10 Most Important Stories of the Decade

As we near the end of 2009 it's time to look back on the decade of the 2000's. These past ten years are often being referred to as the "oh-ohs," a nod to the number of things that went wrong. Here is my list of the most important happenings.

10-Spirit and Opportunity missions to Mars. The brilliantly successful NASA rovers landed in January, 2004 and discovered abundant evidence of oodles of water on the Red Planet, both in the past and frozen under the surface now. This keeps the door open on whether life may have developed there or may still exist underground, perhaps dormantly. When we get around to colonizing Mars, which we eventually will and must unless we destroy ourselves on this planet first, these findings show us the raw materials to survive on and terraform the planet are there. If so, a thousand years from now this story may be considered the most important one on this list.

9-Beijing Summer Olympics. The 2008 international athletic extravaganza was China's true international coming out party. From the incomparable opening ceremony through the unsurpassed competition, China showed it is most definitely back. The games themselves were simply a showcase of the epochal events taking shape in the globe's most populous country. 500 years ago the Middle Kingdom had the largest economy in the world, and it is on the way to regaining that position once more. China has 1.35 billion people, one-fifth of the world's total. With a GDP of $4.6 trillion in 2008 it will soon eclipse Japan as the number two economy. That could happen this year. The USA's $14 trillion is still three times as great, but if current trends hold, China will go past the Americans by 2030. That is definitely something to think about.

8-Hurricane Katrina. The mammoth storm slammed into the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts on august 29, 2005. With 1,836 confirmed dead, 705 declared missing and at least $75 billion in property damage it was among the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States. The abysmal response to the emergency discredited the competence of the Bush administration and led directly to Democratic control of Congress in 2006. Bush's, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!" to FEMA Director Michael D. Brown as TV reports showed thousands marooned and bodies floating in the flooded streets of New Orleans, 80% of which were underwater, spoke to how completely out of touch he was. After this crushing blow to his credibility the majority of the American people finally began to see through his charades in Iraq and the economy as well.


7-Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. On December 10, 2007 former Vice President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway for his body of work alerting the world to the escalating dangers of global warming. The award signifies broad consensus in scientific and international governmental circles that adverse climate change is an extremely serious human-caused problem that needs a human-designed solution. In short, 9.1 billion tons of greenhouse gasses were emitted into the atmosphere last year-almost all of them due to human activity-and natural processes such as ocean absorption and plant respiration could remove only 5 billion of those tons. Sea level rise, the increasing ferocity of major storms, drought and disease expansion are some of the consequences already under way that promise to get worse. This is another item that will likely seem of greater importance in hindsight, particularly if not enough is done in the next couple of decades to address the threat.


6-Bungled Campaign in Afghanistan. Following the terrorist attacks against America in September 2001, U.S. forces commenced operations in Afghanistan on October 7 against the al-Qaeda terror organization based there and the Taliban government that hosted it. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration disastrously bungled the operation, limiting U.S. involvement primarily to air and cruise missile strikes and the introduction of a few hundred special forces troops who served primarily as forward observers to coordinate the bombings. The ground campaign was left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, a collection of anti-Taliban forces who held only a few remote valleys in the country's far north. As a result of the failure to commit sufficient American forces, the leadership cadres of al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden and the Taliban under Mullah Omar were able to effect their escapes. They remain at large to this day, probably across the border in Pakistan, plotting, scheming, recruiting, training and killing.


5-Financial Crash/Recession of 2008-2010. Brought on largely by reckless practices and deregulatory nonsense in subprime mortgages and derivatives trading, the effects of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression have spread worldwide. The outcome of the 2008 presidential election was clinched when giant investment house Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 14, 2008 and Republican candidate John McCain stated the next day, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." Since a total implosion of the financial sector was averted, the public at large is not fully aware of how close we actually were to Great Depression II. The Fed bailouts, unpopular though they were, under both Bush and Obama, were necessary to preventing catastrophe, though there certainly should have been much stronger accountability. They are beginning to be paid back now with interest. The Obama $787 billion stimulus has also been crucial to staving off a depressionary downward spiral. The situation calls for more. As usual, Republican prescriptions are to return to Hooverism by cutting taxes and spending. If their ideas are adopted they will achieve their customary results.


4-Invasion of Iraq. The worst foreign policy blunder in American history began in March, 2003. The imbroglio is a trenchant reminder of how easily a frightened public can be stampeded into belligerent foolishness, even by a leader who is neither particularly intelligent nor a very good communicator. To date, the official American dead are 4,500, the wounded 31,000 and Iraqi civilian casualties stand at 87,000. Actual numbers may be much higher, particularly of the civilians. The direct cost to the U.S. has been $628 billion. There is little question now that the Bush administration sought conquest in Iraq before it even took office, and that the mood created by 9/11 provided the opportunity. The lies, mismanagement, baseless justifications, misdirected effort from the nation's real enemies, abandonment of moral and constitutional principles America has stood for since its inception and loss of respect in the world are the legacies of the fiasco and cautionary portents for the future.


3-Election of 2000. We will probably never know the real winner of this election. The Supreme Court as much as admitted the political motivation of its ruling in Bush v. Gore by declaring the decision did not set a precedent for the future. It turned out to be of immense importance, for imagine the policy differences that would have attended a Gore presidency. We would probably have eliminated the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership rapidly and decisively. We would never have gone into Iraq. We would have made substantial progress on energy independence and global warming. We would not have squandered the budget surpluses (remember them?) on tax cuts for the rich, and would instead have put Medicare and Social Security on a permanently sound footing. We would not have begun contracting out our defense to a mercenary army, nor would we have been torturing people.


2-Election of Barack Obama. Given the nation's history, the election of the first half-minority president, especially an African-American, is an axial event. The United States is the first major Western nation to do this. If he is a fairly effective president there is a good chance he will be featured on national currency someday. Another thing to keep in mind is how bad things had to have gotten under the perniciously venal and incompetent Bush-Cheney administration for this to take place. Obama has begun his first year taking a tack to a more moral and progressive stance. He has not been as liberal as his base would like, but there is an immense load on his plate and political realities are what they are. This has been evidenced by moderately progressive achievements on the budget, stimulus, and health care up to now. The country and the world are already far the better off thanks to his election rather than his opponent, who agreed with Bush on every major policy question.


1-September 11, 2001. Most of the negative events in this list are associated with the fallout from that horrendous day nine years ago. The national fear provided cover for Bush-Cheney's sinister depredations on the Constitution and their fiasco in Iraq. It gave them a narrow re-election victory in 2004. It undermined the economy and national finances, worsening the effects of the meltdown and constricting Obama's and the Congress's options on the budget, stimulus and health care. It worsened the response to Katrina, with funds unavailable to improve the levees and National Guard equipment and personnel diverted to Iraq. It has badly hurt the airline industry and, partly because of Bush's chosen response, kept the volatile Middle East a cauldron.

