A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
It is one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States.
That report, by the Institute of Medicine, an independent group that advises the government on health matters, led to a national movement to reduce errors and make hospital stays less hazardous to patients’ health.
Severe bleeding, breathing trouble
Among the preventable problems that Dr. Landrigan’s team identified were severe bleeding during an operation, serious breathing trouble caused by a procedure that was performed incorrectly, a fall that dislocated a patient’s hip and damaged a nerve, and vaginal cuts caused by a vacuum device used to help deliver a baby.
Dr. Landrigan’s team focused on North Carolina because its hospitals, compared with those in most states, have been more involved in programs to improve patient safety.
But instead of improvements, the researchers found a high rate of problems. About 18 percent of patients were harmed by medical care, some more than once, and 63.1 percent of the injuries were judged to be preventable.
Most of the problems were temporary and treatable, but some were serious, and a few — 2.4 percent — caused or contributed to a patient’s death, the study found.
Studies have repeatedly shown that problems at hospitals adversely affect patient outcomes - and increase the costs for everyone. Whether it's problems with incorrect drug dosages or improperly conducted medical procedures, costs are increased every time there is an error at hospitals.
The worrisome part is that efforts to reduce errors hasn't improved matters sufficiently.
Now, not all problems result in death or disfigurement, but there are significant costs associated with the need for additional medications and lengthened hospital stays.
Medication errors can be reduced with the use of specialized prescription systems that check for adverse reactions or improper dosages, but a fraction of the nation's hospitals have these systems.
Dumbledore is no Stig, but he is a real funny guy in real life. Sir Michael Gambon, who plays Dumbledore after taking over the role from Sir Richard Harris, is a real car fanatic and is funny as all heck.
That's from his second appearance on the show. His first was truly memorable in that he nearly sent the merely ordinary car flying coming out of the final turn. And he did so without a wand:
For some people, the day is marked by watching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, football, and overeating.
We've added another tradition.
Watching pumpkins getting chunked.
It started two years ago and now we can't help watch with awe and fascination at how some folks will spend more than $100,000 to build air cannons, trebuchets and catapults and any number of other designs to send a pumpkin towards the magic distance of one mile. No one has ever managed that, but that makes the mystical number all the more special.
Fox News has become little more than an outlet for Alex Jones and his conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks. Major figures on the network seem to have no problem issuing asinine statements about how the federal government was somehow in on the 9/11 attacks.
The latest to jump on board the crazy train is Andrew Napolitano, who was a former federal judge and has been a Fox News legal consultant. There are few things that get under my skin, but trooferism is one (having been in Lower Manhattan on 9/11 and walking through the dust cloud later that day to get out of Manhattan). Napolitano is a frakking ass who is an ignorant slut - and is more than willing to shill for conspiracy theorists in pursuit of his own agenda.
For years, the right wing would go after Loose Change and the 9/11 Truther conspiracy mongers as treasonous bastards. Now, Fox News is the loudest shill for these asinine theories that disrespect the memories of the nearly 3,000 people who were murdered in the attacks.
I'd say that Fox News should be ashamed to associate with this nonsense, but they feel no shame. We're now in a situation where Fox has no problem being on the same page as Jones' Prison Planet and the Loose Change nuts. They aren't pushing news - they're substituting their own fantasies on cable television so as to reach the widest audience possible.
These assholes disrespect the memories of the nearly 3,000 people who were murdered on 9/11 and do so in pursuit of a political agenda that does not comport with reality - or the facts.
Where are those on the principled right to stand up against this nonsense and demand an end to Fox peddling this crap on their network? After all, Glenn Beck has repeatedly said that troofers were disturbed individuals. Is Beck going to stand up against this madness or is he going to simply ignore it? I'm betting on ignoring it.
The network is too busy peddling its brand of crazy to care.
The former Deutsche Bank building demolition is nearly complete, as just the last three stories above street level remain. It should be completely demolished by the end of the year, which means that construction of the new vehicle security center will not be far behind. Security concerns continue to dog aspects of the project, as there are renewed calls to eliminate underground public parking because of concerns over car bombs, and the Freedom Tower was designed (and redesigned) to deal with possible car bomb and aircraft terror threats. Some have argued that the Freedom Tower's base speaks to the fear factor because of the thick reinforced concrete curtain walls designed to absorb and deflect potential bomb blasts away from the core.
