitting it the second time.
So if you have to factor in more than just 6 months since people have seen regular snow, sure, it's about time to plan for roadway stupidity and all that entails.
Baltimore, Md.: Re slow MARC trains from Dorsey: The questioner is riding the Camden Line, whose track is controlled by CSX, the freight rail line. The probable culprit is maintenance work being done on the track. Also, the Camden Line runs far fewer trains than the Penn Line. If she wants more departures to and from, she should consider taking the Penn from BWI or perhaps Odenton, depending on where she is in Howard County.
Dr. Gridlock: thanks for the tip.
The Ville: It's been snowing off and on in Charlottesville for a few hours, but it's not sticking to anything - the road is to warm. But I promise all of the idiots on 29 will be crawling along and/or wrecking anyway.
Dr. Gridlock: It's snowing medium heavy right now in the City of Fairfax.
Downtown Washington, D.C.: I think the point about hybrids is that they are now the new "it" thing. People have realized that a Prius is a status symbol, that it's a way to be unique, special, anti-establishment, etc. And at the same time, they often don't realize that that hybrid has its own energy costs (what happens to hybrid batteries once they are done, they have to be disposed, they could cause serious environmental damage, etc.).
Witness the sales and reputation of a Prius vs. a Civic Hybrid. Very similar cars in terms of performance, equally reliable, but only the unique and distinctive looking Prius has the "name."
Alexandria, Va.: I am lucky to have the option of metro or driving to work. I live less than a mile from a metro station and work above a metro station. I usually drive because it takes a little less time, costs less, and because I am occasionally required to drive for work. I have the option of getting a metrochek or subsidized parking and because I have to drive at least half the time, it's cheaper to take the parking.
On days like today it's nice to have the option! I walked to the metro this morning with my fiance, we rode in together, and as long as there isn't more than two inches of snow by the time I leave work today, I'll get home in a reasonable amount of time.
Dr. Gridlock: Sounds like you've thought this through. Good luck!
A Pedestrian in Alexandria: Doc, with all the talk about pedestrians, what is the difference between "yeilding for Pedestrians" and "Stopping for Pedestrians". VA says to yeild and DC says to stop. Thanks.
Dr. Gridlock: Doesn't matter if the laws protecting pedestrians are not enforced. The signs are a reminder not to hit a pedestrian.
Adelphi, Md.: Now, I know that the snow-induced panic here is pretty laughable. However, I have friends from Wisconsin and Buffalo who actually are pretty understanding of it all. Their point is that we really don't get enough snow here for people to learn how to drive in it and be comfortable or to make extensive plans to deal with it. With these 2 factors, my friends say that perhaps it's for the best that we completely shut down. They don't want to be on the road in the snow with the people who can't drive in it any more than I do.
Dr. Gridlock: Interesting view. Our drivers are insane enough even without snow. Add a new level of difficulty (snow), and watch out!
Durham, N.C.: Hi, I have to pass thru the DC area on my drives to visit family in PA (i take 95 from richmond to 495 to 270 to Fredericksburg...). No matter when I do this drive, I get stuck in lots of traffic jams around DC -- do you have any alternate routes to suggest for bypassing some of the worst stretches (especially fredericksburg to 495). Thanks!
Dr. Gridlock: You want to avoid the Fredericksburg to the Beltway section of I-95 at all costs.
Try this: at Fredericsburg, take Route 17 north (toward Warreenton). Route 17 will dead end at Route 29 (there is a Sheetz gas station on the corner). Follow Route 29 toward Washington, and veer off on Route 15 (toward Leesburg).
Follow Route 15 all the way to Frederick, Md. You will have avoided the Beltway entirely,and the part of I-95 that is the most congested.
Let me know how this works.
Basement office in DC: Hi Dr. Gridlock!
I hear you saw a snowflake!! Over Thanksgiving, my parents got about a foot of snow in the suburbs of Cleveland. My husband, who is from Potomac, remarked how great it was that all the roads were clear the entire time. Right then we saw a snowplow come down the street - he was plowing the shoulder! Question: do snowy places use different chemicals than the DC area that facilitates melting better?
Dr. Gridlock: I don't know. Good question though.
If you want more train choices, drive down 32 to Odenton to the Penn Line.
Also, the rails are owned by CSX, so that could have something with speed since freight trains take precedence.
And, there are A LOT of trains coming in and out of that area (Union Station). Brunswick, Camden, Penn MARC's, the VRE, Amtrak...
Dr. Gridlock: Thanks for the tip.
Re: Tim Kaine in Manassas: Why would they have had to close part of Route 28 for Tim Kaine? He FLEW into Manassas airport, avoiding the roads entirely. Like Bristow, I wrote an angry e-mail about that to Kaine, and, like Bristow, no reply. Not even a "Dear constituent, thank you for your concern."
Dr. Gridlock: That may tell you how much he cares...
Creating an Orange Line spur to Dulles is going to wreak havoc on the commutes of everyone who gets on the Metro from East Falls Church to Rosslyn. There's only the one tunnel under the Potomac, so how does Metro plan to solve the inevitable congestion? People already have to wait two or three trains for one with enough room.
What we need are more MARC and VRE trains in the DC area. Three MARC lines and two VRE lines just don't cut it. Look at Boston, New York City and Philadelphia, each with a dozen or two commuter rail lines.
Dr. Gridlock: As I understand it, the additional train capacity in the tunnel under the Potomc to accomodate the new Dulles line will be acheived by cutting the Blue Line crossings by half.
Reston, Va.: Snow is falling here now. After enduring a doubled evening commute Thursday, I couldn't face another night like that at nine months pregnant and am working at home today.
My question: Why on earth did they close the streets during rush hour for the National Christmas Tree lighting on Thursday and not have D.C. cops posted at the intersections on the surrounding streets to direct traffic? It took my husband an hour to drive five blocks to pick me up, then the gridlock continued to be astonishing because of all the frustrated people blocking the box and making the whole situation even worse.
Who can we contact to ask that the tree lighting be held on a weekend, instead of a weeknight, in the future?
Dr. Gridlock: I agree with you. It should be done on the weekends. Contact the National Park Service spokesman,Bill Line, at 202 619-7177.
Theory on snow panic: We're not really worried about the snow. It's just the 90 percent of us work for the government and, by driving worse in snow and getting all in a tizzy at the possibility of snow, we hope to increase our chances for a snow day.
Washington, D.C.: I live near Chesapeake St NW, west of Conn Avenue. The roadway is badly rutted and has been so, and getting worse, for years on end. I know this road is only a few blocks long - but wondering if it will EVER be repaired, as it's destroying my car.
Dr. Gridlock: Call 202 727-1000 to complain. Get a tracking number. Call back in a couple weeks if you haven't heard anything.
Washington, D.C.: Re: Attitudes toward winter travel
One thing to remember here is that traffic in DC is incredibly heavy compared to most places up north, save Boston. The usual safe driving in snow ideas just don't work in bumper to bumper traffic, which also makes proper treatment of the roads more difficult. And many might panic because they've had bad experiences themselves (e.g., the night it took them five hours to drive five miles because the Gude Drive bridge over 270 was covered in ice and traffic stopped on Research Blvd., 28, and Shady Grove because so many cars were getting hung up).
A third issue relates to the fact that 25 percent of DC residents were not born in the U.S. Someone raised in a tropical Central American country or in a nation where most people take public transportation may not realize how to drive in the snow or even understand that they need to do things differently.
Snowville, Va.: The NWS just updated the forecast. Heavy snow isn't predicted to start/accumulate till after the rushhour.
The morning rushhour is anyone's guess. Thankfully my boss has given me permission to work from home tomorrow! I didn't even have to kiss-up!
Dr. Gridlock: It's snowing heavily now here in the City of Fairfax. 1 55 p.m.
Washington, D.C. via Rochester, N.Y.: Most of the problems I've seen with "snowstorms" in this area have to do with a lack of winter driving experience. The university I attended in Rochester, NY, actually offered a defensive driving class where you'd speed around an empty, snow-covered, parking lot and purposely put your car into a skid. By doing this enough times, you'd eventually learn how to control the skid and regain control of your vehicle. There will inevitably come a time when you begin to slide in snowy conditions. It only takes some practice to turn a potentially tragic situation into a merely scary one (maybe kids doing doughnuts in deserted parking lots isn't such a bad idea after all...)
Dr. Gridlock: thanks for your view.
Another hybrid owner: It's missing the point to say a hybrid's fuel savings don't set off the cost of the car - and I have owned two of them now, a Civic and a Prius - because that's not the point. The point is to embrace the technology of lower fuel consumption AND lower emissions, for the long term good. Whether or not your gas cost savings set off the $3 to $5K more you pay for the car is typical of the "what's in it for ME" attitude of a lot of people in this area. They don't think twice about paying a LOT more for some behemoth SUV and then getting soaked at the pumps for their 14 mpg. If anything doesn't make economic sense, that doesn't. I also didn't buy it to drive in the HOV lanes, by the way.
Snowing in NW DC: 1:55 PM and it is snowing in NW DC. It's light snow, but snow just the same. Now we'll see if it actually keeps up and the entire region has gone into its regular snow-panic for snow or for naught.
Dr. Gridlock: Snowing heavily now, but not sticking here in Fairfax City
Germantown, Md.: Different road treatments:
The de-icing treatments applied to roads lower the melting temperature of the ice. My understanding is that the stuff they typically use here doesn't kick in until 28 degrees. In colder areas they use different treatments to bring the melting point down more, but they are more expensive.
Colder Climes...: If you think people here are bad, try living in Memphis. 2 plows for the WHOLE CITY. Last Christmas it look a week to get my relative's street treated, when they only had 2 inches of snow. Suddenly my 2 hour, 20 mile commute tonight doesn't seem so bad.
Alexandria, Va.: It's not the lighting of the Christmas tree that caused the traffic. It's that President Bush was involved. With all the security that entails. Maybe they could just wait until AFTER rush hour to have motorcades buzzing around. But then again, where's the fun in that? I mean what's more fun than having to negotiate M Street in Georgetown when a motorcade comes through?
Dr. Gridlock: You'd think he could do it on the weekend
Fairfax, Va.: Greetings, In all the discussion about the Metro West development at the Vienna Metro, I really haven't heard any serious discussion about the Nutley St- Lee Highway intersection. I'v lived near this intersection for years and there has been a sudden increase in traffic after they refinished the shopping center and began selling condos in Merrifield just this year. More condo are coming. I hope that our commissioners, and state delegates are paying attention since this one intersection is going to be a nightmare if they don't start planning a redesign soon.
Those of you who live in the East Fairfax/Merrifield/Viennna area better start complaining now because it will be years before anything will happen to improve this disaster.
Dr. Gridlock: The supervisors live to develop. Developments are like pyramids to the pharoahs. Thirteen high rise towers holding 5,000 new dwellings? Doesn't matter that there are no transportation improvements. They just don't care. Good luck!
Reversible Lanes: Unless there is a barrier, I would be against it. Canal Road (and bridge) drivers get confused enough- especially during federal holidays in which the non-government workers have to work. There are plenty accidents and near-misses to make the want for barriers, different rules or something there among us regular commuters. One accident or breakdown and we're at a near standstill.
Dr. Gridlock: thanks. The reversible lanes on Connecticut Avenue are confusing, too.
Bethesda, Md.: Dr. Gridlock, I am very lucky to be here today considering that last Friday after work I was walking across the intersection of Wisconsin Ave. & East-West highway (I had the walk sign) when an huge SUV decided to run the red light and make a right turn from the far left lane. Needless to say I was nearly hit and most certainly would have been killed except I heard him coming and managed to stop dead in my tracks before being hit. Please remind everyone out there that pedestrians do have the right-of-way especially when in the crosswalk with the light!! Is killing a person worth those few extra seconds you might save?
Ward 4, Washington, D.C.: Just a few thoughts:
Colder climates are just more used to the snow, because they get it more. We are in many ways a southern city, and we just don't get enough snow to make it worth the huge investment the extra equipment would be, or to allow people to develop experience in dealing with snow.
Second - there were no motorcades involved with the tree lighting - they do it remotely from the White House porch (or at least, they always have in years past.) It was just the usual paranoia of Secret Service that we should just stop indulging already that led to that backup.
Green arrows in Maryland: The Maryland Driver's Handbook
"Proceed with caution in the direction the arrow points. Remember that you must yield to all pedestrians and vehicles already in the intersection."
Since the arrow is NOT pointing in a U-Turn, U-turners don't have right-of-way
Re: SUV owner: To the person from Vienna who wants us SUV owners to "shove it" -- when Vienna buys me a new car and pays all the bills associated with it, such as insurance and personal property tax, then I'll stop driving my 10 year old, paid for, low property tax, low maintenance SUV.
Washington, D.C.: Doctor, I hope you are following up on a future article and discussion on the DC taxi system.
Dr. Gridlock: We are revisiting the subject in the Thursday Extras print column this week, and will probably come back to it in subsequent columns.
22203: 1:58 and 10 teeny flakes in Ballston, Va..
RE: Not turning right on red: To the person who says he/she didn't feel safe enough to turn right on a red, I have this to say. If you feel incapable of turning right on a red, perhaps you sholdn't be driving during times when there are so many cars on the road. People like you make the roads unsafe for the rest of us. When the person behind you sees enough space to go through the shoulder and turn right while you're just standing there looking, perhaps you should get some driving lessons before you venture out on the road. Driving is a privilege, remember, not a right. And just because you are incapable of judging spaces between cars, or are too scared to drive, it doesn't mean that everyone else should have to suffer more traffic because of you. It is drivers like you that cause accidents, because you impede the normal flow of traffic.
Dr. Gridlock: That's a bit harsh. The motorist has every right not to turn on red if he/she feels it is unsafe to do so. And a trailing vehicle should not be passing the stationary motorist on a sholder to turn right.
Dupont/Logan, D.C.: As snow is approaching, I would like to ask drivers to remember that slippery roads and crosswalks can be difficult for pedestrians too. Too many times when I am crossing in a slippery crosswalk, some car is waiting to turn 1/2 inch behind me as I am crossing. I live in terror that one of these times I am going to slip as I am crossing and end up under the wheels of someone's car.
(Oh, and I don't feel sorry for anyone getting a speeding ticket in the District, via camera or otherwise. And 25 is plenty fast for most city streets. There are way too many people barreling down city streets like they are a three lane highway.)
Snow update in Fairfax: Call out the plows! Call out the sand trucks! It's sticking to the grass and rooftops here in Fairfax.
Dr. Gridlock: Yes, it's sticking to the rooftops here in Fairfax City. Looks like a particularly difficult evening rush hour is in store for us.
Vienna, Va.: To the person just complaining about Merrifield/Vienna -
before you complain, be informed on the subject. Two years ago the voters of Fairfax County approved a transportation bond referendum. Part of that money will go to redo the roads in Merrifield (29/Gallows/etc) because VDOT said it would be another 8 years before they would have the money.
It's in the works. I think it starts in a year or two.
Dr. Gridlock: I'm not aware of it. I wonder if these improvements are fully funded.
Mclean, Va.: Just as clarification and followup to your poster who had the "third bridge" over the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, that is VA Route 3 (Business). Accessible directly from Route 1. See Google Maps.
Annapolis, Md., USA: More than once as a child I had to walk home from school in the snow because my midwest-raised mother didn't even think to check if 3 or 4 inches of snow cancelled school and dropped me off at school and went shopping while I discovered the school was closed and locked.
Dr. Gridlock: I hope that didn't happen more than once.
Germantown, Md.: North Dakota native's take on Metro winter:
Individual drivers do just as well here in the snow as they do anywhere else. There are three problems when it snows here.
1. It's not cold enough. Sleet, Slush, Ice and refreezing are infinately more dangerous than cold dry snow. The colder it is the less moisture in the snow and the lighter the flakes...add a nice 20MPH wind and the roads clear themselves.
2. It doesn't snow often enough to justify additional investment in superior road applications, more equipment, automatic deicing equipment for bridges, etc. Minneapolis International Airport has more snow removal equipment than the District.
3. As Doc said earlier, there are too many people on the road. Traffic is a disaster w/out any compounding weather issues.
Dr. Gridlock: thanks for your views..
Reston, Va.: Re: Pedestrians avoiding the snow.
This is the first area where I've seen people prefer to risk life and limb by walking in the street to avoid getting their feet a little cold by walking in the snow on the sidewalk.
If it's not cleared, oh well. It's still safer to walk on the sidewalk. They're putting too much faith in the drivers to see them, avoid them, and to just plain have control of thier cars to begin with.
Leesburg, Va.: 25 Teeny flakes at 2:12PM
Dr. Gridlock: The heaviest of this snow, the forecasters predict, will be to the south of the city.
Ashburn, Va.: 2:09 PM Light snow just began, run for your lives!!! Also, those traveling on 28, please stop pretending your on the beltway just because some of the intersections no longer have traffic lights, thanks.
Dr. Gridlock: Take cover in your basements, with extra milk, bread and toilet paper...
Fairly Heavy Snow in Washington, D.C.: I'm in NW DC and over the past 10 or so minutes have witnessed the rapid increase in flakes. There is a lower roof on our building outside my winter and it is currently about halfway covered in the white stuff. Just a few minutes ago absolutely nothing was sticking. Maybe the weathermen got it (mostly) correct this time!
Arlington, Va.: Despite high volume on the Orange Line, Metro now seems to be scheduling rush-hour trains from Vienna into the city at 10-minute intervals. What gives? When I get to the station at 7:00 a.m. I am astounded at having to wait 10 minutes for a train that is packed before anyone at my station can get on. What gives?
Dr. Gridlock: It's an Orange Line packed to capacity. And when the Fairfax supervisors allow 13 high rise buildings over the Vienna Station, you can kiss any seating goodbye.
Stop the SUV bashing: Can't we all just get along? Can we lay this argument to rest? I own an SUV and I go through 16 gallons of gas in 3 -months-, which is considerably better than most people. I don't go toting this fact frequently, but when the SUV haters show up it just infuriates me. Let people decide what cars they are going to buy and lets pressure the auto industry to make more high mileage cars. Stop hating me for the size of my car.
Dr. Gridlock: Stop hating her.
Washington, D.C.: What jurisdiction do police forces like the Secret Service have over traffic in the District?
The other night I was double parked in a fire lane waiting for someone to come down from a building (flashers on, sitting in the car, etc.) A Secret Service patrol car pulled up next to me, and said he would give me a ticket if I didn't move my car immediately because I was in the way of the hydrant in the event of a fire.
To add insult, when I pulled out of the space to circle around the block instead, the officers pulled into the same spot, parked, and headed into a restaurant around the corner.
Needless to say I was pretty upset, but the question that lingers is could the officers have given me a ticket?
Dr. Gridlock: Yep. There are twenty or so law enforcement agencies in the District who can write parking/traffic citations. You should send me the identifying information on such cars when they themselves park illegallly and head into a restaurant.
To the N Bethesda new resident: Like many of the rest of us Marylanders trying to get back to Maryland at the end of the day, you are receiving the effect of all of us funneling in together to get across the Am Legion bridge. The later that you leave, the worse the backup to get on will be. If there is any accident or "traffic control" going on on the beltway or 270, the more cars will back up. I work in Merrifield and meet the backup somewhere between I66 and Route 7 since darkness came during rush hour.
Dr. Gridlock: I'm so sorry. Maybe telecommuting is around the corner.
Washington, D.C.: Thanks so much for your advise about leaving the Wednesday before Thanksgiving AFTER 8PM. We took the advise and only hit a little bit of traffic in Delaware. Otherwise, our D.C. to Hartford, Conn. trip was traffic free. Thanks so much! I'll have to remember that for the future!
Dr. Gridlock: Thanks to the source, WTOP traffic reporter Bob Marbourg and the stations news director. Jim Farley.
Jonstown, Pa.: I moved here from DC 12 years ago. We got 2-4 inches of snow last thursday, and no one even noticed. Funny how our perspective changes!
Dr. Gridlock: I'ts a full-blown panic here. Maybe because it snows less than in the northern climes.
Silver Spring, Md.: I wonder what the purpose of the Metro employees who stand on the platform if they aren't going to enforce Metro rules. The other morning, as I was leaving the Red Line train at Gallery Place, and while the Conductor was asking those on the platform to wait for those on the train to leave before getting on, a woman barreled through us and onto the train. Two Metro employees laughed at this! I asked them why they didn't stop her and one replied "we can't do anything to stop her just like I can't do anything to stop you from asking about it." Unbelievable! We pay for such wonderful treatment!
Dr. Gridlock: These are suggestions. Sounds like most passengers obeyed the suggestion, and stayed back.
Falls Church, Va.: RE: SUVs
OK, but don't call them cars, when they don't have to meet the same safety and mileage standards as cars...
Dr. Gridlock: you're right, they are trucks.
Re: 29 and Gallows: They've been talking about fixing that intersection since cave days. The logical time to have fixed it was before the new development went in by Dunn Loring Metro. If it hasn't happened by now, it never will. Just like at 29/Nutley. They'll wait to have a bond referendum long after the development comes in, when it's far too late to do anything about it. Typical politicians.
Dr. Gridlock: I'm skeptical too.,
Vienna, Va.: Stop SUV bashing! I own a motorcyle, van, SUV and a car. I use each vehicle according to need. If a company makes a vehicle that can do all for less gas, I'll buy it. Thx.
In response to one of your posters today, I just want to inform you of a much missed shortcut from Germantown/Rockville to Dulles/Ashburn area.
I used to do the reverse commute to Germantown and would often use White's Ferry to cross the Potomac in Leesburg. There's absolutely no traffic on either 15 in VA or 28 in MD until you hit downtown Rockville.
That trip would consistantly take no more than an hour compared with the 1 1/2 to 2 hours being tied upon the toll road & bridge.
Fares work out to $5 round trip but WELL WORTH it.
19th & K St.: Snowing in downtown! Snowing in downtown!
Auntie Em, Auntie Em, quick, into the shelter, there's a snowstorm coming!
I also love when people in DC wear their thin coats, which are clearly not designed for winter weather, and then complain about how cold it is. Having gone to school in Vermont, and knowing plenty of people from New England and the upper Midwest, you learn to sacrifice fashion for warmth. That North Face parka might not be the best looking with your dress clothes, but you will arrive at the office plenty warm.
Re: walking in the street rather the sidewalk: See how you feel about it after getting hit with 18 inches of snow sometime, eh?
Arlington, Va.: I have to chime in re. sidewalks & pedestrians. Sidewalks are not always easily walkable -- it's not just us not wanting to get our feet cold. Sidewalks that haven't been shoveled are treacherous with packed snow and a layer of ice. Sometimes we are forced to walk on the street.
Washington, D.C.: Although the rate of snowfall varies, I'm betting that we'll see a bit of snow and lots of wet & slippery conditions with people in a panic all over the roads instead of a decent accumulation. (It's better not to get your hopes up- although I would LOVE a snow day, the federal government has to shut down in order for my office to close and we pretty much need a blizzard for that. The predictions haven't come close to that one.)
Dr. Gridlock: predictions are notoriously wrong.
Red light cameras: I've gotten camera tickets, both in the 25 and 45 zones. The 25 limit is too low (Eastern Avenue, between Riggs and Sargent) but I can understand the rationale, since it is a residential area. The tickets I've gotten for driving 55-59 on 395 (under the tunnels, approaching NY Ave.) are just completely preposterous. I defy anyone to drive 45 on that stretch during non-rush hours.
Arlington, Va.: Arlington was asking why headways on the Orange Line are 10-minutes. They should be 6 at the most, but they seem to be scheduling fewer and fewer trains on the Orange Line at least. No 8-car trains, so it's a reduction in service. That's what Arlington was asking, nothing to do with new high-rises.
Dr. Gridlock: I'm not aware that there are eight car trains in service now. Is that correct?
Fairfax, Va.: Why doesn't the obvious answer ever come up in these chats? There is a very simple solution. GET PEOPLE OFF THE ROADS! How? Require telecommuting for companies with more than 100 employees. A percentage of those employees MUST work from home. We have the technology. People can connect to servers at work from home (yes Virginia, there is cable and DSL), they can teleconference for meetings,phone to troubleshoot etc. Cameras can be hooked up to their home computers to see what exactly the trouble/question/project, etc is. I'll bet you dollars to donuts the reason this option has never been brought to the table is because of the real estate that would go empty from people working from home. I'm not talking about working from a telecommute center - that still puts people in their cars and on the road. I mean working from home. I'd like to hear one or two valid, legitimate reasons why this isn't being done.
Dr. Gridlock: The reason I most often hear that telecommuting isn't more popular is that employers don't want their employes working out of sight. They assume, if they can't see them, they aren't working.
But, as you point out, there are barometers for measuring production. We have to move toward more telecommuting. There is no other solution to gridlock.
Christmas tree: No, they don't light the tree remotely -- and haven't in the 15 years I've lived here. The president actually appears on the Ellipse.
Washington, D.C.: To the person who saw only 10 flakes in DC over the past 10 minutes: you clearly don't work on K Street!
Vienna, Va.: You're not aware it's fully funded? Why don't you just say "Thanks, I didn't know then" instead of coming across as a know-it-all.
Major Transit and Highway Projects (Fairfaxcounty.gov)
Dr. Gridlock: I'm glad to have this document. However, it does not appear (from a two-miute reading) that these projects are fully funded.
For instance, the first item deals with Rail to Dulles. The federal government is responsible for half the $4 billion funding, and has not commited to that yet. Without that funding, the project won't be built.
So right away, this document looks more like a wish list than a statement of funded priorities.
The document also has first person references, without any identification of who the person is. I'd need to spend more time with it, and thank you for sending it along.
Silver Spring, Md.: They are testing eight car trains. They don't seem to be in rush hour regular service yet.
Dr. Gridlock: I didn't think so. The latest rollout has eight car trains as follows:
end of 2006, 20 percent
end of 2007, 30 percent;
end of 2008, 50 percent.
Maryland: Please remember everyone. We have the same goal to arrive home safely. Turn on your headlights. Clean your car off before driving. If you are walking please wear something light colored so cars can see you. Drive slower. Give pedestrians a break/brake. Human beings break very easily and the life you save may be your own.
Dr. Gridlock: Good points. Thanks
The snow: While I think that the DC area's reaction to the snow is fairly ridiculous, while living in southern virginia I also noticed that those southern drivers had absolutely no abilitiy to drive in the snow at all...I remember one snow shower where we had less than an inch (plain snow, no ice or anything particularly tricky) and within a 8 mile stretch I counted at least 10 cars and trucks that had slid off the road, and I saw many vehicles around me fishtailing and sliding. I actually couldn't figure out exactly what they were doing that was causing them so much trouble, since the driving conditions just weren't that bad at all, but it was absolutely terrifying to be on the road with everyone else. I don't drive much around DC, so I'm hoping that the there's a higher percentage of people in the metro area who actually know what they're doing in the snow...but in southern virginia, I have to say that I would avoid the roads at any hint of a snow fall, just because the snow seemed to suck most of the basic driving ability out of such a large percentage of my fellow drivers.
Do you have any updates on how the mixing bowl construction is coming along? I was in Virginia last week and noticed the work.
Dr. Gridlock: It's coming along on-target and on budget. Should be completed by the second half of 2007.
Re: walking in the streets: To the people who insist on doing this, for whatever reason, just remember that even a small remaining patch of ice on the roads could send a car swerving. Even the safest, bestest small-car driver in the world may not be able to correct in time to avoid you. When you do this, you are creating a very dangerous situation for yourself.
Washington, D.C.: In regard to the National Christmas Tree Lighting fiasco December 1, I saw a sign posted on a Metrobus/Omnibus stop at the corner of 21st Street and Virginia Avenue, N.W. Omnibus posted the sign about a week before the event which stated that it was changing its bus service December 1 to the emergency schedule because of the heavy congestion caused by the tree lighting. The revised schedule meant that Omnibus riders were to ride the subway to the Franconia/Springfield subway station and catch an Omnibus there. I am a District resident who rides Metrobus, and that was the only notice that I saw about the traffic trouble. Fortunately, I rode the subway instead of a bus. I think that the National Park Service and the Secret Service should notify in advance the news media and transit agencies, so people can plan in advance. It is ridiculous that so many people apparently did not know about the tree lighting problem days in advance.
Red Light Turner: Now just wait a second. I have been behind several drivers who I wished had turned right on red sooner. That's the way the cookie crumbles. I am well aware of my ability to turn and when not to turn. Others have different abilities. It doesn't mean that they are impeding anything. In fact being a defensive driver saves accidents. People, like the person who responded with the "get off the road" response, are the problem. You make an ill-advised right on red and someone is forced to slam on their brakes and that causes a chain reaction. That certainly impedes the flow of traffic, doesn't it? Oh, but the point is it doesn't impede the person who just couldn't wait, does it? If you are that impatient that you can't wait a minute or two then you are the one who shouldn't be on the road.