More on Irrational Disbelief

Last time we looked at "manufactured doubt," manipulative advertising campaigns designed to make people skeptical of the findings of science. They are often mounted to protect the interests of industries whose products or practices are threats to people's health or safety, such as the campaigns run for the tobacco, asbestos and coal industries. This is one reason it is often difficult to secure popular consensus when scientific consensus is more or less settled.

But other reasons lie within the minds of the target public itself. One main reason is denial. There is a tendency not to want to believe bad news, particularly if it means one needs to change one's behavior to address the problem. "Temporal relativism" is another. This relates to personal perspective and the slowness with which things may seem to change to the anecdotal observer. A gradual decline may not seem so noticeable within the time frame a person is paying attention to something. For instance, there were an estimated 450,000 lions in the wild in Africa in 1950. There are fewer than 30,000 now. Someone who has been going to Africa only in the past 10 years may not see the extent of the problem.

Anti-intellectualism is another reason. America seems particularly cursed among advanced nations in the high percentage of its populace who are extremely skeptical of the scientific method and quantitative analysis. The society is really rather schizophrenic in this regard. On the one hand we led the space, computer and genetic revolutions and on the other we have a higher percentage than other advanced nations of people who feel the earth is only 6,000 years old. This goes back to an early nineteenth century anti-aristocratic bent captured by Andrew Jackson. After him for the next few decades you had better have been born in a log cabin and display the "common touch" if you wanted to get elected president. It largely explains the appeal of counterfactual and even defiantly illogical figures like Sarah Palin today. An aura of authentic simplicity equates to credibility with this group.

America's "culture wars" have generalized the divide. Without a tradition of familiarity with classical education any more, figures like St. Thomas Aquinas, who sough to bridge faith and reason, are largely unknown in this country. Instead, science and adherence to its findings are often dismissed as threats to religion among traditional culturists. It need not be so. The Roman Catholic Church, since an encyclical by Pope John Paul II in 1996, is now tacitly in agreement with the idea of human evolution, for example.

Finally, there is the phenomenon George Lakoff identified as "frames." Click on the link to see a five-minute discussion from Lakoff himself. The writer of the incisive books "Don't Think of an Elephant" and "Moral Politics" posits a conservative frame of reference that cannot, for example, conceive of societal factors for behavior, such as a link between poverty and crime, but must ascribe all behaviors to individual choices, and thus cannot accept the efficacy of "social programs," no matter what statistical data is attached to them. These causes are also important factors in explaining why fact, science , data and even self-interest are frequently rejected in favor of irrational disbelief.

Junk Science: Manufactured Doubt

Have you ever wondered why it is that substantial blocs of people refuse to believe certain things, even after they have been considered "proven" by the findings of science? Galileo, for instance, was put on trial in 1632 for teaching the heliocentric (sun-centered) doctrine 89 years after Copernicus convincingly first proposed it and 22 years after his own telescopic observations confirmed it. In the nineteenth century Joseph Lister had great difficulty securing acceptance of the principle of antiseptic surgery and the need for surgeons to wash and disinfect their hands and instruments. For much of the twentieth, many Americans clung to the unfounded view that women and African-Americans lagged behind white men in intelligence.

More recently we have seen how persistent has been popular opposition to a range of questions regarded as conclusively settled by the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community. Among these stand such precepts as biological evolution by natural selection, the futility of "abstinence only" sex education and the occurrence of global warming as a result of human activity. Regardless of the findings of research, millions seem steadfastly wedded to debunked ideas. Why is this so?

In this piece I'll link you to an excellent synopsis showing one facet of the reason, the existence of well-funded disinformation campaigns by special interests who stand to lose a great deal of money if the facts of science are heeded. In a future issue I'll explore other attitudinal and psychological reasons.

But today I'd like to introduce you to the "Manufactured Doubt Industry," a thriving subset of the public relations or advertising industry. Pioneered by the tobacco industry campaign directed by the firm Hill and Knowlton beginning in 1954, this very company went on to sow obfuscation and delay on behalf of cancer-causing asbestos and ozone-layer destroying chlorofluorocarbons. All succeeded in delaying the implementation of urgently needed protections by many years.

Then, beginning in 1988, the fossil fuel industry followed up the strategies developed by Hill and Knowlton in a now twenty-year-old campaign to pull the wool over gullible eyes in order to limit regulation of the effects their products are having on earth's climate and web of life. For an eye-opening insight, read the well-written and researched article "The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the Hacked Email Controversy" by Jeff Masters in "Common Dreams" here.

For a preview, the basic steps of disinformation used in "manufacturing doubt" are included in this article on the ozone hole issue. It has been called the standard package of tricks. It remains disappointing that the media too often fails to differentiate between the objectivity of legitimate peer-reviewed scientific publications on the one hand and reports by in-house shills and thinks tanks in the pay of industry such as the Science and Environmental Policy Project on the other. But now you know better.

Day of Infamy

December 7 this year marks the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. If you go there you can see models and mementos of the ships lost that day, photographs of the wreckage, the hulk of the U.S.S. Arizona and on its memorial inscribed the names of the fallen. You can also see a moving film of the attack and its aftermath, made more moving yet because it is introduced by one of the survivors of that fateful Sunday morning. If you want to see the site yourself, I would urge you to go soon. The time is approaching when those who lived it will no longer stand as testament to the reality of that day's shock and loss, for even the youngest sailors of late 1941 are now entering their upper eighties.

That famous "day of infamy" was an event that profoundly changed the United States in a seemingly permanent way. Up to that time the United States basically hewed to George Washington's farewell injunction to avoid "foreign wars and entangling alliances." Even after being drawn into the Great War of 1914-1918 its conclusion saw the U.S. return to its shores, demobilize practically its entire army, sever its alliances and resume its customary stance of "isolationism."

It wasn't that America shut itself off from the world. American business and commerce remained heavily engaged around the globe. Americans travelled to foreign countries in growing numbers. U.S diplomats eagerly sought to open up opportunities for the American economy and often stood ready to use their good offices to help ameliorate tensions between countries. But in terms of alliances and military power politics outside its traditional head-cracking zone in the Caribbean, the U.S. stayed aloof.

The "Lessons of Pearl Harbor" changed all that. After involvement in a Second World War, and this time sparked by a surprise attack, a new internationalism became the consensus. "Never again" would the United States be caught unaware, unprepared and without alliances firmly in place. The developing Cold War with Soviet Russia amplified the Lessons tremendously.

Ever since, America has sought bases, intelligence and allies everywhere. No threat was too small to notice and act upon. The thinking was that if the United States did not mould the world to its liking then others would. The former tiny peacetime military is now a permanent mighty force costing hundreds of billions with outposts in over 100 nations. The former Great Isolationist has been directly involved in at least 16 conflicts in the past 60 years and attempts to be the guide and police force for the rest of the world. December 7, 1941 was the catalyst for this new perspective. The world and America have never been the same.