The LMDC has approved funding for a new pedestrian just below Ground Zero linking Battery Park City with the Financial District. That project has been held up for a couple of years over obtaining financing and design objections.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that access to the 9/11 memorial and museum will be limited after it opens next year because of space and safety considerations. Free tickets are likely to be issued to those wishing to enter onto the grounds of the museum/memorial and the number of tickets will be limited because of the limited egress/access to the location because of the ongoing construction for the Freedom Tower and PATH terminal. That's problematic for families of victims who would want to enter the site to pay their respects to their loved ones, but for now, there's no indication that a fee will be charged. The site should remain free to all. Here's photos of some of the many items that are likely to be put on display - thousands more will remain in storage for want of space.
Parts from the collapsed Twin Towers continue to be distributed to museums and memorials across the country, including to Baltimore, Maryland.
The LMDC is also likely to consider a request for $5 million from the Cordoba House/Park51 developers to help get that project off the ground. Considering that the LMDC mission was to spur development and reduce blight in Lower Manhattan following the attacks, the request fits the goals and objectives. Mind you that this wont stop the naysayers from making all manner of claims about how Park51 developers are taking 9/11 funds (the money isn't coming out of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund but from funds set aside by the federal and state governments to assist Lower Manhattan redevelopment).
The Freedom Tower (1WTC) construction continues at the ongoing pace of about 30 feet a week, and that's accompanied by ongoing concrete, fireproofing, and now by the installation of the exterior wall and window structures. The windows are being installed from the 20th floor level upwards and have nearly wrapped around the entire 20th floor in alternating segments. PPG Industries is manufacturing the glass used in the tower.
You can see the newly installed windows in the upper right corner of this overview of Ground Zero, along with the north memorial pool undergoing testing while construction of the above ground portion of the museum continues in the middle:
One interesting aspect of the construction is that there are now three tower cranes operating in the erection of the Freedom Tower. Two tower cranes are dedicated to erecting the steel components, while a third tower crane literally hangs off the side of the building in order to deliver concrete to the construction of the core and floors. The side crane hangs off the northwest side of the building at Vesey and West Street and will rise as the concrete core and floors are poured.
For a good look at how far Ground Zero has come since the attacks, here's a video showing the stark differences:
Meanwhile, the 9/11 responders have agreed to accept the $712 million settlement with New York City and other defendants. It's a drop in the bucket for compensating those who have been injured or suffered health effects, but can provide some relief for those who are dealing with illnesses that are linked with service at Ground Zero.
Key developments include the ability to control water via dams and irrigation, steam power, and reorganizing water usage on a massive scale in projects like China's Grand Canal, the Hoover Dam, and similar projects that open up new frontiers for settlement, crops, and population growth.
Now, we face a major hurdle as water usage is running hard into the limitations of available potable water and conflicts may loom in coming years as developing nations find available water harder and harder to obtain. Climate change may also play a growing role in water extremes - droughts and floods as rainfall patterns shift or are amplified. These problems will affect the developing world far more than places like the US and Europe, where rainfall is more moderate and year-round as compared with India and Africa where rainfall falls primarily during a monsoon season. Even existing water infrastructures may be insufficient to deal with extremes and it puts a tremendous burden on planners to deal with water shortages.
The US has seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg with droughts in the Southeast affecting water supplies for Atlanta and shortages. It will require a significant change in how water is viewed as a commodity and as a limited resource that has been sorely overstressed. Reductions in use for industry and agriculture will be necessary going forward, but that change will be hard to come by in places where governments are ill-equipped to regulate those changes.
Pope Benedict may have moved the Catholic Church lurching towards common sense with his latest book that is scheduled for release this week. Excerpts have already been released, and they include comments on the use of condoms. The Church has been quite adamant about abstinence being the only method of birth control, but here the Pope suggests that condom use has its place - particularly in stopping the spread of AIDS among prostitutes and johns.