Re: telecommuters: So employers are worried that if people are working at home, they're not really "working." Well, they're not working if they're stuck in traffic either! And once they do get to work, their employees are chomping at the bit to leave early so they can beat traffic.
Perhaps the very employers who feel that work wouldn't get done at home should be the very people who ought to telecommute. They might be amazed how much work gets down when they're not so preoccupied employee face time.
Dr. Gridlock: thanks, and as commuting time gets longer and longer, as it will, employees will have to rise up and forcefully suggest telecommuting, and employers need to recognice the social good from such an arrangement.
Dr. Gridlock: Well, folks, this will end another online session with dr. gridlock via www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline. Thanks to my producter, Katie McLeod, and to all of you who participated today.
It is 3 p.m. and snowing heavily here in Fairfax City. It is sticking,with three to five inches forecast, so this looks like a difficult evening rush hour.
Good luck, and see you right here in two weeks...
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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FEMA Pulls Out of Lower Ninth
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2005120819
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency pulled all its workers out of New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward yesterday after threats of violence and planned to request additional police or National Guard support, a FEMA spokeswoman said.
A spokeswoman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin said the police commander for the district knew of no incidents or threat complaints.
The Lower Ninth Ward was reopened Thursday; it was the last neighborhood in the city to remain closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Residents, who had been limited to bus tours, were allowed to reenter homes, inspect damage and retrieve items but not stay in the area, which still lacks electricity.
But U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workers near levees and FEMA workers -- who were on hand to help remove debris, set up disaster service centers and coordinate relief -- received numerous threats, said FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews . About 20 FEMA workers were withdrawn from the area, Andrews said.
"It's unfortunate that threats of violence would be made against anyone, as we all work together to recover from this disaster," Andrews said. "The first priority is to protect and ensure the safety of FEMA workers. There are a lot of employees working hard . . . to help folks return to their homes and ensure they are receiving the assistance they are eligible for under the law."
Andrews said local FEMA workers planned to seek an increased presence by local or federal law enforcement or Guard troops before resuming their duties.
But Tami Frazier, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the New Orleans Police Department commander in charge of the area reported no incidents, complaints or removal of anyone for making threats. "We have stated . . . that we would have guards out there and police officers escorting people during this time," Frazier said, "but there has not been an increase in police or guardsmen."
One relief worker in the region said an angry resident berated a Corps of Engineers employee before delivering a threat to the effect of "I'm going to go get my gun, and I'm going to kill you." Federal agents have arrested six people in the New Orleans area in recent weeks for making threats against FEMA workers, who have been advised against wearing clothing with the agency logo in public.
A New Orleans Police spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency pulled all its workers out of New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward yesterday after threats of violence and planned to request additional police or National Guard support, a FEMA spokeswoman said.
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A Vatican Retreat on Homosexuality
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2005120819
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BOSTON -- Somewhere along the way the dividing line over gay issues picked up and moved. It's no longer between red and blue states, or left and right wings, but between nature and nurture. Or, to be more precise, between those who believe that homosexuality is a choice and those who believe that homosexuality is innate.
Remember the moment in the 2004 debate when CBS's Bob Schieffer asked George W. Bush and John Kerry whether they thought homosexuality was a choice? The president answered, "I don't know," and the senator replied, "We're all God's children."
Well, it turns out that the more you believe homosexuality is innate, the more accepting you are of gay rights. A full 79 percent of people who think human beings are born with a sexual orientation support gay rights, including civil unions or marriage equality. But only 22 percent of those who believe homosexuality is a choice agree.
The same line can be found in the religious world between those who regard homosexuality as a (bad) choice and those who see it as (biological) trait. The most conservative Protestant churches that talk about the homosexual "lifestyle" prohibit gay men and lesbians from being ministers. Religious liberals who see sexual orientation as an inborn trait are more open to gays in the pulpit.
All in all, Americans seem reluctant to condemn people simply for who they are .
What, then, do we make of the Catholic Church's banning -- and perhaps purging -- of gay priests? On Tuesday the much-leaked and much-awaited document from the Vatican said the church "cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.' "
What was painful to many Catholics was the obvious scapegoating of gays for the church sexual abuse scandal. But there was something less obvious.
Thirty years ago the Catholic Church accepted the view that some were definitively gay. Church teachings said that "they do not choose their homosexual condition." Nevertheless, the new document doesn't just ban gays who "practice" homosexuality, breaking the vows of celibacy. It bans all those with homosexual "tendencies."
In the strange new backsliding language of the Vatican, homosexuality is a "tendency." The church doesn't define tendency, nor does it say whether such a tendency is biological. Voluntary or not, it marks a man permanently. As Matt Foreman, a gay activist who was raised Catholic, says, "Doesn't matter what you do or believe or practice. If you are gay there is no making that better in the eyes of the church."
Ironically, the only exemptions are offered to men who were not "real" homosexuals but "transitory" ones. They're given a pass, in the words of a Vatican cardinal, for "some curiosity during adolescence or accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness or particular circumstances like someone who was in prison for many years." A drunk or ex-con is okay; a chaste gay seminarian is not.
The same cardinal said that banning gays from the priesthood was no more discriminatory than "if one does not admit a person who suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts." Such a dizzying analogy overlooks the fact that gay men are already among the stars of the priesthood.
The document does more than denigrate the priests who have given their lives to ministry. In the face of a conflict between biology and sin, the church has labeled homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered."
Let's remember that the evidence is with those on the nature side of the dividing line. While we don't know the precise biology, the weight of research suggests that sexual orientation is indeed something we are born with. Perhaps there is a "gay gene." Perhaps the Japanese scientists who found how a gene alters the sexual orientation of the fruit fly will find a similar switch for people.
Science may well offer some future shocks. Imagine, for a moment, that we could tweak the "gay gene" in a petri dish or a womb. What would the religious right, which opposes both homosexuality and embryonic cell research, say about eliminating the "sin"? What would the left, which favors reproductive choice but is appalled at the idea of "curing" a population of homosexuals, say?
For now, however, the church has run directly into a conflict. Increasingly, Americans accept homosexuality as something that isn't chosen and cannot easily be changed. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has moved in the opposite direction, rejecting men with "deep-seated tendencies."
Once, even the most conservative and patronizing churches proclaimed they could love the sinner and hate the sin. The new pope's Vatican has labeled homosexuals themselves as the sin. The case is closed and so are the doors to the seminary.
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The new pope's Vatican has labeled homosexuals themselves as the sin. The case is closed and so are the doors to the seminary.
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Economy of Scale Might Inspire Companies to Ditch IT Departments
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2005120119
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Among the technorati, journalist Nicholas Carr is infamous for his 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review declaring that information technology was no longer a significant source of corporate competitive advantage. Carr's assertion challenged not only the received wisdom from a generation of strategy consultants, but also the marketing campaigns of every hardware and software vendor and thousands of newly minted "chief information officers."
While Carr may have overstated his point a bit, it was well received by chief executives who always suspected they were spending too much, or getting too little, out of all those expensive technology investments they approved.
Now Carr is back with an equally controversial notion -- the death of the corporate IT department -- that he launched in the spring issue of MIT's Sloan Management Review and is now peddling in speeches to business groups and industry conferences.
For years, economic historians have drawn the parallel between the productivity revolution spurred by the development of electric power at the turn of the 20th century and development of computers and the Internet at the turn of the 21st. Carr simply builds on that analogy.
In the early years of electricity, he notes, manufacturing companies generated their own power from dynamos they purchased from General Electric or Westinghouse. But in the 1890s, Samuel Insull, an adviser to Thomas Edison, came up with the insight that he could provide electricity more efficiently, even for the biggest users, from centralized plants that realized economies of scale. The company he founded, Chicago's Commonwealth Edison, would become one of the country's biggest and most successful enterprises, lowering the price of electricity and serving as the model for the power industry for more than a century.
Now, Carr predicts, the same transition is coming to the world of information technology. Instead of each company buying, maintaining and upgrading its own hardware and software -- most of which are remarkably similar from one company to the next -- it will buy computing services from a utility-type company, paying for only what it uses while enjoying the lower costs that come from scale economies.
Carr argues that the current setup is rife with inefficiency and excess capacity, citing studies showing that the typical corporate data center uses, at most, only a third of its available processing power while more than half of its storage capacity is wasted. And if you are the typical employee, you use just 5 percent of the computing power of that PC on your desktop.
It was only 20 years ago when everyone was sure that computing would become increasingly decentralized -- out with the old mainframe and in with the personal computer, which would become ever more powerful with each generation of computer chip. Now, however, the swing to centralization is driven by the new economics of the Internet and dirt-cheap communication, and technological advances that make it easier for different programs and operating systems to work with each other and allow large numbers of servers and disk drives to effectively act as one big computer.
In essence, the trend toward centralization began back when Ross Perot first persuaded a corporation to "outsource" its IT department to his new company, EDS. And even before Carr's article appeared, companies like Sun and IBM were already peddling early versions of a utility-type service, renting out processing and storage capacity for a fixed unit-price. Sun is even setting up an online auction of excess computing capacity. MCI's Digex unit, meanwhile, has been targeting small and mid-size companies with data centers that use shared hardware and software in a utility-type arrangement.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is about to introduce a new generation of products -- Web 2.0 and Microsoft Live -- that essentially embraces the utility model by allowing users to buy into software over the Web rather than installing it on their own computers. And what is Google, after all, but a giant computer utility providing search capabilities and now a growing set of services to huge numbers of customers?
All this has profound implications for the type and quantity of equipment that will be sold, and how it will be priced. And, not surprisingly, the industry has largely pooh-poohed Carr's thesis and thrown up all sorts of reasons why things won't -- or shouldn't -- develop in that direction.
I suspect, however, that Carr is on to something, and that there will be an important place in business history -- and the Forbes 500 list -- for whoever figures out how to become the Insull of computing. An equally intriguing question is whether he'll be a Sam or a Sanjay.
Steven Pearlstein will host a Web discussion today at 11 a.m. at washingtonpost.com. He can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com.
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Corporate information technology departments could face extinction as firms find it cheaper to buy their computing power from a new generation of Internet-based IT "utilities".
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Douglas S. Massey - Foolish Fences
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2005120119
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It's no secret that the U.S. immigration system is badly broken. Indeed, it has been broken since 1986 and is getting worse. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has proposed building a fence along the entire border with Mexico. President Bush, speaking this week in Arizona, emphasized the need to choke off the flow of illegal immigrants, stating that "illegal immigration's a serious challenge, and our responsibility is clear. We are going to protect the border."
Unfortunately, unilateral attempts to close the border won't solve the problem of undocumented immigrants. They will only make it worse. The central problem concerns the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
After Canada, Mexico is our largest trading partner. We share a border of almost 2,000 miles with Mexico, and trade that totals $286 billion a year. The movement of goods and services is accompanied by the movement of people. In 2004 some 175,000 legal immigrants arrived from Mexico, along with 3.8 million visitors for pleasure, 433,000 business visitors, 118,000 temporary workers, 25,000 intra-company transferees, 29,000 students and exchange visitors, and 6,200 traders and investors. At the same time, 1 million Americans live in Mexico and 19 million travel there each year as visitors. U.S. foreign direct investment in Mexico totals $62 billion annually.
These massive cross-border flows occur by design, under the auspices of the North American Free Trade Agreement. But at the heart of NAFTA lies a contradiction: Even as the United States moves to promote free movement of goods, services, capital and information, we as a nation somehow seek to prevent the movement of labor. We wish to create a North American economy that integrates all markets except one: that for labor.
To maintain the illusion that we can somehow integrate and still remain separate, the United States has militarized its border with a friendly country that poses no conceivable threat to U.S. national security. Even as binational trade with Mexico grew eightfold from 1986 to the present, the Border Patrol's enforcement budget increased tenfold. The Border Patrol is now the largest arms-bearing branch of the federal government save the military itself, with an annual budget exceeding $1.4 billion.
But our attempts to stop the flow of Mexican workers into the United States through unilateral enforcement have not only failed miserably, they have backfired. Heightened border enforcement has not deterred would-be immigrants from entering the United States, nor has it reduced the size of the annual inflow. What it has done is channel migrants away from traditional crossing points to remote areas where the physical risks are great but the likelihood of getting caught is small. As a result, the number of deaths has risen to around 460 people a year while the probability of apprehension has fallen from a historical average of around 33 percent to around 10 percent.
We are spending more tax dollars to catch fewer migrants and cause more deaths, and once they are deflected from traditional crossing points, Mexicans have moved on to new destinations. Whereas two-thirds of Mexicans who came to the United States during 1985-90 went to California, in the past five years only one-third have done so. Our misplaced border policies have transformed what was a limited regional movement affecting three states into a mass migration to 50 states.
U.S. policies have also pushed Mexican migrants away from seasonal movement toward permanent settlement. Raising the costs and risks of undocumented entry has not deterred would-be migrants from coming.
Paradoxically, it has discouraged them from going home once they are here. Having faced the hazards of border crossing, undocumented migrants are loath to do so again, and instead they hunker down for the long term. As migrants stay away from home longer, they increasingly send for spouses and children.
Rather than remaining a circular flow of temporary male workers, migration from Mexico to the United States has produced a settled population of permanent residents and families, driving up immigration's social and economic costs to American taxpayers.
Instead of attempting to stop the cross-border movement of workers through unilateral police actions, we should bring these flows of people above board, legalize them and manage them in ways that minimize the costs and maximize the benefits for all concerned.
Instead of viewing Mexican migration as a pathological product of rampant poverty and rapid population growth, we should see it for what it is: a natural byproduct of economic development in a relatively wealthy country undergoing a rapid transition to low fertility in close association with the United States. Mexico has a trillion-dollar economy, with per capita income approaching $10,000; a 92 percent literacy rate; a total fertility rate of 2.2 children per woman; and population growth of just 1.2 percent per year.
Seeking to manage immigration rather than repress it would put policymakers in a better position to protect U.S. workers, lower the costs of immigration to taxpayers and enhance the security of American citizens.
The writer is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and co-author of the book "Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration."
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Building a fence to close the Mexican border unilaterally won't solve the problem of undocumented immigrants. It will only make it worse.
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Bewilder Thy Father and Mother
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2005120119
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The number one holiday shopping nightmare this year isn't taking place at the malls or the big-box outlets. It's at our senior centers, where Americans over 65 are trying to figure out which private health insurance plan to enroll in to get their prescription drugs paid for under Medicare's new Part D, which takes effect Jan. 1.
As seniors tell the tale, navigating the competing plans is no more complicated than mapping the human genome. In most states, Medicare recipients are presented with dozens of asymmetric options. The plans cover some drugs but not others, with discounts (or not) for generics. Some offer supplemental insurance to cover the gaping hole in the middle of the program (a patient's annual drug expenses exceeding $2,250 are not covered under the law, though coverage kicks back in once the yearly bill tops $5,100); some don't. Some plans re-price their options every day, a boon to seniors who want to make the selection process their life's work.
Simplicity may not always be a virtue, but when presenting life-enhancing and life-preserving choices to seniors, it's not only a virtue but a necessity. You would think the plan's architects -- the president and the Republican congressional leaders -- would have known this. These are the same guys, after all, who insist they want to simplify the tax code. These are the guys who rail against the blizzard of paperwork with which government afflicts us.
Indeed, if you can remember back to the winter of 1993-94, when Bill Clinton unveiled his never-to-be-enacted plan for universal health coverage, you may recall how Bob Dole, then the Republican Senate leader, helped bring it down. After Clinton laid out his proposal, Dole, in his rebuttal, produced an incomprehensible diagram that he said depicted Clinton's incomprehensible plan.
Clinton's plan was damn near incomprehensible. But it was simplicity itself compared with the maze that is Medicare Part D.
There is, however, one particularly helpful guide to all the options: Medicare's Plan Finder, which simplifies comparison shopping on the Medicare Web site. There's just one problem: Most American seniors don't go online. While surveys show that roughly 70 percent of Americans have ventured online, only 23 to 30 percent of seniors have ever done so.
But the seniors don't seem to have been uppermost in the minds of Part D's devisers. The foremost objects of their solicitude were the drug companies, which forked over roughly $30 million in the elections of 2002 (Part D was enacted in 2003), three-quarters of that to Republicans. Not surprisingly, Part D forbids the government from negotiating with drug companies to bring down the price of medications. The Republican leaders also looked out for the private insurance companies, to whose mercies the act entrusted America's elderly. That was a departure, of course, from traditional Medicare, which is one big, simple, popular and successful government single-payer plan on which our seniors gladly rely.
But structuring the drug benefit as a government program (much less a government program that could eat into drug company profits) was never an option for President Bush or Tom DeLay. If that meant that seniors would confront a bewildering array of choices, needlessly high drug prices and a gaping hole in their coverage, well, who would be more resigned to the genius of the American system than seniors?
The paradox here is that this most capitalist of models is also the least efficient. With all our insurance companies competing to cover healthy Americans and shun the sick, and all our drug companies fighting to keep their prices free from negotiation with a mass purchaser, we end up spending close to 15 percent of our gross domestic product on medical care -- far more than any of the nations where the government itself covers health care out of its general revenue. Simplicity in a health care system is not just more intelligible; it's also cheaper. And with those employers who offer decent health care benefits at an increasing competitive disadvantage with the growing number of employers who don't, the logic of and need for a single-payer system steadily grows. Not that logic and need, in the calculus of the men who make our laws, amount to a hill of beans.
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The number one holiday shopping nightmare this year isn't taking place at the malls or the big-box outlets. It's at our senior centers, where Americans over 65 are trying to figure out which private health insurance plan to enroll in to get their prescription drugs paid for under Medicare's new...
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We're Past Politics With Iraq
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When it comes to Iraq, are the congressional Democrats chicken-hearted flip-floppers, merely clueless critics with no ideas of their own -- or are they Karl Rove cunning?
It's clear enough what the administration would have you believe: that congressional Democrats, privy to the same information then possessed by the administration, voted to go to war in Iraq. Now that the war has proved difficult and unpopular, they want to lay the whole burden for it on the president -- a latter-day version of John Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it."
The characterization seems wrong on virtually every count. Congress didn't have the same information the administration had; it had the information -- and the analysis of that information -- that the administration opted to share. The choices, really, were to share the administration's conclusion that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction or to accuse it of cooking the evidence.
But when events suggested just such culinary hanky-panky, how can it be considered inconstant or duplicitous to second-guess the earlier pro-war vote?
Colin Powell, who -- unwittingly, I believe -- passed along some of the cooked evidence, is on record as having changed his mind. As Powell told Barbara Walters in September, when he made his dramatic show-and-tell presentation before the U.N. Security Council, there were "people in the intelligence community who knew at the time that some of these sources were not good and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me. . . . It's a blot . . . [that] will always be a part of my record."
Powell is nobody's flip-flopper. People who wanted a certain conclusion gave him bad information and he passed it on -- to his regret. Can't members of Congress who believed the bad evidence enough to vote us into war also experience regret?
Except they didn't really vote us into war. As I recall, that vote authorizing the president to use force against Iraq was analogous to a trade union's strike vote. When negotiations bog down, union leaders often will ask their members for a resolution authorizing a strike. For members to refuse such a vote would cripple their own leadership. But to grant it is not the same as ending negotiations and launching a strike. It is a way of steeling the leadership, giving it a powerful negotiating tool.
Since there was no about-to-explode crisis, the president could have asked Congress for a declaration of war. Would it have been granted? Who knows? Apparently the administration didn't want to chance it.
Now several things have the administration lashing out in all directions in an attempt at political salvage. Public opinion polls show both the popularity of the president and confidence that the war in Iraq was justified at a low ebb. The war itself is going badly, with our forces apparently spending the bulk of their effort to protect themselves against the insurgents, and with more people -- ours and Iraq's -- dying every week.
And Rep. John P. Murtha, a pro-military Democrat and decorated Vietnam veteran, has called unequivocally for the allied forces to quit Iraq.
So how do the Republicans respond? Sometimes by direct attack, as when they tried to discredit Murtha as a coward. But given a president whose National Guard service was suspect at best and a vice president who was garnering draft deferments while Murtha served, that couldn't work.
And sometimes by simply noting that the Democrats don't have an exit strategy, either.
If the Democrats had their own Karl Rove, he'd probably tell them not to even try to come up with one. If a sound exit plan means getting out without leaving Iraq less stable than it is now, and with a reasonable chance of becoming an American-style democracy, nobody has one.
If Iraq is most likely to implode into civil war, leaving it a far more dangerous hotbed of terrorism than it was before our invasion, wouldn't the Democrats be smart to let it happen without interference? That isn't to say the Democrats yearn for failure -- but it's a cinch they don't want to be blamed for it.
It would be a no-lose position, politically, for the Democrats to sit back and watch the catastrophe happen.
But the quagmire in Iraq involves much more than politics. It involves national honor, the undiminished threat of international terrorism -- and the lives of too many people who deserve better.
It's hardly the time for clever politics.
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When it comes to Iraq, are the congressional Democrats chicken-hearted flip-floppers, merely clueless critics with no ideas of their own -- or are they Karl Rove cunning?
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Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.
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There's a comic side to the anti-Wal-Mart campaign brewing in Maryland and across the country. Only by summoning up the most naive view of corporate behavior can the critics be shocked -- shocked! -- by the giant retailer's machinations. Wal-Mart is plotting to contain health costs! But isn't that what every company does in the face of medical inflation? Wal-Mart has a war room to defend its image! Well, yeah, it's up against a hostile campaign featuring billboards, newspaper ads and a critical documentary movie. Wal-Mart aims to enrich shareholders and put rivals out of business! Hello? What business doesn't do that?
Wal-Mart's critics allege that the retailer is bad for poor Americans. This claim is backward: As Jason Furman of New York University puts it, Wal-Mart is "a progressive success story." Furman advised John "Benedict Arnold" Kerry in the 2004 campaign and has never received any payment from Wal-Mart; he is no corporate apologist. But he points out that Wal-Mart's discounting on food alone boosts the welfare of American shoppers by at least $50 billion a year. The savings are possibly five times that much if you count all of Wal-Mart's products.
These gains are especially important to poor and moderate-income families. The average Wal-Mart customer earns $35,000 a year, compared with $50,000 at Target and $74,000 at Costco. Moreover, Wal-Mart's "every day low prices" make the biggest difference to the poor, since they spend a higher proportion of income on food and other basics. As a force for poverty relief, Wal-Mart's $200 billion-plus assistance to consumers may rival many federal programs. Those programs are better targeted at the needy, but they are dramatically smaller. Food stamps were worth $33 billion in 2005, and the earned-income tax credit was worth $40 billion.
Set against these savings for consumers, Wal-Mart's alleged suppression of wages appears trivial. Arindrajit Dube of the University of California at Berkeley, a leading Wal-Mart critic, has calculated that the firm has caused a $4.7 billion annual loss of wages for workers in the retail sector. This number is disputed: Wal-Mart's pay and benefits can be made to look good or bad depending on which other firms you compare them to. When Wal-Mart opened a store in Glendale, Ariz., last year, it received 8,000 applications for 525 jobs, suggesting that not everyone believes the pay and benefits are unattractive.
But let's say we accept Dube's calculation that retail workers take home $4.7 billion less per year because Wal-Mart has busted unions and generally been ruthless. That loss to workers would still be dwarfed by the $50 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers save on food, never mind the much larger sums that they save altogether. Indeed, Furman points out that the wage suppression is so small that even its "victims" may be better off. Retail workers may take home less pay, but their purchasing power probably still grows thanks to Wal-Mart's low prices.
To be fair, the $4.7 billion of wage suppression in the retail sector excludes Wal-Mart's efforts to drive down wages at its suppliers. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," the new anti-Wal-Mart movie that's circulating among activist groups, has the requisite passage about Chinese workers getting pennies per day, sweating to keep Wal-Mart's shelves stocked with cheap clothing. But no study has shown whether Wal-Mart's tactics actually do suppress wages in China or elsewhere, and suppression seems unlikely in poor countries. The Chinese garment workers are mainly migrants from farms, where earnings are even worse than at Wal-Mart's subcontractors and where the labor is still more grueling.
Wal-Mart's critics also paint the company as a parasite on taxpayers, because 5 percent of its workers are on Medicaid. Actually that's a typical level for large retail firms, and the national average for all firms is 4 percent. Moreover, it's ironic that Wal-Mart's enemies, who are mainly progressives, should even raise this issue. In the 1990s progressives argued loudly for the reform that allowed poor Americans to keep Medicaid benefits even if they had a job. Now that this policy is helping workers at Wal-Mart, progressives shouldn't blame the company. Besides, many progressives favor a national health system. In other words, they attack Wal-Mart for having 5 percent of its workers receive health care courtesy of taxpayers when the policy that they support would increase that share to 100 percent.
Companies like Wal-Mart are not run by saints. They can treat workers and competitors roughly. They may be poor stewards of the environment. When they break the law they must be punished. Wal-Mart is at the center of the globalized, technology-driven economy that's radically increased American inequality, so it's not surprising that it has critics. But globalization and business innovation are nonetheless the engines of progress; and if that sounds too abstract, think of the $200 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers gain annually. If critics prevent the firm from opening new branches, they will prevent ordinary families from sharing in those gains. Poor Americans will be chief among the casualties.
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Only by summoning up the most naive view of corporate behavior can the critics be shocked -- shocked! -- by the Wal-Mart's machinations.
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'Corruption Scheme'
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"Scanlon and Lobbyist A would offer and provide things of value to federal public officials, including trips, campaign contributions, meals and entertainment in exchange for agreements that the public officials would use their official positions and influence to benefit Scanlon's and Lobbyist A's clients and Lobbyist A's businesses."
-- Criminal information, filed Nov. 18,
IN THE dispassionate language of criminal law, the scandal of the rapacious duo of Jack Abramoff (Lobbyist A) and Michael Scanlon reached a new -- and for at least one member of Congress -- ominous level last week. Mr. Scanlon pleaded guilty on Monday to a conspiracy to bribe public officials and defraud his Indian tribal clients; he agreed to pay $19 million in restitution to the tribes -- the size of the kickbacks he gave to Mr. Abramoff -- and he faces up to five years in prison.
With his promise to cooperate with prosecutors, Mr. Scanlon may also be the most dangerous man in Washington right now -- certainly to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), identified in the information as Representative #1, and possibly to others as well.
In September, in the first criminal charges arising from the federal investigation into Mr. Abramoff's lobbying activities, the administration's former chief procurement officer, David H. Safavian, was accused of lying about his dealings with the lobbyist. Now, with the Scanlon guilty plea, the attention has shifted back to Congress, where Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), did most of their business.
As the information describes their activities, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon "provided a stream of things of value to Representative #1 and members of his staff, including but not limited to a lavish trip to Scotland to play golf on world famous courses, tickets to sporting events and other entertainment, regular meals at Lobbyist A's upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions for Representative #1, his political action committee, and other political committees on behalf of Representative #1."
At the same time, it continues, they "sought and received Representative #1's agreement to perform a series of official acts, including but not limited to, agreements to support and pass legislation, agreements to place statements into the Congressional Record, meetings with Lobbyist A and Scanlon's clients, and advancing the application of a client of Lobbyist A for a license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives."
Washington players walk a blurry line between bribery and business as usual. If lobbyists lavish perks on, and write campaign checks for, powerful members of Congress, and those members then take actions that benefit the lobbyists' clients, that may be the ordinary, if distasteful, way Washington operates. But if the lobbyists' favors are conditioned on an understanding that legislative favors have been or will be performed, that would transform the transaction from quotidian to criminal.
Mr. Ney's lawyer, Mark H. Tuohey, says it's the former that happened in the congressman's case. "He was wined and dined the way lots of political people are, and he did some official acts, but there's no connection between the two," Mr. Tuohey told The Post.
The Justice Department sees the situation in a more sinister light: "Corruption Scheme" is the heading given to the section of the charges involving Mr. Ney.
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Real Estate Live
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Welcome to Real Estate Live, an online discussion of the Washington area housing market. Post staff writer Kirstin Downey fills in for Post Real Estate editor Maryann Haggerty.
Kirstin Downey has been a business reporter for more than 20 years, covering a wide range of subjects, from retailing to workplace issues to the economy.
She joined The Washington Post in 1988, covering real estate, and has witnessed, firsthand, several market cycles. She's also covered the boom in values in the '80s, when things went up, up, up, and tracked the market down, down, down when it fell in the early '90s, culminating in the banking, savings and loan collapse and the subsequent taxpayer bailout of the nation's financial system. Now things are up once again, with home values at record levels, but people are wondering what the future holds.
Beltsville, Md.: Thanks for taking my question. I here so much about the risk of interest-only loans and I can't comprehend the risk. It is my understanding that the loan has a fixed rate for say five years and then after that you begin paying interest and principal. Where is the risk if the rate is fixed? I would think you would know when you sign the loan how much your additional payment will be once principal is added to it and can decide if you can afford it. Am I missing something here?