Obama on Afghanistan

President Obama has so far had to spend the greater part of his first ten months in office cleaning up the Stygian mess left him by George W. Bush. His speech last night on Afghanistan certainly falls into that category. As a candidate Barack Obama said Iraq was the wrong war. He said he would wind down there and ramp up in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda had been based and where its Taliban enablers had ruled and were once again regaining strength. There is some semblance of sense to this. Iraq was indeed a colossal blunder, and there was reason to pursue Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Once becoming President, Obama augmented the 30,000 troops he inherited from Bush with another 30,000. Now, after after long study and consideration, he has settled on sending another 30,000 and plans to keep them there until beginning to draw down in July, 2011. It's an Obama Afghan "surge," if you will, designed to pacify the countryside and allow time to train up competent Afghan security forces to take over the work themselves. Will it work? Well, that depends on what you mean by "work."

There is no doubt another 30,000 American soldiers will tamp down violence around the country. There will be increased casualties as they enter hostile ares to establish a presence. If they stay and hold for awhile, the losses will then decline. That was the pattern in Iraq, and in areas in Afghanistan where the increased personnel has already been committed.

But the real problem will be to establish anything lasting. The Taliban is indigenous and we are transient foreigners. Tribal leaders will determine the long term situation, not the United States. The only way to change that would be to keep a lot of troops there for ten to twenty years and to spend a couple of hundred billion dollars in aid. Obama realizes that is something the American people will not stand for. Nor should they.

Pakistan will determine the regional fate of Al Qaeda, not us. Al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan, anyway. Intelligence testimony is that there are no more than 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan. They are across the border in Pakistan. The President paid attention to that in the speech, saying repeatedly that the security of "Afghanistan and Pakistan" is a vital interest of the United States. The limitation, of course, is that Pakistan is a sovereign country that does not want an American army on its territory. For its success, therefore, the goal of eliminating Al Qaeda in Pakistan's western tribal regions depends on the Pakistani Army being the hammer while the U.S. presence across the border in Afghanistan is the anvil. That places great reliance on an army and a government that have proved much less than dedicated to actively prosecuting any such sustained effort.

In this light it is little wonder Obama took such a long time to come to a decision on strategy. He has no good options. He has seemingly settled on the political expediency of not leaving too early to anger the hawks while trying not to stay too long to anger the doves. With a year and a half to play with, who knows, maybe he could even get really lucky and have a Predator strike nail Osama bin Laden. In the meantime, he will hope that a period of relative quiet in Afghanistan will be accompanied by enough progress in Pakistan to claim success and get the whole miasma behind him in time for the 2012 election. That's about what it comes down to.

The Carbon Bathtub

The December issue of National Geographic Magazine has a good illustrative feature on pages 26-29 called "The Carbon Bathtub." It uses the image of a bathtub with the tap running and the drain open to show the dynamics associated with the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the difficulty of removing it.

We are pouring CO2 into the air at the rate of 9.1 billion metric tons a year, but only 5 million tons a year are being removed by biological and geological processes. As a result the CO2 concentration is now at 385 parts per million, up from 271 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. The previous high in the past 800,000 years, as demonstrated by Antarctic ice cores, was 299 ppm 333,000 year ago. What is important to realize is that even if we were to freeze CO2 emissions at their current levels, concentrations would continue to rise. That's because the "tap" is already running nearly twice as fast as the "drain" can dispose of the excess.

About 80% of our carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels. That includes natural gas, often touted as much cleaner than coal or petroleum. It does indeed produce fewer poisonous compounds when burned, but is nearly equivalent to the others when it comes to releasing carbon dioxide. Almost the entire remaining 20% comes from deforestation.

At these rates, 30% of the CO2 is absorbed by plants and the soil, 25% is absorbed by the oceans and 1% is incorporated into the formation of new rocks. That means 44% stays in the atmosphere. It's ominous to realize that if, "we stop emissions completely" it would take 300 years to get the CO2 concentration back to 350 ppm, the level many environmental scientists feel is necessary to restrain the worst impending effects of climate change. We have already raised the planet's average temperature about 1 degree.

You can go online to an interactive National Geographic site on this. It allows you to experiment with plugging different figures into the emissions or sequestrations to achieve various climate results. The bottom line is that if we do nothing and continue on our current path the ppm will be 955 in the year 2100 and global temperature will go up another 4.6 degrees.

If that were to happen the results would be catastrophic in terms of sea level rise, extinctions, disruption of the water cycle and, consequently, food production. The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference from December 7 to 18 will be an important indicator of the extent to which these dynamics are being taken seriously. Kyoto showed that most of the world had awakened to the danger. We have already seen that the new American Administration, unlike its predecessor, has joined the rest of the world in recognizing that a problem exists. Let's hope that science and the imperatives of survival begin to overcome denial and the service of special interest pollution agendas at the Conference.

"Now I've Seen Everything" Department

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. You just never know when something absolutely bizarre is about to take place. One of those Twilight Zone kind of moments happened to my daughter Marie in San Diego on Thursday.

There she was watching the local news on TV when on came a story about an accident. Some dufus had run into a fire hydrant and broken it off from its moorings. The broadcast had footage of the resulting huge, photogenic geyser spewing water onto an adjacent three-story commercial building. The report continued that the water had pooled on the building's roof. Then the weight of the water caused the roof to collapse. You can see a report with a news photo of the incident here.

What a freakish turn of events, she was thinking. And then she started noticing how familiar that building was looking. Now where, where--oh no! That was the building with the bridal shop, the one where she'd bought her wedding dress, where they were keeping it until they made the alterations. Yes, THAT building. The one that was flooded, and with the roof caved in.

What a disaster. When she phoned she was incredulous, stunned and in a mild state of panic. The wedding's in January and things like wedding dresses can take a long time to find, fit and fix. Fortunately, she was able to contact another shop the very next day that was able to track down the same dress from the same maker and make it available to her.

It was only after that that I could say this is the kind of event that seems horrible at the time but is good for a lot of laughs in the retelling over the years. Something like this is better than anything somebody could make up.

Now everyone can relax. Or maybe not. Who knows what crazy improbability is going to happen next? Life is just one darn thing after another, but at least is serves to keep things interesting.

Health Cost Containment in H.R. 3962

There are really two essential components to needed health care reform in America: access and cost containment. These are the two elements that threaten the health and economy of the nation, and that President Obama and the public have identified as most important to meaningful reform. Having 47 million people uncovered is a moral blot and embarrassment to the country, especially since many poorer countries are able to cover of all their people. But the cost of insuring them at American health prices is what makes it so difficult. We have less to go around when we have to spend 17% of our GDP on health to cover 80% of our people while others cover 100% of their people for only 9% of their GDP.