But ever since the Vatican’s official newspaper published highlights on Saturday, the book has created the opposite effect: widespread confusion, most notably over the pope’s comments that in select cases, such as those involving male prostitutes, condom use might be a step toward acting responsibly to reduce “the risk of infection.”
AIDS activists are calling the pope’s comments a breakthrough, while members of the church hierarchy and some Catholic commentators say the comments have been misconstrued. The Vatican itself has furiously played down Benedict’s words, or rather contextualized them, noting that the pope was not changing church doctrine banning contraception, or justifying condom use — even though the Vatican newspaper clearly used the phrase “justified in some cases.”
On Sunday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, added to the confusion. He called Benedict’s remarks unprecedented, the first time such comments had come “from the mouth of a pope,” but he added that they were “not a revolutionary turn,” as they echoed the stance of other moral theologians — and had been offered “colloquially,” not as part of official church teaching.
As is often the case with the Vatican, the clarification yielded more ambiguity. Was Benedict, in his book of interviews with the German journalist, Peter Seewald, opening up a conversation on condom use — albeit in specific cases to prevent AIDS between male sex partners — or wasn’t he? And how is the world supposed to consider remarks by the pope that are not official church teaching?
“It’s not very easy to define the difference,” said Sandro Magister, a veteran Vatican reporter in Italy. In the “graduated spectrum of authority” between official church teachings — encyclicals, laws, homilies — and Benedict’s conversational remarks, “I’d say this is an inferior grade,” Mr. Magister added.
“The important thing is that he said it,” he added. “Said by a cardinal it’s one thing, but said by the pope, it’s another.”
The Church is so tied to the abstinence doctrine that it has meant that a reliable means of reducing the spread of AIDS has not gained even wider acceptance.
At a minimum, the Pope has opened the door on giving Church approval for a useful tool in fighting the spread of AIDS along with engaging in a discussion over condom usage. One could only hope that the Pope takes a more forceful stand to bring about a change in the Church's attitude towards birth control and condom usage in particular. The inability of the Church to consider condom usage as appropriate has gone against the public health for far too long and has meant that millions of people have been exposed to the perils of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS for far too long over Church doctrine and teachings that prohibit such use.
Steve Rothman is my congressional representative and I'm glad that he canned this staffer, who also happened to work on President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and previously worked for Russ Feingold for this criminal act.
Robert Decheine, chief of staff to Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), was arrested in Gaithersburg, Md. last Friday on charges of soliciting sex from a minor. Decheine, who had been with the Democrat's office since 2003, was fired immediately after the congressman consulted the House Counsel about his arrest, Rothman spokesman Aaron Keyak told The Hill in a statement.
Decheine was arrested as part of a sting targeting people interested in sex with minors -- the first one ever launched by the Gaithersburg Police Department, according to a press release provided to TPM. Eleven arrests were made during the operation, which came in phases. First, ads were placed online and an undercover officer began communicating with each "John."
Decheine happens to be married and attempted to meet up with the girl who he believed to be 15 after working on Capitol Hill.
He also happens to be Rothman's top staffer, running his DC and New Jersey office. While some think that Rothman took his time in making this news public, I'm not quite sure how much faster Rothman could act - after all, he was informed of the incident on Friday and consulted with layers before terminating Decheine.
The Record also reports on an incident that occurred during the recently concluded campaign where he and several other Rothman staffers were accused of tearing down Rothman's opponent's campaign signs.
The exercise will include sending the aircraft carrier George Washington and a number of accompanying ships into the region, both to deter further attacks by the North and to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity.
The decision came after Mr. Obama attended the end of an emergency session in the White House Situation Room and then emerged to call President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea to express American solidarity and talk about a coordinated response.
But as a former national security official who dealt frequently with North Korea in the Bush administration, Victor Cha, said just a few hours before the attack began, North Korea is “the land of lousy options.”
Mr. Obama is once again forced to choose among unpalatable choices: responding with verbal condemnations and a modest tightening of sanctions, which has done little to halt new attacks; starting military exercises that are largely symbolic; or reacting strongly, which could risk a broad war in which South Korea’s capital, Seoul, would be the first target.
The decision to send the aircraft carrier came as the South Korean military went into what it termed “crisis status.” President Lee said he would order strikes on a North Korean base if there were indications of new attacks.
