Fitz--On Viewing the Enemy

I would like to dovetail a bit off of deezelboy’s On Looking at the Evidence post with some other conclusions regarding how humans think and process information. Often times in international relations we study the actions of individual leaders. To understand their behavior towards one another it is often useful to delve into what their personal belief systems are and psychological theories about how humans think and process information.

International relations are often conflictual and often times leaders define other persons or peoples as “the enemy.” People’s belief systems play a large role in how they define or interpret information. As deezelboy pointed out in his post, human beings have a strong tendency to discount information that goes against their belief or hunch while accepting affirming information readily despite flaws.

This idea can also be applied to how we view others. A person who defines another as an enemy is far more likely to look for factors that confirm this and to discount or discredit information that may lead to a contradictory conclusion.

Conflicts between persons, leaders, or nation-states are not eternal, but they can often be enduring. Enduring even beyond conciliatory gestures made by the person or group you consider an enemy. This resistance to change comes from a basic human attribute of judging others by a different standard than you judge yourself. This is often termed the Fundamental Attribution Error. I borrow primarily from an old book I read in graduate school and that I still use: Enemies in Politics and a chapter by Ole Holsti who has written extensively on foreign policy.

In his chapter, Holsti examines Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his belief system regarding the Soviet Union. A belief system is basically an amalgamation of organized knowledge that a human being has about itself and the world. It is the filter or lens through which information received from their social environment is going to pass through. In essence, it defines how the person is going to view his/her environment and the actors within it.

In the case of Dulles and his attitude towards the Soviet Union is one that was harsh. The Soviet Union was the enemy with communism forming a monolithic and large threat to the United States interests and way of life. This belief system has roots in Dulles childhood and how he was raised to view the world.

I do not wish to delve into the details of the study, but rather skip to the conclusions which are also drawn from a number of sociological and psychological studies as well. Despite conciliatory gestures put forth by the Soviet Union, Dulles often still found ways to fit that information into his preconceived belief of the Soviet Union as being evil and the enemy.

Here is what happens when we receive contradictory information regarding someone or something we consider the enemy. We can engage in a number of practices that attempt to confirm our belief system rather than to overturn it. One is to search for new information with supports our preconceived notion. Second is to stop thinking about it all together. Another is to reinterpret the information in a manner that conforms to our preexisting attitude. One may also attempt to discredit the information. Finally, we may differentiate information into subcategories i.e. “yes, but…” In other words, we might concede a small point, but this is only a small adjustment to our preexisting attitude.

To actually overcome a preexisting attitude usually takes overwhelming evidence to the contrary if it ever happens at all.

This can be applied to any number of conflicts, Northern Ireland, the Cold War, Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. One side is going to be more apt to take a dispositional attitude towards their enemy when negotiations for peace break down. It is their fault because they are “bad people, evil, etc…” However, when your side is at fault, often we emphasize situational factors. So the argument becomes “we couldn’t help it because of these reasons beyond our control that forced us to behave that way.” This is the essence of the Fundamental Attribution Error. Ultimately, it is a way to continue to demonize your enemy while still thinking of yourself as the good guy or in the right.

Combined with belief systems that lend themselves to viewing the other side as the enemy compounds this problem. Incoming information that might show conciliatory gestures on the part of someone you consider an enemy are more likely to be ignored, reinterpreted, discounted, etc… while factors that reinforce your belief system will be readily accepted.

So as deezelboy said, it is wise to be suspicious of any evidence that confirms our hunch, it is also wise to be aware of our own preconceived judgments and how we apply those judgments or carry them too far.

deezelboy – On Looking at the Evidence

First take your contentious issue. This issue could be anything as long as its controversial, so that people will automatically hold a preconceived view on it. Capital punishment or abortion are pretty good candidates, eliciting strong reactions, although it might be something so parochial as whether to build another runway or a nuclear power plant. Doesn’t matter.

Next, take your volunteers. Screen them so as you know which side of the issue they’re on and divide them so that there are two opposing groups – let’s call them pro-life and pro-choice, to take the terminology from the abortion debate. But it could be anything, and it’s wise to hold on to that point.

Now hand each member of each group some literature on the issue. You will have previously selected the literature so that it comprises of four documents. Two will be in favour of the issue (say, pro-choice), and two against (pro-life). But you’re a bit more sneaky than that. One of the pro-choice documents contains a plausible argument, while the other contains an implausible, almost absurd, argument. The same is done for the pro-life documents.

You give the two groups some time to read over the documents, and then you turn to seeing what elements of the four papers the two groups can spontaneously recall. And here is where it gets interesting.

You may find, and forty-odd years of social research certainly has, that people tend to remember best the arguments that bolster their own stance. So our pro-choice group recalls the plausible pro-choice argument and the implausible pro-life argument best. The strong argument against their position is disregarded by not being remembered as well as it should be.

That which runs counter to our belief is ignored.

One study focused on the death penalty, with subjects screened for strong pro- or anti- views – moderates weren’t allowed in. The subjects were given two studies, one supporting their belief and one against it. Both were plausible but seriously flawed in their research, and these flaws were obvious.

The subjects were polled for the strength of their beliefs after they had read the first study. Where the first paper had supported their view their attitude was increased; where it did not there was no change. After reading both studies subjects were polled again and the strength of their belief was now stronger than at the screening stage.

The paper that had opposed their strongly held belief was rejected because of its flaws, which the subjects were able to see. But they were blind to the same flaws in the paper that supported their views – they described it as ‘more convincing’ or ‘better conducted’ than the other – in such a way as it not only confirmed their view but increased the strength of their belief.

It’s very difficult to wander into a debate with an open mind because, based on the above, an open mind is an empty mind. Below the level of conscious awareness information is filtered through a set of cognitive biases which seek to confirm what you already believe and ignore that which you don’t.

This is extremely problematic: if you are unable to recall a convincing argument you are extremely unlikely to be convinced, regardless of its validity. It also suggests that evidence supporting a view you hold is evaluated differently to evidence opposing your views – you are far more able to discern weaknesses in an opposing argument than in an argument that supports your views. In short, we go to great lengths to deceive ourselves that we are correct.

So far I’ve been concentrating on strong views, the type brought about by contentious issues. Yet any view, any hypothesis, seems to be affected in the same way. In one study, subjects were handed 25 suicide letters and told that some were authentic and some were fake: their task was to tell which was which. All of them were fake, but the researchers told half the subject group they were doing very well and the other half that they were doing very badly.

After the experiment the researchers told the subjects that all the letters were fake and that the feedback given had been planned in advance regardless of their response. In short, their responses were meaningless.

They were then asked to complete a questionnaire estimating how well they thought they would be able to carry out the same task in the future, but this time with genuine suicide notes included amongst the fake ones. Those in the group that had been given positive feedback rated themselves as much more successful than those in the negative feedback group, despite knowing that all the evidence pointing to their decision had been fake.

A follow-up experiment had the subjects rating the ability of a stooge (somebody who appears to be a voluntary subject, but is in fact in league with the researchers) to discriminate between genuine and fake suicide notes. This removed any egotistical or emotional bias, as the subjects were now rating the ability of an anonymous other rather than themselves, yet the results were the same. The stooge who had received positive feedback in a mock task was seen as performing better in a real task than their counterpart.

Interestingly, a second group of subjects partook in a discussion about how beliefs were held despite contradictory evidence before rating the future performance of the stooge at the real task. This considerably reduced the effect although there was still a slight tendency to rate the positive feedback stooge higher than the negative feedback one.

So there are serious errors in how we interpret evidence, weighting anything that supports a previously held opinion far stronger than the opposing evidence, regardless of flaws that we would otherwise be able to identify. Opposing evidence is generally ignored, unless it’s easily countered (the ‘absurd’ arguments in the first study). Even the knowledge that evidence has been faked does not diminish our opinion (unless we engage in a lengthy debate about cognitive biases!), and giving anybody two opposing arguments is likely to strengthen their previously held opinion.

Now take a look at the world around you. Take a look at political debate, or the jury system, or job interviews, or any form of dispute. Where people are sifting through evidence, looking to come to a balanced judgement, they are most likely seeking to confirm their initial hunch, and most likely rejecting anything that disproves it. Our reasoning is less than rational, flawed at a level below conscious awareness, yet still we cling to the idea that it is perfect, like the working of a functioning calculator, despite all the contradictory evidence.