I asked a knowledgeable health professional if there are effective cost containment mechanisms in the health care legislation passed by the House last Saturday. Bob Montion is the retired CEO of a local hospital. He's read all 1,990 pages of H.R. 3962. You can read an article on it here, including a link to the entire document. I asked him if he could give me a synopsis of provisions in the bill that might help rein in the ruinous rise in American medical costs. After reading this you will have a good idea what to tell people when they ask what the legislation does to help get a handle on the rising health costs that are bankrupting too many Americans and making it harder and harder for our businesses to compete.

He says, "As for cost controls, the most effective is the public option. Insurance companies have feared the public option most because they know it will cause them to lower premiums to compete."

He remarks that preventative care will get a big boost under the new system. That should help drive down long-term costs by preventing potentially serious conditions from becoming critical and expensive.

Next, the simple fact that everyone will now have medical coverage, "will exchange expensive emergency care for low cost ambulatory care in clinic and doctor offices" and again, "identify illnesses early while they are manageable and cost effective."

Bob also mentions, "the seeds of medical malpractice reform in the bill," that can save a lot of money now spent on "defensive medicine."

He believes a continuation of the no-nonsense fraud and abuse enforcement initiated when the new administration came into office has already begun to bear fruit. "Some of the largest settlements ever have occurred in the last nine months. They will cut $100 billion a year in direct and indirect fraud and abuse." If that is true, this alone will pay for the cost of the bill, which is estimated at $102 billion a year over ten years.

This experienced health administrator would like to see additional measures in a final bill, such as, "a system that salaries doctors rather than paying them per service provided." Incentivizing more procedures doubtlessly insures that more will be performed.

In summation, Bob writes, "The cost provisions are there but subtle and designed to drive the market to reform its own system. Not nirvana, but a good bill."

GOP Still in the Doldrums

I hope you had a pleasant Halloween and remembered to set your clocks back an hour. It will be nice to have more light on the way to work in the morning, though the fall of darkness at five o'clock on that first evening always comes as a depressing shock. It calls up images of the months of cold and gloom to follow. Or of months snuggled under a throw with a good book and some hot cocoa, if you're of a positive bent. The problem is often less the problem itself than how we react to it or deal with it.

Now that calls to mind the sliding fortunes of the Republican Party of late. There are a number of polls out recently, all of which continue to chart the plummeting estimation of the GOP in the eyes of the American populace. You can see some here at PollTrack.com. One of note mentioned is a CNN survey just out that puts the GOP's favorables/unfavorables at 36-54, compared to the Democrats' 53-41. Other recent data says only 21 to 25% of the people now identify themselves as Republicans, compared to 34-36% who identify themselves as Democrats. You can find lots of interesting numbers, including these, at FiveThirtyEight.com. Democratic identification has been pretty steady at around 36% since about 1984. Republican has been around 32% over the same period, so this drastic fall has got to be a matter of concern for them.

There are a number of explanations, of course. One is the unpopularity of George W. Bush at the end of his tenure, which rubbed off on the rest of his party and meted out serious election consequences in 2006 and 2008. No doubt the effect still lingers, particularly since his Vice President, Dick Cheney, even more unpopular than Bush, continues to inject himself into the news cycle and remind the voters what they had grown so disillusioned with. Another is certainly the economic crisis that became manifest during the Republican watch as well.

One can expect these phenomena to dissipate some with time. But in a deeper sense, the current disillusionment continues to be a product of ongoing strategy. Whatever his other messages, Barack Obama's 2008 calling card was "change." The American people were hungry for it. Even his Republican opponents recognized that and tried to play up their "maverick" and "rogue" credentials. But the present face of the GOP, both in Washington and among their populist-oriented grassroots activists, seems to stand primarily for opposition to any change and to working together civilly to achieve solutions to the country's many problems.

In spite of the angry town halls on health care, a majority of Americans now support a health "public option." Or maybe partly because of them. They opposed the economic stimulus, extension of equal pay for women, immigration reform, cash for clunkers, talks with Iran, gas mileage standards and most opposed Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. While there are plenty who have problems with one or more of those initiatives, the fact that they uniformly seem to be against every attempt at change and appear to reject as a nearly unified bloc Obama's "bipartisanship" overtures have placed them in a tough spot with a public that knows a lot is wrong and needs fixing.

Americans may not all agree on what to do, but most feel standing pat with a bad hand is poor strategy. Until the Republicans can come up with and articulate a vision and some ideas that actually change the status quo and are not simply rehashes of their traditional mantras that most associate with having led to the current bad state of affairs, the GOP will keep wallowing in the doldrums. These things do tend to go in cycles, so Republican fortunes are bound to improve sooner or later. But unless they can find something new and meaningful to say they could actually find themselves losing a couple more senate seats in 2010.

Public Option Becomes State Option?

The long and winding road to health reform took another turn today as Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced he had decided to include a public option in the bill he will take to the Senate, perhaps as early as next week. The key element that may make it acceptable to enough senators to merit consideration is including a provision allowing states to "opt out" of the public plan. For the Reuters story on this development click here, or check the Washington Post on it here.

The way this could work is like this: it takes 60 votes in the Senate, not to pass something but to close debate so they can vote whether to pass it or not. The 60 vote threshold is actually to permit an up or down vote that would only need a majority. Since the Democrats have exactly 60 votes it might be very difficult for any of them to vote with the Republicans to prevent a vote, especially if a Senator's home state could turn down the plan if it wanted to. Once a filibuster attempt was defeated by the 60 votes, then the plan itself could pass with 51 votes, or even 50, with Vice President Joe Biden voting to break a tie. There probably are not 60 votes for a health plan with the public option in the Senate, but there certainly are 50. There is even talk that perhaps only two or three Senators might be iffy on a plan with a public option if their state would have the right to turn it down. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana are among those mentioned.

Reid said that according to the prospective plan a state would have until 2014 to nix the arrangement. How that would happen remains a mystery. Would it be by majority vote of the state legislature, or some other means? And what kind of precedent would that set? We can go all the way back to 1828, when South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun made the case for "nullification" in his famous article Exposition and Protest, arguing that his state ought to have the authority not to enforce a federal tariff it disagreed with. President Andrew Jackson ended that controversy by threatening to invade the state and hang the nullifiers who would flout federal law.

One can imagine how the privilege of states being allowed to selectively scrap federal legislation unpopular within their borders would have operated in the South had it been incorporated into the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s. Jim Crow would prevail there to this day had that been the case. It is a very, very dangerous precedent to set.

That being said, if politics is the "art of the possible" then this may be what makes progress on a bill that truly does something possible. Reid mentioned he "clearly" believes the bill would have "the support of my caucus." President Obama released a statement saying he was "pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage, in this case with an allowance for states to opt out."