North Korea’s artillery shells fell on Yeonpyeong Island, a fishing village whose residents fled by ferry to the mainland city of Inchon — where Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s troops landed 60 years ago this fall, three months after the outbreak of the Korean War.
The diplomats will try everything imaginable to keep the situation from escalating, but that may be precisely what the North Korean regime is banking on. They will use the opportunity to attempt to wrest more concessions from the South and Party of Six, or at a minimum stall any additional efforts to contain the North's nuclear ambitions.
Meanwhile, the PA officially endorsed the “study.”
The PA’s Ministry of Information posted the results on its official website, and these findings were first published in The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The project was prepared by al-Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA Ministry of Information. He is also a prominent Palestinian poet and writer.
Taha’s “study” concluded that the Western Wall was never a Jewish site, but had always belonged to Muslims. He wrote that the Western Wall, known to Muslims as Al-Buraq Wall, is actually the western wall of the Al-Aksa Mosque.
Gershon Baskin, the joint CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, sent a letter to the Palestinian leadership in the wake of the Post article, calling the findings “a serious mistake” and “a stain on the Palestinian Authority.”
“If the content of the article is correct, you should take immediate action against the author of the report in question (if he is in fact employed by the PA or by the PLO) because his baseless claims are a serious blow to the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and make a mockery of the idea of peace between the Palestinians and the Jews,” Baskin wrote. “This is a most serious mistake, similar to the one of the late President Arafat when he denied any Jewish connection to the Holy Temple Mount (Haram Al-Sharif) in Jerusalem.
“Any observer, even a non-professional archeologist, can discern that the stones used to construct the Western Wall (the Kotel) are from the era of Solomon’s Temple and the Temple rebuilt by King Herod which was hundreds of years before Islam appeared on the world stage.
“The falsification of history, as done in the report by the Palestinian poet Al- Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the Ministry of Information, is a serious stain on the Palestinian Authority.”
It completely ignores more than 2,000 years of history, but it's completely typical for Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian Authority to engage in revisionist history. After all, Abbas is a Holocaust denier, and has no problem endorsing psuedo-intellectual endeavors if he thinks that it can give Palestinians an advantage in its ongoing war against Israel's existence.
Moreover, it shows that the Palestinians - via their representatives in the Palestinian Authority - have no intention of ever living peaceably alongside a Jewish state of Israel, or accepting a two-state solution. Further, the Palestinian Authority is actively ignoring its obligations under the Oslo Accords to cease and desist from inciting Palestinians to violence and indoctrinating yet another generation of Palestinians to refuse to recognize Israel's rights to exist and Jews' longstanding ties to the region.
It once again highlights the reason that peace talks have gone nowhere between Israelis and Palestinians - the Palestinians clearly have no interest in peace with Israel and are undertaking every opportunity to undermine Israel's rights and historical claims. The Palestinians are hoping to substitute their revisionist history for the facts as they have been for more than 2,000 years.
Any proposed extension of the 7 Train to Secaucus would require New Jersey's support. It seems that Gov. Christie, who killed the ARC tunnel project because of out of control costs and that the state would be on the hook for overruns that could reach anywhere from $1 to $5 billion over the already inflated $9 billion cost (originally proposed as $5 billion), is receptive to the idea that the MTA be able to extend the 7 Line to the Secaucus Transfer.
One of the reasons that he'd support this particular mass transit option is that the city and state of New York would be directly involved in the financing. The ARC tunnel, despite its interstate nature, would have been funded disproportionately from New Jersey, and New Jersey taxpayers would have been on the hook for all cost overruns.
Proponents of the ARC tunnel focus on the lack of a one-seat ride into Manhattan for North Jersey commuters, but ignore that this proposal would give even quicker and greater access to all MTA routes, including those on the East Side of Manhattan - direct access to Grand Central Station on the 7 Line, to say nothing of direct access to Queens and the outer boroughs. One-seat rides aren't nearly as important to commuters as the availability of rides, and NJ Transit has shown that it can't afford its existing infrastructure by cutting service on buses and trains. It had no way to afford one-seat rides into Manhattan without curtailing existing service to Hoboken.