Kirstin Downey: Hello everyone. This seems like a good question to kick off today's discussion about interest-only loans. I'm hoping we'll hear from people on both sides of the issue, as lenders point out that interest-only and other non-traditional loans make good sense for some buyers.
There are more flavors to these kinds of loans than Baskin-Robbins has flavors, but, yes, you are generally right that these loans start with fixed minimum payments, for terms of three to seven years, and then the amount that is owed monthly rises when payment of the principal kicks in. Some don't even require the full interest payment. So they are cheap in the early phase of the loan, but the payment can increase sharply after that.
In an example cited by a banking regulator recently, a "payment-option ARM" for a $360,000 loan could start out with payments as little as $1,200 a month, but would jump to $2,500 when the consumer begins paying down the principal after the initial term. And if interest rates were to rise to 8 percent, which he found likely, the payment would nearly DOUBLE to $3,166. Yikes!
My own view of adjustable-rate and interest-only mortgages is that the people taking them out probably jumped into the NASDAQ at 5,000, too.
The principle investment value of home ownership is NOT price appreciation (long term, homes do a little better then inflation, but don't come close to stocks) but it protects one's housing costs from inflation. The general price level has increased about 1/3 since I bought my house ten years ago, and I know from someone who lives there that the rent on my old apartment has gone up a little more than that.
Meanwhile, my own mortgage is the same as it ever was (I re-fied to lower the rate but shorten the term so the payment is about the same.) Do current buyers really want to continue to pay their current rates ad infinitum? If not, they over-bought.
BTW, one problem with housing cycles is that the people who buy in one cycle are probably too young to remember the last housing bust in the late 80s. There's a theory on Wall Street that stock market bubbles occur about every generation (e.g. 90s, 60s, 20s) because it takes that long for the market players to get out of the business. Most homebuyers weren't in the market as little as 10 years ago, so housing bubbles can occur much more frequently.
Kirstin Downey: A lot of experienced lenders feel as you do and many economists have urged banking industry regulators to clamp down on these loans, which Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has called "risky." Critics note that interest-only loans were very popular in the 1920s, but when the Great Depression hit and real estate values plummeted, more than one-fifth of homes in the United States went into foreclosure. Many people know that farms hit the auction blocks during that time period but don't realize many families lost their homes and life savings as well.
Vienna, Va.: Who would you blame if there will a large number of people defaulting in on interest-only loans? Who would pay for a bail-out of bad mortgage loans? Who would win in the case where a large number of defaults occur? I think the winners are people who sold there house during the hey-day of the real estate market and the loan officers and mortgage company, etc. that serve the suckers who paid high prices for their home during the market frenzy. The losers are taxpayers who will bail out of anything that Congress tells them to.
Kirstin Downey: Lenders, real estate executives and developers made big bucks during the last real estate boom in the 1980s but taxpayers ended up picking up the tab when the banking industry required a bailout.
Chantilly, Va.: I'll offer up our mortgage experience as an example of why some people should choose interest-only loans.
My husband and I are a single income family who recently moved (he's the breadwinner, I'm responsible for the day-to-day household management). We decided on an interest-only loan as it not only allowed us to move into the house we wanted, it allowed us to put the "principle" money to work earning more in other investment vehicles than being tied up as equity in a house we're not planning on selling for the next 20 or so years.
Sure, we're not paying down our mortgage, but we're building up wealth via other investment strategies so that if we have to, we -could- pay off the mortgage and still have money left over. If we put the money towards principle, it's locked in the house not earning anything until we refinance or sell. Plus, it's not earning any interest. (Yes, the house itself is appreciating, but it will --hopefully do that whether I own 100,000 or 500,000.)
Some might agree with me, others won't, that's not the point. The point is that for some people, an interest only loan makes sense. It really bothers me each time I read something about interest only loans being a bad mortgage decision without the caveat that, for some, it might be the better mortgage decision.
Kirstin Downey: A lot of lenders agree with you. And a lot of buyers do, too. Up to 50 percent of buyers in some markets have purchased with interest-only loans. Lenders say the important issue is whether the buyer has enough of a down payment, or enough equity, to ensure he or she could sell if necessary. If the value of a home falls beneath the loan amount, the seller actually needs to pay to get out from under the loan. During that last real estate recession, here in the Washington area in the early 1990s, some homeowners had write checks for $10,000, $20,000 or $30,000 to be able to sell and walk again from the mortgage payment. So you need to ask yourself, as Clint Eastwood would say: Do you feel lucky?
Anonymous: What do you see happening to rates for 30-year fixed rate mortgages over the next six months?
Kirstin Downey: I'm not a soothsayer and I have no crystal ball but most economists seem to expect a continued rise in interest rates, but not a huge rise in rates. It's unclear how much control Americans will have over interest rates in the long term, however, because we are increasingly dependent on foreign investors viewing our economy positively and investing in it.
Washington, D.C.: I have a very stable job, but earlier in the year I took out a interest-only, three year ARM loan as a way of jumping in and buying a condo. I wouldn't mind moving prior to the three years, but should I be looking at fixed year loans now in case there are problems selling in three years? Is six months too soon to change the terms of my loan? Thanks, from a (possibly) regretful homeowner.
Kirstin Downey: In the 1980s, I bought a condo--a nice condo, by the way--and lived with a knot of tension in my stomach for almost the entire time I owned it. One year, interest rates fell, and I was pleased to see my payment fall, but in the other years, interest rates rose and my payments steadily went up. I kicked myself about it quite a few times...But older people than me (who had fixed rate mortgages, by the way) would laugh a bit and say 'This is nothing,' reminiscing about the adjustable rate loans they had in the early 1980s that hit 18 percent. Now THAT was scary, they told me.
Virginia: I'm not sure why people are so against 100% mortgages. I mean, I understand that it's better to have some equity in your home, in case housing prices drop, but other than that ... ? People talk about how you have to have fantastic credit and even then, they're a bad idea and blah blah blah. But my husband and I had no trouble getting financing up to 100% last year and his credit isn't fantastic. We got a 5.2% rate on our first, traditional mortgage for 80% and then an equity loan for the other 20%. It was perfect, because we only had enough liquid cash to cover the closing costs, without completely draining our savings account, and it was really the only way we were going to get into the housing market. Since we plan on being in the house for a few years, I'm not worried about not having equity ... what am I missing?
Kirstin Downey: 100 percent mortgages can be fine for people with very stable lives and who intend to remain in their homes for a very long time. Job changes, job loss, ill health, problem marriages can mean bringing cash to the closing table if values fall and you ever have to sell.
Silver Spring, Md.: Why lump all of the ARM loans together? I have a 10/1 ARM and I'm very comfortable with these terms. Mostly, because it's pretty unlikely that I will still be in this home in 10 years. What's the harm?
Kirstin Downey: It might be exactly right for you.
College Park, Md.: I'm making my interest-only loan work for me. I have a lower rate, but am now paying more towards principle than I did (before refinancing) with a more conventional loan for the same monthly payment. Also with only one income, in case of an emergency I can pay interest-only for a month or two. I think the most important thing is that I bought a house I could afford -- no matter what kind of a loan I ended up with. Far too many people use the interest-only loan to live in a house they can't afford any other way.
Kirstin Downey: Thank you. All excellent points. It sounds like you understand the risk and are taking steps to protect yourself against it by paying more to the principal than you are required to do. Interest-only loans are also a good way to go for people with irregular income--such as salespeople on commission, who get big commission checks a couple times a year but otherwise have lower monthly incomes...The reason many economists are worried about these loans is, as you point out that many people used them to buy bigger homes than they could afford, and they are barely making the minimum payments, which leaves them financially exposed.
By the way, I'm interested in writing some stories about interest-only loans and would appreciate hearing all viewpoints, but particularly from consumers, not lenders. Please email me at downeyk@washpost.com if you are interested in participating in one of these future articles.
Oakton, Va.: Interest-only should not be utilized as a substitution for affordability. If the only way that one can buy is with Interest only then they should not be buying in that price range. It is a different scenario if either way a purchaser can make a payment conventional or interest-only. Many lenders are approving interest only loans, because it is the only way the buyer can afford the payment in the short term.
Kirstin Downey: It's odd that so many people consider a real estate slowdown to be a bad thing because it is so obvious that high housing costs causing a lot of problems. In June Fletcher's excellent new book, "House Poor," she points out that young people are being pushed into interest-only loans because housing prices have risen faster than wages. It's not a coincidence that interest-only loans have proliferated fastest in the highest cost markets, like California, New York and Washington, D.C. But it's a chicken-and-egg thing: Housing costs are high, so people take out interest-only loans, which allow them to perpetuate unrealistically high housing prices.
Upper Marlboro, Md.: Help! I'm scared! I purchased a home and am taking a 30-year fixed first 10 years interest-only loan. It only saves me about $200 a month for the first 10 years and I plan to include that amount when I get my next raise. Is this one of the safer loans? Also, the interest rate creep has me nervous. Do you have any information about where that might be going?
Kirstin Downey: I'm not sure about your specific loan, but would appreciate hearing from you. I'd like to write an article on homebuyers living with interest-only loan. These are something new in the market. Until about five years ago, only about 2 percent of buyers had interest-only loans, and they tended to be very wealthy people with diverse assets. No one is exactly sure how they will work for people of more moderate means.
Silver Spring, Md. (100% mortgages): Getting a 100% mortgage three years ago was the best decision we ever made. Due to the housing boom (80% fixed rate, 20% interest only), we now have a 25% equity stake in our home -- and that includes using additional equity to consolidate all our debts, in one nice, easy, entirely tax breakable, monthly payment. If we had waited, we would have still been encumbered with debt and would not have been able to afford to live in the neighborhood we do now.
Kirstin Downey: Congratulations. Sounds like it has worked out fine for you. All I can say is: What goes up goes down. Generally, real estate values stay stable or appreciate at about the rate of inflation. We've gone through an abnormal cycle in the past few years, and it would be unrealistic to expect it to continue...In my (admittedly conservative) opinion, the best reason to own a house is that some day, if you are lucky, you will be too sick and old to work anymore, and if you have a paid-off home, you will be better off than people who do not.
Arlington, Va.: Regarding Laurel, Md.'s comment, interest-only loan or not, the purchaser is still locking in the purchase price of their home at current levels. And if one expects the stock market to outpace the rate of return on a home than maybe interest only loans make sense. After all, many people are realizing that putting a large amount of money down on a home is foolish (at today's low rates) when such money can be invested at a higher rate or return else where. I'm sure the same people who are convinced that interest only loans are such a poor choice are foregoing adding to their savings so that they can accelerate paying down their 5.5% conventional mortgage, right? No?
Anyway, the bottom line is that there isn't anything inherently wrong with interest-only loans. The problem is that people jump into them for the wrong reasons or don't consider (or understand) the personal finance implications of their decisions. But, I'd guess that most people taking out 30-year fixed mortgages don't understand these implications either, it's just that they bear less risk, or their "losses" (from forgoing other investments) will be harder to quantify.
Kirstin Downey: Good points. Thanks.
Fresno, Calif.: Are there any estimates on the number of people using these interest-only loans that will foreclose in the next three to five years?
Kirstin Downey: People with a lot of equity in their homes can always sell if they must. The people who are vulnerable are those who made low down payments AND have interest-only or adjustable, interest-only, loans.
Washington, D.C.: Hi Kirstin,I graduated college four years ago. I wanted to save a down payment before I bought. I moved into a group house even though I could easily have my own one bedroom in the city. This allowed me to save around $800/month. Sadly, as my savings increased so did the market. Hindsight is 20/20.
Well after four years of saving I can put 20% down. I would like to wait for the point where my mortgage after the 20% down would be less than rent for that place or at least close (not like today's market). Do you see those days coming back? I know they were around when I was younger.
Kirstin Downey: Some people foresee opportunities arising in the condo market in the next few years because so many condos are being built.
Washington, D.C.: What do you think will happen once the one to seven year ARMS start floating and the interest-only loans start requiring principal payments? It seems as if a lot of people entered into these loans thinking that they would be able to refinance in a few years, which they can but perhaps at a higher rate or sell their property, which may be difficult. Seems to me that unless salaries rise significantly, there will be a lot of people who can;t afford their mortgages.
Kirstin Downey: Yes, that's why banking regulators are so worried about the growth of interest-only and "option ARM" loans. They are preparing what they call a "guidance," which is a kind of warning, to lenders that will discourage them from offering the more risky variants of these mortgages to people who are less financially stable. This directive is expected to be released before the end of the year. In a recent speech, John Dugan, Comptroller of the Currency, said option ARMS "have a legitimate use in the right hands, but they need to be handled with extreme care," because they can be risky for both consumers and lenders.
McLean, Va.: "What goes up, must come down" ... please let me know when I can get a detached home for under $100,000!
Kirstin Downey: Guess we need a time machine...Nobody is expecting such major drops in prices. Most experts see a gradual softening, and perhaps some declines, but doubt you'll find a detached home for $100,000 anytime soon in your McLean neighborhood!
Sequim, Washington (formerly Washington, D.C.): Kirstin --
What people miss about all of these ARM/zero down/negative amort/interest-only loans is WHY they are risky.
With each of these, folks look to the past and say "if I'd done this 10 years ago I'd be sitting pretty!" True, and irrelevant. Examining history reveals nothing more than that things change and history doesn't perfectly repeat itself.
With all these loans, folks are planning on huge valuation run-ups to cover what is inherently a bad investment -- one in which their equity or their ability to pay is NOT reasonably guaranteed.
If you stay in a house indefinitely, the rise or drop in equity makes no difference. It only makes a difference if you sell. If your payments change and you can cover the difference, likewise it's a no-harm-no-foul game. What's bad about these alternative mortgages is if you do have to sell or if you can't cover a big payment change, you'll have little or nothing to fall back on.
You may have to pay big bucks or go bankrupt to get out of your mortgage and have nothing to show for your years of investment, down payment, etc.
And if it happens to more than a few people, the market value of ALL homes in an area will be affected, and then if for good reason (lose your job but be offered a good job elsewhere) you need to sell, you're next on the list of sacrificial lambs.
Kirstin Downey: Good points. Yes, that's why some people are worried about the growth of these loans, which Fed Chairman Greenspan has called "exotic" loans, suggesting he thinks they are something irregular. I think it's part of the reason for this preoccupation with a housing "bubble."
I bought a condo in May with 100% financing (80% five-year ARM; 20% interest-only home equity loan). I've been trying to pay extra on both loans, but I have relatively little equity (less than $2,000).
What sort of refinance options are available for someone in my situation? I definitely want to refinance before the ARM renews at a higher rate, but I've thought about refinancing the home equity loan before that (I think I could do better on the interest rate).
Kirstin Downey: Hi. I'd like to speak further with you, so I hope you'll drop me an email at downeyk@washpost.com. I'd be glad to take your question to an expert for an answer--please remember I'm just an ink-stained wretch of a journalist--because I imagine a lot of consumers are asking themselves similar questions right now.
McLean, Va.: Most people are just going to refinance into another interest-only loan after five years. It seems like many "experts" don't mention this.
Kirstin Downey: You may be right--if interest-only loans remain widely available. As I mentioned earlier, some banking regulators are wondering how safe they are, for both bankers and buyers.
We're going over our hour now and we'll stop here. Thank you so much for your interesting comments and questions. We'll be continuing to monitor news on the real estate market and we're always glad to expand our reach by hearing your thoughts and observations. My email address is downeyk@washpost.com.
Oakton, Virginia: I have been selling new homes for nearly a decade. It frightens me the amount of consumers utilizing interest-only or option ARMs. It is one thing if it is for vacation or investment properties. I see families everyday that overextend themselves. The only way that they can make the monthly payment is with this alternative loan. I am concerned that in the next five years we are going to see families bailing out of these properties. The market is not going to have these unsustainable price increases and I fear not only will many of these families have no equity but could have negative equity if they are unable to stay in the home for another real estate boom cycle. Yet, many of these lenders are handing out these loans with no sense of the devastation that could lie ahead. Seventy percent of my loans for new buyers are interest-only. They are not utilizing this by choice, but rather a necessity to afford the home, which is dangerous.
Kirstin Downey: P.S. I'd appreciate hearing more about what you are seeing in the real estate market today.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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LONDON There's a new catchphrase in London: Are you a skier? And it has nothing to do with winter sports. It's a quasi-acronym for Are You Spending the Kids' Inheritance? In the age of celebrity culture and instant news, cash is not the only fast currency. Former pillars of the establishment are shorting their Reputation, too.
Sir Christopher Meyer, who was Britain's ambassador to the United States during the run-up to the Iraq war, has clearly decided to cash in his gravitas chips. London dinner tables have been convulsed with argument about the propriety, or otherwise, of his publishing his surprisingly racy new memoir, "DC Confidential."
Just when Tony Blair is trying to deal with a left-wing rebellion among Labor parliamentarians as well as a newly bullish Conservative opposition, his own ex-ambassador is all over the place dismissing the Blair Cabinet as a "crowd of pygmies" and portraying the prime minister as a pushover too dazzled by U.S. power to use Britain's alliance as leverage to slow down the rush to war.
The book received official Foreign Office clearance, but the FO's power of censure extends only to the breach of official secrets. One aspect of the angry reception to Meyer's memoir from critics as lofty as former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, the prominent columnist Simon Jenkins and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is a pitfall of his own making.
The formula for a successful book launch in England begins with having it excerpted -- with maximum hype and minimum balance -- in the all-powerful Tory tabloid the Daily Mail. The deal is that in return for an enormous check and massive exposure, your painstaking research can be caricatured with big sneering headlines, damning pull quotes and snarky photo captions. Bits of social historian Hugo Vicker's elegant, scholarly biography "Elizabeth, the Queen Mother," for instance, appeared in the Mail under the headline "The Steel Marshmallow," with subheads from out-of-context lines like "She even ate the Good Boy choc drops kept for the corgis" and "Her bosom acquires a dry martini flush."
Part 2 of the promotional dance is to gin up protests that the excerpts misrepresent the book's serious, substantive thrust. Meyer no doubt thought he tempered tabloid impact by simultaneous serialization in the high-minded Guardian newspaper, but even Guardian readers check out the Mail first. And the bits the Mail wanted for its readers naturally featured the ambassador bitching about Downing Street apparatchiks excluding him from key meetings at the White House, and anecdotes about how the PM had to race back to his cabin to change when he found he was the only guest wearing jeans at a dinner the president threw at Crawford. Or the vignette of his powerful aide Alastair Campbell standing over Blair in the airplane "gesticulating forcefully while the prime minister sat meekly in his seat like a schoolboy under his instruction."
Should Sir Christopher wish to lodge a semi-official complaint for tonal misrepresentation, he could direct it to the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, a voluntary body that raps the knuckles of offending newspapers. Trouble is, he is chairman of the PCC. So he has had to content himself with the formulaic cover story of telling talk show hosts such as BBC's Sunday morning interrogator Andrew Marr that the book is fairer to Blair than the excerpts make it appear. "If you read the whole book . . .," he started to say. "I have read the whole book," Marr jumped in. "It's pretty rude."
Meyer's major argument for publishing his memoir now is the unfairness of the double standard that allows politicians to unload in real time and censure civil servants for doing the same, but the parallel is a false one. He has broken a tradition that is at the heart of the relationship between senior civil servants with long expertise in their area and their elected bosses. That tradition has enabled British governments to get along without the swarms of self-serving political appointees that afflict Washington. If civil servants can no longer be trusted to be discreet, politicians will fairly soon want to replace them with party hacks qualified only by loyalty -- and Brits, too, can then look forward to a plague of Brownies doing a heck of a job.
Meyer would also have an easier time making his case if it wasn't for the puzzling question of the book's flip literary style, immediately announced by the buzzy inconsequentiality of its "DC Confidential" title.
A popular explanation for the tonal miscue is the intervention of his glamorous, cosmopolitan second wife, Lady Catherine, who gave a playful interview with the Telegraph claiming that her husband wrote a boring and traditional diplomatic memoir until she made him juice it up with sexy detail. From her point of view, it has worked well. A third of the more than 250,000 pounds ($429,389) her husband landed from the serial rights has gone to the charity she chairs for missing children.
Perhaps it is a sign of how much Britain has changed that now the Meyer debate is moving on from "Should he have done the book?" to what is Christopher going to get out of this, long term.
The former Cabinet secretary Lord Butler of Brockwell has called for the removal of Meyer as head of the PCC on the grounds that senior civil servants must abide by a "self-denying ordinance not to reveal the confidences of their political masters." There is no denying it makes it awkward for him to adjudicate on matters of privacy, the most notorious area where the British press is a raucous serial offender. But he has a new three-year contract and can probably ride out the storm.
Then what? As the book amply demonstrates, Meyer is a man who broods darkly if he is not invited to the right dinner parties. Perhaps Meyer's calculation is that being controversial, highly exposed and, thus, more bankable for his next book may make it worth trading away the unexciting respect retired ambassadors used to get for being solid, sound and seriously engaged with Britain's role in the world.
Sir Christopher will have to deploy all his urbane charm to ensure that he won't be called out of retirement and posted to the Australian Outback as a contestant on the hit British TV show "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Outta Here."
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Tony Blair's former U.S. ambassador has written a racy memoir worthy of America's self-serving political appointees. British pols may soon have to replace their civil servants with party hacks qualified only by loyalty.
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Howard Kurtz has been The Washington Post's media reporter since 1990. He is also the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and the author of "Media Circus," "Hot Air," "Spin Cycle" and "The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media and Manipulation." Kurtz talks about the press and the stories of the day in "Media Backtalk."
Howard Kurtz was online Tuesday, Nov. 15, at noon ET to discuss the press and his latest columns.
I like the new time and the hour format for your show on CNN on Sunday morning. I see you are going head to head with Matthews. I like Matthews, but he's a little predictable these days so I'm voting for you with my remote. Now, the real reason I am writing, re the Dana Priest article on the secret CIA prisons. I think this is one of the best, most courageous, and balanced pieces of reporting I've seen this year. (Another piece that I thought was extremely well done and researched was an article earlier about the CIA's "secret" private airplane fleet that they've been using since our international forays to ferry around detainees and prisoners.) I'm not a journalist, but I think the quality of political journalism at The Post has increased in general, as well as relative to the Times, at least over the past year. Anyway, I hope The Post backs up Dana in case the witch hunters in Congress go after her.
Howard Kurtz: Thanks. I wouldn't use the term "witch hunters," since there are legitimate questions about leaks of classified information (which after all has fueled much of the anger about the Valerie Plame leak). But much more worrisome than any congressional probe is what, if anything, the Justice Department will do with the case referred by the CIA. For as we've seen all too recently, once prosecutors get involved, there is the possibility of a subpoena leading to a contempt-of-court jail term.
Washington, D.C.: So I saw Bill Frist on the Today show this morning and was kind of annoyed by the fact that he wasn't just on, but that he was on doing the photo-op while working on building houses for hurricane victims I assume. Is there anyone that has verified that he actually worked on the houses for more than 10 minutes? Also do you think it is right for the news shows to allow politicians on when they are doing the obvious photo-op? Maybe it's just my spite towards him, but I think I'd definitely prefer not to see anyone doing these cheesy appearances and just stick with the regular interview.
Howard Kurtz: I guess it would depend on whether he was really working on the houses or just doing it for the cameras.
Baltimore, Md.: Howard, saw Mary Mapes on your show and I think she gave as good as she got. Question: Did you ever find it suspicious the speed with which Powerline et. al. focused upon the arcane minutiae of typeface, proportion etc.? Seems to me that they had access to the papers before the broadcast. Additionally, the White House never said that the facts within the documents were false. I still believe that this was a deliberate set up to embarrass Rather and CBS and to distract, as Ms. Mapes says, the underlying truth of the story.
Howard Kurtz: A "deliberate setup"? I haven't seen a shred of evidence for that notion. The bloggers were reacting to the documents that CBS News posted online. And if someone did attempt to set up CBS--we still don't know where Mapes's source, former Guardsman Bill Burkett, got those memos--that doesn't let CBS off the hook in terms of verifying the story.
Bellingham, Wash.: I came across some blogs talking about Bill O'Reilly saying San Francisco deserves a terrorist attack because they voted against allowing military recruiters in their schools. I have not seen anything about this in MSM. I may have missed it, or does the MSM for the most part ignore the rantings and ravings of fringe people like him and his counterparts at Air America?
Civil discourse only seem to work for them if that discourse is with someone who agrees with them in the first place.
Howard Kurtz: O'Reilly just said this yesterday on the radio, and most newsrooms aren't monitoring his radio show. Here's what he said:
"If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco."
washingtonpost.com: Media Notes: Another CIA Leak Probe? , ( Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2005 )
Arlington, Va.: Several bloggers and even a few papers are now admitting they did not research claims made by a discharged Marine about atrocities committed by U.S. forces near Fallujah. When will The Post publish a correction or clarification?
Howard Kurtz: I've done a database search and am not finding anything in The Post from this guy, who did manage to fool a couple of major news organizations. It's possible that The Post ran a wire story that is not showing up in the search. Can anyone point me to a specific day and page involving this fellow Jimmy Massey?
New York, N.Y.: Mary Mapes put on a story based on phony evidence. She did not do enough checking to verify the reliability of her evidence. For this, she was fired - justifiably in my opinion.
Now compare this to the hundreds of stories written by dozens of journalists about WMD. They wrote stories based on phony evidence. They did not do enough checking to verify the reliability of their evidence. Other than Judith Miller, who lost her job after more than two years and a generous severance package, no-one was punished in any way.
Can you explain the apparent double-standard?
Howard Kurtz: The other journalists -- and I've written about this at length -- were quoting such people as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, etc. Were they skeptical enough? Were they aggressive enough? Were they open enough to dissenting voices? By and large, no, and some top editors have now admitted that. But it is not quite the same as telling the public you've obtained 30-year-old memos from the National Guard and vouching that those documents are authentic.
Arlington, Va.: The White House issues a press release disputing the accuracy of a Post story on pre-war intelligence and the Post does not even mention it in the next day's paper? Not even a "we stand by our story" notice? Please tell us readers how this news judgment was made by the editors?
Howard Kurtz: I don't know. I was out of town yesterday so I haven't been able to look into this. Good question for the ombudsman.
Albany, N.Y.: Howard, thanks for your excellent work.
Although people in the media do not like to see themselves as advocates for a position or shapers of public opinion, the critical everyday decisions of what news to report and how prominently to report it have a great deal of effect on policies and opinions.
For example, there was an op-ed in The Post yesterday about a Chinese man who was accused of being a terrorist, imprisoned at Guantanamo and then exonerated, but he is still being held there in the same deplorable conditions as the other prisoners.
Surely, our government blatantly depriving an innocent person of his most basic human rights is a significant story. If this story were given more prominence in reporting it surely would affect the public view of the administration's policies toward the detention of terrorists. Why aren't stories like this given more prominence?
Howard Kurtz: Well, Nightline did a report last night on two Iraqi ex-detainees who say they were tortured, and at least in one instance put in a room with lions. It is, as ABC acknowledged, difficult to verify such accounts, as it would have been at Abu Ghraib had journalists not obtained photographic evidence.
Santa Barbara, Calif.: Today's NY Times editorial (11-15) rightfully criticizes Bush for being disingenuous about his handling of the Iraq WMD issue in lead-up to Iraq invasion and his misleading of the American public, yet the Times does not mention her own involvement in the same process via Judy Miller's credulous stories with bogus sourcing from Chalabi and his network. How can the Times credibly act as an arbiter of the true facts of the pre-war era without forthrightly acknowledging her own role?
Howard Kurtz: I think the Times has acknowledged its own role, starting with a lengthy editor's note about the WMD stories that was published last year.
Dunn Loring, Va.: Regarding Massey, the Post published a story on Dec. 8, 2004 on page A20 entitled "Former Marine testifies to Atrocities in Iraq". The article was by Doug Struck, a Post reporter.
Howard Kurtz: Thanks for the info.
Do you think it is ethical for journalists to speculate in print or over the airwaves about the CIA leak case? Specifically, the role of the Vice-President in this matter. If it is an opinion piece, no holds barred, but in a hard news story it seems inappropriate to put this type of speculation out there.
Howard Kurtz: There's been way too much speculation on the story. The day before the Libby indictment, there was so much chatter about whether Karl Rove would be indicted and what the impact would be that you got the impression he was already being led away in handcuffs.
Washington, D.C.: Fred Hiatt's recent column urged Democrats not to focus on allegations the White House manipulated pre-war intelligence; while E.J. Dionne writes today about midterm elections as the context for the President's rush to war and limitation of time for full congressional debate on pre-war evidence. I am wondering which way The Post will cover the story: follow Hiatt's dictum to let lying dogs sleep; or in depth investigative reporting on whether the President went to war when he did to give his party control of our national legislature. Since The Post is an independent newspaper I would think the question Dionne raises would be a legitimate one for The Post to pursue now, rather than to dismiss it out of hand.
Howard Kurtz: They are both in the opinion business. There has hardly been a shortage of pieces in the news pages about the WMD debate and what happened and who knew what when and who is to blame.