Our brain’s go to amazing lengths to convince ourselves that we are right, even when it must know that all the evidence points to us being wrong on occasions. It is probably wise to be aware of this, and wiser too to be suspicious of any evidence that confirms that hunch we had prior to any evidence being presented.

Hard Case: Job Market Wanes For U.S. Law-School Graduates

By Amir Efrati

A law degree isn't necessarily a license to print money these days.

For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that's suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don't score at the top of their class are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market.

The law degree that Scott Bullock gained in 2005 from Seton Hall University -- where he says he ranked in the top third of his class -- is a "waste," he says. Some former high-school friends are earning considerably more as plumbers and electricians than the $50,000-a-year Mr. Bullock is making as a personal-injury attorney in Manhattan. To boot, he is paying off $118,000 in law-school debt.

"Unfortunately, some find the practice of law is not for them," Seton Hall's associate dean, Kathleen Boozang, said through a spokeswoman. "However, it is our experience that a legal education is a tremendous asset for a variety of professional paths."

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data.

Some practice areas have declined in recent years: Personal-injury and medical-malpractice cases have been undercut by state laws limiting class-action suits, out-of-state plaintiffs and payouts on damages. Securities class-action litigation has declined in part because of a buoyant stock market.

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited schools increased by 11%, to 196.

Evidence of a squeezed market among the majority of private lawyers in the U.S., who work as sole practitioners or at small firms, is growing. A survey of about 650 Chicago lawyers published in the 2005 book "Urban Lawyers" found that between 1975 and 1995 the inflation-adjusted average income of the top 25% of earners, generally big-firm lawyers, grew by 22% -- while income for the other 75% actually dropped.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the inflation-adjusted average income of sole practitioners has been flat since the mid-1980s. A recent survey showed that out of nearly 600 lawyers at firms of 10 lawyers or fewer in Indiana, wages for the majority only kept pace with inflation or dropped in real terms over the past five years.

The news isn't any better for the 14% of new lawyers who go into government or join public-interest firms. Inflation-adjusted starting salaries for graduates who go to work for public-interest firms or the government rose 4% and 8.6%, respectively, between 1994 and 2006, according to the National Association for Law Placement, which aggregates graduate surveys from law schools. That compares with at least an 11% jump in the median family income during the same period, according to the Census Bureau. Graduates who become in-house company lawyers, about 9%, have fared better: Their salaries rose by nearly 14% during the same period.

Many students "simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School, in 2005, concluding that, "We may be reaching the end of a golden era for law schools."

Meanwhile, the prospects for big-firm lawyers are growing richer. While offering robust minimum salaries, those firms are paying astronomical amounts to their stars.

Now, debate is intensifying among law-school academics over the integrity of law schools' marketing campaigns. Defenders argue that the legal profession always has been openly and proudly a meritocracy: Top entrance-exam scores help win admittance to top schools where top students win jobs at top firms. Even the system that is used to issue law-school grades -- a curve that pits student against student -- reflects the law profession's competitiveness.

David Burcham, dean of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, considered second-tier, says the school makes no guarantees to students that they will obtain jobs. He says it is problematic that big firms only interview the top of the class, "but that's the nature of the employment market; it's never been different."

For the majority of students and alumni, he says, Loyola "turned out to be a good investment."

Yet economic data suggest that prospects have grown bleaker for all but the top students, and now a number of law-school professors are calling for the distribution of more-accurate employment information. Incoming students are "mesmerized by what's happening in big firms, but clueless about what's going on in the bottom half of the profession," says Richard Sander, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has studied the legal job market.

"Prospective students need solid comparative data on employment outcomes, [but] very few law schools provide such data," adds Andrew Morriss, a law professor at the University of Illinois who has studied the market for new lawyers.

Students entering law school have little way of knowing how tight a job market they might face. The only employment data that many prospective students see comes from school-promoted surveys that provide a far-from-complete portrait of graduate experiences. Tulane University, for example, reports to U.S. News & World Report magazine, which publishes widely watched annual law-school rankings, that its law-school graduates entering the job market in 2005 had a median salary of $135,000. But that is based on a survey that only 24% of that year's graduates completed, and those who did so likely represent the cream of the class, a Tulane official concedes.

On its Web site, the school currently reports an average starting salary of $96,356 for graduates in private practice but doesn't include what percentage of graduates reported salaries for the survey.

"It's within most individuals' nature to keep that information private, unless it's a high amount," says Carlos Dávila-Caballero, assistant dean for career development at Tulane, who adds that his office tells prospective students to use the median figure as a guide because starting salaries vary widely.

Academics who have studied new-lawyer salaries say that the graduate surveys of many law schools are skewed by higher response rates from the most successful students. The National Association for Law Placement, which aggregates and publishes national data based on those surveys, concedes that it can't vouch for their accuracy. "We can't validate the figures; we have to rely on schools to report to us accurately," says Judy Collins, NALP's director of research.

A prospective student studying NALP data might conclude that the study of law is a sure path to financial security. For 2006 graduates who entered private practice, or nearly 60%, NALP shows a national median salary of $95,000, a rise of 40%, adjusted for inflation, from 1994 graduates.

The NALP data also show that the percentage of graduates employed in private practice has been steady, fluctuating between 55% and 58% for more than a decade. But in law schools' self-published employment data, "private practice" doesn't necessarily mean jobs that improve long-term career prospects, for that category can include lawyers working under contract without benefits, such as Israel Meth. A 2005 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, he earns about $30 an hour as a contract attorney reviewing legal documents for big firms. He says he uses 60% of his paycheck to pay off student loans -- $100,000 for law school on top of $100,000 for the bachelor's degree he received from Columbia University.

A glossy admissions brochure for Brooklyn Law School, considered second-tier, reports a median salary for recent graduates at law firms of well above $100,000. But that figure doesn't reflect all incomes of graduates at firms; fewer than half of graduates at firms responded to the survey, the school reported to U.S. News. On its Web site, the school reports that 41% of last year's graduates work for firms of more than 100 lawyers, but it fails to mention that that percentage includes temporary attorneys, often working for hourly wages without benefits, Joan King, director of the school's career center, concedes.

Ms. King says she believes the figures for her school accurately represent the broader graduating class. She says the number of contract attorneys is "minimal" but declined to give a number.

The University of Richmond School of Law in the last couple of years started to be more open about its employment statistics; it now breaks out how many of its grads work as contract attorneys. Of 57 2006 graduates working in private practice, for example, seven were contract employees nine months after graduation. Schools "should be sharing more information than they are now," says Joshua Burstein, associate dean for career services who put the changes in place. "Most people graduating from law school," he says, "are not going to be earning big salaries."

Adding to the burden for young lawyers: Tuition growth at law schools has almost tripled the rate of inflation over the past 20 years, leading to higher debt for students and making starting salaries for most graduates less manageable, especially in expensive cities. Graduates in 2006 of public and private law schools had borrowed an average of $54,509 and $83,181, up 17% and 18.6%, respectively, from the amount borrowed by 2002 graduates, according to the American Bar Association.

Students taking on such debt may feel reassured by incessant press reports of big firms scrambling to hire and keep associates. Making headlines this year was a bump up in big-firm starting salaries to $160,000 from $145,000 in many cities.

And indeed, some law graduates of lower-tier schools do find high-paying private-practice law jobs. In recent years big firms have boomed thanks in part to the globalization of business and Wall Street deal making; firms have been casting a wider net for new lawyers, though they still generally restrict their recruiting at lower-tier schools to students at the very top of the class or on the law review. Some students have leads on a job at a family member's or friend's practice.

But just as common -- and much less publicized -- are experiences such as that of Sue Clark, who this year received her degree from second-tier Chicago-Kent College of Law, one of six law schools in the Chicago area. Despite graduating near the top half of her class, she has been unable to find a job and is doing temp work "essentially as a paralegal," she says. "A lot of people, including myself, feel frustrated about the lack of jobs," she says.

Harold Krent, Chicago-Kent's dean, said it's not uncommon for new lawyers to wait a few months to more than a year to find a job that's a good fit. He added that there is a "small spike" in employment after his school's grads receive their bar-exam results, several months after graduation, because some firms wait until then before hiring.

The market is particularly tough in big cities that boast numerous law schools. Mike Altmann, 29, a graduate of New York University who went to Brooklyn Law School, says he accumulated $130,000 in student-loan debt and graduated in 2002 with no meaningful employment opportunities -- one offer was a $33,000 job with no benefits. So Mr. Altmann became a contract attorney, reviewing electronic documents for big firms for around $20 to $30 an hour, and hasn't been able to find higher-paying work since.