The 7 Line proposal still needs to arrange financing and for the various Congressional delegations to get behind the proposal to line up federal funding in addition to Port Authority monies that were allocated to the project. Sen Lautenberg, who would rather carry out investigations into Christie canning the ARC tunnel, has yet to weigh in on this more worthy and cost-effective project. Christie's predecessor, Jon Corzine broke ground on the project despite opening the state's taxpayers up to potential cost overruns of billions - a bad deal that would only get worse as costs mounted and would saddle NJ Transit with yet another white elephant and boondoggle to go along with its Secaucus Transfer.
For his part, New York Senator Chuck Schumer has said that he would seek the necessary funding for the project. At least someone in the New York and New Jersey delegations has the foresight and understanding of the importance of expanding mass transit in a more efficient and cost effective manner.
Still, the MTA capital budget is itself stretched thin and the MTA has seen its share of service cuts and fare hikes. Yet, the MTA is better situated to handle the project than NJ Transit given it already has the equipment and land available for the tunnel without additional condemnations - a major cost savings.
For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.
But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
So, no one knows who the guy really was, and what he has done with the money.
Classic.
And what should really be noteworthy is just how much contact this guy had with top level Afghan and NATO commanders and political leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and had been flown around in NATO aircraft. This represents a serious flaw and failure in the intel on Mansour and the Taliban.
South Korean artillery units returned fire after the North’s shells struck South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island at 2:34 p.m., said Mr. Kwon, adding that the North also fired numerous rounds into the Yellow Sea. Television footage showed large plumes of black smoke spiraling from the island, and news reports said dozens of houses were on fire.
The official North Korean news agency said in a brief statement Tuesday night that the South had started the fight when it “recklessly fired into our sea area.”
The South Korean deputy minister of defense, Lee Yong-geul, acknowledged that artillery units had been firing test shots on Tuesday afternoon close to the North Korean coast, from a battery on the South Korean island of Paeknyeongdo. But he denied Pyongyang’s charge that the shots had crossed the sea border.While skirmishes between the two countries have not been uncommon in recent years, the clash appeared to have been the most serious in decades and came amid heightened tensions over the North’s nuclear program. An American nuclear scientist who recently visited the North said he had been shown a secret and modern enrichment facility.
A spokesman for President Lee Myung-bak said Mr. Lee gathered his security-related ministers and senior aides at a crisis meeting in the underground situation room at the Blue House, the presidential office and residence.
“We will not in any way tolerate this,” Mr. Lee’s chief spokesman, Hong Sang-pyo, said after the meeting. “Any further provocation will get an immediate and strong response and the South Korean military will strongly retaliate if there is anything further.”
The North continues testing the patience of the South and seeing what it can get away with ahead of ongoing talks to curb the North's nuclear ambitions.
UPDATE:
South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak called for "enormous retaliation" against the North and consider this an act of war - the invasion of South Korean territory.
Hours after North Korea's deadly artillery attacks Tuesday, South Korea's president said "enormous retaliation" is needed to stop Pyongyang's incitement, but international diplomats urgently appealed for restraint.
"The provocation this time can be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory," President Lee Myung-bak said at the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
He's under tremendous pressure militarily and politically to respond with force, but I expect the diplomats to cool things down. That will make it tougher for the South Korean president politically, but will avert a wider conflict for now.
Of course, that very aversion to war means that the North will see this as yet another sign that their strategy of provocation works and will continue pressing their luck until the South does eventually respond.
As it is, the two sides exchanged artillery fire for several hours after the North began firing on the island. We're lucky that the fighting didn't spread to other sectors along the DMZ. It's little wonder that the international markets got spooked by the news and the news focus is on the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
For further news, check out the ongoing blog coverage at memeorandum. There is some musings that the attack was an indication of the power transfer from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un - using the incident as a prelude to consolidating power, but I don't think that we would see any concrete transfer until after Jong Il is dead. Moreover, if this was truly the reason for the incident, then Jong Un is just as mad as his father and grandfather before him.
UPDATE:
Still more video showing the North Koreans firing on civilian areas. At least 60 homes were damages in the artillery barrage:
For an electric vehicle that doesn't use gas, the Leaf gets 99 mpg-e?