Gainesville, Fla.: I thought your piece about Maureen Dowd was insightful and revealing; sort of a "let Maureen be Maureen" appreciation without fawning or blowing things out of proportion.
And your interview with Mary Mapes was equally fair. What is your take on why the press hasn't pursued that whole matter in depth, to its logical conclusion in order to find out what really happened with all that stuff?
Howard Kurtz: Thanks. If you're talking about Bush and the National Guard, I think journalists tried in both 2000 and 2004 to get to the bottom of the matter, but were never fully able to do so.
Portland, Maine: When can we expect The Post to investigate the government's misquoting of Scott McClellen in last week's press conference ("That's accurate")?
Howard Kurtz: One of our White House correspondents said last week that he's looking into it.
Dunn Loring, Va.: Why do reporters, like The Post's Dan Froomkin, characterize the President responding to his critics as "campaigning" but never acknowledge that the criticisms he is responding to are also the result of campaigning by Democrats? Isn't this a double standard?
Howard Kurtz: It seems obvious to me, and I bet to most readers, that both sides are engaged in a full-blown campaign to affix blame over the WMD debate that provided a major justification for the war.
Wilmington, N.C.: On Veterans' Day, Bush said, "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support." I don't remember it that way. I thought he needed the threat to force in inspectors and would only use it as a last resort. Is he making an admission there that the decision was made earlier than previously stated?
Howard Kurtz: I think it's fair to say that Congress, well aware of the stakes, gave Bush the authority to go to war if he deemed it necessary. Whether lawmakers were fully informed about the intelligence on which Bush relied in making the case is what's at issue now. John Edwards, by the way, now says his vote on the war was a mistake.
Minneapolis, Minn.: Why do you waste your time quoting, uncritically, people like John Hinderaker? You write:
"But others have plenty to say. John Hinderaker, an attorney and blogger, says on the Web site Power Line: 'It would be a great thing if the steady stream of illegal anti-administration leaks out of the CIA and the State Department could be shut down, and some of the Democrat leakers imprisoned. It's time to put the Plame farce to a good use.'"
Perhaps you could enlighten us by identifying just one of the following: (1) an illegal, anti-administration CIA leak; (2) an illegal, anti-administration State Department leak; or (3) an illegal, anti-administration "Democrat" leak. No need to cite the whole steady stream; any one will do. A reference to the law violated would be helpful.
If not, perhaps you could explain why Hinderaker's statement deserves any more space in the pages of your newspaper than do the writings on the wall of men's room stall.
Howard Kurtz: First, in my online column I quote all kinds of bloggers and commentators to give readers a sense of the debate out there; you're free to agree, disagree or ignore them as you see fit. Second, the passing of classified information about secret CIA prisons to The Washington Post is a) potentially illegal, and b) could be seen as a leak designed to undermine and/or embarrass the CIA.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Howard- please explain why you quoted a discredited figure like Bill Bennett. His outrageous remarks about lowering the crime rate by aborting black babies, not to mention his self-serving hypocrisy, when he was exposed as a degenerate gambler who writes books about living a virtuous life. With all this, and you cite him as someone credible enough to quote???
Howard Kurtz: William Bennett is a former education secretary and drug czar, best-selling author and host of a national radio show. Whether you consider him a credible source is up to you, but in this context he is certainly a legitimate critic.
Washington, D.C.: With political mouthpieces attempting to direct covert policy (The honorable reverend of the nine commandments) and assigning targets to Al-Qaeda (transcript later removed from his Web site) how is the American public to be protected from the fourth branch of the government's influence on elections across the country? As a follow-up, is this last election sweep for the Democrats indicative of the media's recent call to action against the current administration?
Howard Kurtz: Call to action against the current administration? I must have been taking a nap when that happened. Also, electing Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia is not exactly a national barometer of where the campaign is headed next year, despite some ardent spinning to the contrary. Had Jon Corzine and Tim Kaine lost, the Democrats would have been saying it didn't mean anything nationally and the Republicans would be saying the opposite.
Alexandria, Va.: Would you acknowledge that part of the trend puffed by Newsweek and others on Tim Kaine's "faith-based" victory in Virginia had something to do with two puffy front-page Kaine-the-Catholic profiles in the last days of the campaign? Would you agree that when a candidate's Catholicism seems liberal and unthreatening (Kaine), it gets a different take in The Post from when it seems conservative and "rigid" (Santorum)?
Howard Kurtz: What I would acknowledge is that Tim Kaine made his faith and his views on values a central part of his campaign, and so naturally the press is going to focus on that when a Democrat wins in a red state -- especially one who says that as a church member he is personally opposed to abortion and the death penalty but will carry out the law.
Moneta, Va.: Mary Mapes did it to herself. The document was a phony. There were at least two or three of four document consultants (to CBS) who cautioned her about document's authenticity. She ran the story anyway. Apparently because she believed "the information" was true (or she WANTED it to be true). Sad. When you pile that on previous "creative" reporting by The Post (e.g., returned Pulitzer), you can see why MSM (and Democrat politicians) have NO CREDIBILITY.
Howard Kurtz: That's quite a leap from Janet Cooke in 1980 to Mary Mapes in 2004. There were SOME good stories in the intervening 24 years, weren't there? Also, I have never said or written that her National Guard documents were fake. What I've said, and what other experts and the outside panel commissioned by CBS has said, is that Mapes & Co. were not able to prove that the papers were authentic.
Centerville, Va.: Is it fair to say you get more liberal complaints about allowing conservatives into your stories, or more complaints from conservatives about letting liberals in your stories? It seems to me that conservatives ask for balance, and liberals ask for only the "truthful" side to be aired.
Howard Kurtz: I wouldn't want to generalize. There are critics on both sides of the spectrum who seem upset if I quote someone they dislike. My feeling is, feel free to criticize what these folks say but don't decree that they can't be part of the debate. For yesterday's column I interviewed one conservative critic of The Post's CIA prisons story (Bennett) and one who came at it from a liberal point of view.
Silver Spring, Md.: This post is probably more appropriate for a Weingarten chat where I'm a regular denizen, but, I saw someone who looked very much like you in Rock Creek Park last Sunday (a week ago) with his lovely wife and adorable 1 year old or so daughter. I have two questions: Was that you, and if so, would it have been appropriate of me to say hi and that I enjoy your work, or would you prefer to enjoy a walk in the park with your family without being bothered? (Not knowing the answer to either of the questions, I just sorta stared, trying to figure out if it was you. Sorry.)
Howard Kurtz: And the answers are: yes, and yes. I don't mind if people want to say hello if they happen to see me around. So far I'm not being mobbed in airports and am able to live a perfectly normal life.
San Francisco, Calif.: Hi Howard!
Thanks for doing these chats. A question regarding the "phase II" of the Senate investigation into whether the Bush administration exaggerated and misrepresented the intelligence concerning WMD in Iraq. Given that the substance of the controversy involves what the Bush administration said publicly, and given that there is decent access to the actual intelligence that existed, when will we see a point-by-point analysis piece in a major newspaper comparing the two? My point is - it seems to me that an investigative journalist could accomplish what the Senate has not yet completed. Has there been a piece like this that I've missed, or can we expect to see something like this soon?
Howard Kurtz: But it involves more than what officials have said publicly. It involves what they said to each other privately, what e-mails they sent, how their strategy was developed, and that is generally beyond the purview of even aggressive reporters. Look, for example, what Patrick Fitzgerald, armed with subpoena power, was able to unearth about Scooter Libby's role in the Valerie Plame outing that journalists had no way of confirming.
Boston, Mass.: I am sure there will be millions of words written comparing and contrasting the Plame leak with the leak about CIA Prison Camps. But I think any twelve year old could tell you the difference in about two sentences: one was used to undermine an adversary and the other was used to blow the whistle on pretty scary stuff. Am I missing anything?
Howard Kurtz: Whether the use of secret prisons to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects is "scary stuff" or an important component of the war on terror is at the center of a pretty serious debate. But I would certainly agree that what Dana Priest did in reporting that story is, unlike in the Plame case, a classic use of unnamed sources to reveal a matter of public importance that the government has kept hidden.
Charlotte, N.C.: Why is it the news media let pass politicians, mostly Democrats, against the war, or those who just hate Bush, without questioning and pressing them for examples of what they mean when they say, "Bush and his administration manipulated the facts to go to war". Especially those politicians who make similar statements, and pointed to the same facts as did Bush, as to why Iraq was such a threat?
Howard Kurtz: Excuse me, but wasn't John Kerry asked variations of that question about 10,000 times in last year's campaign?
Southwest Pa.: Hello, Howard and thanks again for these chats. The President gives a speech criticizing his political opposition and within hours Post columnists and others highlight the fibs and distortions contained in his remarks. A majority of Americans now question Mr. Bush's credibility and character. I'm no political consultant, but I doubt he will be able to turn his numbers around with more exaggeration and distortion. Your thoughts?
Howard Kurtz: I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're not a Bush fan. Look, I have no idea whether the president will be able to climb out of the political hole he's in. He's clearly had a rough few months. But he's in office for another three years, which is several lifetimes in politics. Much will depend on the economy, the outcome in Iraq and whether Bush can win support for a revised second-term agenda after the implosion of his Social Security plan. Keep in mind, in early '95, after losing both houses of Congress, Clinton was reduced to insisting he was still relevant, but 18 months later he won reelection handily.
Arlington, Va.: For Boston: what the Plame and CIA prison leaks have in common is that classified information was wrongly leaked to the media. Forget the motivation - it is wrong, and whoever did it deserves to be punished! Losing his clearance, job and possibly freedom are the consequences, no matter if you are Scooter Libby or some Pentagon analyst.
Howard Kurtz: People's views on the leaking of classified information are often influenced by whether they agree with what the leakers are trying to accomplish.
Oh Really?: "O'Reilly just said this yesterday on the radio, and most newsrooms aren't monitoring his radio show."
Um, MSNBC had a story several days ago saying O'Reilly said it last week on Election Day....
Bill O'Reilly takes aim at San Francisco
Howard Kurtz: I stand corrected. He was on this topic again last night, so I thought it was more recent.
D.C., behind the teleprompter....: Howard:
Shouldn't the media impose a rule that anyone (regardless of party) who mindlessly parrots broadly circulated partisan talking points should be banned from public discourse? Reporters should demand that politicians and their familiars try to think for themselves, or at least put ideas into their own words. Our politics in this country is dying from lack of wit and originality. We once had Lincoln and the Roosevelts. We once had Everett Dirksen and Tip O'Neill. Sure, they al had speech writers, but they also could think on their fee. Now, all we have actors reading scripts and no one seems to be calling them on it or asking for more than their being able to get the words out, on camera with a straight face. Sad..
Keep up the great work.
Howard Kurtz: Not a bad idea, but that would reduce the 24-hour cable news networks to about one hour a day.
Los Angeles, Calif.: Re: Questions for John Kerry
I'm curious what John Kerry meant when he said he'd achieve victory in Iraq during the 2004 campaign. I think Kerry was planning on reviewing the Bush/Cheney rationales in order to declare the war unjustified and ill-advised, and was going to disengage. Your opinion?
Howard Kurtz: I guess we'll never know what President Kerry would have done. The impression I got from watching him for two years was that he strongly supported winning in Iraq but would go about it differently than the administration.
Unearthing Scooter Libby: Journalists could have EASILY confirmed everything that was "unearthed" by Fitzgerald. Because all the information uncovered by Fitzgerald was discovered by interviewing .... journalists! Couldn't Russert, Miller, Cooper et.al. merely appeared in their own venues and told everything they know (something Russert has yet to do, BTW)?
Howard Kurtz: But even if the journalists were willing to betray confidences by doing that, they had no way of knowing that Cheney, for example, was one of the first to tell Libby about Wilson's wife working at the CIA, or that Libby had brought it up at a lunch with Ari Fleischer.
Fort Collins, Colo.: What are the differences between Judy Miller's involvement in the Plame leak and Dana Priest's involvement in the leaks of the secret prisons? Should the source of one be protected but the source of the other not? I support Priest: she was uncovering government malfeasance, but not Miller: she was functioning as an attack dog for the administration (that is she would be if she had actually written an article). However, I wonder if I am simply swayed by my dislike for the present administration.
Howard Kurtz: As I alluded to earlier, you can't pick and choose whether classified leaks should be allowed based on your political preferences. But in Miller's case, she never even wrote a story about what we now know was an administration effort to discredit Joe Wilson through his wife. In Priest's case, she was bringing an important, secret matter to public attention -- but that doesn't make her story any less controversial. And as I wrote yesterday, many liberals are angry at her and The Post for holding back the locations of those secret prisons at the request of senior U.S. officials.
Thanks for the chat, folks.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Post media columnist Howard Kurtz discusses the press.
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AOL to Have Reruns on Demand
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2005111519
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America Online Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. are planning to put thousands of episodes of once-popular television shows like "Welcome Back Kotter" and "Chico and the Man" on the AOL.com Web site, where high-speed Internet users can view them for free.
The new In2TV service is set to launch in January and will include episodes of more than 100 shows.
Company officials, scheduled to announce the service today, said the shows will be available on demand, meaning computer users who search six new Web-based television channels on AOL.com will be able to choose when they watch the shows and which episodes to view. The companies, both part of media giant Time Warner Inc., will profit by sharing revenue from advertising, including banner ads and four 15-second streaming video ads per 30-minute episode.
In an interview, Kevin Conroy, executive vice president of Dulles-based AOL's media networks division, said this has the potential to increase traffic on America Online's network of Web sites, which includes MovieFone, Mapquest and AOL's instant messaging service, AIM. AOL has about 112 million users monthly on those sites, and its AIM network can be used with the television broadcasts to enable computer users in different places to watch shows together.
"From AOL's perspective, this does mark a big first," Conroy said. "For the first time, we are giving today's high-speed Internet users the chance to interact with television in a big way. We are creating a new distribution platform at a significant scale for television content. We made the decision to bring this to market in an advertiser-supported model to be in sync with where the market is, and where it is going. The market for online advertising continues to grow."
The announcement comes amid a blizzard of new initiatives involving television and the Internet that have been unveiled recently. Major television networks plan to offer episodes of certain popular series, as well as nightly news broadcasts, on the Internet whenever computer users want to watch them, and Apple Computer Inc. is rolling out a new array of television content for mobile iPod users.
Eric Frankel, president of domestic cable distribution for Warner Bros., said In2TV would launch with interactive games and six channels: LOL, the laugh-out-loud comedy channel; Dramarama; Heroes and Horrors; Rush, with "Kung Fu" and other action programming; and Vintage, which will feature "F Troop," the once-popular western "Maverick," and "Growing Pains," in whose later episodes starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
"What we are finding is that everyone who is a big movie star started on television and had recurring or cameo roles," Frankel said in an interview. "We have 4,800 episodes available during the first year." Two additional channels are in the works, he said, adding that computer users would have immediate access to new puzzles, trivia games and ways to interact with the programming itself.
In2TV is part of AOL's new strategy to increase the size of its audience by giving away content for free and profiting from advertising. Time Warner is in talks with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., both of which have expressed interest in either buying a minority stake in AOL or finding a way to partner and then share the increased ad revenue that could be generated.
As early as this week, Time Warner may decide to negotiate exclusively with just one of AOL's two suitors, according to sources familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of negotiations are secret.
The preliminary talks between Time Warner and Google appear to be the most promising, sources said, in part because Google is already the search engine on the AOL service, they have partnered for years, and they have figured out a basic structure that would benefit both companies in a joint venture. One possible scenario is that Google would find ways to send more Internet users to AOL's network of Web sites, and the parties would share the increased ad revenue. Google is working on devising the best way to do that without compromising its search results. The focus is on increasing the number of users on AOL's network of sites by giving America Online a new way of bidding on keywords that trigger ads on Google.
Alternatively, Time Warner and Microsoft are discussing a less likely scenario that would involve putting the AOL and MSN advertising networks together, an increase in scale that would enable one-stop shopping for advertisers.
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America Online Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. are planning to put thousands of episodes of once-popular television shows like "Welcome Back Kotter" and "Chico and the Man" on the AOL.com Web site, where high-speed Internet users can view them for free.
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The Politics of War
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Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraq's vice president, may seem a bit unfeeling as he assesses the ongoing violence in his country. It is very hard, he says -- but better than during Saddam Hussein's day, when, Mahdi says, each year 30,000 Iraqis were executed or assassinated by the regime or killed in the dictator's wars.
It may sound unfeeling, that is, until you remember that, just days before Mahdi's visit to Washington last week, his older brother was killed in a drive-by shooting.
This he does not speak about quite so matter-of-factly. But Mahdi, who was imprisoned and then exiled by Hussein, puts even this fresh murder in historical context. "My brother always suffered," Mahdi said. "Whenever they had a problem with me, they would detain him, they would torture him . . .
"They waged terrorism from within the government," Mahdi added. "Now they are waging the same attacks, as an opposition, from the streets. . . . These are the same methods, practiced by the same people."
A Shiite political leader with a good chance of becoming prime minister after next month's elections, Mahdi brought to Washington a familiar complaint: that the U.S. media and their audience focus exclusively on the bad news, ignoring Iraq's "tremendous achievements." Turnout was high in Iraq's first election, higher for its constitutional referendum and will be higher still, he said, in the December vote -- all despite death threats to anyone who votes. In the face of terror, Iraq's progress toward democracy is unprecedented in the Middle East.
But, he says, Iraq and the United States are "victims of different agendas."
"Iraq's is a life-or-death agenda -- how to build a democracy," Mahdi said. "Others' are political agendas."
Whether Iraqis are in fact committed to a life-or-death struggle for democracy will become clear as its army does, or does not, continue to shoulder a greater burden. But the aptness of Mahdi's view of the United States is already evident in Congress, which pours most of its Iraq-related energy into allegations of manipulated intelligence before the war.
"Those aren't irrelevant questions," says Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). "But the more they dominate the public debate, the harder it is to sustain public support for the war."
What Lieberman doesn't say is that many Democrats would view such an outcome as an advantage. Their focus on 2002 is a way to further undercut President Bush, and Bush's war, without taking the risk of offering an alternative strategy -- to satisfy their withdraw-now constituents without being accountable for a withdraw-now position.
Many of them understand that dwindling public support could force the United States into a self-defeating position, and that defeat in Iraq would be disastrous for the United States as well as for Mahdi and his countrymen. But the taste of political blood as Bush weakens, combined with their embarrassment at having supported the war in the first place, seems to override that understanding.
The Democrats could be responsible and fiercely critical, too, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has shown throughout the war. When they pull a stunt such as insisting on a secret Senate session, it could be to debate Bush's policies on torture and detention. They could ask whether everything possible is being done to furnish the Iraqi army with protective armor. They could question whether anyone inside the administration is focusing with the same urgency on prodding Iraqi politicians toward compromise as are America's ambassador and top generals in the field.
Individual Democratic senators have focused on individual questions such as these (for example, Michigan's Carl Levin on torture), but for the caucus and its leader, Harry Reid (Nev.), the key questions are all about history.
"We're at war, and we've got to remind ourselves of that from time to time," Lieberman said. And not just, or even mostly, Democrats, Lieberman stressed last week at an Aspen Institute forum: "It really has to start, ought to start, with the administration."
President Bush can lash out at the Democrats, as he did Friday, but ultimately they are mostly exploiting public opinion; he is largely responsible for shaping it. And had he been more honest from the start about the likely difficulties of war, readier to deal with them and then more open in acknowledging his failures, the public likely would be more patient.
A true wartime president, Lieberman said, would reach out regularly to congressional leaders of both parties. He would explain strategy, admit mistakes, be open to suggestions.
That hasn't happened -- which goes a long way toward explaining why a war that should be understood as life-or-death for Americans too has become, as Mahdi said in more polite terms, a political football.
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A war that should be understood as life-or-death for Americans has become a political football.
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Trade Association Mergers
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2005111319
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Washington Post business columnist Jeffrey Birnbaum was online Monday, Nov. 14 at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the topic and answer your questions and comments.
His K Street Confidential column that focuses on the intersection between government and business appears every other Monday in the Washington Post business section.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Hello everyone. I'm Jeff Birnbaum. Thanks for visiting and asking questions. Please ask as many as you'd like, on any subject related to official Washington. I hope we can have some fun.
I write a column and features here at the Washington Post and have been around in Washington for a long time. I've written for the Wall Street Journal, Time and Fortune and am a longtime political contributor with Fox News Channel. So, if you'd like, feel free to toss in a question or two about a variety of matters.
Today, my column, K Street Confidential, is about mergers among trade associations. So, let's begin!
Houston, Tex.: Why have you stopped appearing on Special Report with Brit Hume? Fox used to have differing opinions, now every syndicated opportunist represents the mouth piece of the Bush Administration. There is no fair and balance report on Fox anymore and the public is aware of this. I also noticed that Juan Williams not appearing because Brit could not stand Juan's opinion since it did not support the Bush's policies. Fox is losing a lot of viewers. Why put 4 people with same opinion on the same show. It will be better to just have Brit be the Judge and Jury for his program.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Thank you for your question. I am still, proudly, a Fox News contributor and a member in good standing of Brit Hume's "Fox All Stars." I'm sure I'll be on Brit's panel soon. The main folks on the panel, Fred, Mara and Mort have been there very consistently lately, not leaving much room for the others in the rotation. Not to worry, though. We'll all be back. Please don't ascribe any conspiracy theories to who's on and who's not. Brit is an excellent journalist and is not trying to slant his panel in the way you suggest. Thank you for watching and stick with us, please!
Kingstowne, Va.: Shouldn't trade association mergers be viewed as a good thing if they are performing duplicative efforts? It would save the industry time, money, and lobbying efforts to have one widget association instead of two, don't you agree?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Yes, trade association mergers make good sense when there's an overlap of members and of interests. They are slow to happen, however, largely because their staffs become very entrenched and, like any organization, dig in against major change. But change is inevitable, especially when dollars and cents are involved. Corporations, especially during times that aren't booming, like now, insist on saving money where they can. Association dues is one of those places.
Washington, D.C.: Will having less, but more streamlined, trade associations make them more effective in their lobbying efforts? or will less associations making noise hamper their efforts?
If there are three lobbyists from two organizations demanding time with members of Congress, their staffs and decision makers in the executive branch, that isn't efficient at all.
Especially if they are all asking for the same thing, which would often be the case for overlapping associations in the same industry.
Lawmakers, however, might wish to have duplication, at least when it comes to political action committee donations. For people seeking reelection, the more money the better, of course.
Alexandria Va: How much does corporate cost cutting affect association mergers? Do the green eyeshades guys at XYZ Corp look at the ledger and say, "Why do we belong to two associations that essentially perform the same function?"
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Cost cutting is central to the trend. Why should a company foot the bill for two million-dollar associations when one would do? Two sets of lobbyists, two sets of public relations people, two sets of computer experts, two sets of researchers and two CEOs. Why do that!
The CEOs in particular can get very expensive.
There often are two sets of ourside consultants, too.
That's a lot of duplication in an era where cost-cutting at the corporate level is very much in vogue.
As one lobbyist wrote to me this morning, it's surprising that more associations aren't folded into each other given the amount of superfluous activity there often is in the trade group world.
Arlington, Va.: What other mergers do you see coming in the near future?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: I don't know for sure. I have written that there are too many high tech lobbying groups in town. But so far their corporate members haven't balked.
Still, if I were to look at an industry that is very, very, very thoroughly represented in DC, tech would be one of them. That also makes it a prime target for mergers.
Then again, a lot of groups, and I'm not just talking about tech here, dislike each other so much that they must be all but forced into a combination.
All I know is that more are coming--or should be coming.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Send it in as another question if you wish.
Woodley Park, D.C.: Have you heard anything about the lobbying efforts of the electronics industry and environmental community to enact a national law governing the recycling of computers and electronics? I read about this in some computer magizine. It seems interesting because the electronics industry is asking for additional federal regulation.
Apparently they are trying to get ahead of states that are passing their own strict e-waste laws.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Speaking of tech lobbying . . .
I had heard whispers about this but don't know the details. I'll take a look.
It isn't unusual for industries that normally oppose regulation to seek a federal preemption of states--if the states are about to whack them hard.
Some people see a moral contradiction in such an action. And so do I.
But I also see pragmatic, amoral Washington at work. You just can't make this stuff up!
There are no end to stories in the capital city.
Please, by the way, don't hesitate to send me story ideas, either on this chat or via my column's e-mail,
Grand Rapids, Mich.: Are other trade associations rumored to be considering mergers? I'm familiar with at least three major national telecom associations that appear to duplicate considerable activities--United States Telecom Association, National Telephone Cooperative Association, and the Organization to Promote and Advance Small Telecom Companies. How does the media decide who gets covered when more than one group is speaking for overlapping memberships?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: I haven't heard about mergers in telecom. I will check, though, now that you mention it.
My guess is that the issues that those companies face in DC are so large and expensive that the industry would more than tolerate overlap. The more help that they can muster, the better.
The big lobbying fight in the future between cable and telephones and satellites will be huge and have important consequences for us all.
Where there's a lot of activity, mergers don't normally occur. Quiet times allow for the reflection and disruption that consolidations often bring.
Silver Spring, Md.: How do these mergers affect the personnel at the associations? Do they result in mass layoffs, or do they have the opposite effect?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: If mergers go as planned, I'm sad to say that people lose their jobs. Like corporate mergers, one of the reasons that they happen is to save money for the investors.
In the case of associations, the investors are the companies that pay dues. If they can cut expenses, which often means cuts jobs, they'll do it.
It is remarkable that Washington trade groups haven't been as much impacted by that kind of downsizing. Corporate America has put its employees through the ringer and in the capital we get a fraction of the dislocation.
Lawrence, Kans.: Jeff: You write -- "The number of trade and professional groups has increased... to about 86,000. But John H. Graham IV, president of the American Society of Association Executives, said that he believes the increase has come among professional societies -- for doctors, scientists and the like -- and not in industry trade associations, where shrinkage is the norm." So, how will these 2 trends affect lobbying in DC?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Professional societies are growing because it costs less for them to put information out to their increasingly specialized members.
The Internet is responsible for this. The expense of putting up a Web site that is useful to a specialist, say a doctor, is small. But the value to the specialist can be very large, given the rapid pace of change in the sciences these day.
That's why we see proliferating professional societies. They can use the information and it's easy to get the information to them.
Not so with industry groups. They provide elaborate services to members that require conventions, seminars and the like. They also have expensive lobbying operations.
As industries consolidate, so do their associations. That, at least, has been the trend.
Wheaton, Md: Why do so many associations seem obsessed with hiring a "big name" as their CEO? Obviously they think a former pol will give them access, but so often it seems that associations hire defeated Congressman. The end result, of course, is that the CEO continues to act as though he is a Congressman, and is completely out-of-touch with the issues facing the industry he is supposed to represent. Defeated Congressmen are a dime a dozen these days. So why do associations value them over, say, someone who has worked in the industry for decades and knows the issues backwards and forwards?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: You raise a very large topic.
Members of Congress have not made very good lobbyists, generally, because they don't like asking for favors. They are used to being asked.
Not all former members are able to transition from being the person in power to being the person seeking power.
That problem goes double when a lawmaker takes on the responsiblity of running a trade association.
He or she must ask for favors and also be a first-rate organizer. He or she must also be submissive to corporate chietains who are the real bosses of the group.
Those two extra skills are often lacking in former members of Congress--both the ability to organize and to bow and scrape.
In other words, it is the rare former lawmaker who also can be a first rate association CEO. That's one reason that so few of them are.
It's a relatively recently trend to put politicians in those highly visible roles. We now have a cluster of former governors running associations, such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Associations.
I haven't yet come to any conclusion about how well or how badly these and other former government officials do in such senior positions.
Maybe you have an opinion worth sharing on the subject. Please write in!
Fairfax County, Va.: As a 10-year veteran of five different associations, I can attest that cost-cutting does occur when business turns sour for the group's member companies. I have been laid off from one association that later went on to merge with another, and I survived six (!) rounds of layoffs in the span of a year at another association that was facing heavy new regulations on their ability to do business. Association jobs aren't sinecures.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Thank you for the note. Yes, times can be tough for trade associations that represent industries that are contracting.
Industries that also have narrow profit margins, such as trucking, also can be hard to keep a trade association for.
Associations tend to last, however, in a way that the underlying industry doesn't. Companies find that Washington is a high-yield investment, even if their own business isn't doing so well.
Chris, New York, NY: Is there any talk in Washington that business has overreached and the next cycle will be one of consumer and citizen backlash?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Yes, there's a lot of talk on that subject.
It came up again in a big way last week when the CEOs of five oil companies testified on Capitol Hill. A lot of people are asking if President Bush and the Republicans are too close to Big Oil, especially now that their profits zoomed and prices for consumers increased.
In general, the Bush administration has been among the friendliest in modern times to corporate America. A lot of companies have set up shop here thinking they can take advantage of the situation and get something for themselves and/or their industry.