Some un- or underemployed grads are seeking consolation online, where blogs and discussion boards have created venues for shared commiseration that didn't exist before. An anonymous writer called Loyola 2L, purportedly a student at Loyola Law School, who claims the school wasn't straight about employment prospects, has been beating a drum of discontent around the Web in the past year that's sparked thousands of responses, and a fan base. ("2L" stands for second-year law student.) Some thank "L2L" for articulating their plight; others claim L2L should complain less and work more. Loyola's Dean Burcham says he wishes he knew who the student was so he could help the person. "It's expensive to go to law school, and there are times when you second-guess yourself as a student," he says.

Some new lawyers try to hang their own shingle. Matthew Fox Curl graduated in 2004 from second-tier University of Houston in the bottom quarter of his class. After months of job hunting, he took his first job working for a sole practitioner focused on personal injury in the Houston area and made $32,000 in his first year. He quickly found that tort-reform legislation has been "brutal" to Texas plaintiffs' lawyers and last year left the firm to open up his own criminal-defense private practice.

He's making less money than at his last job and has thought about moving back to his parents' house. "I didn't think three years out I'd be uninsured, thinking it's a great day when a crackhead brings me $500."

So why post this? Well as a recent graduate, and a newly employed graduate at that, I wanted to weigh in on what I see as fraud on behalf of the law schools.

Law schools report the average earnings of their graduates, but as stated in the article, that information is flawed and unrepresentative of what graduates should actually expect to make. Students would not eagerly take on 115K of debt if they knew that it was more likely that they would be employed in the public sector or in a non-legal field than for a private firm.

After five months of looking for a job in a several state search, I was one of the lucky ones. But I almost wasn't, and some of my friends are still looking almost half a year after graduation and their debt is accruing interest. I wouldn't be so angry about this, except that law schools alter their statistics to look like every grad is making enough to cover debt, living expenses and then some. When in reality many of my friends are unable to even make the minimum payments on their credit cards and have had to seek deferment on their loans while the interest adds up.

Law school should make one of two decisions: (1) reduce the costs of tuition in accordance with realistic expected salaries, OR (2) report honest statistics so potential students may make informed decisions regarding whether it is worth taking on the debt.

"Support our Troops!" A Call to Conformity

So my response to the arguments made in Time's "What are Conservatives Holding on Too" turned out to be long enough to warrant a separate posting...let the flaming begin!

Yes, the whole "you should support our troops" argument doesn't fly

I have the utmost respect for those that choose a career in the military, I thought about it myself for a time.

It is my political right to dissent and by dissenting, I am not betraying them. I am holding government accountable for its actions. Actions that put our troops into a bad situation based on bad decision-making. By doing so, perhaps government will make better decisions in the future, especially in regards to what kind of conflicts to put our troops into.

These leaders make decisions of life and death for the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters of this nation...it is the duty of the electorate to make sure that those decisions are the right ones and to hold our leaders accountable when they mess it up.

You cannot turn the argument back onto those who do not agree with the war that way. Its a call to conformity..."shut up and support the troops." Ah, yes, lets just do away with dissent and bring on the one-party system.

I expect my leaders to make good decisions and to take actions that are absolutely necessary. I am holding my leaders accountable for putting our troops into a situation that seems to have had no clear plan and totally underestimated the consequences of such actions.

If you examine the War on Terror, it started with Afghanistan. Taliban had clear links to terrorism, to Al Qaeda, terrorist training camps all over the country. That made sense, I support that.

Then we start turning our eyes towards Iraq. This did not make sense. Saddam had no clear links to terrorism. We had already defanged his regime in 1991 and 10 years of sanctions and additional bombings kept them that way. Suddenly the argument is not terrorism, but WMDs, which the inspectors found no evidence of before or after the fact.

Clearly, our leadership was under the mistaken belief that the Iraqi people would embrace our troops as liberators...ignoring the religious divides that separated the Iraqi people. The mistakenly thought that you could establish a democracy overnight and nation-build overnight.

I can accept rational arguments for war with Iraq and they do exist...I've even made them. However, why not present these arguments to us? Why put it under the guise of continuing to fight terror, when it is more a distraction than an actual doing anything about global terror.

As a very long term strategy, it does make sense to democratize the region. However, no attempt was made to sell this to me. Instead I get a lot of short-sighted arguments that really didn't make any sense or were not entirely truthful.

But remember, nation-building in Germany and Japan took a long time. Those were homogeneous societies, one with at least some democratic experience. We had the strong support of many allies to deal with insurgency in Germany, which there ending up being no insurgency. So given that, our leaders thought it would be a walk in the park to do the same thing in Iraq? No experience with democracy, a society split along ethnic and religious lines with centuries of animosity. It was foolish to think it would be easy...you would need over a million men and woman under arms for a very long time to sustain such a goal.

Meanwhile, Osama is still at large and there have been reports that Al-Qaeda is re-building after Afghanistan. I can make the prediction now...we will be hit again and everyone right winger will scream that is because we lost resolve in Iraq. No you idiot, its because we weren't even going after them. Furthermore, our actions in Iraq have done more to "embolden terrorists" than anything else.

What Are Conservatives Holding On To?

By TIME
posted on my blog on 9/15/07

To solve our serious problems, we need to have an honest debate and make hard decisions. There are more than two (Democrat or Republican) ways to approach a problem. The reason we are so divided about how to proceed, is because our President has not been honest with us. Given good information, the American people can make a reasonable decision. The President's latest speech was full of misleading information, this has been the hallmark of this administration.

Thirty-six members of the "fighting" coalition. Please, no other country has more than a thousand troops "fighting" in Iraq, and half of those 36 countries, have ONLY ONE PERSON representing their country. It's a huge dishonest representation by the President, to try to convince Americans that the world backs our aggression in Iraq.

Troop rotation had ensured that there would be 30,000 less troops in Iraq next Summer. Yet, the President announces this as a newly decided reduction based on Petreusu's report. This is the kind of dishonest spin of the facts, that have (rightfully) led Americans to distrust this President. But worse, we can't make a decent decision, if lies, are the facts we base our decisions on.

I believe that Americans are well aware (that when we leave Iraq) there will be a bloody mess. But, better their blood, than ours. There is no base of truth, or moral principle to justify more American deaths in Iraq. It would be different, if the administration had been honest with us since the start of this invasion. Knowing what we now know, it's hard to understand how any American could believe the President's statements in his speech the other night.

For a long time now, Americans (by a WIDE majority) have disagreed with this war, and want out of Iraq. So why is it that the public majority is not reflected by the votes in Congress? Because a few Republican representatives are not voting the wishes of the people they are supposed to be representing. We truly have minority rule, and it is costing us the lives of our brave troops.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Virginia’s Energy Plan