Of course, the move might turn out to be one of the shrewdest ploys seen in the capitol in many a year. Once available, it is difficult to imagine many governors or legislatures in any but the most extreme right wing states denying their eligible citizens such a choice. It is remindful of the handful of Republican governors, all with apparent presidential ambitions at the time (Sanford of SC-there's that state again-, Pawlenty of MN, Palin of AK and Jindal of LA for instance) who tried to turn down part of the stimulus money this year but were overwhelmingly overruled by their own state legislatures in every case.

A couple of months ago my wife mentioned this possibility for the public option jokingly. "Why don't they pass it for the blue states and not for the red states?" she quipped. She then went on, "Of course then everybody would move out of those states to someplace they could get affordable health insurance." Exactly. It'll be a riot to see what happens next. As Lewis Carroll would have said, things just keep getting curioser and curioser.

Crime Foiled in First-Ever Technological Intervention: in Visalia!

Sometimes a town is remembered in history thanks to a seminal event. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina will forever be remembered as the site of the Wright brothers' first powered flight, Lexington, Massachusetts for the "shot heard 'round the world" and Lake Placid, New York for the "miracle on ice." Perhaps my town of Visalia, California will assume a similar position in the pantheon of remarkable events as the place where remote technology first stymied a carjacker. You can read the AP story on it here.

Jose Ruiz and his cousin were sitting in his 2009 Chevy Tahoe in a parking lot when a 21-year old man approached, leveled a shotgun at them and ordered them out. He had them empty their pockets. Then he got in the SUV and drove off.

Ruiz ran to a nearby pay phone and saw a sheriff's deputy on break who called Visalia police. Police spotted the truck a few miles down the road, and when they tried to flag it down the driver sped off at high speed. Little did he know that Ruiz was informing the cops he had OnStar for the vehicle. Once dispatchers got in touch with the OnStar operator and Ruiz gave his password, the remote service disabled the Tahoe's accelerator and it coasted to a stop.

The suspect fled into residential backyards in the dark, hopping over fences to elude police. The chase ended when he finally vaulted over a fence into a swimming pool and was quickly captured. "He wouldn't have pulled over if OnStar wouldn't have shut the vehicle down," commented Visalia police Sergeant Steve Phillips. The capability prevented a perilous high-speed pursuit that would have placed officers, innocent drivers and even the suspect himself in danger.

This was the first such incident of its kind but won't be the last. High technology kept people safe and helped take a threatening criminal off the streets. Score one for the future.

Michael Moore's "Capitalism"

I went to see Michael Moore's latest film, "Capitalism, A Love Story," last night. Like most of his films, it was an uneven but powerful mix of personal stories, history, ironic narration and community and personal action. You ought to get out and give it a look. Moore's thesis is split between two possible conclusions: that capitalism is either simply inherently immoral, or that it might be salvageable if the people democratically insist on making it work for them.

Moore begins by examining the constant drumbeat of propaganda for the American variant of capitalism, or at least the laissez-faire perspective on it. He then goes into the hypocrisy of companies that preached that principle but then when they got into trouble, turned to the regular taxpayers for hundreds of billions in bailout money. He spent a lot of time contrasting that with average families being evicted from their homes and farms on the principle of "let the buyer beware" free enterprise and predatory loans by the same financial institutions who took public money to overcome their own difficulties and used some of it to pay their executives (themselves) multi-million dollar bonuses.

Moore effectively went back in history to show his viewers a time, the 1950's and 60s, when marginal tax rates for the wealthy were as high as 90% and the standard of living for average working families and the provision of public amenities was generous. He played a speech from Franklin Roosevelt advocating the adoption of a "Second Bill of Rights" focusing on economic rights such as a good job at a liveable wage, a quality education, good affordable housing and health care for all, which would be accomplished, "after this war is finished." FDR died before the war ended, but Moore again points up the irony of how the American occupation administrations in the nations of our conquered enemies mandated all these provisions and democracy into the constitutions of Germany, Italy and Japan, and how the people of those nations have enjoyed these benefits as rights ever since, rights the people in the occupying power, the United States of America, do not enjoy for themselves.

Moore shows a few instances where people mobilizing together effect change for the good, such as a family backed by community organizers who refuse to vacate their home, and when the employees of Republic window and door faced down Bank of America and won. It is this kind of call for action Moore is openly championing by film's end. He even explores a financial industry document purportedly sent to major insiders saying that the gravy train for the rich will continue unless the bulk of the population uses their numbers to change the situation. The clear implication to the letter's well-heeled recipients is that that must never be allowed to happen. In many ways, Moore makes the point that the greedy few keep gaming the system so that they continue to gobble up a greater and greater share of the economy's output while the working and middle classes work harder and harder for a diminishing share. In many ways, his case is persuasive.

Moore wraps up rather theatrically, in his own inimitable style, with an appeal for the public to unite and take charge of their future by making the corporate, especially the financial industry, give the consumer a better break, be barred from arcane, non-productive and self-serving instruments such as derivatives and return a far greater proportion back to community purposes through heavier taxation. If you are a progressive you will enjoy the points and message of the movie. If you are not you know exactly what you will have to worry about in the next few years. Either way, it's definitely worth seeing.

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

News that President Barack Obama had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace stunned the world today. He has been in office less than nine months, leads a country involved in two ongoing wars and has yet to bring about the end of any of the world's many extant conflicts. His conservative political opponents in the United States derided the choice, ascribing it to his "star power," in the words of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. Michael Binyon of the London Times called the decision "absurd" and a "mockery." See the NY Times account here.

Obama himself, in a brief Rose Garden statement, said, "To be honest, I do not feel I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize..." He said he was "surprised and humbled" by the award and would accept it as "a call to action" and an "affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations." So how are we to make sense of this?

We do that by taking a look at things from the perspective of the rest of the world. This choice was a sigh of relief on behalf of many in the world community. The world's most powerful nation had literally been frightening people of good will around the globe for several years. In a large sense the Committee's award was a repudiation of Obama's predecessor and the direction he was leading the United States and the world. What was the world community to make of the planet's erstwhile champion of rights and human values engaging in torture, "disappearing" suspects, scoffing at climate change, treating other nations with ill-disguised contempt, militarizing one problem after another, showing a smug and superior attitude in dealings even with its allies, refusing to even talk to those with whom it had disagreements, starting a war and justifying it by obvious lies and having a second in command who openly spoke of working "the dark side" in pursuit of his aims?

The Nobel Committee, in its statement, praised Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," and said he had "created a new international climate." Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said, "The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world. And who has done more than Barack Obama?" He likened the selection to that of German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1971 for his "Ostpolitik" diplomatic outreach to Communist-ruled Eastern Europe. The fall of Communism there was not to come for another eighteen years but the thaw may well have begun with Brandt's initiative.