For many companies, that's worked. We've seen five tax cut bills in the first four years of George W. Bush.
But that gravy train may being coming to an end. Republicans in Congress are fighting among themselves over budget cutbacks and Bush doesn't seem to have much control over them now that his poll ratings are falling.
Nonetheless, the election of 2006 could well answer your question better than I can. If consumer advocates and critics of Bush's business policy win office, then voters will show their displeasure with Bush's policies on business in his first term.
I warn, however, that the mid-term elections are a year from now. And a year is an eternity in politics. What we are thinking is important now may not even be on voters' minds in November 200-==let along in 2008!
Fairfax, Va.: What is your take on fellow Fox News contributor Bill O'Reilly's recent comments about San Francisco? This does not seem like the type of rhetoric that an upstanding news agency should in any way condone by their continued lack of comment.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Sadly, I don't know what Bill said about San Francisco. But just because we both work for Fox News doesn't mean we agree on everything. In fact, Fox has a wide collection of opinions, which is one reason it's so well watched.
Washington, D.C.: Can you think of a legitimate reason the National Rural Electric Coop Association still exists in any form whatsoever? And didn't they even move to expensive new headquarters recently to boot?
Jeffrey Birnbaum: I will check into the headquarters, to be sure. Thanks! The question is better asked about the underlying federal program that the assocaition represents. Is it necessary anymore. I heave read (andc written) stories that suggest that it isn't as much anymore.
Max Boot, AEI: Just what is your political philosophy? Because you seem to be a Democrat, but you often make sense, so that can't be right.
Seriously, why did Howard Dean duck a mano a mano debate with Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press last Sunday? Why isn't the media, other than the Washington Times, covering Dean's failure to condemn racist remarks made by Maryland Democrats against Michael Steele? Dean, after all, got in big trouble for his "Confederate flag" comments during teh primaries. Lastly, are the Democrats experiencing fund-raising problems, or have they improved their financial position, like Dean claims? He says that they have paid operatives in 38 states -- on track for 50 by year's end -- but wasn't part of the problem in 2004 that Democrats had paid operatives but Republicans had friends and neighbors who got out thr vote? I thought Dean would have learned from losing the primaries in part because his stipended orange-hatted crazies disturbed the Iowa townies.
Jeffrey Birnbaum: I will take this as a compliment, Max. The answer is yes, Dean is very much on the minds of reporters such as myself, and of the Washington Post, that put a critical story about his fundraising on its front page on Saturday. Cheers!
Jeffrey Birnbaum: Thank you for your questions. I really enjoyed this chat. Let's do it again soon! And please keep reading K Street Confidential!
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.
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Small Business 101
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2005111319
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If you are thinking about starting your own business, you probably have tons of questions about where to start. Get advice from Small Business 101 to learn more about the basics of entrepreneurship.
Scott Parsons is the director of the financial services division for the Virginia Department of Business Assistance. He also serves as the executive director of the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority.
Scott has over 18 years of commercial lending experience. He has worked with Bank of America and its Virginia predecessors working as a credit analyst, a commercial account manager, and later as a manager of a central credit underwriting center in the commercial card division. Most of his experience has been in assisting small businesses with their financial needs.
A native of Norfolk, Virginia, he graduated from the University of Richmond.
Scott was online to talk about financial planning
Frederick, Md.: I am looking to start a small business but I have a low FICO score(650). Can I still get loans from banks to help out?
Scott Parsons: I hate to use this cliche, but "that depends". While a FICO score is a reflection of one's repayment history, it is not always the sole criteria used by a bank in its loan decision process. A low FICO score doesn't help though. Other factors like a good co-signer, collateral, and a business plan that shows an ability to repay might be factors in helping to overcome the low score.
St. Louis, Mo.: For those of us without a business background, the financial planning aspects of starting a small business can be intimidating. Are there any reference tools you can recommend to serve as a cheat sheet for basic financial planning, including what records a small business is required to keep and how to prepare for tax filing?
Scott Parsons: The web has numerous sites to assist individuals and business owners in these matters. I suggest you first contact your state's office of economic development or Department of Commerce. They should be able to refer you to resources within your state. The SBA website, www.sba.gov has valuable information that you can download and links to other resources such as the network of Small Business Development Centers that provide training to individuals who want to start a business.
Accokeek, Md.: I'm interested in starting a multimedia production business that I will operate from my house. I have previous knowledge and training in the industry, in addition I'm continuing my education to be proficient in the latest technology available. How should I formulate a business plan to attract an investor that would be willing to invest the capital to purchase the equipment necessary to operate the business?
Scott Parsons: I recommend that you contact your Small Business Development Center network. They can provide training to you for writing a business plan and will also have information pertaining to what Angel and VC networks look for in an investment. The SBA can direct you to the Development Center network if you are unsure of how to find them, or contact your state's office of economic development. The web has numerous sites to assist you as well. Be prepared to invest your own money and to share in the ownership of your company. Good hunting and good luck!
Baltimore, Md. : I have a plan for a technology company, but no product as yet. Producing one would require considerable investment. At what point is it appropriate to approach "professional" investors, such as investment banks or VC firms? And can I do this locally, or do I have to go to New York or Silicon Valley?
Scott Parsons: Don't even think about being ready to approach anyone without a product. What would you tell them? You have a PLAN? Please!
Do your homework. Start reading books and business journals about technology companies and investigate the successes and failures within the industry. Research the market for the technology products that might come close to being in your PLAN. Is there a niche for you? Talk to local business owners, the Chamber of Commerce and your state's office of economic development, universities, technology centers, etc. You have much to do before you can begin to think of starting a company.
You'll have fun! Go for it!
Washington, D.C. : Scott, I have an idea for a home-based business but don't have much savings and need some seed money to get started. I cannot ask family for loans or gifts. What should I do? Should I go to the bank? Or just try low-interest credit cards?
Scott Parsons: I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I don't.
Asking a bank for a loan without having any cash equity to put into the business is not likely to bring you positive results. Many entrepreneurs begin their businesses by "boot strapping", meaning they find seed capital through family and friends and they borrow on credit cards. While credit card debt may be easy to obtain, be careful. It is still a loan that requires repayment and often times those "low interest rates" are temporary.
I would recommend using all of your contacts and network like crazy to find potential investors. Talk to your Small Business Development Center and Chamber of Commerce to find out networking opportunities for entrepreneurs and angel investors to meet.
Alexandria., Va. : I'm interested in trying to franchise a restaurant -- a national chain. But their franchise fee is massive (several hundred thousand dollars) and that doesn't cover other costs. Can I get state help for a venture such as this? What would I need to show to impress investors or state agencies that I'm qualified to run this business (I have experience in foodservice management)?
Scott Parsons: You will need to have plenty of cash equity of your own in order to purchase a franchise. Such ventures are risky, provide little-to-no collateral for a lender and repayment ability is based not on historical proven numbers, but rather the entrepreneur's best guess as to what revenues and expenses the enterprise might have. Expect to have at least 30% cash equity and outside collateral to cover any funds that are borrowed. Not the answer you want to hear, but reality.
See if you can find other investors such as yourself so that you can pool your money and talents. You'll have a better chance.
Bluemont, Va. : Do you recommend any financial software for people who are considering starting a company on their own (and doing the books themselves)?
Scott Parsons: No recommendations for financial software, but there are plenty of good ones outtheere. You can go to our website www.dba.virginia.gov and clickj on "Business Lauchpad" for information and links to assist you in starting a business. Also, check with your nearest business school for software information or the web.
Sterling, Va.: What is the best way to put a business plan in front of a venture capitalist?
Scott Parsons: VC's vary. Some are very focused on a particular segment within an industry, others invest through groups, and some will not read a plan that has not been prescreened.
I would suggest that you contact your Chamber of Commerce or local office of economic development for some guidance to local VC networks. If your plan is technology related, contact the Northern Virginia Technology Council or the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, VA.
Hagerstown, Md.: I want to start a E-bay Auction store. Where can I get help with the financing ($50,000)?
Scott Parsons: See reply to Washington, DC
and start saving your money!
I'm trying to find places to put an ad looking for investment money. While the local newspapers carry one or two, and there are many services that SAY they will help find you funds, I cannot find a decent classified paper to place the ad in. Can you help me?
Scott Parsons: You will not find investment money by putting an add in a newspaper. See above replies to Accokeek, MD and Baltimore, MD for suggestions.
Washington, D.C.: What is the number one source of financing for small companies?
I want to thank you for taking time to answer our questions.
Scott Parsons: Owner's equity followed by friends and family.
Oxford, Miss. : We've all seen the late-night TV ads for books and things you can buy to get government grants and loans. Is that stuff legit? Is it worth pursuing?
Scott Parsons: There are government grants available, but the grants are generally very specific to a particular need. Grants to just start a business are not available within any federal or Virginia agencies that we are aware of. Contact your local office of economic development to get their insight on possible grants in Mississippi.
Mt. Clemens, Mich.: I'm a recent college graduate and I want to know why universities do not require a personal finance class for all students. Shouldn't all graduates be required to learn how to do basic things like avoid accumulating credit card debt or how to invest their money once they start making it? I'm ticked because my alma mater didn't even offer an optional one for students who weren't finance majors.
Scott Parsons: Actually I think such training should start in Middle School. Let's start a MOVEMENT!
San Luis Obispo, Calif.: Scott,
Generally speaking, can you advise for or against asking family members for loans?
If you think it's an OK idea, what might you suggest as a fair repayment plan and/or interest rate?
Is it worth bringing in a lawyer in such cases?
Scott Parsons: It's done quite often. I would suggest a market interest rate - just call a local bank to see what they would charge for a similar loan. Attorneys are alway advised in such situations.
I'd like to start a business locally with some associates. I understand that there are numerous sources of potential funding/assistance for minority owned and run businesses -- where should we look? Also, would they provide full start-up money, or would we need to show that we already had other sources of funding?
Scott Parsons: I don't know what might be offered in Washington, D.C.; but in Virginia there are some resources to help. It really depends however on the type of financing you need. If you need equity, local venture capitalists and angel investors would be your best bet. Our agency, the Department of Business Assistance offers some debt financing that works in conjunction with bank financing. We have to have a bank with which to partner however.
Scott Parsons: Thank you for your questions. Good luck to all of you. If you operate a business in Virginia or are interested in relocating your business to Virginia, please feel free to contact our Virginia Business Information Center here at the Department of Business Assistance. Our professionals on staff are very knowledgeable and can help you with just about any business related question. They are a great resource. They can be reached toll free at 1-866-248-8814 or at VBIC@DBA.state.va.us.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Deborah R. Russell with AARP will be online to discuss the workplace issues facing aging Americans.
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Looking Past Iraq
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2005111319
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Paradoxically, the 2 1/2-year-old war that has cost 2,000 American lives might not be Donald Rumsfeld's No. 1 priority.
David Von Drehle, whose article about the secretary of defense appeared in yesterday's The Washington Post Magazine was online today to field questions and comments.
David Von Drehle is a Magazine staff writer.
David Von Drehle: Welcome--thanks so much for reading the piece and for coming around to chat. I know the piece was not exactly light reading, and I will try ... try ... to keep this exchange comparatively crisp.
Washington, D.C. : i enjoyed the article, but it seemed as if you did a lot of background research and were all ready for a good interview with Rumsfeld. however, he kept delaying and not responding to follow up, so you wrote a not so complete article to show him he could not delay your work indefinately.
Is this the case and what more would you have liked to write about?
David Von Drehle: It is a fairly common technique of press management: When you hear someone is writing an article, offer an interview right away in hopes of shaping the story before the writer has done the research.
The writer is in a tricky spot, then. Do you take the interview that is offered, or wait for a later opportunity that might never come to pass? As I explained in the article, I took the opportunity to conduct a general, introductory conversation with Secretary Rumsfeld. I had high hopes for a follow-up, but unfortunately that never happened.
I would have liked to have more of his voice in the article--he is a compelling speaker when he wants to be. But I didn't feel hamstrung.
Atlanta, Ga.: I am a Vietnam Veteran with a real Purple Heart. I hve two sons serving in the Army. One of my sons is in his 11th month as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq. Last week I attended the funeral of his best friend and battle buddy who was killed on 31 October. What possibly other then the war could be the #1 Priority for the Sec'y of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld? I wrote a letter to the President before the last election and told him that the election should not even be close except for the fact that "Rumsfeld had totally screwed this war up" and after he got elected to a second term "Rumsfeld shoud be the first Cabnet member to go". I voted for President Bush the first time because I believed he was the best candidate. I voted for him the second time because Kerry was not even a choice. However, after the election Rumsfeld was the only one to stay and now look at the Presidents approval ratings ratings - bad and much blame must go to keeping Rumsfeld! I thought (I know Colin Powell knew) that wars take total commentment to WIN and a war should have every resourse thrown behind it to win quickly. Rumsfeld has totally mismanaged this war while trying to micromanage the military and its Transformation - which could have been put on hold until the war was over. GEN Shinseki was right when he said it would take 400,000 troops and five years to get the job done right in Iraq. For that statement he was basically run out of his position as C/S of the Army and a clear signle was sent to every career military officer to agree with the Rumsfeld party line or have your career ruined. I can not believe that more (SEN McCain knows)soldiers/marines in Iraq would not increase or chances for success by providing more security and our ability to get the top insurgent Al-Zukari (SP).
Please tell me what is the #1 Priority for Donald Rumsfeld - while I wait for my son to finish his one year tour of duty fighting this war in Iraq?
David Von Drehle: I can't add to this except to say that I spoke to many active duty troops during my research for this piece who shared your exasperation. The piece is as close as I can come to an answer to this riddle.
Richmond, Va.: One thing I noticed about your article was that there wasn't much discussion of the planning and execution of the invasion of Afganistan. I seem to remember various dire predictions of a "quagmire" in Afganistan prior to the invasion which did not come to pass. Do you believe that the relative success of the Afganistan operations caused the Defense Department to be come overconfident and dismiss similar criticism during the Iraqi planning?
David Von Drehle: Great question. I do think, based on various things Secretary Rumsfeld has said over the years, that the success in Afghanistan led to some wrong assumptions about Iraq. One main difference that was overlooked: Afghanistan was essentially an ungoverned power vacuum. Even the Taliban had not controlled the country long enough or widely enough to shape the social order. In Iraq, by comparison, Saddam's social order completely shaped the lives, thinking, outlook and expectations of all all Iraqis under late-middle age. He held power in Iraq longer--much longer--than Hitler did in Germany. You can't expect such a traumatizde country to just wake up one morning free and self-governing. But the U.S. did not enter Iraq with a workable plan to renew and reconstruct the country.
This isn't my theory: It is the conclusion of, among others, Rumsfeld's own Defense Science Board.
NY, NY: I would submit that General Myers shares a large portion of the blame. Contrary to the "lessons" of the Powell Doctrine, it was Myers who, as Woodward has shown, allowed the military to be coerced into signing on to a war plan that history has shown was insufficient.
David Von Drehle: A number of people I spoke with -- including some very dedicated men in uniform -- urged that this point be part of the piece. The failure to prepare for post-war Iraq was not only a failure of civilian leadership, but also of the senior generals. Gen. Myers was criticized in this regard, and a number of officers criticized Gen. Tommy Franks, who seemed to be in an enormous hurry to get out of Iraq.
I chose to focus this article on Secretary Rumsfeld.
Rockville, Md: I really liked your piece on the Sec of Defense, but wondered when you mentioned the officers who think he is "out to get them." I have no doubt that some have been "out to get him" for some time now. But I don't know what individual officers fear. Blacklist? No promotions? Cuts in funds? How does he "get them?"
Personally and from my experience with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam, I think his decision on artillery was very poor. there are many situations when an air craft can not deliver munitions. Artillery saved us in Vietnam. Or has the technology really improved that much?
David Von Drehle: You touch on an important point -- thanks. No doubt some of the internal criticism of Rumsfeld at the Pentagon comes from hidebound bureaucrats who resent his efforts to modernize the force.
As for artillery, I'm not the right guy to answer that. It is my impression, though, that the combination of guided munitions matched with human and drone targeters, is more lethal than anything seen on earlier battlefields.
Dahlgren, Va.: After reading Plan of Attack and your article, I get the impression that Rumsfeld is only interested in asking questions and discovering or predicting problems. Does he ever provide answers or attempt to implement solutions? Has he ever answered a question with asking another question?
David Von Drehle: This is his signature technique. Sometimes you can see him doing it during television briefings--answering questions with more questions, and more questions, and more. It drives people over there crazy.
Winnipeg, Canada: Regarding the "success" in Afghanistan compared to Iraq: Afghanistan is a success only in that fewer troops are comitted there, and conswquently fewer have died. Much like Lebanon a generation ago, the "government" controls a small area around the capital, and warlords control much of the rest. The poppy trade is flourishing again, and the Taliban is once again gaining strength.
If the Pentagon used this "success" as a model for Iraq, no wonder they are in the mess they are in.
David Von Drehle: I've never been there, so I can only say that inside the administration Afghanistan is viewed as a success story. Thanks for the other view.
Washington, DC: Absolutely brilliant article--solid reporting, insightful writing, and I found myself looking at Rumsfeld and the Pentagon and Iraq afterwards through completely different eyes. How on earth did you come to your thesis, of Rumsfeld balancing the war against other concerns?
David Von Drehle: Hi, honey! How are the kids today?
Basically, I went into the piece with a simple question: Is Iraq Don Rumsfeld's war? An editor asked me that at lunch one day, and I couldn't answer it. I tried desperately to learn enough about his thinking, and the work product of the Pentagon these past five years, to present a plausible answer.
Albuquerque, NM: Is the gap so wide between what Rumsfeld proclaims is going on in Iraq with what is actually happening in Iraq? I cannot understand how troops in the field have no interpreters to either coordinate with Iraqi government troops or conduct effective operations. The "Clear and Hold" concept sounds more like a sound bite than realistic given the inability of the Iraqi troops to effectively implement the "Hold" element of that strategy, how does Rumsfeld square the dismal reality with his and Bush's upbeat rhetoric?
David Von Drehle: I had several versions of the same conversation with a variety of really smart military people. It went roughly like this: "I was in Iraq recently, and boy, was I surprised. I expected more of the same old chaos, but instead I saw some signs of progress." Slow progress, tentative progress--not necessarily understood or supported by the Pentagon. But progress.
And then they all said, "But it won't matter if the civilians can't hold the support of the American people long enough for the strategy to work."
Rockville, Md.: What should be first?
Good question about priorities. One can even imagine that the Administration has spent little time or thought on Iraq. But it is ruining them. Do they have other information that predicts a turn around without further effort?
I have to say that when I was in Vietnam (three tours all together) the Government always saw it as a "sideshow." The Soviets were always the main interest.
But this is strange. Why aren't they focused on Iraq?
David Von Drehle: You've put your finger, I believe, on a spot where the parallels break down between Vietnam and Iraq. I don't believe (and I think you don't either) that Iraq is a sideshow to the war on terror. I'll leave it to others to argue over whether it was a side issue in 2003. But as of now, it is a key battleground.
Wichita, Kan.: I enjoyed your Rumsfeld article. Particularly amusing were the wrestling metaphors through-out. My question: has there ever been a time in U.S. history where a Secretary of Defense has operated as independently from the direction of the president's office as this one has?
Rumsfeld's apparent decisions to limit funding on the Iraq war, so he could devote funds to programs he thought were more important seems especially arrogant to me. Surely, this is not something that routinely happens in the Defense Dept., is it?Thank you.
David Von Drehle: Thanks for reading -- I think President Bush and ice-president Cheney must be reasonably satisfied with Secretary Rumsfeld's performance. They have not been shy about replacing Cabinet members. In fact, Rumsfeld is the only one of the original Big Four (State, Treasury, Defense and Attorney General) still on the job.
Washington, D.C.: I also found the article gripping.
However, I wondered why, given the play on his now infamous statement that you fight with the Army you have, not the Army you might want, that there were not really any follow up questions about that particular application of his thinking.
I understand that he has been tasked with thinking strategically about the future of the Armed Services, and the competing demands of the conveyor belts make it difficult to commit resources to the war, but, please. We're at war. If the Army we have can't properly equip our troops in Iraq, then how on earth can we have troops in Iraq?
David Von Drehle: Excellent point. One of the questions I wanted to ask in a follow-up interview was why ... if this was not the Army he wanted in March 2003 ... hasn't he aggressively sought a different Army? A bigger one? One with more Arabic speakers? One with more Civil Affairs officers?
Pasadena, Calif.: Since you have obviously spoken to many people in the military, do they still support the Powell doctrine at all, or do they share some of Rumsfeld vision of transformation? What does the military think of someone like Tommy Franks, who seems to have gotten a lot of credit for a war that in the long term has not gone very well?
David Von Drehle: I think there is broad support for elements of "transformation." From a tactical standpoint, both the initial Iraq invasion and the initial Afghanistan operation were milestones in terms of joint operations and special forces tactics.
I picked up a lot of anti-Franks sentiment. As one officer said, "as soon as the Saddam statute fell, he was off to write his book."
"ice-president Cheney": Was that intentional?
Rockville, Md.: I'm an electrical engineer with no particular expertise in foreign affairs. Yet to me it was glaringly obvious (and I told anyone who would listen) in March 2003 that if you sever the head of an artificial country teeming with centuries-old ethnic tensions, a civil war would ensue. Why am I so much "smarter" than the people at the controls of our country? I find that pathetic.
David Von Drehle: Personally, I still can't believe, given the incredibly high stakes of this operation, we didn't have a plan in a desk drawer somewhere, marked: "Just in case ..."
Many thanks for your outstanding article about Secretary Rumsfeld.
I can remember during the calls for the Iraqi invasion telling my friends that an invasion would be disastrous giving my "29 pitfalls." The response was: (a) I was unpatriotic in spite of my Marine Corps service, (b) I did not know what I was talking about even though I have Arabic language fluency and have traveled to the Middle East including Iraq, (c) and that I was a bleeding heart liberal in spite of being a life long Republican and having voted for Bush in the first election.
Your article shows the rank amateurism in the White House and at the top levels of the Department of Defense.
The shame of this matter is that Rumsfeld will be with us for another three years.
Maybe your next question to Donald "Ask me something harder" Rumsfeld could be "Are you able to sleep at night?"
David Von Drehle: I know a lot of people have been frustrated, over the past 3 or 4 years, by the suggestion that the only way to express patriotism is to ignore questions about the leadership of the war effort.
Miami, Fla.: It was interesting to see in your article that the Defense Science Board concluded that "It is clear that Americans who waged the war and who have attempted to mold the aftermath have had no clear idea of the framework that has molded the personalities and attitudes of the Iraqis."
Do you believe that this situation still exists in the Pentagon? Does Mr. Rumsfeld have any advisors with a real undersandting of the region and of its people? More important, is there anyone who speaks truth to power in the Pentagon, particularly to Mr. Rumsfeld?
David Von Drehle: I found widespread praise for the CENTCOM commander, Gen. John Abizaid, and the current U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. They are credited with much deeper understanding of the region, and therefore greater credibility.
Richmond, Va.: How willing everyone is to forget, with all of this stuff about "completing the mission" and "staying the course", that the stated mission was to rid Iraq of WMD. Iraq is rid of WMD. Mission accomplished. Any other justification by the administration is an admission of the illegality of the invasion.
The U.N. charter forbids member states from attacking unless attacked or unless there is an imminent threat of attack. Article VI, section 2 of the Constitution states that treaties ratified by the Senate are part of "the supreme Law of the Land". As Pat Tillman so eloquently stated, "this ------g war is illegal!"
The Post should mention this every time the administration attempts to change the claimed mission. They do so because they are confident you will let them get away with it. They are confident of this because to date they have never known you to do anything else.
David Von Drehle: My recollection of the period before the invasion is more complicated than yours. I remember a lot about WMD, but I also recall the president talking about other justifications for deposing Saddam Hussein. For one thing, Saddam's anti-aircraft batteries were routinely shooting at U.S. planes, which for centuries would have been more than neough justification for a war. Congress, with the consent of the Clinton Administration, made it official U.S. policy in 1998 to pursue regime change in Iraq. What the Bush administration brought to the table was a willingness--some would say a desire--to do this by invasion.
Albuquerque, NM: I'd like to follow up on your respone to my earlier question, where military members have claimed that albeit slow there are "some signs of progess." I have to scratch my head on that one. Those military members must have stayed at the Green Zone or remained in the northern part of Iraq's friendly Kurds. When the footprint of the Green Zone in Iraq has shrunk, and the frequency and rates at which our troops are dying is increasing, and we cannot effectively hold any area we kick the insurgents out of, plus the effectiveness of Iraqi soldiers (predominately Shiite) is a paltry two battalions I sure would hate to see what they would describe as setbacks. In other words if the Pentagon is looking at the public's will to to keep them in the fight, rather than addressing the military situation properly then what kind of outcome can we expect in Iraq?
David Von Drehle: These folks had been all over the country, including into the Sunni triangle. And let me underline, they had no illusions about how tough the task is. What they were saying is the tactics of units in the fight are more sophisticated, and therefore more hopeful, than they were before.
The "key battleground" lie.: Sir, why do you insist on parroting this Administration mantra, when numerous studies, generals, and in-country journalists have concluded precisely the opposite - the proportion of the insurgency affiliated with Al Qaida is tiny: somewhere around 5%. These analyses (such as the one from the CSIS) are available to you all over the internet, but you never report them. We are in the middle of a civil war over there, for the most part. Let's start dealing with truth, eh?
David Von Drehle: I have a one-word response: Lebanon.
Here's a few more: Lebanon was "a civil war," and when it was allowed to run rampant it destabilized the region, empowered our enemies and contributed enormously to the rise of terrorist strategies and tactics in the Middle East.
David Von Drehle: Also, for what it's worth -- "lie" is not a synonym for "disagreement." It is possible for two people to hold differing views without one of them lying.
Silver Spring, Md.: I was one of the several Arab Americans contractors who served as translator-interpreters in the Military Intelligence Service during and immediately after the fall of the Iraqi regime. We served in a variety of intelligence functions and served under a variety of organizations and in every major campaign. We have learned that good intelligence is the best weapon against both insurgents and international terrorism. We have learned the overall scale and complexity of intelligence effort and organizations. We learned that intelligence required massive investment of talent, numbers, tenacity, and courage. It involved not just the big intelligence coups such as capturing Saddam, but also the grinding day-to-day work, interrogating prisoners, translating intercepts, evaluating and translating captured documents. The knowledge of the Middle East culture and society they had absorbed from their parents and upbringing gave them a unique perspective on the enemy they faced.The perspective of these linguists could be that key in the war on terror. Perhaps these linguists can help these agencies find their way through this maze of counter terrorism and collect more reliable information on terrorism. Yet neither of these agencies nor to my knowledge, anyone else who has examined this issue has made use of the unique perspective of the Americans linguists of Middle Eastern ancestry who fought and still participating in the war on terror.
David Von Drehle: Thanks so much. Maybe someone at the Pentagon will take a gander at your post and take a hint.
Mission, Tex: First of all, thank you for writing an informative piece.
I was interested as to your take on how Rumsfeld and his immediate staff reflect and/or respond (or don't) to views critical of their planning for the Iraq war. The almost-revelation of the "memo" is a curious bit of protection that seems to indicate at least some sensitivity to the issue.
And speaking more broadly, do you sense an awareness of concepts that run counter to the Rumsfeld model of defense and future wars? How open to competing warfighting theories do you think Rumsfeld is? Clearly, Iraq is not turning out to be positive proof for transformation, if only because it has been an "anachronism" as seen from the top.
Thank you in advance for your response.
David Von Drehle: Based on my reading and my interviews, I believe Secretary Rumsfeld THINKS he is much more open to competing ideas than he really is.
Southwest Pennsylvania: My husband served in Iraq in 2003 and thankfully got home okay. He is an Army officer with 18 years in and promptly upon returning home scraped every Army decal and sticker off his truck. He hasn't said much about the politics of the war but he has been tempted to get a bumper sticker that says "Sometimes you go to war with the Sec Def you have not the one you might wish to have." Do you think Mr. Rumsfeld and the administration will be expanding on the idea that it is America's mission in the world to spread democracy?
David Von Drehle: I'm glad he got home and am grateful to him for his service.
Clearly, if the U.S. does not achieve the goal in Iraq, it will be harder to make the case elsewhere.
I appreciate the opportunity. I've recently read articles from "embed" journalists (see Time's recent edition) in Iraq who are out there on the frontlines observing troops proscecute the war.
Despite the Rumsfeld and Bush's upbeat assessment, more troops are dying than ever before and at faster rates. Additionally, for all the billions we are paying to run this war, at the end of that pipeline we find: insurgents still control wide swaths of the country and travel unfettered, American units are undermanned relative to the mission before them, and most telling, some frontline units do not have interpreters to assist them in their operations--essentially American firepower is eroded, isolated, and ineffective.