Written by Tom Whipple

Thursday, 20 September 2007

It has been a busy week on the peak oil front. On Monday, former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Defense, James Schlesinger told the world peak oil meeting in Ireland that, indeed, imminent peak oil is for real and we should get on with doing something about it. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percent, thereby driving oil prices to an all-time high above $82 a barrel. On Wednesday, the stocks report disclosed an unexpectedly large drop in U.S. crude inventories and, finally, a tropical storm may thrash around in the Gulf oil fields this weekend. Unless the storm turns out to be a really bad one, the most important development of the week is the further decline in U.S. crude oil stockpiles by 3.8 million barrels. Although U.S. stockpiles are still above average for this time of year, they have been falling rapidly since last May. Most ominously, U.S. crude imports for the last four weeks have averaged 750,000 barrels per day less than last year. Thanks to a good week for gasoline imports, U.S. gasoline stockpiles actually rose by 400,000 barrels last week, but are still perilously close to minimum operating levels. Remember that that U.S. burns about 65 million barrels of gasoline a week so a 400,000 addition to the stockpile really is not significant. So far, gasoline prices, which are the major concern to most, have not risen very much. This is attributed to the drop in demand which takes place after Labor Day and the transition to cheaper-to-produce winter gasoline which goes on the market in September. This situation is unlikely to last much longer. Many knowledgeable observers are beginning to talk of $90 or even $95 oil this winter which will bring gasoline prices to new highs. We built up our stockpiles well above average earlier in the year, so that we are still 40 or 50 million barrels away from being in trouble and we always have the strategic reserve to fall back on. However, if imports continue to run 3-5 million barrels per week lower than last year, we clearly will be in trouble a few months from now. While awaiting further developments I would like to make some observations on “The Virginia Energy Plan” published last week. The 180-page plan, which was mandated by the General Assembly last year, reflects the goals of all those with an interest in the future of Virginia’s energy: producers, consumers, environmentalists and many others. There is something for everybody which is why the most of those concerned could find something to praise. Even the Sierra Club called it a “very well balanced report,” but then went on to release their own report which calls for cutting carbon dioxide emission by 80 percent before 2050. It would be nice to say the legislation and energy plan were written to prepare the state for dealing with the consequences of declining oil supplies, but this is only partially true. The original legislation was drafted to encourage drilling for oil in Virginia’s coastal waters, but then in true legislative fashion, was decorated with so many amendments and compromises that nearly everyone found something to like. Since the notion that peaking world oil production will soon cause major problems has not yet firmly taken hold in the minds of most Virginians, the plan is not cast around mitigating the consequences of peak oil. From the peak oil perspective, the major flaw is the timing which speaks of goals in decades when the real problems may be months away. There is nothing wrong with reducing the rate of growth of energy use by 40 percent over the next 10 years, unless one has an appreciation of just how bad the peaking of world oil production and more importantly exports is likely to be. If things turn really sour, it is likely that Virginia will be dealing with absolute reductions in available energy, particularly liquid fuels,ten years from now and not just slowing the rate of growth. Marked reductions in the availability of imported oil and products, which seems to have started already, will undoubtedly impact other fuels as the nation scrambles to substitute natural gas and electricity for vital functions such as the production and distribution of food. When shortages start to develop, be it in the next 30 weeks or the next 30 months, a new paradigm for energy will rapidly form. Once you get by the lack of urgency in Virginia’s plan, there is much to praise. The emphasis on conservation and consumer education is exactly what will be needed to cope with the consequences of peak oil. Indeed, this week the state’s largest power company announced a plan to aid the distribution of compact fluorescent light bulbs around the commonwealth. There is nothing wrong with reducing emissions, renewable energy, increased investment in energy R&D, improved electricity and natural gas infrastructure and a host of other recommendations. These are exactly what the state and the whole world, for that matter, will need to mitigate the consequences of reduced availability of oil. So where does this leave us? Virginia, unlike many other states, has a formal, written, coordinated plan. While it does not contain a sense of urgency and the goals clearly are not in proportion with the crisis we are likely to face, it is a good start. Plans can be changed. Goals can be moved up -- especially if there is no other choice. Another little news preview for my upcoming post...I'm still working on it!!! But this is an interesting article as it discusses some initiatives that states are taking by themselves in lieu of the national government. Although, as the author of this article says, the only drawback is that we think these problems are decades away when they might come much sooner than that.

Rather: Government influencing newsrooms

Associated Press
Sept. 20, 2007 12:00 AM
NEW YORK -- Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.

"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

In the suit, filed a day earlier in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Rather claimed CBS and Viacom Inc. used him as a "scapegoat" and intentionally botched the aftermath of a discredited story about President Bush's military service to curry favor with the White House. He was removed from his "CBS Evening News" post in March 2005.

"They sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate financial gain, and in so doing, I think they undermined a lot at CBS News," he told King.

Rather didn't mention other instances in which he believed news organizations bowed to corporate and government pressure.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock did not return an after-hours call seeking comment Thursday. He has called Rather's complaints "old news" and said the lawsuit was "without merit." A spokesman for Viacom declined to comment.

Journalism ethics scholar Bob Steele said Rather would have a difficult time proving that the White House or other political operatives exerted undue influence on CBS.

"It would be naive for us to believe that there was no influence from powerful institutions and individuals on journalism," said Steele, a scholar at the Poynter Institute, a journalism foundation in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Still, he said: "For the most part, the journalists who run news organizations and who report the news fight hard to protect the independence of the journalism, and most of the time succeed."

Rather narrated the September 2004 report that said Bush disobeyed orders and shirked some of his duties during his National Guard service. It also said a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Bush's record.

The story relied on four documents, supposedly written by Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Critics questioned the documents' authenticity and suggested they were forged.

A panel selected by the network to investigate the story determined that it was neither fair nor accurate. CBS fired the story's producer and asked for the resignations of three executives because it could not authenticate documents used in the story. Rather was forced out of the anchor chair he had occupied for 24 years.

On CNN, Rather dismissed the panel's review, claiming it was not impartial.

"This was in many ways a fraud. It was a setup," he told King.

Louis D. Boccardi, the retired chief executive of The Associated Press who made up the two-man investigative panel with Richard Thornburgh, the former U.S. attorney general, defended the panel's work Thursday night.

"Our report was independent, and it speaks for itself," he said, echoing comments made by Thornburgh Thursday. Both declined to comment further.

This plays into our recent discussion regarding bias in the media. I'm off for work reasons for a couple days, and invite my other three fellow-contribs to post away.

Cheers

Obama economic plan includes tax breaks

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is proposing more than $80 billion in annual tax relief for workers and seniors funded by an increase on wealthier investors.

Obama wants to give 150 million working Americans a $500 tax credit, expand relief for homeowners, eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 and simplify tax returns so millions of Americans can file in less than five minutes, according to a summary document provided by his campaign.

Obama's campaign said he would pay for his proposals by closing corporate tax loopholes, fighting international tax havens and raising the top rate on capital gains and dividends. But the campaign did not provide specifics in advance about how high the rate would be raised or how much income each of those proposals would generate.

Obama was scheduled to announce the breaks in Washington on Tuesday as part of his new push on economic policy. The speech was coming a day after the Illinois senator told Wall Street investors that they need to reappraise values that focus on their own gains at the expense of struggling Americans.

"To get through these uncertain times, we have to recognize that we all have a stake in one another's success," Obama said in speech text prepared for delivery at a Washington hotel. "When folks are hurting out there on Main Street, that's not good for Wall Street. When the changes in our economy are leaving too many people behind, the competitiveness of our country risks falling behind."

Obama's tax plan began with a "Making Work Pay" credit that would offset payroll taxes on the first $8,100 of earnings, generating up to $500 per person or $1,000 per family. The campaign said that would eliminate income taxes for 10 million low-income Americans.

Obama said more Americans who own their homes should get relief from mortgage payments. The current mortgage interest deduction only goes to those who itemize their taxes, while Obama would create a universal mortgage credit of 10 percent of interest payments that the campaign says would benefit an additional 10 million homeowners.

The campaign said Obama's plan to eliminate taxes on seniors making less than $50,000 annually would mean 22 million elderly Americans would no longer need to file an income tax return or hire a tax preparer.

I want to say upfront, I need to do some more research and think about this before I can commit to a personal opinion. I want to use this simply as a jumping off point for discussion.

The primary good advanced by this proposal is: by reducing the tax load on the lower end of income earners disposable income is freed up or investment on a wide scale.

The primary negative I see is: by increasing the tax load on the top end of income earners you are shifting primary responsibility for the maintenance of the public welfare system onto the heads of a few. Moreover, you are reducing the amount of disposable income available for investment to that group that has proven most likely to invest responsibly and to actually invest. Those at the lower income levels have shown that they do NOT invest in the economy.

I worry that tax cuts at the low end and tax hikes at the high end will reduce overall capital investment, shift the burden of government to a minority coalition of successful people and create economic slow down, the very thing that is wished to be side-stepped.

I agree with the immediate goal, reduce the burden of those who feel it the most. However, one has to look at this like an economist and examine if relieving that burden today will actually compound that burden tomorrow through reduced income levels and poorer government service.

Where in the World?

I am beginning a weekly, or perhaps, bi-monthly exploration of the world. Each week, or every two weeks, I will post an article summarizing information about a different nation-state and try to show that nation-state’s place in the global economy.

This week is: Mauritius

Mauritius is an island nation directly east of Madagascar and although small, Mauritius has become a major player in the world economy due in part to culturally diversity and to the determination of the population to climb out of the cycle of poverty. Beginning in the early 16^th Century the colonization of Mauritius began with the arrival of the Portuguese. Soon after the Dutch established colonial rule and were followed by the French. France used the island to support pirate activities against the British and thereafter lost control of Mauritius to the British in 1810. Mauritius did not gain independence until 1968 and later became a republic within the British Commonwealth.