It doesn't use a drop of gasoline, but the electric Nissan Leaf was just rated by the Environmental Protection Agency at the equivalent of 99 miles a gallon (mpg-e in EPA-speak).
That's because in most places, it takes some sort of fossil fuel to create electricity. But at 106 mpg-e in the city, 92 on the highway, the Leaf still becomes the highest-rated car for gas mileage. Those figures are nearly twice as much as the previous highest-rated car, a Toyota Prius hybrid.
The rating allows Nissan to go ahead and prepare a window sticker for the Leaf, which goes on sale next month. Nissan has 20,000 interested buyers lined up.
Here's a model EPA sticker for the Leaf. If the EPA arrives at this kind of figure for the Leaf, there's no telling as what the Chevy Volt will get.
Whatever it is, the EPA has to give the Volt a much lower mileage equivalent considering that the Volt operates in a pure gas engine mode after the first 30 miles (give or take a few miles).
I was warning about this very scenario when President Barack Obama launched into his Middle East diplomacy just days into his first term at a time when Palestinians and Israelis weren't exactly primed for a new effort by a neophyte President who lacked any kind of experience dealing with the conflict.
The political peace process to which Obama committed so much energy is considered a failure so far. And in the world’s most pro-American state, the public and its leaders have lost any faith in Obama and — increasingly — even in the notion of a politically negotiated peace.
Even those who still believe in the process that Obama has championed view his conduct as a deeply unfunny comedy of errors.
“He’s like rain,” said a top Israeli official involved in diplomacy with the U.S., speaking of Obama’s role in negotiations. “You can do all kinds of things to cope with it.”
Some fret that not only has Obama failed to move the process forward but he and his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts may have dealt it a setback that will leave it worse off than when they began.
“Each of them has exacerbated the mistakes of the other,” said Michael Herzog, a retired general who still plays an informal role advising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s negotiators. He worries that the result of the bumbling could be “disastrous: People will lose hope in the possibility of a two-state solution.”
The White House declined to comment for this story. But in general, the Americans point fingers back at the region. They’re unsure whether Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, has the will to make peace. They’ve been surprised and disappointed by Arab leaders’ unwillingness to bolster Israel’s confidence in the process with diplomatic concessions or financial support for the Palestinian Authority. And they are dissatisfied with the domestic political excuses of an Israeli prime minister they see as having chosen his own intractable coalition and who is now — in the view of one American official — “running out the clock.”
That latter bit is particularly hilarious since no one should have taken the Palestinians seriously since the 2007 schism between Hamas and Fatah that left each with control of only one portion of a potential Palestinian state (Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank) but neither recognizes the rights of the other to speak for all Palestinians.
Moreover, Hamas continues to refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist openly. Fatah is more circumspect in that regard, but it too alludes to a long struggle to overcome the Zionist (Israeli) presence in the Middle East. When one side refuses to recognize the right of the other to even exist, there's absolutely no way that a peace deal could be struck that means anything more than a piece of paper.
The whole notion that Israel has to be prodded into making concessions on housing freezes completely ignores Palestinian failures to adhere to Oslo - and just how uneven the demands on both sides truly are. Housing is not an impediment to peace - Palestinian refusal to accept Israel - as a Jewish state - is. Palestinians want to rid all territories that will fall into their sphere of influence of all Jews. They have required Israel to forcibly uproot Israeli settlements and that was formalized via Oslo - that there are areas in the West Bank where Israelis simply cannot travel or else they'd face arrest (or lynching depending on the mood of the Palestinians that given day). That's not a firm foundation for peace, but for a renewed conflict.
Throw in the US arms deals to the Saudis that would give that feeble regime more fighter aircraft (F-16s) and it's little wonder that the Israelis wanted to get an improved fighter deal for themselves (the F-35). The Saudis see the Iranians as a threat, but the Israelis see the Saudis as a threat should the regime topple (the King is getting up there in years and the stability of the regime isn't entirely certain). The Iranians continue making their usual genocidal statements towards Israel's presence along with attempts at procuring both conventional weapons systems and even nuclear technologies.