And the key strategy to train and build up Iraqi government forces has been an outright failure in that solely one battalion has been deemed as combat effective. In short, is there a sense that Rumsfeld, et al truly grasp just how seriously the mission in Iraq is failing? With Rumsfeld's cheerful pronouncemenets, relative to the dismal state of things in Iraq, one could argue that Rumsfeld is becoming a caricature similar to the famously disconnected former Iraqi Information Minister, "Baghdad Bob" in this case we have "Pentagon Bob."
Appreciate the opportunity all my best! Frank Gonzales
David Von Drehle: Thanks for your thoughts, which I know many people share.
I would add a gloss to that notion of "just one" Iraqi unit at peak readiness. The Pantagon and the military could easily make that number look a lot better, simply by lowering their standard. It is a VERY high standard--the same one applied to U.S. units, which are the finest in the world. Just because Iraqi units are not at U.S. levels of capability doesn't mean they are useless.
This is an area where the government is applying an honest standard and reporting it candidly, as near as I can tell.
Olney, Md..: Wonderful article. Thank you for writing it, and for chatting today.
Am I correct that Sec. Rumsfeld does not believe it is his place to offer his opinion to the President on matters such as whether or not we got to war; or, to offer his opinion on the execution of a war? If so I find this interesting, since I clearly remember a radio interview from a few years ago in which he opined that a Cabinet Secretary that was unwilling to look the President in the eye and say "Mr. President, you're wrong" on an important matter was not deserving of Cabinet rank.
David Von Drehle: I shared your surprise ...
Out of time -- but as I go let me post a few more contributions so you can see what people had to say. Sorry I can't get to them all!
Central Virginia: Mr. von Drehle,
Thank you for hosting so brisk a topic! (Excellent article, by the way.)
Okay, so Rumsfeld does a great job of whacking his bureaucratic opponents, but is (and has been) failing miserably at being SecDef. His judgement is rat-poison bad - it was more important to him to whack Colin Powell than it was to make adequate plans for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He rejected the idea of having a clear idea of what we're doing and how we're getting out before we invade another country; and, after kicking the State Department's Iraq reconstruction plan into the toilet, he refused to consider how to do it himself.
He has lost the respect and confidence of the military leaders, he is responsible for the burgeoning presence of mercenaries in Iraq, and he has presided over the development and institutionalization of torture and mistreatment of prisoners by the armed forces.
No doubt about it - Rummie's doing one hell of a job!
And now he's talking loud and long about a memo that says hey, he knew all along that Iraq would be tough.
Do you think he's trying to be a team player and distract us from Bush's crises de jour? Or is he trying to distance himself from them?
Annandale, Va.: For our Atlanta poster: Why did you vote for someone, twice, who has fired dissenters who turned out to be right and you feel should have been kept on staff, and kept the one man you feel should be fired? Don't complain about poor performance when you continue to support it.
Silver Spring, Md.: Thank you for the interesting article on Rumsfeld and the war. The whole thing saddens me so deeply that it is difficult to take in, but I appreciate your efforts. I think that it is important for readers to recognize the ludicrousness of Rumsfeld's claim that he did not make a recommendation on the war one way or another. It is inconceivable that someone with his ego would not offer his opinion, particularly to someone as unschooled in military affairs, diplomacy, or history as the president. The second point is the saddest one; that Rummy would really prefer not to spend his money on this war. He would rather leapfrog a generation of weapons systems so that we can gear up for the really big war with China. This is the inevitable march towards death and destruction that the masters of war would lead us on. I would urge readers to look back at how disappointed Dick Cheney was when the cold war ended. When will we find leaders who are willing to declare peace?
San Diego, Calif.: As to the "memo" of Oct. 2002, in which Rumsfeld listed 29(?) results of invading Iraq, does he say that he "vetted" those possibilities, planned for the contengencies they posed? The impression one gets is that he chose to ignore the unpleasant consequences, and that he has lived in a state of denial while "transforming" the military, like someone remodelling his house while it's on fire, or trying to pave a highway during an earthquake.
Friendship, Md: What caused Colin Powell to cave in to Cheney and Rumsfeld? He was obviously against the war early on but did a complete 180, to the point of trying to sell the administration's war plans at the United Nations. If only he had stuck to his beliefs to the point of resigning (if necessary) we would not be in the mess we are in now. It was a good article, I enjoyed it, but it will take alot more to convience me that Rumsfeld was really opposed to the war.
Thanks. And what explains Cheney?: Thanks for finally giving me some insight on why a smart (and no neocon-idealist) like Rumsfeld was so stupid about post-war Iraq. Along the way, did you pick up any insight on why Cheney and Wolfowitz were so blind? After all, you could have a justified or unjustified mania to get Hussein, but still see that post-war needed to be planned and handled carefully. The reasons usually cited (over-optimism, arrogance, Rumsfeld's reform agenda, a disdain for anything out of the State Dept or CIA) don't seem sufficient explainers for the omissions that hurt their own cause.
David Von Drehle: A lot of people wondered where the Vice-president, then-deputy secretary Wolfowitz and other architects of the war fit in. All I can say is, I had my hands full with Secretary Rumsfeld.
Pittsburgh, Pa: Hi David, thanks for the v. interesting Magazine piece. Could you expand for us on your impression that Mr. Rumsfeld was tip-toeing away from personal responsibility for the genesis & prosecution of the Iraq war?
David Von Drehle: Wow -- I never would have expected someone wanting an EXPANSION of that piece.
Thanks, and please keep reading!
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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David Von Drehle fields questions and comments about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
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Keep the Internet Free
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2005111319
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Delegates from around the world will gather next week in Tunisia for what is known as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Few people are aware of WSIS's existence, its mission or the purpose of this conference. That is unfortunate, since the principal agenda item calls for a wholesale change in governance of the Internet that could lead to a significant setback for global freedom of information.
Although many are under the impression that the Internet is unregulated, this is not entirely the case. There are a number of technical issues -- such as the allocation of the dot-com or dot-net designations or the country codes that are attached to e-mails -- that must be determined by a central entity. This job is currently handled by an American nonprofit: the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). With an international staff on three continents, ICANN has met its mandate in a way that all agree has been fair and nonpartisan.
While ICANN functions on a charter from the Commerce Department, the U.S. government has followed a strict hands-off policy; ICANN's actions are transparent and decisions are made only after extensive consultation with Internet companies, governments, techies and freedom-of-expression organizations. ICANN has contributed to the unique nature of the Internet as a creative and innovative means of communication that links people and ideas across national boundaries -- for the most part outside the control of government.
But demands are growing for the "internationalization" of Internet governance. To this end, a number of countries are pressing to remove oversight from ICANN and place it under the auspices of a new organization that would be part of the U.N. system. Advocates of this arrangement make no claims that the current system is flawed. Instead, they focus on the supposed "injustice" or "inappropriateness" of a system overseen by an American agency. And there is an ulterior motive behind the clamor for change.
In a Nov. 5 op-ed column in The Post, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that a U.N. role in Internet governance would be benign and would concentrate on expanding the Internet into the developing world. But while Annan's intentions are no doubt well-meaning, the same cannot be said for the coalition of U.N member states making the loudest noise for change. Among them are regimes that have taken measures to control their citizens' access to the Internet and have championed global controls over Internet content. These include some of the world's most repressive states: Cuba, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Other governments have weighed in to support U.N. oversight, either out of anti-Americanism, a reflexive commitment to international governance or a belief that Internet content needs to be reined in.
Although U.N. officials deny any intention to broaden ICANN's mandate, past U.N. experience suggests that a limited mission can gradually expand into unanticipated territory under the relentless pressure of determined member states. Some of the most shameful U.N. episodes -- particularly regarding freedom issues -- have occurred because the world's democracies were outwitted by a coalition of the most repressive regimes -- the very coalition that is taking shape over Internet control. Working with determination and discipline, this alliance of dictatorships has already left the U.N. Human Rights Commission a shambles, something that Annan himself has deplored.
In this emerging contest, the position of the European Union is particularly disappointing. Initially aligned with the United States in support of Internet freedom, the E.U. recently went wobbly and proposed creation of a "forum" to govern the Internet, something different from ICANN though not under U.N. control -- this to the delight of Cuba and China.
Compounding the problem is the choice of Tunisia, a country with a woeful record of press freedom violations, as the WSIS conference's host. On Freedom House's global index of press freedom, Tunisia ranks near the bottom, right along with Iran and Saudi Arabia -- 173rd of 193 states. It is particularly zealous in restricting Internet content and has mobilized security forces to block Web sites, monitor e-mail and conduct surveillance of Internet cafes.
The United States delegation has pledged to stand firm in defense of ICANN while proposing a plan to allow more global discussion and debate on Internet issues. This is a good starting place; even better would be a decision by the European Union to align itself with the United States.
It is no secret why Iran, China and Cuba are lobbying so desperately to replace ICANN: The Internet has proven a potent weapon against state repression. In an age of media concentration, it has contributed mightily to democratization of the means of communication. It nullifies totalitarian schemes to monopolize the airwaves; in the age of the Internet, the total control portrayed by George Orwell in "1984" is simply impossible in all but the most hermetically sealed countries.
Given the stakes involved, it is incumbent on the world's democracies to stand firm against efforts to undermine this critical instrument of free ideas.
The writer is director of research at Freedom House, a nongovernmental organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties worldwide.
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Demands are growing for the "internationalization" of Internet governance. The world's democracies should fight efforts to undermine this critical instrument of free ideas.
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Arnold Terminates Himself
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2005111019
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LOS ANGELES -- Arnold Schwarzenegger's nine mad months of governing Democratic California as a partisan Republican came to the most predictable of unhappy endings here on Tuesday. Each of the four ballot measures he inflicted on voters in his special election lost decisively -- his spending-limit proposal tanking by 24 percent, and his measure to curb the clout of public-sector unions (Proposition 75) by 7 percent. The mystery of this election is what on earth Schwarzenegger could have been thinking: No comparable elected official in recent memory has picked a fight so gratuitously and come out of it so beat up.
Back in January Schwarzenegger's approval rating stood at 62 percent in the Public Policy Institute of California's poll. Then, in short order, he called for axing the pensions of the state's public employees, which would have eliminated the survivor benefits for widows and orphans of police officers and firefighters. He tried to stall the implementation of a law mandating a nurse-to-patient ratio in hospitals and attacked the nurses' union as a special interest. He reneged on a commitment to restore funding for the state's schools. He went after the public employees unions by backing Proposition 75. And the sky fell on him.
California's unions produced a torrent of advertising that featured cops, nurses, teachers and firefighters condemning the governor. They revved up the most effective Democratic voter mobilization operation in the nation. When they were done, not only did the governor's propositions fail but his approval rating in the most recent PPIC poll collapsed to a Bushian 35 percent.
"Arnold's mistake was to try to leverage his popularity to advance the Republican platform, which doesn't have much support in California," the state's Democratic Assembly speaker, Fabian Nunez, remarked a few days before the vote. "The Republicans see him as a vehicle to move their agenda, and he's done that rather than try to enlarge their agenda."
You'd think the Governator would know better. He was elected less as a partisan Republican than as an outsider who could forge bi- and nonpartisan solutions in a fractious Sacramento. Sometime last winter, though, he forgot who he'd been when the voters elected him. He began spouting the gospel according to Grover Norquist, the anti-tax, anti-union Republican strategist. But Norquist's Proposition 226 -- a 1998 anti-union California ballot measure that essentially prefigured this year's Proposition 75 -- had gone down in a heap. Why did Schwarzenegger think he could prevail with a warmed-over version seven years later? Particularly since California is just about the only state in which union density has actually increased over the past half-decade?
The answer is: the special election. By calling yet another election in election-weary California, Schwarzenegger was counting on engendering so much voter revulsion at the election itself that only a relative handful of disproportionately Republican voters would actually go to the polls. After all, the past two special elections to feature only propositions and no candidates on the ballot -- one in 1979, the other in 1993 -- both had roughly 37 percent turnout. The unions understood that their task was to push turnout over 40 percent, and on Tuesday they did just that.
The conventional wisdom out here is that Schwarzenegger, like the Terminator, will be back -- that he'll seek reelection next year and mount a strong and quite possibly successful candidacy. I don't buy that. He'll run, all right, but I think the damage he's inflicted on himself precludes much hope of a comeback. His polling among independents and moderates is almost as low as it is among Democrats and liberals. His approval rating among Latinos has toppled to a ghastly 25 percent.
More broadly, Schwarzenegger's fierce opposition to raising taxes to pay for state services is profoundly at odds with the wishes of state voters. Over the past couple of years, while he has raised tuition and restricted admissions to the state's universities rather than hike taxes on the rich, voters in more than 100 municipalities around the state have levied higher property taxes on themselves to pay for new schools.
Indeed, the repudiation of Schwarzenegger's propositions, coupled with the defeat in Virginia of the Republicans' taxophobic gubernatorial nominee, Jerry Kilgore, and last week's decision by Colorado voters to partially overturn a spending limit that was blocking road and school construction, strongly suggests that the Republicans' anti-tax revolt is running out of steam. All politics may be local, but when you lose in dissimilar localities all across the country, in large part because the central theme of contemporary conservatism isn't resonating anymore, you have yourself a national problem. And that's not even counting the issue of George W. Bush.
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The conventional wisdom is that Schwarzenegger, like the Terminator, will be back -- that he'll seek reelection next year and mount a strong and quite possibly successful candidacy. I don't buy that.
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Post Politics Hour
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2005110819
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Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.
washingtonpost.com political columnist/blogger Chris Cillizza was online Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m. ET .
Read The Fix politics blog here .
Chris Cillizza: Good morning and welcome to the post-election chat. I spent last night in the Post newsroom monitoring results in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere. Obviously, Democrats are rejoicing today with a handful of celebratory press conference all around Washington. Republicans are a bit more morose as they were looking for a win on which to start anew after a disastrous last few months politically. Let's get to the questions.
Jacksonville, Fla.: Why is the national media painting this as a major setback for the GOP headed into the 2006 elections? To the average observer, it would seem that the "tide of change" supposedly sweeping the country isn't really anything more than media hype. After all, nothing changed hands last night, right? In fact, reforms in Ohio--supposedly the state in the most upheaval--failed miserably, so why slant in the story we are being fed? Is the media creating a story where there is no story?
Chris Cillizza: I am not sure the "national media" is responsible for spinning last night's results. Democrats are working overtime to try and tie what happened in Virginia and New Jersey last night to their prospects for 2006 -- a ritual that the winning party goes through in any off year election. It remains to be seen whether these races are a litmus test for next November. Remember that in 2001, Democrats won the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia only to struggle through losses in the 2002 midterm elections. What last night's election did seem to prove is that President Bush is not the unalloyed benefit to Republican candidates he once was. He appeared on Kilgore's behalf on Monday night in an attempt to push the GOP nominee across the finish line -- an effort that came up well short.
Philadelphia, Pa.: Many people have brought up Warner's popularity and centrism in discussing '08 ambitions. You've traveled in Va. What are his abilities in terms of campaigning, giving speeches, and things like that? Evan Thomas mentioned that Clinton, Bush, Reagan actually enjoy campaigning whereas Kerry and Gore don't. It's important to keep in mind Iowa will probably play an important role in 2008, and campaigning is pretty important in those caucuses.
Chris Cillizza: For 2008 watchers, the big story coming out of Tim Kaine's victory last night was the likely bump given to Mark Warner's presidential ambitions. When I traveled with Warner and Kaine a few weeks ago, I was frankly surprised at how good the outgoing governor is on the stump. He was back-slapping the men, hugging the women and kissing the babies with a natural ease that he definitely did not have when he first ran for governor in 2001. It remains to be seen whether anyone can match the financial and institutional might of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 but Warner clearly has the political skills to be in the conversation.
Washington, D.C.: How much affect do you think the negative Kilgore ads had on the outcome? Some are saying the public in Va. responded in favour of Kaine because of them. Is this a good sign for campaigns in the future, or are we stuck with negativity forever?
Chris Cillizza: In talking to Republican operatives in the last few days, a number of them said they thought the Kilgore campaign had overplayed its hand on the death penalty ads by bringing the specter of Adolf Hitler into the mix. The ads certainly didn't help Kilgore and may have hurt him in some of the outer northern Virginia suburbs where Kaine piled up his winning margin. As for the future of negative ads, they are here to stay. While ins some cases (and Virginia may well be one) they backfire, by in large voters say they hate the ads but wind up being influenced by the messages they send.
Santa Barbara, Calif.: Whenever someone posts a question starting with "why is the national news media/right-wing media/liberal media doing so-and-so that is clearly out of the line with the mainstream American values... (insert whatever act du jour here)", I pretty much immediately jump to the conclusion that the issue is not the media, but the person posting who's peeved at not finding any newspaper to agree with his or her position!
Chris Cillizza: Thanks for posting, Mom. On a serious note, I do believe the media is unfairly maligned for their alleged biases. Take a look at comments section of my political blog -- The Fix -- on any given day. I get accused of being a right wing conservative, a liberal apologist and everything in between -- all in the same day!
Curio, US: What happened in Ohio? The 2004 presidential race was very close, so surely there are some Democrats in Ohio. Why was the redistricting reform measure--which was sure to benefit Democrats--so resoundingly defeated?
Chris Cillizza: The resounding defeat of all four Ohio measures pushed by a coalition of liberal would-be reformers was somewhat shocking as heading into election day at least three of the four looked likely to win. The Ohio redistricting proposal loss was likely due to the difficulty in trying to explain something as complex as redrawing legislative ands Congressional lines to voters. For Democrats who believed any warm body in Ohio would beat a Republican next year, these results should give them pause. Sen. Mike DeWine (R) remains a major target but -- at least for now -- the political environment in Ohio doesn't seem to be the "throw the bums out" mentality that many expected.
Long Island, N.Y.: Is it fair to say that the lame duck portion of Bush's presidency started this morning on Imus when JD Hayworth said that he would not want the President to appear in campaign commercials for his re-election bid next year?
Also, do you think St. Paul's Democratic mayor regrets endorsing Bush in 2004?
Chris Cillizza: One of the more interesting trends to watch over the next year will be where and win President Bush pops up on the campaign trail for Republican candidates. In the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans were falling all over themselves to bring Bush into their states in hopes of his political magic rubbing off on them .That is not likely to be the case in 2006 if the political environment remains in its current state. I'm not sure we will see Republicans running away from the President but they aren't likely to be tying themselves closely to him either.
Scotts Valley, Calif.: Hi Chris. As a long-time Democrat far from DC, I'm concerned that the party still seems consumed with being "anti-Bush" rather than any visionary program that could excite and rally voters. The most obvious one to me would seem to be an "energy independence" plan--say over 10 years. I mean a really comprehensive World-War-II-like "war effort" plan--getting kids involved, universities, inventors, big business, etc. It would have a tremendous impact, would give everyone a way to "fight back" against terrorism, leaves the oil-addicted Republicans on the sidelines, and benefits the economy enormously. Until the Dems can show they can take us in a new direction that catches people's imagination, other "passions" (like those of the religious right) are going to carry the day. What do you think?
Chris Cillizza: I think Democrats recognize that in order to capitalize on the positive political climate they will need a specific plan of action to bring to voters. This has been promised by Congressional leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the last several cycles and what they have wound up putting forward are a handful of vague proposals that gained little actual traction. Party insiders suggest that the 2006 plan, expected to be unveiled sometime in the new year, will be a detailed blueprint of where Democrats will go if returned to the Congressional majority. The jury is still out.
Arlington, Va.: What effect do you think yesterday has on George Allen? Allen was campaigning heavily for Kilgore and voters seemed to go with Warner's coattails instead of Senator Allen's. Does this hurt Allen's presidential hopes?
Chris Cillizza: Good question. While George Allen was a loyal footsoldier on Kilgore's behalf, he had much less on the line in terms of his national ambitions than did Mark Warner yesterday. Allen appeared in ads for Kilgore and was a frequent presence at the candidate's side at rallies in the race's final days. But, Allen never pushed all his political chips into the center of the table on this one. The Kilgore loss doesn't help Allen in the eyes of political insiders but I don't think it really takes any of the bloom off his rose either.
Do Democrats really have to talk about "their faith" to get elected in this country? Some have said that Tim Kaine's overt references to his faith were important in his sound defeat of his opponent--but then, he may have mentioned it only to defend himself against Kilgore's ill advised negatives on the death penalty. My point here is, "Is the US really going to go the way of Kansas and make embracing a 19th century theology a sine qua non for electability?"
Chris Cillizza: I am not sure that Democrats HAVE to talk about their faith to win elections but I think they need to be comfortable with where they stand in relationship to their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).Tim Kaine talked about his Catholic faith because it is a part of why he decided to run for office. He seemed comfortable with the role religion played in his life and that ease was transmitted to voters. Too often Democrats fall into the trap of trying to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeve even if they are more private about their faith. I think John Kerry fell victim to this during the 2004 campaign .The reality is that in order to get elected either statewide or nationally, a candidate (Democrat or Republican) will need to address the question of religion's role in public life. There doesn't need to be one set answer for Democrats but they need to know the question is coming and give an answer from the heart. Voters are keen judges of candor in their politicians.
Katy,Tex.: If, a mighty big if, one figures a 3-4% switch in the electorate, a la Kaine's win, would that be enough of a switch to return us to divided government next fall? In other words, are there enough Congressional or Senate seats within a 3-4% margin for the Dems to gain control of one of the chambers?
Chris Cillizza: That will be the debate of the next year. From my vantage point, a House majority remains out of reach for Democrats right now although until filing deadlines start closing later this year it's anybody's guess as to how many seats Democrats can really put into play. The Senate is a more doable proposition for Democrats although it too remains an uphill fight. In order to take the majority, Democrats must oust a handful of Republican incumbents in places like Montana, Missouri and Arizona -- not exactly an easy proposition.
Chris Cillizza: Sorry folks I need to end the chat a bit early. Lots going on today and I am running to a news conference at the Democratic National Committee on yesterday's election results. Please make sure to check The Fix today and every day for the latest in political news and analysis. Thanks for all the great questions!
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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White House Gambles That Boosting Kilgore Will Pay Off for Bush
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In jumping into the Virginia governor's race just 10 hours before polling booths open, President Bush put his credibility on the line last night and ensured that the results will be interpreted as a referendum on his troubled presidency. But the White House is gambling that after weeks of political tribulations, Bush has little more to lose.
Bush's election-eve foray to Richmond to rally behind Republican Jerry W. Kilgore inserted him into the hottest election of the off-year cycle and will test his ability to energize his party's base voters, according to strategists from both parties. Even in a traditionally Republican-leaning state such as Virginia, polls register disenchantment with Bush's leadership, and Kilgore has had trouble running against national headwinds.
Yet White House strategists evidently calculated that a Kilgore defeat would be seen as a defeat for Bush even if the president did not set foot on the southern side of the Potomac. While Bush was in Latin America for a trip that itself was marked by street protests and failed trade talks, the president's advisers last week opted to rearrange yesterday's return to include a stop in the Virginia capital in the hope of helping Kilgore pull out a victory. If the plan works and Kilgore wins, it would offer a well-timed vindication of Bush's clout.
"They're going to own the results either way, so why not land the plane?" asked Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign in 1996. "If Kilgore wins, the president's political heart keeps beating." At the same time, given Bush's broader problems, Reed said, "it doesn't change the dynamics."
Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist close to the White House, said a Kilgore win would essentially avoid another setback for a president who has seen nothing but reverses lately. "Nobody's going to suggest that 'Gee, something happened in Virginia that's an overall tonic for the president's problems,' " he said. "But it would be the absence of bad, and when you're in trouble the absence of bad is the first step toward recovery."
On the other hand, analysts said, if Democrat Timothy M. Kaine beats Kilgore in a state that solidly backed Bush twice, it will feed into a widespread perception of weakness afflicting the president and those associated with him. With the troubled response to Hurricane Katrina, the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, the indictment of a top White House official in the CIA leak case and continuing violence in Iraq, Bush's approval ratings have sunk to some of the lowest ever for a second-term president in modern times. And with Democrats likely to win the New Jersey governorship, the only other major race on the ballot, Bush can find little good news to seize on.
"They need a win," said Charlie Cook of the independent Cook Political Report. "With the exception of [the confirmation of Chief Justice John G.] Roberts, they haven't had a break all year. Just pulling off one of these would slow down the snowball a little."
The Virginia venture, though, could accelerate the snowball. "I think he will regret it and I think the only reason he went is because not going was a threat to his manhood," Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman said. "It's a very big risk. . . . There's not much gain for him there. I don't think anybody is going to say Bush's popularity helped Kilgore. But people will say Bush's unpopularity really hurt Kilgore."
That Virginia would come to figure so prominently for Bush underscores the depth of his political problems. A year after Bush won the state by nine percentage points, just 44 percent of Virginians surveyed by The Washington Post last month approved of his job performance, while 55 percent disapproved. Nearly half of Virginia voters said a Bush endorsement would make them less likely to vote for Kilgore, compared with a quarter who said it would make them more likely to support the Republican candidate.
The perception of weakness was exacerbated last month when Kilgore did not attend a Bush speech in Norfolk on the terrorism fight. His campaign and the White House insisted there was no snub, because it was a policy speech, not a political event. But it escaped no one's attention that this was the same day that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.
By contrast, strategists now figure Bush might still be helpful in persuading reluctant core Republicans to turn out to vote. The picture on most front pages and television newscasts today will feature Bush and Kilgore together. Democrats are wagering that the pairing actually will help drive their own base to the polls, working in Kaine's favor.
If Kilgore does lose, Bush's troubles will be only part of the issue. The White House could argue privately that a Kilgore defeat had more to do with his own campaign mistakes, particularly going on the attack over the death penalty without first defining his own identity in a positive way, according to some familiar with the thinking in Bush circles.
Moreover, for the past three decades, Virginia has regularly elected governors from the party not controlling the White House. President Bill Clinton went to Old Town Alexandria on election eve in 1997 to help Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr., only to see the candidate go down to defeat.
But Clinton was doing much better politically that year than Bush is this year, and so it did no damage to him. The Bush team is especially attuned to this year's Virginia race, particularly White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who closely follows tracking polls and the latest developments there.
A Kilgore loss may convince some Republicans that Bush is more liability than asset. "If both these races go south, in New Jersey and Virginia," said a GOP consultant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, "that'll be a real signal to Capitol Hill and that's when the rats will really jump off the ship."
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Bush's Tortured Logic
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News outlets all over the world reported Bush's words as if they were definitive. But they are in fact enigmatic at best, because it's not at all clear what the president's definition of torture is.
His comments came yesterday in a press availability with President Martin Torrijos in Panama, in response to a question about secret CIA prison camps and Vice President Cheney's crusade against legislation that would prohibit U.S. government employees from using cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
But if we don't torture, then why is the White House fighting tooth and nail against a law that would say as much? Why are those prison camps secret? And what are we to make of the widespread, documented practice of prisoner abuse? Bush wouldn't say. And he didn't take any follow-up questions.
Here's the full text of the exchange:
"Q Mr. President, there has been a bit of an international outcry over reports of secret U.S. prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects. Will you let the Red Cross have access to them? And do you agree with Vice President Cheney that the CIA should be exempt from legislation to ban torture?
"PRESIDENT BUSH: Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.
"And, therefore, we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job. There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law. And that's why you're seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress. We want to work together in this matter. We -- all of us have an obligation, and it's a solemn obligation and a solemn responsibility. And I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've -- they've got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful."
Leave it to the bloggers to slice and dice:
Andrew Sullivan writes: "If that's the case, why threaten to veto a law that would simply codify what Bush alleges is already the current policy? If 'we do not torture,' how to account for the hundreds and hundreds of cases of abuse and torture by U.S. troops, documented by the government itself? If 'we do not torture,' why the memos that expanded exponentially the lee-way given to the military to abuse detainees in order to get intelligence? The president's only defense against being a liar is that he is defining 'torture' in such a way that no other reasonable person on the planet, apart from Bush's own torture apologists (and they are now down to one who will say so publicly), would agree. The press must now ask the president: does he regard the repeated, forcible near-drowning of detainees to be torture? Does he believe that tying naked detainees up and leaving them outside all night to die of hypothermia is 'torture'? Does he believe that beating the legs of a detainee until they are pulp and he dies is torture? Does he believe that beating detainees till they die is torture? Does he believe that using someone's religious faith against them in interrogations is 'cruel, inhumane and degrading' treatment and thereby illegal? What is his definition of torture?"
Bob Cesca writes on Huffingtonpost.com: "He's either outright lying or the administration has a very different definition of torture than the rest of the world. I would argue that it's both."
Steven C. Clemons writes: "Bush seems to think that his personal assessment about what is within the interests of the United States should be good enough for the citizens of the United States. The problem is that the American public doubts the Bush team's truthfulness -- particularly after the lies and mistruths that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove offered to colleagues like Scott McClellan, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and the American public in the Valerie Plame outing case."