Primarily an agricultural economy when it gained independence, the small island-nation of Mauritius has become the second largest economy in Africa by changing its economic focus to be built around tourism, the financial sector and a growing industrial base.

Mauritius has placed a strong emphasis on education and technology. English, French, Hindi and a local Creole are all widely used, with the former two being taught in the school system. The island-nation has two Universities, one which has a technology driven curriculum. Mauritius is slated to become the first nation entirely covered by wireless access, and currently has access available over more than 60% of the island.

Religion and culture is as diverse on Mauritius as the spoken languages, but somehow, despite an incredibly diverse population, the people have found a unity in purpose and drive. Low taxes and corporate exemptions have made the island the prized example of free-market success for the World Bank and have made the island a favorite trading partner for countries world round.

Political stability, relatively low crime rates and an ambition for affluence has made Mauritius an outstanding member in the global trading community. Religious, cultural, and historical uniqueness has made Mauritius a popular attraction. The drive of a people to set aside past differences to work for a common goal should give us all hope that success can be possible regardless of origins.

Sunday Bloody Awesome

Today let’s take the day off from worrying about our problems and instead be thankful for what we have. For all the near tragedies, actual horrible events and life shattering hits we take, over all, we have to admit life can be pretty amazing and it is made more so by those that we surround ourselves with. Have a good Sunday all.

Putin: new PM could run for president

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 14, 2:08 PM ET

MOSCOW - Vladimir Putin rewrote the rules for Russia's closely watched presidential succession on Friday, naming his new prime minister as one of a handful of people with a fighting chance of replacing him in the Kremlin next spring.


Putin anointed Viktor Zubkov as a strong candidate hours after parliament approved his nomination as premier. Zubkov's lightning-fast ascent from obscurity is seen as part of the Russian leader's plan to maintain tight control during a bruising election season and keep a hand on Russia's reins after he steps down.

"A year, a year and a half ago, people were saying that we have an empty field and there's nobody to choose from. Now they name a minimum of five people who can realistically aspire to be elected president of Russia in March 2008," Putin said in televised remarks at his residence in the resort city of Sochi.

"If another realistic candidate emerges, then Russian citizens will be able to choose among several people," he said. And Putin said Zubkov "said the right thing" when he told journalists a day earlier that he would not rule out a presidential bid if he does a good job as premier.

The president stopped short of endorsing Zubkov over any other potential successor. But he mentioned nobody else by name and praised the new premier at length as a hardworking, honest man who has done productive work throughout a diverse career. He called him a "real professional, a brilliant administrator."

The remarks put Putin's stamp of approval on Zubkov, vaulting him to a prominent position in a race that had been dominated by two government officials who have been groomed for the role for over a year, Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev.

Putin muddied the waters Wednesday when he dismissed Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and nominated Zubkov, a Soviet-era state farm director and Communist Party official who has kept a low profile in six years heading Russia's anti-money-laundering agency.

Loyal lawmakers quickly fell into lockstep, lavishing Zubkov with praise after the nomination was announced. The State Duma, the 450-seat lower house that is dominated by the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party, confirmed Zubkov on Friday in a 381-47 vote.

Putin, who is barred from seeking a third straight term as president, had been expected to replace Fradkov with a more prominent figure — most likely Ivanov, a former defense minister — who would then have been tapped to run as the chosen successor.

Putin's popularity, combined with the tight control he has established over the broadcast media and the political landscape, mean that a candidate with his support would be likely to win easily.

Amid the praise, he made it clear that Zubkov should take nothing for granted.

"He still needs to work," Putin said with a wry smile.

The surprise nomination and tantalizing comments were par for the course for Putin, who has kept Russia and the world guessing about his plans. He has said he will step down as scheduled following the March vote, but has indicated he will retain influence afterward and has not ruled out a return to the presidency in 2012.

Analysts said Zubkov is key to those plans.

Much older than both Ivanov and Medvedev and loyal to Putin, he could serve as a figurehead president while the real power would belong to Putin, either as a strong prime minister or pulling the strings from the shadows.

And Zubkov would not stand in the way of a Putin comeback in 2012 — or even sooner. "If Zubkov is told that it's time for him to step down, he will immediately do that," political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said. "He will do what he's told to do."

Zubkov displayed his loyalty in remarks to parliament, saying his priorities would be those set out in Putin's state-of-the-nation speeches. The government's main task is to "provide for the stability of economic and social development," he told lawmakers.

He signaled no major policy changes, stressing the need to maintain stability — a magic word in Russia after the disorder that followed the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Zubkov called for a more robust battle against corruption and pledged to boost the defense industry and Russia's struggling farms. He hinted some unpopular ministers could be fired — a move many Russians believe is long overdue.

Putin had been expected to replace his prime minister after December parliamentary elections. Analysts said he stepped in earlier to avert a battle among powerful factions.

"Putin needed to show to all conflicting groups that he pulls all the strings and neutralize them," Oreshkin said.

Along with his loyalty, Zubkov's knowledge of Russia's shadowy financial flows could help Putin maintain control over rivals.

"Planning to leave the Kremlin, Putin is faced with the practically impossible task of preventing a fierce fight in the terrarium of his allies," political analyst Alexander Golts said in the weekly Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "Viktor Zubkov's arrival is a clear attempt to solve this problem."

Putin said as much Friday, lamenting that he had hoped to keep the Cabinet in place until after the presidential vote but that the Cabinet had become distracted from its work.

"Unfortunately, members of the government .... slowed their work. They began to think more about their personal fate after the elections."

"I would like the government ... to hammer away nonstop, like a Swiss clock, up to the elections and right after the elections," he said. "I need this to be a hardworking, fine-tuned and well functioning mechanism."

Is it just me, or has the term "democracy" taken on a different meaning in the Russian incarnation? I want to get into this more soon, but for now I want to pose the question: what concern, if any, should the international community start displaying regarding a newly resurgent Russia with international ambitions and a, suspect, electoral system?

'Peak oil' enters mainstream debate

By Adam Porter Perpignan, France

Is global oil production reaching a peak?

A few years ago only a handful of geologists and academics were considering such a possibility.

But now it appears even governments are taking a serious look at the subject.

The question is occupying more and more minds around the world.

It could happen soon.

A French government report on the global oil industry forecasts a possible peak in world production as early as 2013.

Don't mention it

The report 'The Oil Industry 2004' takes a long look at future production and supply issues.

But perhaps what is most interesting about this Economics, Industry & Finance Ministry report, is that it actually mentions a possible production plateau at all.

Even one year ago it was unheard of to find the subject mentioned amongst government ministries or financial institutions.

Now banks such as Goldman Sachs, Caisse D'Epargne/Ixis, Simmons International and the Bank of Montreal have all broached the subject.

"They are being forced to by circumstances," says Professor Richard Heinberg, author of 'peak oil' books Power Down and The Party's Over.

"They have relied on optimistic data and rosy outlooks that are being proven to be incorrect."

Nevertheless, some analysts disagree with the notion of any peak in oil production, also known as 'Hubberts curve', after the geologist M King Hubbert who first argued the case.

Deborah White, senior energy analyst at Societe Generale in Paris, says that "we have heard these arguments about 'peak oil' since the idea of Hubert's curve came into being.

"We don't endorse the idea at all."

'Peak oil' mentioned

And yet, the French report, perhaps the most open government dossier yet, questions the viability of long term oil production.

The report's second chapter 'Global Exploration and Production' runs a series of differing scenarios based on current forecasts.

The scenarios differ according to projected demand increases, from 0% to 3% per annum, and possible new field discoveries, between zero and fifty billion barrels a year.

At a rate of 3% increase in demand per year and annual finds of 10 billion barrels, the ministry report states 2013 as "the time of maximum production or 'peak oil'".

That would mean the world's oil consumption would reach its highest point at around 97 million barrels per day (mbpd).

Forced to react

It is also very unusual to find a government report using the wording 'peak oil'. This is a phrase often used to describe the theory of a global oil production plateau, after which production would begin to decline.

Chris Sanders spoke at the recent Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference and is director of international finance consultants Sanders Research.

He believes 'peak oil' is major threat to modern economies.

"There is only so long politicians can ignore a geological problem, and it is a geological one," he says.

"Governments have had a great chance to take the lead on this situation, but they have not taken it. Now they are being forced to react.

"Why? Because it is very probable that we are nearing 'peak oil'."

The French report uses the phrase, in English, and repeats it on no less than four occasions.