Obama has ordered an end to torture, passed fuel efficiency and cap and trade legislation, offered an open hand to the Muslim world in June in Cairo, started talks with Iran and North Korea, begun winding down American involvement in Iraq, has taken steps with Russia on nuclear proliferation, speaking recently in Prague of "a world without nuclear weapons," brought China into the Korea talks, has begun an initiative in the Middle East and is reassessing U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. As his recent election rival John McCain observed today, "I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I'm sure the President understands that he now has even more to live up to."

The Nobel Committee is the latest to evidence what most of the world has felt about Obama from the start of his campaign, that his election would signal something very different and healthy in the psyche of the American populace and a commensurate positive change in the way his country was ready to relate to the world. He has not disappointed so far. Just think of where American diplomacy and the international climate were one year ago. And indeed, who has done more in the past year to foster world peace than Barack Obama? Obama has barely begun to scratch the surface in terms of bringing about international accord in his less than nine months in office. But he has restored the one indispensable element to getting it off the ground--hope. From where things stood a year ago, that in itself is an achievement to be celebrated.

Thinking Afghanistan Through

General Stanley McChrystal says the 21,000 additional troops dispatched to Afghanistan this year are not enough. He wants 40,000 more. President Barack Obama is conducting an overall review of Afghan policy. He wants clarification on what the mission is, what victory would look like, what the prospects truly are and what level of forces might be needed to accomplish whatever the mission is finally determined to be. Congress will shortly vote on another funding bill for Afghanistan. They are expected to pass it even though they are not sure how many troops they are funding nor what the mission or exit strategy might be. To say we appear confused about Afghanistan is an understatement. It's time for some clear thinking.

Let us consider the mission. What are we trying to accomplish there? Let's zero in on what is essential, and that is the defeat of the al Qaeda organization. Though there are many other considerations that seem to have gotten in the way and clouded the issue, that is the only plausible reason for us to be there. They are the organization that attacked us on 9/11, has spread mayhem on numerous other peoples around the world since and remain unalterably our implacable enemies.

No other mission there is worth more years, lives and resources. Whether the corrupt Karzai regime or one of the other figures or warlords runs Kabul is of little long term difference to us. The "no cut and run" argument is simply bullheaded, chest-thumping foolishness. Such thinking kept us in Vietnam five years and 35,000 American deaths longer than necessary, to no purpose. Even the prevention of a Taliban reinstatement is not necessarily a real concern of ours. As repugnant as they are with their subordination of women and close-minded intolerance as evidenced by their destruction of the Buddhist relics, they have never come after us outside their country. Humanitarian relief? Give me a break. To commit 60,000 and now a proposed 100,000 troops at $50-$100 billion a year for another eight or ten years so that we can invest $5 billion a year in development aid to a backward foreign country in civil war is beyond lunacy.

What is key to understand is whether they would invite or permit al Qaeda back into Afghanistan should we leave and the Taliban retake control. That is what our intelligence needs to discern. In Iraq, the resistance, including especially al Qaeda elements that entered Iraq after our invasion there, flourished as long as the Sunni tribes tolerated them and allowed them to operate in their tribal areas. Once the locals turned on them for their vicious excesses, their defeat was rapid and complete. In Afghanistan, which is much more cohesively tribal and localized than Iraq, this would be even more strongly the case.

Adding to this is the presence of nearby Pakistan. It is clear that al Qaeda is principally based across the border in Pakistan now. If the Pakistanis continue to prove reluctant or unable to eradicate al Qaeda on their side of the border (and it has been eight years, after all) it makes little difference what we do in Afghanistan. They will simply continue to base wherever they can operate. We can make things annoying for them by launching the occasional Predator strike against what we think is one of their safe houses, but that kind of campaign can never eliminate an entire movement, and to the extent we inevitably get some attacks wrong and kill innocents we merely play into their hands.

So it comes back to the Taliban's intentions. Have they, like the Iraqi resistance, come to the view that al Qaeda is a threat to their own power and a destabilizing factor that will bring undue Western wrath down on them if they are associated together? If so, we can begin leaving Afghanistan as soon as we can make the arrangements. If they have not, perhaps it is time to quietly begin letting them know our views on this, and quietly spreading some money around as we did to get the "Sunni awakening" underway in Iraq. Otherwise, we may be stuck in Afghanistan for a very, very long time in a classic exercise in futility.

Autumn Arrives

The grip of summer has finally loosened here in the San Joaquin Valley of Central California, and not a moment too soon. When it shifted it did so in a hurry. A high of 98 Tuesday ceded 20 degrees on Wednesday. When we moved here ten years ago we were told things cooled down noticeably from summer's baking heat in September. That was welcome since even though the summer is hotter here than we experienced in Southern California, the heat typically lasted longer down there. Ask anybody from Socal and they'll confirm September is the year's hottest month. Well, it seems like it was up here this year as well. Good riddance, say I! Enough is enough!

I was out in the backyard early this afternoon, enjoying the ambiance. Bluebirds flitted and twittered in the trees. It was pleasant to be out. The lounge chairs beckoned. A few flying insects made their busy rounds, fascinating in their concentrated activity, seemingly aware they had but little time to lose before their hour glass runs out. As I closed my eyes I could hear more birds here and there from all around the neighborhood, calling, flapping, fluttering, pecking, lifting off, landing, lighting, chirping, and generally doing all those sometimes calm and sometimes frenetic things birds are wont to spend their time doing when they're not merely perching in torpor trying not to raise their body temperatures.

I was refreshed by the inviting clime, the fragrance of potted flowers and pine, the greenery of the star jasmine hedge and the beckoning hazy hulks of the Sierras to the east under wispy cirrus dabs giving scenic contrast if little shade. All was right with nature and I had been invited back in. Blessed weeks of fall! May they last and linger, gladdening the heart until the chill and gloom of winter assume their sway.

Tough Choices Need Courage

We have seen some rapid action lately on some of our most pressing national problems. The stimulus package and energy legislation mandating better gas mileage and emissions controls are examples. The bank bailouts, distasteful as they were, were also necessary to prevent financial petrification and are now starting to be paid back with interest. But when problems are less than immediately catastrophic our current milieu seems to have a great deal of difficulty coming to grips with them. The problem is often lack of courage. Leaders know certain things must be done, but they shrink at asking the people they represent to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve them. The politicians are too often afraid of not getting re-elected. Would that more had a priority of doing what is right and needed rather than what will sell at re-election time.

You certainly have to place a certain amount of blame on the public itself. Too often they demand services but somehow feel they can have all they want without paying for them. Too many office-seekers have been all too eager to make the promises that have encouraged that mindset over the years.