Clemons also excerpts from the influential Nelson Report, in which Chris Nelson writes that Bush appears to be claiming that when the facts come out, "we will discover that whatever torture which took place was done strictly according to his Administration's legal guidelines.
"And that, of course, goes to the crux of the matter . . . the President's infamous 'torture memo' which authorized CIA and military interrogators to torture someone up to but not past the point of 'organ failure and death' in order to make them talk. A friend with an interesting intelligence analysis approach to all this suggests: 'Bush sincerely, albeit conveniently, believes physical abuse without intent to cause permanent injury or loss to vital organs is not torture, and believes the CIA black op is staying within boundaries most of the time.' (The best historical analogy: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.') Maybe . . . but even if true, it's hardly exculpation."
Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush, defending a clandestine U.S. prison system abroad for terrorism suspects, said Monday that his administration would continue to aggressively battle terrorism in sometimes unconventional but always lawful ways."
Richard Benedetto writes in USA Today: "U.S. interrogation practices have been under fire since news accounts in 2004 reported harsh tactics by U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at detention facilities in Afghanistan. In a new case announced Monday, five Army Rangers were charged with abusing detainees in Iraq. . . .
"Over White House opposition, the Senate voted 90-9 last month to approve an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would ban the use of torture. Vice President Cheney has pushed for an exemption for the CIA.
"The administration has said in a statement that while it does not condone torture, it opposes the measure because it would be 'unnecessary or duplicative' and could restrict 'the president's ability to conduct the war (on terrorism) effectively under existing law.' "
Kenneth R. Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News: "Despite repeated allegations of prisoner abuse, President Bush claimed yesterday the U.S. doesn't use torture, but he still argued against a proposed congressional ban on the practice. . . .
"But on the same day that Bush disavowed the use of torture, new allegations of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops erupted in Baghdad."
Warren P. Strobel and James Kuhnhenn write for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "Nineteen months after the first revelations of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, the Bush administration's position on treating detainees is increasingly under fire.
"[A] growing number of lawmakers, both moderate Republicans and Democrats, argue that abuse of prisoners is immoral, has devastated the United States' image and ability to project its values overseas, and would endanger captured American soldiers or civilians."
Separation of Powers on Trial
Charles Lane writes in The Washington Post: "The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to rule on the legality of the Bush administration's planned military commissions for accused terrorists, setting up what could be one of the most significant rulings on presidential war powers since the end of World War II.
"President Bush has claimed broad power to conduct the war against al Qaeda and said that questions about the detention of suspected terrorists, their interrogation, trial and punishment are matters for him to decide as commander in chief.
"But the court's announcement that it would hear the case of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, shows that the justices feel the judicial branch has a role to play as well. The court has focused on whether Bush has the power to set up the commissions and whether detainees facing military trials can go to court in the United States to secure the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions."
Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Hamdan's lawyers, Professor Neal K. Katyal of Georgetown University Law Center and Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, argue that the president's executive action establishing the military commissions was simply without authorization.
" 'The president's unilateral creation of commissions,' they argue, 'his single-handed definition of the offenses and persons subject to their jurisdiction, and his promulgation of the rules of procedure combine to violate separation of powers.' They add: 'The Revolution was fought to ensure that no man, or branch of government, could be so powerful.' "
Walter Pincus writes in The Washington Post: "Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee want the right to interview top policymakers or speechwriters as part of the inquiry into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the panel's vice chairman, said yesterday.
"Rockefeller raised the possibility of issuing subpoenas, and outlined a more wide-ranging approach than the one described by Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who said the work would center on comparing public statements by administration officials to intelligence reports circulating at the time. Rockefeller, Roberts and four other senators are to meet today to work out a schedule and process for the committee's review."
Robert Scheer writes in his Los Angeles Times column: "Who in the White House knew about DITSUM No. 044-02 and when did they know it?
"That's the newly declassified smoking-gun document, originally prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002 but ignored by President Bush. Its declassification this weekend blows another huge hole in Bush's claim that he was acting on the best intelligence available when he pitched the invasion of Iraq as a way to prevent an Al Qaeda terror attack using weapons of mass destruction."
On MSNBC, Chris Matthews last night kicked off a full week of shows devoted to the CIA leak case with a look back at how the case for war was sold in the first place.
Matthews: "Three years ago, the White House persuaded the media, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and a majority of the American people to accept their case for military action in Iraq -- largely based on a very powerful image, a nuclear mushroom cloud. The president, the vice president and others repeatedly warned of the looming threat of a nuclear weapon in Saddam Hussein`s arsenal that could be used against the territory of the United States."
Here's David Shuster's report on how that happened.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid yesterday called on President Bush to affirmatively state that he will not pardon any of the people involved in the leaking of classified information.
Arianna Huffington writes in her blog: "According to the pundits, a pardon is a done deal. All that's up for grabs is the timing.
"Will it be after Scooter changes his plea to guilty, thus pulling the plug on a trial -- and robbing us of the pleasure of seeing Dick Cheney on the stand, under oath, being grilled on WMD, aluminum tubes, the WHIG, and the campaign to smear Joe Wilson? Or will Bush follow in the footsteps of his father's pardon of Cap Weinberger, and give Libby his presidential Stay Out of Jail Free card preemptively, before he even has to admit to any wrongdoing?
"Of course, there is a third option: Bush assenting to Reid's request and taking the pardon option off the table. That would be the best way to offer the American people the chance to finally learn the truth -- which after all, is what the president has repeatedly said he is after. . . .
"I hear that a number of powerful Democratic senators are working behind the scenes on a plan to force the issue."
I'll be Live Online tomorrow at 1 p.m. EST, happily responding to your questions and comments.
The End of a Bad Trip
Edwin Chen writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Before Bush left for his visit to Argentina -- where he attended the Summit of the Americas -- Brazil and Panama, some analysts thought the trip abroad might help him shake off political troubles in Washington and put him in a statesmanlike setting. But afterward, several said the trip was far from a ringing success.
" 'The trip hasn't helped at all in Latin America. It reduced his stature in Latin America,' said David de Ferranti, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. 'To the extent that the Bush team hoped the trip would boost him at home, that hasn't happened. He looks weak abroad, and these are not good signals.'
" 'My impression is that he'll be very happy to get home,' Pastor said."
Bush stopped off in Richmond last night on his way home from South America to headline a spirited, election-eve rally for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore.
Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "In jumping into the Virginia governor's race just 10 hours before polling booths open, President Bush put his credibility on the line last night and ensured that the results will be interpreted as a referendum on his troubled presidency. But the White House is gambling that after weeks of political tribulations, Bush has little more to lose. . . .
"White House strategists evidently calculated that a Kilgore defeat would be seen as a defeat for Bush even if the president did not set foot on the southern side of the Potomac . . . [while] if Kilgore wins, it would offer a well-timed vindication of Bush's clout. . . .
"The picture on most front pages and television newscasts today will feature Bush and Kilgore together. Democrats are wagering that the pairing actually will help drive their own base to the polls, working in [Democratic nominee Tim] Kaine's favor."
Here is the transcript of Bush's remarks.
Mike Allen writes for Time: "The President, who can be tired and cranky after an overseas foray, basked in the adulation, grinning, doling out 360-degree waves and giving his full-body chuckle as if someone were tickling him. As he waited for the applause to die down, he looked happier than he had any time since his triumphal post-election news conference a year and three days earlier. . . .
"Bush pulled out all the stops, calling Kilgore 'Governor' and kissing the ladies onstage. 'I like a guy who loves his wife -- I sure love mine,' Bush said, to applause, standing in front of a huge 'Victory For Virginia' placard. His 18 minutes of remarks laid it on thick, saying that Kilgore, who had been tortured in the press for his mountain twang, 'doesn't have a lot of fancy airs' and is 'a down-to-earth person.' . . .
"Kilgore told Time what a thrill it had been to greet Bush at the foot of the Air Force One stairs, then ride to the hangar in the limo with the president and the first lady. 'He was in the most fantastic mood when he got off that plane,' Kilgore recalled. 'The President said, "You make the decision, Jerry: Tie, or no tie?'' The President had come down the stairs of the plane tieless, and that's usually the time when the local guy takes off his own. But Kilgore didn't get that memo. 'I already had a tie, so he followed my fashion advice,' Kilgore said."
Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press: "Bush returned from Panama late Monday at the end of a five-day trip that included a hemispheric summit in Argentina and was leaving for an eight-day trip to Asia on Nov. 14. That gives him precious little time to work on his domestic agenda, help win support for replacement Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito and deal with the fallout from the CIA leak case that involved two of his top aides.
"Between his foreign visits, a trip home to Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday and other domestic travel in between, Bush will spend roughly two-thirds of November away from the White House."
Thomas M. DeFrank writes in the New York Daily News: "The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
"Multiple sources close to Bush told the Daily News that while the vice president remains his boss' valued political partner and counselor, his clout has lessened -- primarily as a result of issues arising from the Iraq war.
" 'The relationship is not what it was,' a presidential counselor said. 'There has been some distance for some time.' "
"A senior administration official termed any such suggestion 'categorically false.' "
The New York Times editorial board is blunt: "After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long."
Their suggestion for a Bush comeback: "Mr. Bush cannot fire Mr. Cheney, but he could do what other presidents have done to vice presidents: keep him too busy attending funerals and acting as the chairman of studies to do more harm. Mr. Bush would still have to turn his administration around, but it would at least send a signal to the nation and the world that he was in charge, and the next three years might not be as dreadful as they threaten to be right now."
Daniel Benjamin writes in Slate: "It has become a cliche to say that Dick Cheney is the most powerful vice president in American history. Nonetheless, here is a prediction: When the historians really get digging into the paper entrails of the Bush administration -- or possibly when Scooter Libby goes on trial -- those who have intoned that phrase will still be astonished at the extent to which the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney was the center of power inside the White House -- and at the grip it had on foreign and defense policy."
James Carroll writes in a Boston Globe op-ed column: "The indictment of the vice president's chief of staff for perjury and obstruction of justice is an occasion to consider just how damaging the long public career of Richard Cheney has been to the United States."
Here's one of Carroll's anecdotes: "When the World Trade Center towers were hit in New York, it was Cheney who told a shaken President Bush to flee. . . .
"The 9/11 Commission found that, from the White House situation room, Cheney warned the president that a 'specific threat' had targeted Air Force One, prompting Bush to spend the day hiding in the bunker at Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska. There was no specific threat. In Bush's absence, Cheney, implying an authorizing telephone call from the president, took command of the nation's response to the crisis. There was no authorizing telephone call. The 9/11 Commission declined to make an issue of Cheney's usurpation of powers, but the record shows it."
John McCaslin writes in the Washington Times: "Having dodged indictment in the CIA leak scandal, White House senior adviser Karl Rove Thursday will stand before a roomful of judges and lawyers -- as keynote speaker of the Federalist Society's 2005 National Lawyers Convention."
Don Kaplan writes in the New York Post: "Columnist Robert Novak appears to be done at CNN."
Howard Kurtz writes in his washingtonpost.com blog this morning about one of his pet peeves: "It's bad enough that journalists overuse and abuse unnamed sources who either rip their rivals or say something critical of their own operation, but at least there is a patina of a rationale -- namely, that no one, at least in politics, would make such utterances on the record.
"But saying something positive about your own side? Why on earth should we drape a cloak of anonymity around such people?"
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Just what did President Bush mean yesterday when he said: "We don't torture?" Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush, defending a clandestine U.S. prison system abroad for terrorism suspects, said Monday that his administration would continue to...
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Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy
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Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials.
Last winter, when Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, began pushing to have the full committee briefed on the CIA's interrogation practices, Cheney called him to the White House to urge that he drop the matter, said three U.S. officials.
In recent months, Cheney has been the force against adding safeguards to the Defense Department's rules on treatment of military prisoners, putting him at odds with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England. On a trip to Canada last month, Rice interrupted a packed itinerary to hold a secure video-teleconference with Cheney on detainee policy to make sure no decisions were made without her input.
Just last week, Cheney showed up at a Republican senatorial luncheon to lobby lawmakers for a CIA exemption to an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. The exemption would cover the CIA's covert "black sites" in several Eastern European democracies and other countries where key al Qaeda captives are being kept.
Cheney spokesman Steve Schmidt declined to comment on the vice president's interventions or to elaborate on his positions. "The vice president's views are certainly reflected in the administration's policy," he said.
Increasingly, however, Cheney's positions are being opposed by other administration officials, including Cabinet members, political appointees and Republican lawmakers who once stood firmly behind the administration on all matters concerning terrorism.
Personnel changes in President Bush's second term have added to the isolation of Cheney, who previously had been able to prevail in part because other key parties to the debate -- including Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and White House counsel Harriet Miers -- continued to sit on the fence.
But in a reflection of how many within the administration now favor changing the rules, Elliot Abrams, traditionally one of the most hawkish voices in internal debates, is among the most persistent advocates of changing detainee policy in his role as the deputy national security adviser for democracy, according to officials familiar with his role.
At the same time Rice has emerged as an advocate for changing the rules to "get out of the detainee mess," said one senior U.S. official familiar with discussions. Her top advisers, along with their Pentagon counterparts, are working on a package of proposals designed to address all controversial detainee issues at once, instead of dealing with them on a piecemeal basis.
Cheney's camp is a "shrinking island," said one State Department official who, like other administration officials quoted in this article, asked not to be identified because public dissent is strongly discouraged by the White House.
A fundamental question lies at the heart of these disagreements: Four years into the fight, what is the most effective way to wage the campaign against terrorism?
Cheney's camp says the United States does not torture captives, but believes the president needs nearly unfettered power to deal with terrorists to protect Americans. To preserve the president's flexibility, any measure that might impose constraints should be resisted. That is why the administration has recoiled from embracing the language of treaties such as the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which Cheney's aides find vague and open-ended.
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Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials.
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Reselling the Wars
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America's ambassadors to Iraq and Afghanistan were both in Washington during the past 10 days. They peddled plans for badly needed corrections of U.S. policy -- and they listened to the furious debate over Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame and the handling of flawed intelligence three years ago. The disconnect they encountered between the challenging realities of two ongoing wars and the otherworldly discussion in Washington could hardly have been greater.
Baghdad envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Kabul-based Ronald Neumann did not coordinate their home visits or their messages. But they had drawn similar conclusions -- in essence, that the Bush administration's effort to win quickly and cheaply in Afghanistan and then Iraq has boomeranged. Now a new military and political strategy is in place in both theaters that calls for making the long-term investments and fighting the battles that administration strategists -- above all, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- disastrously tried to dodge.
The problem is, that requires selling Washington, from the White House budget office to the media and Congress, on more money and more patience for wars generally regarded as nearly finished or already lost. And Washington is consumed with discussing the insubstantial visit a retired ambassador made to an obscure African country nearly four years ago.
Start with Neumann, a seasoned State Department pro whose father also served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. His visit was a quiet one; he didn't do much talking for the record. But his message was blunt: While there has been some success in Afghanistan, including the recent parliamentary elections, nothing is finished. There is still much to do, and a lot more American money will be needed. It's going to take years, and it's going to be bumpy.
Neumann's problem, in a way, is that Afghanistan looks great compared with Iraq. Yet the elected government of Hamid Karzai still doesn't control the country outside of the capital. Reconstruction remains slow, stalled by bottlenecks in roads and electricity. Drug traffickers control a large part of the rural economy. Meanwhile, training of Afghan police and army forces is proceeding at a snail's pace. Even in Kabul, there is a desperate shortage of competent and uncorrupted officials to staff the government.
Why has more not been accomplished in four years? Because the first-term Bush administration believed reconstruction could be left to others -- allies and contractors -- or limited to bare-bones measures. Neumann is the face of a more hard-nosed second-term team that understands the necessity of a long-term U.S. commitment. He told congressmen that an additional $700 million in reconstruction aid is needed for Afghanistan next year, above the $622 million request for 2006 -- and that sums of that magnitude would be needed for three more years. Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee were receptive, but Afghanistan must compete with Katrina, and with Iraq.
In Iraq, Khalilzad, who brokered the political process that is Afghanistan's signal success, now tries to repeat his feat. Almost orphaned by a president who limits his public discussion of Iraq to brave democrats and evil terrorists, the ambassador has worked with enormous energy to channel the complex and increasingly violent struggle for power among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds into elections and negotiations. The mistakes of the past 2 1/2 years have made his job much harder: Iraqis are far more polarized along ethnic lines than they were in 2003, and the insurgency is deeply entrenched, thanks to the Pentagon's slowness in taking it seriously.
The ambassador argues that U.S. policy is finally on track. "We do have the beginning of adjustments that I think puts us on the right path," he told Gwen Ifill of PBS in one of his few on-the-record interviews. In addition to his own diplomacy, which has persuaded Sunni parties to compete in upcoming elections and Shiite and Kurdish parties to agree to post-election negotiations, there is, at last, a concerted counterinsurgency campaign underway, aimed at clearing areas of militants and then holding them. Khalilzad believes Baghdad should now be systematically secured, starting with the airport and then moving into the city. But the process will be slow and hard: Just pacifying the capital could take a year.
How to buy the patience for a such an effort, which will surely cost many more American lives, and billions more dollars, in a Washington where debate over Iraq has become unhinged? Khalilzad seems to believe that only the beginning of troop withdrawals will buy the necessary time. In his PBS appearance, he predicted that "significant reductions" would be possible "in the coming year."
In Afghanistan, too, plans for troop withdrawals have been drawn up: 4,000 of 20,000 troops could be brought home next year. A pullback of forces, of course, doesn't really fit with a strategy that otherwise calls for a recommitment of American energy and resources. But for the pragmatists who now quietly strive to give Iraq and Afghanistan a chance for success, it is the price for past mistakes.
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The Bush administration's effort to win quickly and cheaply in Afghanistan and Iraq has boomeranged. We need to fight the battles it tried to dodge.
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An Overflowing Tribute to an Icon
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America's mighty and meek converged on a historic black church in downtown Washington yesterday afternoon for a hand-clapping, arm-waving, tear-inducing tribute to Rosa Parks, the civil rights matriarch who died last week at age 92.
It was the final segment of a 20-hour memorial visit that drew an estimated 40,000 people to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where Parks's body, in a polished wood coffin, had lain in honor overnight.
Mourners filled the 2,500-seat sanctuary of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church to overflowing, and hundreds crowded onto sidewalks and into the auditorium of a nearby office building to hear or see broadcasts of the 2 1/2 -hour service. As those outside sang along with "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "We Shall Overcome," their voices could be heard inside the red-brick church.
In his invocation, the Rev. Grainger Browning of Ebenezer AME Church in Prince George's County, linked Parks, a deaconess in the denomination, to a pantheon of black American heroes: Nat Turner, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Lorraine Hansberry, Mary Church Terrell, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.
The one-time seamstress was lauded by U.S. senators and representatives, civil rights leaders and pastors, actress Cicely Tyson and Alabama-born Johnnie Carr, 94, a friend of Parks's for more than 80 years.
After the service, the coffin and Parks's family and friends were flown to Detroit, where a funeral and burial are scheduled for tomorrow. President Bush has ordered that flags at federal buildings be flown at half-staff that day.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey and broadcast journalist Gwen Ifill, black women who have risen to the top of their professions, spoke of learning about Parks as children, long before they could comprehend the impact of what she had done.
Ifill, 50, called Parks "the kind of woman that I would spend the rest of my life trying to be. . . . The woman we want our daughters, and our sons, to grow up to be."
Winfrey, 51, recalled her father telling her "about this colored woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus. In my child's mind, I thought, 'She must be really big,' " Winfrey said, to laughter.
When she met the diminutive Parks years later, Winfrey added, "I said, 'Thank you. For myself and for every colored girl and every colored boy.'. . . I would not be standing here today, nor standing where I stand every day . . . had she not chosen to say we shall not -- we shall not -- be moved."
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) -- who said Parks's refusal to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in 1955 "led kids like me to do sit-ins" -- acted as mistress of ceremonies. D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) was in the pews along with most of the D.C. Council, Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) and several other elected officials from the region.
Youths from a program Parks founded to teach later generations about the civil rights struggle walked slowly through the aisles, holding blown-up photos of Parks.
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America's mighty and meek converged on a historic black church in downtown Washington Monday afternoon for a hand-clapping, arm-waving, tear-inducing tribute to Rosa Parks, the civil rights matriarch who died last week at age 92.
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Lessons of Scandals Past
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Presidents and their staffs resemble the families described by Tolstoy: All happy ones are alike while each unhappy one is unhappy in its own way. Scandals have a particular capacity for focusing this unhappiness. Richard Nixon's White House during the Watergate scandal was invested with the conspiratorial attitude that was an attribute of this distrustful president. Ronald Reagan's White House, more trusting, was bewildered by the Iran-contra scandal. Bill Clinton's aides were embarrassed by their president's insistence that his affair with Monica Lewinsky had nothing to do with the conduct of his presidency, but nearly all of them adopted this argument as their own.
George W. Bush and his team, reeling from the miscalculations and hubris that so often attend second-term presidencies, have reason to be unhappy. Neither the Iraq war nor the president's domestic agenda command widespread support. Bush's approval rating is lower than Reagan's or Clinton's at the depth of their scandals. Roughly two-thirds of Americans say the nation is on the wrong track.
Administration defenders searching for a silver lining in the White House gloom have observed that Bush -- unlike Nixon, Reagan or Clinton -- is not a suspect in the scandal that resulted in the indictment of his vice president's chief of staff. Assuming this is true, it's not entirely an advantage. Yes, Nixon's central role in the Watergate coverup forced him from office, but only because he persistently lied about it. Reagan created the Iran-contra scandal, in which several of his national security aides participated, by authorizing secret arms sales to Iran in defiance of his public policy and the counsel of his secretaries of state and defense. Clinton's involvement with Lewinsky was the scandal.
But the very centrality of Reagan and Clinton to their predicaments enabled them to do what Bush cannot: acknowledge responsibility and seek forgiveness. In Reagan's case, it took some prodding, much of it from his wife. Nancy Reagan brought into the White House a diverse array of people, including Democratic power Robert Strauss, whose message was to level with the American people. Reagan did. "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages," Reagan said in a nationally televised address on March 4, 1987. "My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."
That wasn't all. Again under prodding from his wife, he replaced Donald Regan, his besieged chief of staff, with former Republican Senate leader Howard Baker and named Frank Carlucci to replace a disgraced national security adviser as part of a general housecleaning. Baker and his successor, Kenneth Duberstein, ran the White House smoothly for the rest of the presidency.
Mindful that President Bush has tried to model his presidency after Reagan's, some Republicans have urged him to broaden a circle of advisers that has not notably widened in his second term. Relying exclusively on a small cadre of loyalists can be a problem in any line of work, but it is particularly a recipe for disaster in the White House. During the years I covered the presidency for this newspaper, I knew many capable White House aides who found their jobs exhilarating but who burned out under the heavy workload and unrelenting pressure. The strain of working in the hothouse environment of the White House is especially acute during a scandal. Bringing in new people in such circumstances can be an act of kindness as well as a political necessity.
Whether Bush can easily dispense with his embattled political adviser, Karl Rove, and other loyalists isn't clear. Bush is more devoted to the advisers who have been with him since Texas than Reagan was to his core group of Californians, and more dependent on them, too. Reagan had been used to new directors and cast members since his Hollywood acting days, and he did not regard anyone except his wife as indispensable. Martin Anderson, an observant economic adviser, once described his boss as "warmly ruthless." Although Reagan had stubbornly defended Don Regan, he didn't miss him when he was gone. Soon he acted as if Howard Baker had been his chief of staff all along.
Changing the guard cannot by itself solve Bush's problems. The nation was not at war when scandals struck the Reagan and Clinton administrations, and the policies of these presidents were, on the whole, more popular than Bush's policies. Bush is in large measure hostage to the war he began. But Reagan's success in the last years of his presidency, when he pursued a fundamental change in U.S.-Soviet relations, would not have been possible with the tired and discredited team he replaced because of the Iran-contra scandal. Reagan's example could be a useful guidepost for George W. Bush.
Lou Cannon covered the White House for The Post during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan presidencies and is the author of "Ronald Reagan: A Life in Politics." His e-mail address iscannonlou@hotmail.com.
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Presidents and their staffs resemble the families described by Tolstoy: All happy ones are alike while each unhappy one is unhappy in its own way. Scandals have a particular capacity for focusing this unhappiness. Richard Nixon's White House during the Watergate scandal was invested with the...
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Point-Blanked
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2005103019
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Oct. 30 -- As the third quarter wound down Sunday afternoon, the Washington Redskins had as many turnovers as first downs, had amassed a total of 86 yards on offense and already allowed New York Giants running back Tiki Barber to pile up a career-high 206 yards on the ground. The Redskins trailed, 36-0, the eventual margin of defeat, having been undone by a crisis of fundamental football.
What was supposed to be a clash for NFC East supremacy quickly devolved, with the Redskins (4-3) falling to New York (5-2) at Giants Stadium after being thoroughly outclassed in all facets of the game. The NFL's second-best offense -- and the league's leading quarterback-wide receiver combo (Mark Brunell and Santana Moss) -- accomplished nothing against the NFL's 31st-ranked defense, led by former Redskins linebacker Antonio Pierce. Barber, meantime, took his first carry 57 yards to his off-
ense's left side (a constant refrain), and Washington's fourth-ranked defense never recovered. Once the NFL standard against the run, the Redskins have declined steadily over the last five games.
Coach Joe Gibbs was shut out for the first time in 207 regular season games, and Washington suffered its most lopsided loss in a shutout since falling , 37-0, to Green Bay on Sept. 24, 2001. The defense allowed the most points since this staff took over in 2004, with the right side wilting on play after play of blown assignments and poor tackling. The offense faltered with turnovers, penalties and eight dropped passes, and failed to generate a play of 30 yards or more for the first time this season. To top it off, there are growing injury concerns on defense and offense (tackle Chris Samuels will have an MRI exam on his injured right knee Monday).
"That's as bad a performance on a team I've been a part of in all of my life," said tackle Jon Jansen, the longest-serving player on the club. "From not protecting the quarterback to turning the ball over to stupid penalties to giving up big plays, all around it was a bad day for the Redskins."
The Giants -- playing in honor of co-owner Wellington Mara, who died Tuesday -- dominated the line of scrimmage, out-rushing Washington 262-38 (Clinton Portis had a career-low nine yards).
"It was obviously a very emotional game," Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey said. "We know he's up there smiling."
The Redskins, who crushed San Francisco, 52-17, a week ago, saw no positives in this effort.
"Something like this starts with me," Gibbs said. "Certainly that's my responsibility. I think it was all of us together."
It started, in fact, on the opening play from scrimmage. The Giants pitched the ball to Barber, a Pro Bowler who had had one 200-yard effort in 55 previous NFC East games, and he raced to his left, untouched, for 57 yards, setting up a field goal. Wide receiver Plaxico Burress blocked cornerback Walt Harris, who struggled in the game, out of bounds; safety Sean Taylor took a poor angle on the run; right end Phillip Daniels dived and missed; and linebackers Lemar Marshall and Warrick Holdman, who was benched in the second half in place of LaVar Arrington, never came close to Barber.
"They were checking away from certain [defensive] players and formations," Marshall said. "That long run really gave them momentum, and once that happened we couldn't stop it."
Barber went two yards better early in the second quarter, running left for 59 yards. Harris was blitzing and was unable to contain the run, Holdman darted to the inside, misreading the play, and Barber cut back and raced down the sideline to the 1. Giants running back Brandon Jacobs ran it in two plays later for a 13-0 lead. Of Barber's 16 runs in the first half -- for 171 yards, more rushing yards than any team had compiled in 22 previous games against the Redskins under this staff -- 13 went to his left,.
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Info on Washington Redskins including the 2004 NFL Preview. Get the latest game schedule and statistics for the Redskins. Follow the Washington Redskins under the direction of Coach Joe Gibbs.
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Stop the Campaigning
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There is an old theatrical adage that tragedy is easy, comedy is hard. For politicians, that could be reformulated as: Campaigning is easy, governing is hard. The Bush administration, long disdainful of governance as an exercise for wimps and Democrats, now finds its political and legal troubles mounting while its time-tested campaign mode falters. The divide between campaigning and governing has existed for all administrations, of course, and was particularly and painfully evident during the darker moments of Bill Clinton's second term. But under the rule of George W. Bush and his outriders -- Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Andrew Card -- the disconnect between the pleasures of campaigning and the imperatives of governing has become acute.
Continuous campaigning, dating back to Richard Nixon and perfected in succeeding decades, has evolved into the approach of choice. Stage-managed events, orchestrated by masters of spin, provide the appearance of a chief executive in charge of the nation's destiny. Some presidents -- Ronald Reagan, Clinton and the younger Bush -- were or are masters of the art. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were less adept on the hustings and more at home with policies, diplomacy and personnel choices. Their performances varied but their impulse was toward making the government run, not creating the illusion of an executive in perpetual motion.