Outdated data

The best case scenario the report lays out is rather far fetched, with a 0% increase in world consumption, at only 79mbpd, with annual finds of 50 billion barrels of new deposits per year.

That makes 'peak oil' arrive in 2125.

Unfortunately the report's figures are already outdated. The world consumed 84.7 mbpd in the first quarter of 2005.

International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts - traditionally regarded as conservative by the markets - put demand at around 86.1 mbpd for the fourth quarter of this year alone.

Its figures put demand growing at 2.2% in the first quarter of 2005.

This means average consumption for 2005 would come out at 84.3 mbpd. Plus, in the past 30 years, new discoveries of oil have averaged about 14 billion barrels per year, with recent discovery rates well below that.

Despite not endorsing a production peak, Ms White is also factoring in demand growth "of around 1.5mbpd over the next five years, which will mean a total demand of around 91.8mbpd in 2010".

Different definitions

The French report also echoes a fundamental problem at the heart of the oil business, namely data transparency.

Without accurate audited data, discovery forecasts, forward pricing and reserve calculations become a matter of debate rather than science.

This year alone the International Monetary Fund, the G7 and IEA have all called on Opec countries and Russia to open their fields to independent scrutiny.

"The definitions of oil reserves are different in many countries," the report observes.

"The capacities of sustainable production by Opec countries are very difficult to estimate. It is impossible to know production levels without waiting, at best, several months."

The report also goes on to look at the daunting levels of cost needed.

Firstly to extract current reserves but also to explore for new deposits.

"Somewhere in the region of $900bn will be needed by 2013 alone to develop [existing] reserves," it says.

"This massive investment will double as one will need to add exploration costs to this figure as future production from 2013 to 2030 will depend on it which means that to be successful, around $250bn a year will need to be spent."

"Ruinously high oil prices are making governments look at the subject," says Professor Heinberg.

"For example, when they are faced with whole industries like the airlines going bankrupt, it forces them to react, but they may be too late."

Suburban blight

Ms White takes the problem from a different perspective.

Rather than a costly search for more oil, she recommends conserving its use.

"We are at the wrong stage of the economic cycle for a recession that would cut demand," she says.

"What is very important is conservation, especially in transport. Raising taxes on fuel, introducing toll roads and bridges into major cities for example, but also stopping the spreading of suburbs ever further from city centres.

"Controlling suburban blight is one way to slow oil consumption until we are a society no longer dependent on oil."

Lead in for my post this week, a continuation of my 2084 articles. It is long overdue. This article highlights that it is also long overdue to consider the ramifications for global society of out continued reliance on a finite resource. It is time to consider alternatives and to make moves towards a hybrid sustainable economy now. To ignore or put off these problems invites global collapse and disaster. It is time to consider a long-term perspective and to make a slow transition towards a new energy economy.

Student Slain in Dorm

The Original Story can be found here at the Daily Wildcat.

A student living in Graham-Greenlee Residence Hall was arrested and charged with the murder of her roommate early yesterday morning.

Mia J. Henderson, an 18-year-old biology freshman, and her roommate, Galareka Harrison, an 18-year-old public administration freshman, were transported to University Medical Center at around 6 a.m. yesterday after a residence assistant called police at 5:45 a.m., said Anthony Daykin, chief of the University of Arizona Police Department.

Henderson was pronounced dead on arrival. Harrison's injuries were not life-threatening, Daykin said.

After her release from the hospital yesterday afternoon, Harrison was arrested and charged with first-degree murder for stabbing Henderson on the second floor of the residence hall, said Sgt. Eugene Mejia, UAPD public information officer. Harrison was booked into Pima County jail.

The injuries the women sustained are consistent with those made by a knife, although police cannot confirm details, pending an investigation, Mejia said.

Police said they believe this was an isolated incident.

According to her MySpace online profile, Henderson was from Tuba City, Ariz. She was a member of the Navajo Nation of Arizona, Daykin said.

The two women lived in the O'odham Ki living-learning community in the dorm, UAPD officials said, which is designed for Native American students as a collaboration between the First-Year Scholars Program of the Native American Student Affairs Office and Residence Life.

On Aug. 28, a police report was filed listing Henderson as the victim of property crime. Harrison is an investigative lead in the case. Another unnamed student is also listed as a victim of property theft in the case, Daykin said.

Money and other property had allegedly been stolen from Henderson and the other student, Daykin said.

Following the theft, Henderson said she would not be living in her dorm room until alternate arrangements were made for one of the women to move.

Harrison continued living in the room. It is unclear where Henderson was living, for how long or if she had moved back into the hall before the stabbing, Daykin said.

Henderson turned down alternative housing arrangements offered by Residence Life, Daykin said.

Police could not release other details surrounding what may have prompted the altercation.

Messages from friends on Henderson's MySpace page expressing disbelief and sadness began to appear by yesterday afternoon as news accounts and rumors spread throughout the UA campus.

Counseling and Psychological Services were present at
Graham-Greenlee yesterday. CAPS is accepting walk-in visits for students who need to speak with someone, said Johnny Cruz, director of media relations for the UA.

The UA Parents Association released an e-mail to about 15,000 parents on its listserv this morning detailing what happened on campus and contacts for concerned parents, Cruz said. E-mails were also sent to UA students in accordance with the UA policy on email alerting them to the events that unfolded yesterday morning.

This is the second on-campus death of a student this year, following a suicide in Coronado Residence Hall on Aug. 26.

While it is too soon to tell if university policies concerning safety and security on campus will change following these incidents, safety issues are in the spotlight.

"We know that our campus community and external community is in a state of heightened awareness with the release of the Virginia Tech report recently and other campus issues," said Melissa Vito, vice provost for student affairs and dean of students.

The last university-related homicide to occur between 2002 and 2005 unfolded when a UA nursing student shot and killed three UA professors at University Medical Center on Oct. 28, 2002. No arrests have been made for murder since 2002, because the student who shot at the nursing college committed suicide, according to police reports.

A total of 35 weapons violations have been reported from 2002 to 2005, according to police records.

University officials and police expressed sadness and condolences to the family about the death.

"Today's event is a reminder that violence can strike anywhere in our society," Cruz said. "We all hope that university campuses would be immune to these terrible acts. Sadly, they are not, and today we mourn a senseless death."

President Robert Shelton also extended his sympathies to those who knew Henderson.

"The death of student Mia Henderson is a terrible tragedy that saddens everyone in the University of Arizona family," Shelton said in a statement. "On behalf of the University I want to extend my deepest sympathy to Mia's parents, family and friends, and to assure our campus community that we are taking every possible step to handle this situation."

So why post this? Well, besides the fact that the U of A was home to me for eight years and three degrees, I am also curious about human nature. Here we have a college freshman, who seemingly had her act together enough to be at a major university who has allegedly murdered her roommate after having been caught stealing from her. There are things that don't make sense about this story. Later articles include additional facts, including that she left a fake suicide note and yet proceeded to stab her roommate in her sleep. This of course makes no sense since I doubt the police see too many suicides that end in someone stabbing oneself in the chest multiple times. Moreover, she had already been arrested and charged and had admitted to the theft, so what was to be gained by this action beyond mere homicidal revenge?

What is it about human nature that makes random acts of incredible violence possible for some but not for others. Also recently, a professional wrestler murdered his family and then committed suicide. Police and psychologists are trying to explain the murders as the result of steroid use or repeated trauma to the head, but seem to be incredibly loathe to accept that some people are in fact of homicidal absent extreme external pressures.

Coming out of the atrocities of WWII and the acts committed under Pol Pot's rule several psychological studies were conducted to finding out what enables some people to murder and others not. In Becoming Evil by James Waller, it is made abundantly clear that people's proclivity to take joy in cruelty and violence seems to be wholly disconnected with their self-images prior to the opportunity. That is, a priest or a child care attendant are just as likely to enjoy murdering someone as a career criminal or a professional wrestler.

Are some people just born potentially evil? If this is the case it would seem that society will never fully be able to stamp out homicidal ideation because it is built into US, not into the system.

When the Legislature Acts as theJudiciary

Democrats See Politics in a Governor’s Jailing

By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: September 11, 2007

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — House leaders are beginning an investigation this week of the prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was imprisoned in June on federal corruption charges. The case could become the centerpiece of a Democratic effort to show that the Justice Department engaged in political prosecutions.
Gary Tramontina for The New York Times

Representative Artur G. Davis is among those who have raised questions about the federal government’s motives in prosecuting Don Siegelman, the former governor of the state.