The President has made a mess of any chance at further a peace process while the current players are at the helm. It would take a radical sea-change for there to be an improvement in chances for peace - and that would necessarily have to originate with the Palestinians. It is on the Palestinians to bring about the conditions for peace - starting with a complete and total renunciation of their desire to eliminate Israel and to accept a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state. Housing can always be transferred (see the original Camp David accords with Egypt).
The Palestinians have to figure out what they want - whether they want to follow Hamas and their jihad against Israel or Fatah's long-term struggle, or create a whole new path towards peace. Right now, they're showing no interest in peace, and depending on where you ask, they consider jihad or the struggle to be paramount even if it means economic ruin for Palestinians.
Israel has no choice but to continue operating as it has for years - protecting itself from attack and hoping that someone among the Palestinians finally shows courage and backbone to make a deal that Arafat and Abbas would not.
The Half Moon Restaurant and Saloon is located in Kennett Square, PA, which is located south of Philadelphia and near the Delaware border (not too far from Longwood Gardens, PA). It would be all too easy to overlook except that its menu got the attention of the Travel Channel and foodies from around the East Coast.
Its menu features meats that one would not ordinarily find elsewhere and specializes in wild game presentations. Pretty much any wild game will be turned into burgers, which are a good introduction into adventurous eating. When we visited this past weekend, I tried the signature wild game burger was made from antelope, and the tasting plate that consisted of kangaroo, pheasant, and ostrich.
Mrs. Lawhawk had the buffaloaf, which was extremely light and not nearly as dense as one typically finds. Everything was seasoned, but not so much that it overwhelmed the taste of the meat.
Wild game is generally far more healthy to consume than beef and we'll ordinarily seek out bison (buffalo) whenever we get the chance. The key is to avoid overcooking; because bison and other wild game contains less fat, if you cook past medium (or even medium rare), the meat becomes too rubbery to consume and enjoy. The ostrich and kangaroo were both prepared to rare, while the pheasant was cooked to a medium as was the antelope.
To accompany the meal, the restaurant had a wide selection of Belgian and local brews and an extensive wine menu.
Prices are moderate to expensive. Burgers can range from $10-$16, but toppings are extra. Entrees can range from $15 on up and can top $30.
My one criticism was the overly loud room, which could be mitigated with some artwork or other items hanging on the wall to absorb the sound. It was just a bit too loud as the long layout of the restaurant funneled the sound to the back. This is a minor quibble considering the quality of the food and presentation.
All in all, there's a reason that this restaurant got the attention of foodies.
The decorative enamel on the superhero and Oz sets — made in China and purchased at a Warner Brothers Studios store in Burbank — contained between 16 percent and 30.2 percent lead. The federal limit on children's products is 0.03 percent.
The same glasses also contained relatively high levels of the even-more-dangerous cadmium, though there are no federal limits on that toxic metal in design surfaces.
In separate testing to recreate regular handling, other glasses shed small but notable amounts of lead or cadmium from their decorations. Federal regulators have worried that toxic metals rubbing onto children's hands can get into their mouths. Among the brands on those glasses: Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Burger King and McDonald's.
The Coca-Cola Co., which had been given AP's test results last week, announced Sunday evening that after retesting it was voluntarily recalling 88,000 glasses over concerns regarding the mainly red glass in a four-glass set.
The AP testing was part of the news organization's ongoing investigation into dangerous metals in children's products and was conducted in response to a recall by McDonald's of 12 million glasses this summer because cadmium escaped from designs depicting four characters in the latest "Shrek" movie.
The New Jersey manufacturer of those glasses said in June that the products were made according to standard industry practices, which includes the routine use of cadmium to create red and similar colors. That same company, French-owned Arc International, made the glasses that Coca-Cola said it was pulling.
To assess potential problems with glass collectibles beyond the "Shrek" set, AP bought and analyzed new glasses off the shelf, and old ones from online auctions, thrift shops and a flea market. The buys were random.
The fact it was so easy to find glasses that appeal to kids and appear to violate the federal lead law suggests that contamination in glassware is wider than one McDonald's promotion.
The irony of the latest findings is that AP's original investigation in January revealed that some Chinese manufacturers were substituting cadmium for banned lead in children's jewelry; that finding eventually led to the McDonald's-Shrek recall; now, because of the new testing primarily for cadmium in other glassware, lead is back in the spotlight as well.