The Bush team brought its campaign skills from the 2000 presidential contest into the White House and never stopped its reliance on these methods. Along with that style went the assumptions rooted in the Republican DNA of the president and those around him: The Democratic Party is not a worthy partner in the political process; repealing key elements of the New Deal is but a prelude to overturning the accomplishments of the Progressive Era; and negotiations with a partisan opponent are not opportunities to be embraced but traps to be avoided.
The other part of the recipe for Bush's success was an unstated but evident identification of the president himself with the nation at large. Accompanied by a willing array of incense swingers in the White House, Bush attained (particularly in the minds of his base) a status that embraced both the imperial and in some cases the quasi-deified. Why then become involved in the details of running a government from the Oval Office? Appoint the right Republicans to key posts, and the federal government would run itself while providing an unending source of patronage for supporters, contracts for friendly businesses and the sinews of perpetual political dominance. It seemed to cross no one's mind that the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- a post where dealing with extraordinary crises is all in a day's work -- might need to be super-competent rather than just a superintendent.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq insulated the president from questioning whether his government was operating effectively. In the first term, criticism and contrary advice could be (and often was) labeled as mere partisan sniping, as happened with such figures as former National Security Council counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and, more notably, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.
During a campaign, attacking the opponent's motives is part of the cut and thrust of politics, and so the substance of charges can be finessed with the claim that their author had worked for the opposition or had some other hidden agenda. In the case of Wilson, the attack on him fit with the principle of rapid retaliation so characteristic of a campaign. Less thought was apparently devoted to whether revealing the identity of his wife, a CIA employee, served the interests of wise and prudent governance. Whatever the outcome of the charges filed Friday against Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the apparent blurring of the line between campaigning and governing is evident in the indictment returned by the federal grand jury.
Meanwhile, many in the administration -- and in the media -- simply turned their minds away from engaging a dissent from a Bush policy on its merits if the critic wasn't a Republican. That a critic might be a Democrat and correct -- or a Republican outsider offering a useful counterpoint -- seemed to be a contradiction in terms for people around Bush.
This strategy worked well during the first term and culminated in a larger margin of victory last November. Once the president was no longer a candidate for office, he turned to the issue of a mandate for change with his seemingly abundant political capital. Remaking the Social Security system loomed as the big domestic goal of the second term. Hammering out an actual proposal ("Negotiating with ourselves" in the president's parlance) was not to the taste of inveterate campaigners. Campaign first, program last seemed the slogan to be followed. So the president made numerous speeches before captive audiences touting the virtues of change in Social Security as a platonic ideal, but refused to provide a specific plan. Since popular enthusiasm for an alteration in retirement policy failed to materialize, the president was left with a campaign in search of a governing objective.
Hurricane Katrina, and the political and atmospheric storms that followed, underscored the deficiencies of continuous campaigning as a response to real-life crises. Getting assistance to storm victims is a matter of logistics, competent administrators and coordinated planning. A presidential visit to express sympathy for those who have lost homes, jobs and loved ones is a one-day nostrum that leaves the basic situation unchanged, no matter how many times the chief executive jets in with concern. When the government does not work, it does not matter how many officials are told they have done "a heck of a job." Citizens see for themselves that their government is absent and help is not on the way.
The Bush presidency will end in three years, but the larger problems revealed by his faltering second term will remain to plague the nation. There is as yet no meaningful evidence that the president, Congress and the media are prepared to abandon their infatuation with continuous campaigning as an alternative to actual operation of the federal government. Imagine an occupant of the White House who thought about issues, anticipated crises and sacked officials who didn't measure up to the demands of an urgent problem. If that worthy person failed to fly Air Force One around the country and feed the appetite of the media for attractive visual moments, there would soon be cries that the president was out of touch, aloof and in political danger.
But government, while it has elements of a show and entertainment, is not at bottom about pleasing today's cable TV audiences. The president needs to take the long view about the national interest beyond the demands of a political campaign or the continuous electioneering so common to the modern White House. The dilemma is that paying attention to those considerations guarantees a short tenure in office. George W. Bush may have a presidency now that is moving from embattled to dysfunctional. The problems that his administration represents go deeper than the perils of a special prosecutor, a restive political base or an invigorated opposition. If in 2008 the United States simply chooses a practitioner of continuous campaigning who shares Bush's disdain for governing, the process will repeat itself and another chief executive will encounter problems retaining the trust and confidence of the electorate.
Somehow, the political system needs to restore governing to its proper place in the conduct of American government. Whether this means more one-term presidencies, a more rigorous screening process for national candidates, a more involved citizenry and a more aggressive press -- or at least a press less influenced by artifice -- cannot be discerned at this moment of potential disaster for the Bush administration.
But it's important to realize that the underlying issues are systemic, not to be cured by different incumbents of either party. George W. Bush's current troubles offer perhaps a final chance to mature as a nation and to understand we must ask more of our leaders than a television screen filled with reassuring images while the hard work of actual governing lapses into disuse and decay.
Lewis Gould is the author of books on the presidency, politics and Congress. His latest, "The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate" (Basic Books), will be published next week.
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The Bush administration, long disdainful of governance as an exercise for wimps and Democrats, now finds its troubles mounting while its time-tested campaign mode falters.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801718.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005103019id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801718.html
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The Realist Who Got It Wrong
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2005103019
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Now that Cindy Sheehan turns out to be a disaster for the antiwar movement -- most Americans are not about to follow a left-wing radical who insists that we are in Iraq for reasons of theft, oppression and empire -- a new spokesman is needed. If I were in the opposition camp, I would want a deeply patriotic, highly intelligent, distinguished establishment figure. I would want Brent Scowcroft.
Scowcroft has been obliging. In the Oct. 31 New Yorker he came out strongly against the war and the neocon sorcerers who magically foisted it upon what must have been a hypnotized president and vice president.
Of course, Scowcroft's opposition to toppling Saddam Hussein is neither surprising nor new. Indeed, we are now seeing its third iteration. He had two cracks at Hussein in 1991 and urged his President Bush to pass them both up -- first, after Hussein's defeat in the Persian Gulf War, when the road to Baghdad was open, and then, days later, during a massive U.S.-encouraged uprising of Kurds and Shiites, when America stood by and allowed Hussein to massacre his opponents by the tens of thousands. One of the reasons for Iraqi wariness during the U.S. liberation 12 years later was the memory of our past betrayal and suspicions about our current intentions in light of that betrayal.
This coldbloodedness is a trademark of this nation's most doctrinaire foreign policy "realist." Realism is the billiard ball theory of foreign policy: The only thing that counts is how countries interact, not what's happening inside. You care not a whit about who is running a country. Whether it is Mother Teresa or the Assad family gangsters in Syria, you care only about their external actions, not how they treat their own people.
Realists prize stability above all, and there is nothing more stable than a ruthlessly efficient dictatorship. Which is why Scowcroft is the man who six months after Tiananmen Square toasted those who ordered the massacre; who, as the world celebrates the Beirut Spring that evicted the Syrian occupation from Lebanon, sees not liberation but possible instability; who can barely conceal a preference for Syria's stabilizing iron rule.
Even today Scowcroft says, "I didn't think that calling the Soviet Union the 'evil empire' got anybody anywhere." Tell that to Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents for whom that declaration of moral -- beyond geopolitical -- purpose was electrifying and helped galvanize the movements that ultimately brought down the Soviet empire.
It was not brought down by diplomacy and arms control, the preferred realist means for dealing with the Soviet Union. It was brought down by indigenous revolutionaries, encouraged and supported by Ronald Reagan, a president unabashedly dedicated not to detente with evil but to its destruction -- i.e., regime change.
For realists such as Scowcroft, regime change is the ultimate taboo. Too risky, too dangerous, too unpredictable. "I'm a realist in the sense that I'm a cynic about human nature," he admits. Hence, writes Jeffrey Goldberg, his New Yorker chronicler, Scowcroft remains "unmoved by the stirrings of democracy movements in the Middle East."
Particularly in Iraq. The difficulties there are indeed great. But those difficulties came about not because, as Scowcroft tells us, "some people don't really want to be free" and don't value freedom as we do. The insurgency in Iraq is not proof of an escape-from-freedom human nature that has little use for liberty and prefers other things. The insurgency is, on the contrary, evidence of a determined Sunni minority desperate to maintain not only its own freedom but its previous dominion over the other 80 percent of the population now struggling for theirs.
These others -- the overwhelming majority of Iraq's people -- have repeatedly given every indication of valuing their newfound freedom: voting in two elections at the risk of their lives, preparing for a third, writing and ratifying a constitution granting more freedoms than exist in any country in the entire Arab Middle East. "The secret is out," says Fouad Ajami. "There is something decent unfolding in Iraq. It's unfolding in the shadow of a terrible insurgency, but a society is finding its way to constitutional politics."
Ajami is no fool, no naif, no reckless idealist, as Scowcroft likes to caricature the neoconservatives he reviles. A renowned scholar on the Middle East, Ajami is a Shiite, fluent in Arabic, who has unsentimentally educated the world about the Arab predicament and Arab dream palaces. Yet. having returned from two visits to Iraq this year, he sports none of Scowcroft's easy, ostentatious cynicism about human nature, and Iraqi human nature in particular. Instead, Ajami celebrates the coming of decency in a place where decency was outlawed 30 years ago.
It is not surprising that Scowcroft, who helped give indecency a 12-year extension in Iraq, should disdain decency's return. But we should not.
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It is not surprising that Brent Scowcroft, who helped give indecency a 12-year life extension in Iraq, should disdain decency's return. But we should not.
| 31.633333 | 0.966667 | 10.1 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801771.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005102919id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801771.html
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No More Special Counsels
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2005102919
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Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should be the final proof that the system of "special prosecutors" is bankrupt and ought to be abandoned.
Fitzgerald, a highly respected federal prosecutor from Chicago, was given the task of investigating whether Bush administration officials had violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by "leaking" the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
It is clear that, at least by sometime in January 2004 -- and probably much earlier -- Fitzgerald knew this law had not been violated. Plame was not a "covert" agent but a bureaucrat working at CIA headquarters. Instead of closing shop, however, Fitzgerald sought an expansion of his mandate and has now charged offenses that grew entirely out of the investigation itself. In other words, there was no crime when the investigation started, only, allegedly, after it finished. Unfortunately, for special counsels, as under the code of the samurai, once the sword is drawn it must taste blood.
The Plame affair began with the implication by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that Vice President Cheney had sent him on a mission to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy nuclear weapons material. Iraq's efforts to obtain weapons-grade uranium ore or "yellowcake" in Africa became an element of President Bush's justification for war, and it was included in his 2003 State of the Union address. British intelligence also believed that this attempt had been made, and the CIA's review of the matter -- including Wilson's trip -- emphatically did not suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, in July 2003 Wilson published a New York Times op-ed piece designed to undercut the administration's claims regarding Iraq's nuclear ambitions. The piece noted that Cheney's office had "asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer," and Wilson criticized the administration for proceeding to war despite his conclusions.
In fact, Wilson was not selected by Cheney's office. His wife, a CIA analyst working at the agency's Northern Virginia headquarters, was involved in getting him the assignment. Apparently in an effort to set the record straight, and to put the whole story before the American people, administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak about Plame's role in selecting her husband for the Niger mission. Administration critics immediately alleged that the name of a "covert" CIA agent had been revealed -- a federal crime. Instead of permitting this allegation to be investigated in the normal course of events by federal prosecutors in Washington, the Justice Department tapped Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, to serve as a "special counsel" to investigate the officials who might have been involved. Ironically, the pressure to appoint a special counsel came only after the information about the Justice Department internal investigation was leaked to the media.
The age of special prosecutors, of course, began with Watergate. Since that time, a series of "independent counsels" and "special counsels" has left a trail of ruined lives but very few well-founded convictions for serious federal crimes. Republicans were thoroughly disillusioned with the system by the close of Ronald Reagan's second term, and many Democrats came to agree by the time President Bill Clinton left office. The independent counsel statute was not renewed and is no longer in effect. But the attorney general may still appoint special counsels as an administrative act, and this is how Fitzgerald took office. He should be the last.
The reasons were well and truly articulated by Justice Robert Jackson, then serving as Franklin Roosevelt's attorney general. Speaking of the prosecutor's power, Jackson noted the great danger that a prosecutor would choose whom to prosecute:
"Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone."
By being assigned to investigate one individual, or a small group, the prosecutor is deprived of normal constraints such as resource limitations and the perspective of having to choose from a range of cases to pursue. Another vital missing ingredient is supervision. Normally federal prosecutors have political superiors who review their decisions. This is supposed to be the case even with special counsels. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not entirely clear -- but that may have involved some buck-passing by Justice Department officials -- Fitzgerald was specifically excused from even this minimal check on his power and as a consequence was accountable only to himself.
Enough should be enough. The courts will now handle Fitzgerald's allegations against Libby. But in the future, the investigation of high-level misconduct should not be removed from the normal processes of the Justice Department. The U.S. attorneys, and the department's Criminal Division, are fully capable of investigating and prosecuting alleged wrongdoing by important government officials, and can do it with proper perspective. Almost all federal prosecutors are, in fact, career lawyers quite capable of balking if their political supervisors abuse their authority. They should be left alone to do their jobs.
The writers are Washington lawyers who served in the Justice Department during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
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Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should be the final proof that the system of "special prosecutors" is bankrupt and ought to be abandoned.
| 30.382353 | 1 | 34 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501390.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005102719id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501390.html
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A Kurdish Vision of Iraq
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2005102719
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In recent weeks Iraq has passed three important milestones. The constitutional referendum on Oct. 15 was a powerful demonstration of Iraqis' desire to establish democracy and save a country still recovering from its disastrous history. Two days later the remains of 500 of my kinsmen were returned from a mass grave in southern Iraq for reburial in Iraqi Kurdistan. Another 7,500 of my kin are still missing after "disappearing" from a Baathist concentration camp in 1983 in the first phase of the genocidal Anfal campaign, which caused the death of 182,000 Kurdish civilians during the 1980s. Then, on Oct. 19, Saddam Hussein finally went on trial.
None of this would have been possible without the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, an operation in which Kurds were proud partners. After the U.S. armed forces, our pesh merga was the second-largest member of the coalition. Today the security forces of Iraqi Kurdistan remain highly capable and reliable allies of the United States. By consistently working with the United States and reaching out to our fellow Iraqis, we have been at the heart of a political process based on equality and inclusion, on consensus and compromise.
Above all, we have taken the path of engagement because, like the United States, we need Iraq to succeed and avoid a repetition of the horrors of the past. We have therefore been engaged in Iraqi national politics and governance. Kurds have joined the new Iraqi military in large numbers. We have made unprecedented sacrifices. Time and again we have pursued political settlements by encouraging flexibility and consensus.
And yet the Kurds have been vilified as separatists and derided for "overreaching." This stems from a belief that our aim is independence, and from the chauvinism that defines the Middle East as homogenous, that refuses to accepts its inherent diversity. What those who carp at the victims in Iraq fail to understand is that Kurds, like other Iraqis, crave security -- security for the future and security from the terrors of the past. We suffered more than 80 years of discrimination and disadvantage -- suffering that culminated in anti-Kurdish ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Unlike our critics, Kurds are pragmatists and moderates. We know that we have rights, but we also understand that we have responsibilities. We are patriots, not suicidal nationalists. That moderation has translated into a commitment to dialogue. We were pivotal in the establishment of the Iraqi Governing Council in July 2003 without any preconditions. We were under no obligation to reattach Kurdistan to Iraq. After all, the United States is not asking Kosovo to rejoin Serbia.
Our desire for security and our principles of moderation and dialogue were key factors in the proposal of all the major Iraqi political parties to create a federal, pluralistic and democratic Iraq in which power is decentralized and so less open to abuse. Iraqis of all communities recognize that only such a formula can keep Iraq intact.
In Iraqi Kurdistan we have, for the past 14 years, accepted the idea that we are a diverse society. Ethnic and religious minorities -- Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Yazidis and Turkomans -- all serve in the Kurdistan regional government and all have the right to educate their children in their mother tongues and to broadcast in their own languages. We firmly believe that the Middle East must accommodate all of its peoples and all of their languages and religions. Nor is Kurdistan alone in this regard. In the new Iraq, the Kurds see their role as bridge builders, as a community that has every interest in an inclusive political process that gives Iraq a better future while addressing the injustices of the past.
Just as Kurds have not taken revenge on the Arab settlers who took over their land, so the moderate Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs of Iraq have shown similar forbearance in the face of a wave of suicide bombings that has claimed many thousands of lives. All democratic Iraqis have shown they realize that the wrongs of the past can be redressed only through agreed-on legal mechanisms and that justice cannot be selective. It is as important for Kurds to be allowed to return to Kirkuk and for Marsh Arabs to be restored to their homes as it is for Saddam Hussein to be put on trial.
The restraint of the victims, the defiance of the millions who vote -- refusing to be drawn into the civil war fantasies of the terrorists -- vindicate the courage and vision of the United States and its coalition partners. Backing this fundamentally sound vision has been President Bush's moral understanding of the healing and dignity that democracy confers upon all men and women, an understanding that the Kurds share.
The United States has never wavered in its quest to help Iraqis build a democracy that rewards compromise and consensus. The ever-generous American people have paid a tragic price, the lives of their finest men and women, to advance the banner of freedom and democracy, a sacrifice for which we are profoundly grateful. We all know that democracy is the only solution to political problems, the only method by which grievances can be addressed. In this war and for these principles, the Kurds are true friends of the United States.
The writer is president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
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Kurds are patriots, not suicidal nationalists, and have supported a federal, pluralistic and democratic Iraq rather than an independent Kurdistan.
| 39.48 | 0.84 | 3.88 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501389.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005102719id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501389.html
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Silver Flu Bullets
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2005102719
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Have you got Tamiflu? I haven't, but a friend of mine has. He proudly told me he scored a prescription for his whole family. Another friend is also trying to wangle a prescription, even though there's no guarantee that Tamiflu will work. "It saved 80 percent of the mice in the laboratory study," he said.
In case you haven't heard, Tamiflu is the antiviral drug that might, or might not, provide some protection against avian flu, the bird epidemic that might, or might not, mutate into a deadly disease that humans can catch from other humans. Already there are reports that the virus that causes avian flu has mutated at least enough to become immune to Tamiflu. Nevertheless, I predict a run on Tamiflu in this country, if only because Americans are a pragmatic people. They have observed what happened after Hurricane Katrina. They have heard the president talking about deploying the military during a pandemic. And they have guessed that, whatever their government is doing to prepare for the arrival of bird flu, it isn't enough.
As it happens, they have guessed correctly -- more so than they may realize. For despite our technological advantages and our wealth, this country is uniquely badly positioned to prepare for a global flu pandemic, or indeed any kind of pandemic, whether natural or terrorist-made. It isn't that we aren't smart enough: It's that the culture, at the moment, doesn't encourage it. Here's why:
Short-termism . A few weeks ago, a sudden blitz of front-page stories announced new bird flu initiatives. The president met with vaccine manufacturers! The secretary of health and human services went to Asia! As far as I can ascertain, much of this happened because the president and his Cabinet colleague had recently read John Barry's excellent book "The Great Influenza," on the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. But while there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the president reading books (it's possibly a better use of presidential time than mountain biking), a week's worth of publicity doesn't substitute for many years of sustained collaboration between the government, the pharmaceutical industry and the rest of the research community. In the end, the solution to this flu and to any pandemic disease lies not merely in the development of vaccines or cures but also in the development of scientific techniques, legal mechanisms and commercial incentives to speed up production of vaccines. Instead of years, it should take weeks -- or even days -- to move from identifying a deadly virus to finding a vaccine that prevents infection. Instead of looking for temporarily effective antiviral drugs, this country should be putting its resources into finding ways of boosting the human immune system itself. But that's a project that a flurry of news stories can never sustain, particularly in a country that at the moment produces no vaccines at all.
Of course, before the politicians start investing in vaccine technology, both they and the voting public will have to get over their hatred of the drug companies . To some degree, this hatred is rational: The high drug prices paid by Americans and by no one else in the world are a huge social burden. To some degree, it is irrational: After all, drug companies make miracle cures, not weapons of mass destruction. Either way, dislike of the pharmaceutical industry has been a major obstacle to Congress's efforts to persuade American companies to start making vaccines. Companies need incentives to do the research; or guarantees that someone will buy their finished vaccines; or protection from lawsuits by users of vaccines that will not have been widely tested; or some combination of the above. The Senate's subcommittee on bioterrorism has recently written a sensible bill proposing that the government pay for the research in the early phases of pharmaceutical innovation, much as the government pays for the research in the early phases of warship innovation. It makes sense -- but ask yourself if, deep down, you can bear the thought of Merck or Pfizer collecting a single cent of your tax dollars, and then you'll understand the depth of the problem.
Finally, Americans and their leaders will have to get over their love affair with intelligent design . Polls show that most don't believe in evolution. But it is actually impossible to talk logically about bird flu, or any other rapidly evolving and constantly changing virus, without using the language of evolution -- specific words such as "mutant," "recombination," "genome" and "selection." Without that language, a sensible popular or political discussion, let alone a scientific discussion, is impossible: We're stuck talking about the virus "jumping" from birds to humans, as if it were a magic bug with a mind of its own. We're stuck thinking that a virus is a hex that can be lifted with a single lucky charm, not something that will change over time.
We're also stuck with magic solutions: silver bullets, protective amulets, Tamiflu prescriptions. And until we are willing to elect the politicians, pay the businessmen, and support the scientists and science educators who can come up with something better, that, I'm afraid, is all the flu preparedness we'll ever have.
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Americans hate drug companies, don't believe in the science needed to combat viruses like bird flu and don't support sustained efforts to solve difficult problems. We're left with magical solutions that probably won't work.
| 24.119048 | 0.690476 | 1.357143 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401394.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005102519id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401394.html
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No Job for an Ideologue
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2005102519
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You'd hope that the new chairman of the Federal Reserve Board would learn not only from Alan Greenspan's successes but also from his failures. There is reason to worry that having a Fed chairman so close to President Bush's policymaking apparatus will give us something other than the best of these two worlds.
In picking Ben Bernanke, the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, to replace Greenspan, Bush has not chosen a classic crony. Bernanke has ample academic and policy credentials and served on the Fed's board of governors for nearly three years before taking his White House post in June.
But a Fed chairman is supposed to serve the whole economy and transcend the interests and policy predispositions of a particular administration. The Senate will need to press Bernanke hard to find out how he will manage this.
When President Bill Clinton renominated Greenspan in 1996 and again in 2000, Clinton knew he was sticking with a libertarian conservative whose political views were often at odds with the administration's. Clinton stayed with Greenspan because the economy was booming, and no savvy politician messes with success.
There was also this about Greenspan: In managing interest rates, he was largely an empiricist paying attention to facts even more than he was an ideologue peddling theories. He could admit that the new economy was something of a mystery to him, and he could learn from mistakes.
In the early 1990s, he put the brakes on the economy too hard, fearing inflation and speeding a downturn. Greenspan came to see inflation as far less of a threat in the new economy than did many of his fellow conservatives -- and some of his European central banking brethren. He let the economy grow faster, and inflation was kept at bay.
That was the side of Greenspan that won him comparisons with the Almighty. In fact, he didn't get everything as right, as we now remember. In retrospect, he could have done more to ease the negative effects of the stock market bubble he was warning against. We may come to wonder about the housing bubble as well. Still, we have pretty fond memories of the Clinton-Greenspan-Robert Rubin economy.
But Greenspan never lost his ideological side. When Bush took office, Greenspan, in an act that will always mar his tenure, suggested that there was ample room for the tax cuts Bush favored, that there might be terrible problems from paying off the debt too quickly. Greenspan became the great enabler of Bush tax policies that have produced massive deficits -- which Greenspan now dutifully condemns. When the great mechanic gave way to the flawed policymaker, the results were less than pleasing.
And that is why Bernanke gives us all reason for concern. Just last Thursday, there he was, telling Congress's Joint Economic Committee that the initial Bush tax cuts had "increased disposable income for all taxpayers, supporting consumer confidence and spending while increasing incentives for work and entrepreneurship." Later tax cuts, he said, "provided incentives for businesses to expand their capital investments and reduced the cost of capital by lowering tax rates on dividends and capital gains."
Well, a Bush appointee would say that, wouldn't he? But this is a terribly rosy view of reality. Consumer confidence has actually been going down. Disposable income is not going up for everyone (just ask General Motors employees and retirees). And Bernanke is a fan of explicit inflation targets, which Greenspan rejected in favor of a more pragmatic approach. Would inflation targets unduly hamper growth?
When Bush announced his appointment yesterday, Bernanke was careful to emphasize his desire to "maintain continuity" with Greenspan's policies. He also implied he would be independent by stressing he would play his role in the economy in cooperation with his Federal Reserve colleagues -- pointedly not mentioning the White House.
He is thus aware of the main line of questioning he will -- and should -- face from the Senate: What does he see as the best parts of the Greenspan legacy, and is he in thrall to the same economic ideology that has animated the president who chose him?
This nomination ought to spur a broad debate on the future of the economy and globalization that pays attention not just to what "the markets" are thinking but also to what is happening to Americans who do not find themselves at the top of the heap. A Fed chairman who beats inflation at the cost of middle-income living standards will not be regarded as a success.
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The danger of having a partisan ideologue in the job of chairman of the federal reserve is the risk that the new chairman will put politics above sensible fiscal policy.
| 27.677419 | 0.741935 | 1.903226 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401734.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2005102519id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401734.html
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CIA Leak Linked to Dispute Over Iraq Policy
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2005102519
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The alleged leaking of a CIA operative's name had its roots in a clash over Iraq policy between White House insiders and their rivals in the permanent bureaucracy of Washington, especially in the State Department and the CIA.
As the investigation into the leak reaches its expected climax this week with the expiration of the grand jury's term, the internal disputes have been further amplified by a recent string of speeches and interviews criticizing the administration's handling of Iraq, including by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and State Department diplomats, and other officials involved in the early efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Scowcroft, a close friend of former president George H.W. Bush, revealed in interviews with the New Yorker a deep disdain for the administration's foreign policy, according to an article published this week. He said he had once considered Vice President Cheney "a good friend," but "Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." When Scowcroft was asked whether he could name the issues on which he agreed with President Bush, he replied "Afghanistan." He then paused for 12 seconds before adding only, "I think we're doing well on Europe."
A top State Department official involved in Iraq policy, former ambassador Robin Raphel, said the administration was "not prepared" when it invaded Iraq, but did so anyway in part because of "clear political pressure, election driven and calendar driven," according to an oral history interview posted on the Web site of the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace.
The unusual on-the-record bashing comes at a difficult period for the White House, which this week is also bracing for the 2,000th military fatality in the Iraq conflict. While the internal conflicts were not a secret even during the planning for war, the intensity of the feelings more than two years later is striking.
A special counsel is investigating how the undercover status of Valerie Plame -- the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV -- was revealed to reporters in July 2003. The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium. Wilson said he found little evidence to support the allegations and later emerged as an administration critic after Bush referred to the Niger connection in the 2003 State of the Union address.
Testimony in the leak case, especially by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, has suggested that one reason White House officials sought to discredit Wilson is a deep animus toward the CIA -- and a suspicion the intelligence agency was trying to shift blame for its failures onto the White House.
But, elsewhere in Washington, others were seething, as well.
"The case that I saw for four-plus years was a case I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Powell's former chief of staff and longtime confidant, said in a speech last week. "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."
Wilkerson added that when decisions were presented to the bureaucracy, "it was presented in such a disjointed, incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out."
Scowcroft, in his interview, discussed an argument over Iraq he had two years ago with Condoleezza Rice, then-national security adviser and current secretary of state. "She says we're going to democratize Iraq, and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, 'You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. The article stated that with a "barely perceptible note of satisfaction," Scowcroft added: "But we've had fifty years of peace."
Scowcroft also dismissed former deputy secretary of defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, the intellectual godfather of the Iraq invasion. "He's got a utopia out there. We're going to transform the Middle East, and then there won't be war anymore. He can make them democratic," Scowcroft said. "Paul's idealism sweeps away doubts," he added.
Raphel's interview, conducted in July 2004, has been posted on the institute Web site, along with more than 30 other interviews -- some blunt in their dissatisfaction and disappointment -- with a range of officials involved in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Little notice has been paid to the interviews until this week.
Raphel, who still works at State, said that controversial decisions to fire any officials associated with the Baath Party and to demobilize the Iraqi army were made largely because of "neoconservative" ideology. "What one needs to understand is that these decisions were ideologically based," she said. "They were not based on an analytical, historical understanding. They were based on ideology. You don't counter ideology with logic or experience or analysis very effectively."
Raphel added: "There was very much the sense that we were getting in way over our heads within weeks."
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The alleged leaking of a CIA operative's name had its roots in a clash over Iraq policy between White House insiders and their rivals in the permanent bureaucracy of Washington, especially in the State Department and the CIA.
| 25.439024 | 1 | 41 |
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