Siegelman is in the federal prison in Oakdale, La.

Republicans strongly deny the suggestion, and as Mr. Siegelman enters the fourth month of his 88-month sentence, the case is becoming a bitter flash point between Democratic officials and the Bush administration.

Jill Simpson, an Alabama lawyer who signed an affidavit saying she overheard a Republican political operative connect the prosecution of Mr. Siegelman to Karl Rove, will be questioned under oath this week by investigators for the House Judiciary Committee. The chairman of that committee, Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, has asked the Justice Department to turn over its documents in the case.

The department has refused his request, saying in a letter last week to the committee that “we want to avoid any perception that the conduct of our criminal investigations and prosecutions is subject to political influence.”

On Monday, Mr. Conyers called the department’s position “unacceptable,” saying of its reasoning, “This concern should lead to precisely the opposite result.”

The case is considered unusual by many legal experts because actions like those Mr. Siegelman was accused of — exchanging a seat on the state hospital licensing board for a contribution to an education lottery campaign he was pushing — are hardly uncommon in state capitals around the country.

“It’s unusual to see a bribery prosecution where the payment wasn’t to the defendant,” said David A. Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It seems to me the conduct in this case was similar to a lot of what we take as normal for politics.”

Still, some legal experts say that federal prosecutors have wide latitude in interpreting the broad bribery statutes and that Mr. Siegelman’s actions, as outlined by the government, could have crossed the line. Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law, said the defense claim that the prosecution had not proved corrupt intent does not undermine the conviction.

“I think the government reply brief demolishes Siegelman’s legal argument on the current case law,” Mr. Gillers said.

Nonetheless, Democrats are planning to conduct hearings on the case as part of a wide-ranging look at what they say may be other political prosecutions elsewhere.

Representative Artur G. Davis, like Mr. Siegelman an Alabama Democrat, said he wanted Mr. Rove, the recently departed White House deputy chief of staff, to testify about Mr. Siegelman. Mr. Davis called Mr. Rove “the most significant factual witness in this matter.”

Mr. Davis, in his third term in Congress and a former federal prosecutor himself, said it was “certainly plausible” Mr. Rove could have had a hand in the Siegelman prosecution. He cited Mr. Rove’s involvement in the state’s politics in the 1990s and Alabama’s wholesale transition, bucked by Mr. Siegelman, to Republican dominance.

Forty-four former state attorneys general, including some Republicans, from New York, California, Massachusetts and elsewhere have signed a petition urging Congress to look into Mr. Siegelman’s conviction, which his lawyers are appealing.

“There is reason to believe that the case brought against Governor Siegelman may have had sufficient irregularities as to call into question the basic fairness that is the linchpin of our system of justice,” the attorneys general wrote.

In Alabama, a small war of editorial boards has erupted since Mr. Siegelman was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison in late June. Newspapers in the state’s smaller cities have repeatedly raised questions about the former governor’s treatment.

Alabama Democrats are seething over a judge’s decision to have Mr. Siegelman immediately shackled and jailed on the day of sentencing, with no chance for him to seek bond or put his affairs in order. Republicans say the ex-governor is nothing more than a crook who ran a “pay for play” administration.

Mike Hubbard, chairman of the state’s Republican Party, called Ms. Simpson’s allegations “a bunch of hogwash” and said “the state of Alabama was for sale when Don Siegelman was governor.”

Democrats are equally passionate. “My sense is, there is a great unease with what has gone on here,” said Jack Miller, former chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. “It’s kind of, if it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody.”

Mr. Siegelman, meanwhile, is in the federal prison in Oakdale, La. In a recent note to The Associated Press, he said his case would will eventually be seen as the “Watergate of 2008.”

The government prosecutors who sent Mr. Siegelman to prison have angrily rebutted any suggestion of politics in several detailed statements, one of them criticizing national press coverage of the case.

“My sole motivation for pushing the prosecution was a firmly held belief, supported by overwhelming evidence and the law, that former Governor Siegelman had broken the law and traded his public office for personal and political favors,” Louis V. Franklin Sr., the acting United States attorney in Montgomery, said in one statement. Mr. Franklin took over the case after demands that the sitting United States attorney, Leura G. Canary, recuse herself because her husband, William, is active in the Republican Party and has ties to Mr. Rove.

Yet questions about the Siegelman case persist, including about whether Mr. Franklin played the decisive role he says he did, and not just among the former governor’s supporters.

For one thing, the prosecution of a high official like a governor is nearly always undertaken under the watchful eye of Justice Department officials in Washington, former government lawyers say.

One of Mr. Siegelman’s former lawyers, G. Douglas Jones, former United States attorney in Birmingham, says that at a crucial moment in 2004, when the Siegelman investigation seemed to be flagging, he was told by government prosecutors in Montgomery that the “folks in Washington said, ‘Take another look at everything.’ ”

Referring to a unit of the Justice Department, Mr. Jones said, “There is no question but that the Public Integrity Section was intimately involved.”

Democrats have tried to tie the case to the continuing dispute over the firing of several federal prosecutors for what they say were political reasons.

After serving as secretary of state, attorney general and lieutenant governor, Mr. Siegelman was elected governor in 1998. He was narrowly defeated in 2002 and for most of his term his administration was under investigation, his lawyers say. “These guys doing the investigating were hell-bent on finding something Siegelman did wrong,” Mr. Jones said.

In June 2006 Mr. Siegelman was convicted by a federal jury in Montgomery of accepting $500,000 from Richard M. Scrushy, then the chief executive of the HealthSouth Corporation, in return for an appointment to the state hospital licensing board.

The money was to be used to retire a debt incurred by Mr. Siegelman’s campaign for a state lottery to fund education. Government prosecutors say Mr. Siegelman, as a co-guarantor, was personally liable for the debt; his lawyers say that Mr. Siegelman’s signature was a formality and that he would never have been expected to personally pay back the loan. Mr. Scrushy had served on the same hospital board under three previous governors.

The White House has brushed off suggestions that Mr. Rove may have been involved.

An associate of Mr. Rove’s in the state, Matthew C. McDonald, a Mobile lawyer, said Mr. Rove had maintained at least a passing interest in Alabama affairs. The interest dated back to his pivotal role as a political consultant here in the 1990s, when he helped shift the state’s supreme court to the Republicans. Mr. Rove opened an office in Montgomery, and would fly in and out regularly.

Representative Davis pointed out that the case against the governor rested almost wholly on the testimony of two cooperating witnesses, most of whose allegations were rejected by the jury.

The most important of the witnesses, a former aide to Mr. Siegelman named Nick Bailey, testified about the governor’s appointing Mr. Scrushy to the hospital board in exchange for the contribution.

But Mr. Bailey also admitted taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes without the governor’s knowledge, said he had not been in the room when Mr. Siegelman met with Mr. Scrushy, and could offer only his recollection of a brief exchange with the governor on the matter.

In legal papers, however, the government dismissed the idea that its case was weak, saying the “evidence was more than sufficient to convict defendant.”

This certainly is topical given yesterday's post on this very subject. Certainly, whatever the facts in this case, we can see the problems when politicians get involved in the judicial process. Even if there was no impropriety, it looks as if there were. How are any investigations and inquiries to be trusted when they politically benefit one group or another who has influence over the process. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

New Federalist/Anti-Federalist Discussion #1

“Perhaps no restraints are more forcible, than such as arise from responsibility to some superior power. — Hence it is that the true policy of a republican government is, to frame it in such manner, that all persons who are concerned in the government, are made accountable to some superior for their conduct in office. — This responsibility should ultimately rest with the People. To have a government well administered in all its parts, it is requisite the different departments of it should be separated and lodged as much as may be in different hands. The legislative power should be in one body, the executive in another, and the judicial in one different from either — But still each of these bodies should be accountable for their conduct.” –Brutus (Anti-Federalist Paper #16, April 10^th, 1788)

I’m beginning in the middle, a seemingly awkward way to initiate a discussion, but in light of recent debate regarding the over-stepping of Congress into the realm of the Judiciary, it seems topical. In AFP 16, Brutus AKA: Robert Yates, argues that the Constitutional layout for Congress, and specifically the Senate, provides ripe opportunity for the acquisition of judicial and executive powers by the branch of the government which is supposed to be legislative in nature.