For one example close to home, most of California's water system was put in place when the state's population stood at 18 million. It gives you an idea how well that system was designed 45 years ago when you consider we now have 38 million and most of the state's needs are still being met. Yet, inevitably, we have outgrown it, and increasingly, gaps are appearing. There are effective plans combining conservation with new storage to deliver the quantity now needed. But the legislature is stymied over how to fund it. The Republicans want it all to be by a state bond. The Democrats say the interest on the bond would add another $1 billion a year to an already unbalanced budget. They want to fund it 1/3 by bond and the rest by user fees. While they argue fields lie fallow and the problem grows more acute. You just can't get around the fact that with the state budget the way it is, the money to build this project that both sides agree is necessary will have to entail some form of making those who use the water pay for it. But wedded to their no-tax pledges, the Republicans will not face reality.

The same kinds of dynamics are at work with problems like the coming shortfalls in Social Security. It really isn't rocket science. One or some combination of three things will have to happen: Either the payroll deductions for employees and employers will have to be raised, the retirement age will have to be raised or benefits will have to be cut. If neither of the first two are done, benefits will need to be cut to 73% of what they are now. So, why don't they act? Because nobody wants to tell the people the truth, that's why. They "kick the can down the road," and hope for a miracle, or at least put things off for someone else to have to deal with later--presumably after present congressmen and women are no longer in office.

We'll see how it pays out with health care, too. There are actually two main problems that need to be solved. One is the 47 million people are not covered. That has to be fixed. The other is that costs keep going up faster than economic growth and inflation, the rendering the system unsustainable and guaranteed to lead to a crash like the housing-banking-derivatives crash we have just been through when the economy can no longer support the price structure. Those two are the bedrock needs that have to be faced. Instead, too much of the debate has been stuck on outlandish fears and gotcha points. I happen to feel a "public option" would help a great deal to keep prices in line. But there are other paths to that goal, such as really stringent price controls that could accomplish the same purpose, though they would make government much more directly intrusive in the economics of the system. If leaders actually want to solve the problem, they will have to decide. But that would, like the other problems mentioned, take some honesty and courage.

This is an important enough issue it would be very noble for members of congress to truly solve the problem, even if it would lead to their defeat next time around. There is something to be said for being able to look one's self in the eye in the mirror and say, "I saved thousands of lives," or, "I helped keep the U.S. economy competitive." It would be nice to see that kind of courage and integrity in evidence in our own day a little more.

Some Common Sense on Health Care

I went to a public forum on health care last week. There were representatives of five groups: Republican, Democrat, "Tea Party Patriot" (tends libertarian), Health Care for All (advocates single-payer) and the Chief Financial Officer of our local hospital. The forum was well-moderated by Paul Hurley, the op-ed editor of our local paper, the Visalia Times-Delta, the participants were mannerly and the audience of over 200 was well-behaved. It was quite a relief not to be subjected to some of the boorish behavior we have all seen on the news lately.

I want to focus on the remarks of the hospital CFO. They are particularly telling to me because it was rather predictable what the others were all going to say. I couldn't tell what to expect from him. Gary Herbst had quite a few interesting things to say from the perspective of the provider. Keep in mind that our hospital, Kaweah Delta Hospital (KDH), is a non-profit with a board elected by the community. Its take on things thus has more weight to me than an operation motivated largely by profit. Kaweah Delta wants to make enough to stay in business and provide the services the people of the community need. Visalia is a city of about 125,000 in Central California, an area that is primarily rural. By volume of farm sales, for instance, Tulare County is typically number two in the nation, right behind neighboring Fresno County.

Gary started out by saying how much in agreement he and the hospital are with most facets of what President Obama's plan and HR 3200 want to do. He described KDH as "non-profit and pro-reform." They agree with the industry working to save $155 billion over ten years. They like the bill's expansion of primary care physicians and nurses and increasing the supply of physicians in general. He likes the expansion of "community-based health and prevention" efforts. He feels private insurance definitely needs competition and must be prevented from dropping people who get sick. He agrees care providers should not get paid again for "readmissions and errors," says the current system impedes doctor-hospital cooperation by inserting insurance questions into the middle of everything, and very much likes the prospect of a standardized system of notification and billing. He says it will save big money. A large operation like Kaweah Delta employs a lot of people who have to spend too much time dealing with all the various requirements of a myriad of insurers. He and KDH are in favor of the "public option."

He is concerned primarily with two things: that the cost of insuring everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions is accurately assessed and that the "reimbursements" paid to institutions such as his are realistic. He believes that the bill would lower reimbursements to the medicare level. That is a concern because of the statistics he presented. He said that 70% of their business in Medicare or Medical. They lose $10 million a year on Medicare patients, who constitute 47% of their admissions. 20% of KDH patients have private insurance, on which the hospital made a "profit" of $20 million. That allowed it to operate in the black by $9 million last year and add some modern equipment. If everything is reduced to the Medicare level, he fears KDH will not be able to make it. As he says, "I support reform and the public option, but it must reimburse real costs.

So that is the take of the business manager of a non-profit hospital. If some of the other savings he foresees materialize as Gary expects, that may mitigate the reimbursement levels currently contemplated. But if not, they would be a good way for the foes of reform to scuttle the reform effort. It is certainly essential that all Americans are covered so they can go to the doctor when they are ill, and that rising costs are contained before they, like the housing bubble, crash and disastrously affect the economy. In the meantime, of course, it is necessary that congress take realistic figures into account about what things will actually cost and how much will be needed to keep the system running.

I left pleased at the acceptance this non-profit hospital executive had of the need for reform and his confidence in most of the measures proposed for accomplishing it. It seemed to assure, from one who would be entrusted with carrying it out, that if amassing large profits was not your primary goal you could operate the system sensibly in the manner being contemplated by the reformers.

Who Owns a Gene?

You might be surprised to learn that it is legal to patent a human gene. I was. It is estimated that approximately 20% of the roughly 24,000 genes in the human DNA sequence have been patented. This has touched off a bioethics issue and spawned a lawsuit designed to test whether a natural substance such as a gene can be patented for protected private use. You can read a CNN article on it here.

The American Civil Liberties Union has brought suit on behalf of breast cancer survivor Lisbeth Ceriani against the Patent and Trade Office and Myriad Genetics over patents on two genes: BRCA1 and BRCA2. These genes are known to increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Now Ceriani is contemplating whether to have her ovaries removed, and intends to if she has either of the telltale genes. But since the PTO granted Myriad a patent on these genes, Ceriani (and others) cannot get a diagnosis on whether she has them without the permission of the company--a privilege for which Myriad charges $3,000 for the use of its "intellectual property."

The ACLU contends that, "patenting a gene is as wrong as patenting a basic element like gold or a basic law of nature like gravity. When it patents a gene, the U.S. Patent and trade office (PTO) is really patenting knowledge, which violates freedom of scientific inquiry." According to the ACLU Journal Civil Liberties, "Patents were designed to protect human inventions, and you can't invent a gene."