Chinese manufacturers have switched from one heavy metal to another, and both have dangerous repercussions for users. Lead poisoning can affect mental and intellectual development, and cadmium poisoning can cause a whole host of ailments and could lead to death in sufficient doses.
Those are among the puzzling questions raised by allegations against Lin Mun Poo, a 32-year-old Malaysia native whose case illustrates the mounting national secrets threats posed by overseas cyberattacks, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials tell NBC News.
The U.S. government’s case against Poo, who is slated to be arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday, has so far gotten little attention. But many of the allegations against him seem alarming on their face, according to cybercrime experts. "This is scary stuff," said one U.S. law enforcement official.
Poo was arrested by Secret Service agents last month shortly after flying into New York's John F. Kennedy airport with a "heavily encrypted" laptop computer containing a "massive quantity of stolen financial account data," including more than 400,000 credit card, debit card and bank account numbers, according to a letter filed by federal prosecutors last week laying out a "factual proffer" of their evidence against Poo. [ Click here to read the prosecutors' letter in PDF format.]
He later confessed to federal agents that he had gotten the credit and bank card data by tapping into the computer networks of "several major international banks" and companies, and that he expected to use the data for personal profit, either by selling it or trading it, according to the prosecutors' letter.
Poo's court-appointed lawyer did not respond to a request from NBC News for comment.
'Impressive level of criminal activity'
But far more disturbing, according to U.S. intelligence officials and computer crime experts, was his penetration of both a Federal Reserve network of 10 computers in Cleveland as well as the secure networks of a "major" Defense Department contractor. According to the prosecutors' letter, the Pentagon contractor, which has not been identified, provides system management for military transport and other "highly-sensitive military operations."
The NYPD intelligence division, CIA and FBI are concerned Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal is becoming a new Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni Al Qaeda cleric who went from preaching to plotting.
"El-Faisal is focused on propaganda," one U.S. counterterror official in Washington told the Daily News. "But the last few years, he's dabbled in operational things like recruitment and facilitation."
He also inspired Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and failed airplane underwear bomber Farouk Abdulmutallab.
"His reach goes far beyond Jamaica," the U.S. official said. "He's trying to expand his network in Africa and Asia."
A law enforcement source said El-Faisal "has a big ego" and hates "playing second fiddle" to perceived rival Awlaki - targeted for death by the U.S. for his links to the Fort Hood shootings and Abdulmutallab.
El-Faisal started out giving fiery sermons in London that were posted online by New York-based extremist website Revolution Muslim, which regards him as an in-house imam.
Awlaki has been the most active of the imams providing spiritual guidance to al Qaeda inspired jihadis around the world, and several of the most recent terror plots and incidents were by those inspired by Awlaki, including the Fort Hood massacre shoot Maj. Nidal Hassan, Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, and underwear bomber Farouk Abdulmutallab.
However, when he was known as Imam Al-Jamaikee, Faisal preached to Al Qaeda shoe bomber Richard Reid, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and 2005 British train bomber Germaine Lindsay before the U.K. jailed him on a terror rap for four years.
If he's nearly as vainglorious as intel services and law enforcement believes him to be, his outsized ego will try to exhort his followers on to carrying out more spectacular attacks and al-Awlaki's been able to achieve. He is also likely to attempt to muster more followers to his ranks in an attempt to wrest control from Awlaki, who is currently in Yemen and trying to avoid being captured by Yemeni and Saudi forces or UAV airstrikes.
Law enforcement may also try to play the factions against each other in an attempt to undermine both.
It wasn't about actually producing alternative energy fuels that actually delivered more energy than was required to produce it and which delivered less energy to vehicles that could use the fuel.
Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy", weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.
U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31.
Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy.
"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.
"First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.
"It's hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."
He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."
More to the point, ethanol is still not a good alternative since it shifts production of corn and corn products from food to fuel. That increases the costs and benefits no one but the large agriprocessors who produce the corn and then turn it into ethanol.
This is a farm subsidy that deserves to be killed, and one that would save taxpayers nearly $8 billion directly, and even more indirectly as food costs are likely to drop as production pressures decline.