Specifically, Yates identifies three ways in which the Senate goes beyond mere legislative authority:

“1. They are one branch of the legislature, and in this respect will possess equal powers in all cases with the house of representatives; for I consider the clause which gives the house of representatives the right of originating bills for raising a revenue as merely nominal, seeing the senate be authorised to propose or concur with amendments.

2. They are a branch of the executive in the appointment of ambassadors and public ministers, and in the appointment of all other officers, not otherwise provided for; whether the forming of treaties, in which they are joined with the president, appertains to the legislative or the executive part of the government, or to neither, is not material.

3. They are part of the judicial, for they form the court of impeachments. It has been a long established maxim, that the legislative, executive and judicial departments in government should be kept distinct. It is said, I know, that this cannot be done. And therefore that this maxim is not just, or at least that it should only extend to certain leading features in a government. I admit that this distinction cannot be perfectly preserved. In a due ballanced government, it is perhaps absolutely necessary to give the executive qualified legislative powers, and the legislative or a branch of them judicial powers in the last resort. It may possibly also, in some special cases, be adviseable to associate the legislature, or a branch of it, with the executive, in the exercise of acts of great national importance. But still the maxim is a good one, and a separation of these powers should be sought as far as is practicable. I can scarcely imagine that any of the advocates of the system will pretend, that it was necessary to accumulate all these powers in the senate.”

In light of several developments over the last several decades, but most recently and importantly, the Homeland Security Act, Congress has in fact seemed to have appropriated more than a “De minimus” judicial role. The post immediately preceding this one provided several examples of warrantless searches under the guise of the Patriot Act, completely sidestepping the role that the courts are supposed to play in the infringement of a citizen’s liberty. There is meant to be a balancing act, where the interests of the individual are weighed against the interests of society, without judicial involvement there is no such balancing.

This is especially troublesome in light of the fact that potentially searches could be at the bequest of legislators who, due to the nature of the electoral system in the legislature, possess incentives to investigate and expose citizens, not based upon probable cause, but rather political grounds. The Judiciary is immune to electoral pressure and at least somewhat insulated from public image concerns where as the Legislature is completely subject to these forces. Should the citizens of the nation be concerned about this branch of government accruing judicial powers as to sidestep any constitutional checks on the exercise of their power? I would think that the answer would be a resounding yes.

Clearly, limits were placed on the Senate and on the House to prevent intrusion into the Judiciary and into the Executive realms of governance. Currently, the courts are facing an increasingly up-hill battle to fend off an emboldened legislature. Because the legislature is ultimately responsible to the electorate, it is the people who must demand that our government remained balanced and that the legislative branch not extend beyond its proper role.

I believe this is as good a place as any to begin what will be a long-standing discussion over the functioning of our government and how far we’ve come, or what we’ve failed to remedy over the last 200+ years.

-Stuart Rodgers

Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 6, 7:21 PM ET

NEW YORK - A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible "far-reaching invasions of liberty."

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time."

The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.

The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.

In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.

He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all "be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof."

Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.

He said when "the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty."

Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values."

He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.

The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.

"It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines," the judge said.

Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.

Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse "may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms."

In that event, he said, the judiciary could become "a mere mouthpiece of the legislature."

Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.

After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.


This is the lead-off for a new series of posts I intend on making regarding the separation of powers within the American governmental system. I encourage all readers to contribute their thoughts as I progress with the NEW FEDERALIST/ANTI-FEDERALIST PAPERS. It is amazing how relevant many of the 200 year old arguments for/against our federal system are and how many of the problems that were foreseen have gone uncorrected and have come to fruition. Along with original pieces, I am going to include relevant newspaper articles. I encourage any of you to submit any additional sources that you may know of.

-Stuart Rodgers

I am NOT Gay !!!

There is a world of anonymous, closeted, secret sex encounters; that is common among men who want to have sex with other men, but can not accept that to themselves, and certainly not admit it to others in their lives. Society has rejected homosexual sex, and those who are destined to feel those urges. The guilt and shame put upon them by society, forces them to the closeted world of unsafe sex and hiding their true selves.

Homosexuality is in a minority of human sexual reality, yet it is a biological fact in human nature. As usual, the fear of the unknown and being different; encourages the majority to shun, discriminate, and hate this minority. The social consequences of being different, creates this world of self denial and unusual, unhealthy, closeted, sex encounters to satisfy their sexual needs. If we want to stop this kind of closeted, unhealthy behavior, we must first stop the hate towards a minority that are naturally different than the majority.

The truth behind any contented, well adjusted person; is accepting themselves for who they really are, and the love, acceptance, and support from others for who they are. A good parent knows it is wrong to force their child to be someone, they can not be.

It's sad that the Senator has been so twisted by the social norms, that he screams he's not, what he is. Sexual experimentation is not the same as sexual identity. Having a same sex encounter does not make one homosexual, but a life of satisfying those same sex needs is defining. He has spent his whole life denying who he is, hating what he is. He takes that hate for his own sexuality, and through the law, forces others to not only deny the same to themselves, but makes it illegal for them to be who they are. This is a sick cycle of social oppression.

People like the Senator are partly responsible for homosexual's self-hate and suicide, because he is part of the social elite that define social morals, legal behavior, and public acceptance. Hypocrite, there is no other word for him, but that does not begin to describe the harm he has done.

If truth could have saved us from a war in Iraq and thousands of deaths; truth from the Senator could have saved millions from further discrimination and hate towards their lifestyles. Those who have the courage to announce to themselves and their loved ones who they really are; enjoy a peace of mind and true relationships, that come from truth and open communications with others. I feel sad for the Senator. He never experienced a peaceful, loving life, because he could not accept the truth about himself.

The long list of hypocrite like personal behavior from conservatives; reveals a false Utopian kind of human values that do not exist. Do as I say, not as I do, only creates hate, division, and rebellion. What's missing in politics are leaders who act with humanity. We don't need leaders to tell us what our individual morals should be, we need leaders who act on our behalf, with morality.

By TIME: Originally posted 8/31/07, on my blog.

What Has Happened to Right Brained’s Free Thought Association?

For anyone that has been a reader for the last year and a half, I wanted to let you know what is going on with this website. We are undergoing some remodeling after an extended period of decreased posting and participation. There are numerous changes that have been made, and many more to come. Some of the main changes are as follows:

(1) Culling of the contributors

We had quite a few inactive contributors so we removed anyone that hasn’t shown a sign of life within the last few months. Anyone who was a contributor and would like to be again is invited to submit an article for publication at any time. We hope we regain anyone who has ever posted and many new people as well.

For those of you who might wonder where Xander Jones, one of our most active contributors is, well that is a longer story. When Fitz and I began this blog I was concerned that our debate would suffer due to lack of a foil. Thus, I created the personality known as Xander as a way to provide opposing arguments and encourage debate. From this point forward I will do so under my own name as I believe that any view can be expressed, even if it is not a view that you hold, as long as you put enough thought into the expression of that view. Although I might find it more difficult to play the foil under my own name, we think it is necessary to take this Blog from a fun-debate setting to the next level. Although I will be posting all posts that I write under my own name in the future, I will continue to sign Xander inspired posts with my alter-ego’s signature as I have grown quite fond of my nemesis of the mind.

(2) Refocusing of content

We are still trying to find our niche in terms of what we write. We are hoping to get more input from our readers and fellow contributors on this point. To this end, we have placed a poll on the blog and will be periodically trying out new formats. Some ideas that we have come up are to conduct internet interviews with politicians, authors, experts, celebrities, etc on socially relevant topics; writing more in the style of journalists and conducting periods of extended coverage; changing to a pro-con debate style where we always publish an article with a sister article taking the opposing position; and several other less fleshed out ideas. We are taking suggestions from anyone who wishes to express one and would be very grateful in helping to build a better site.

(3) Visual changes

We have erected a temporary change in appearance to facilitate a change of mindset and let people know that Fitz and I are back on the clock. One contributor, Time, never left and to that end we thank him for his constant perseverance of posting and loyalty to our site. We are hoping that renewed effort on our end will also fuel our British counterpart, Deezelboy.

The changes are temporary? Yes, we are having a new layout professionally designed this month and expect that the results will both blow us and our readers away. In the mean time we are limited by my knowledge of HTML.

Thank you all for helping to make RB-FTA what it was, is and helping to make it what it will become. The complete catalog of 110+ articles is available in the archives and we hope to bring another few hundred to you over the years to come.

-Stuart Rodgers