As an outgrowth of this practice, other researchers are barred from looking into someone's patented gene. According to Wired, Myriad Genetics has "issued a cease-and-desist order to Yale University scientists researching the genes." The ACLU suit thus asks the federal judiciary to rule against the patenting practice on grounds of infringing on freedom of speech and scientific inquiry as well as on establishing favored and protected monopolies on natural substances. In short, the whole concept of patenting a human gene will come under argument and be subject to legal review.

The decision, when it comes, will have far-reaching effects. Currently, about 63% of patents on genes are held by companies and 37% by universities. Is it right for anyone to own a patent on a naturally occurring substance or component of the human body? Is it right to grant such an entity sole discretion on whether a person can get a test to determine if the substance may give them a disease or how much they must pay for the rights to have that test done? Is it legitimate to allow them to bar medical researchers from looking into the gene, natural substance or body component and thus to curtail any potentially life-saving medical investigation into it for the life of the patent? How many lives might such theories ultimately cost?

Encyclopedia of Life

Imagine an online site where you could look up all the important biological information for every species on earth. It is becoming reality right now. I invite you to take a look at an amazing project currently underway, the Enclyclopedia of Life. You can also read a four-page article on the project in the magazine On Earth.

The 2003 brainchild of Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, EOL got $12.5 million in foundation grants and debuted in February, 2008 with 30,000 species. It got 5 million hits the first day and crashed! It now has 170,000 species, about ten percent of the known and catalogued global taxonomy of approximately 1.8 million species. To continue work for the next ten years it may well take $100 million overall. The thing is, there are thought to be at least ten times that number of species (18 million) and when they finally get around to discovering and differentiating all the species of bacteria, some estimates are that the species list will run into the hundreds of millions.

The scale and scope of the EOL project are awe-inspiring. The system uses the Wikipedia model, but there is little reason to worry about hoax information on it. There are only some 6,000 qualified taxonomists in the world with the credentials to be allowed to submit data to the project. Yet people are currently scanning all the articles on biodiversity written before 1923. This is thought to amount to about 500 million pages of research.

The pages themselves are attractive, though. The basic pages include a picture of the species, its basic description, its Latin classification from kingdom down to species and links to the more specialized information you might be interested in. What is its geographic distribution? What does it eat and what eats it? Its ecological niche? Morphology? References in scientific literature? What current research projects are being done on it? It's a treasure trove for biologists and ecologists and students, for sure, but is interesting for regular lay people to peruse, too.

The Encyclopedia of Life is certainly the kind of project visionaries had in mind when they touted prospective uses for the new technology of the Internet. Take a look for yourself and wring your hands thinking about what we would have had to do find this kind of information for our high school or college term papers!

Obama's Health Care Address

President Obama continued to seek middle ground in his speech tonight to a joint session of congress. In trying to incorporate ideas from figures all the way from John McCain to Ted Kennedy and in talking of allowing four years to phase in his health Exchange, Obama marked himself as a conciliator still eager either to win Republican votes or at least give the appearance he tried. On the other hand, he seemed full of fight when it comes to getting something done, dispelling the distortions that opponents of reform have been spreading and making the case that humane action on health coverage is a moral imperative.

This administration drew some fateful conclusions from the failed Clinton-era effort at health reform. The most important seems to have been that by delivering a fully-formed bill to congress in 1993 Bill and Hillary stepped on too many Capitol Hill toes and that is what led to defeat. As a result the Obama team has up to now sketched merely the broad outlines of what he wants and left most of the bill-drafting heavy lifting to Congress. On the positive side, this has resulted in three bills passing from committee in the House and one in the Senate. By contrast, none made it out of committee sixteen years ago. But on the negative side, the President's reticence has allowed his political enemies to command the initiative and control the debate for the past month. The result has been a slide in support for the health bill and for Obama's popularity too.

Obama walked a fine line. He made clear he wants any final product to accomplish three things: reform and regulate insurance practices, cover just about all the American people and rein in costs. He made a good case for a "public option" to be part of the mix. He sounded quite committed to it. But he also said his "door is always open" to discuss constructive ideas for accomplishing the three principal components of the reform he wants.

He spoke angrily about the distortions that have been spread, such as "death panels," funding for abortions, cutting medicare coverage, or funding services for illegal aliens. He said if people continued to spread untruths about his plan he would, "call them out."

And there also seemed to be a catch in his voice near the end as he spoke about his feelings about why this is all necessary. He gave examples of people who had been cut off from their coverage and died. He spoke of not wanting anyone to have to say to a loved one, "There is something that could make you better but I just can't afford it." He summed up with a quote from Ted Kennedy that, "What we face is a moral principle of social justice and the character of our country."

The president made an effort to present many more specifics than he had in recent speeches up to now. There are too many for a short blog, but you can go to his website for an outline here. Some are that everyone would have to get coverage or pay fees, and large companies would have to cover their workers or pay fees. 95% of small businesses could be exempt. There would be "tax credits" for those of limited income to afford something. An "Exchange" would provide a menu of choices to select from. A not for profit public option would be one of them. It would not receive subsidies from the government. Insurers would be required to insure all comers, could not decline for pre-existing conditions, could not discontinue someone if they got sick, and would have to cover preventive care and routine checkups. Out of pocket expenses would be limited by law.

Although the Republican response delivered by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La), an MD, called for delay, there is every chance that something will pass this year. Democrats are not all on the same page, but they are aware that failure to get anything passed would destroy their claim to effective governance and likely position the GOP for big gains in the 2010 congressional election. So the Democrats will pass something this fall. Exactly what that is will depend on the compromises necessary to get the more conservative Democrats on board in the Senate. But at a minimum, expect it to include the requirements and regulations mentioned in the preceding paragraph. On those matters the Republicans stood and joined the Democrats in their applause this evening. There will be improvement in health care in America in the near future. It may not be as much as fervent progressives want, but it will nevertheless be at the very least the most extensive overhaul since Medicare in 1964. Given the wealth and power of the insurance, pharmaceutical, medical and HMO interest groups, that will be an accomplishment for Barack Obama and his party to be proud of.

The New Scramble for Africa

In George Orwell's 1984 three great totalitarian empires rule their respective parts of the world. They reserve Africa as the site of their interminable wars against one another, part of a psychological strategy to keep their publics unquestioningly obedient by agitating them into a perpetual state of patriotic war hysteria.

Africa has long been one of the world's chief whipping boys. For four hundred years it served as the source of the New World's slave labor. For centuries before that it filled the same role in the Islamic world. Once they had achieved unrivaled technological primacy, the nations of Europe met in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin to draw up the ground rules for the coming partition of Africa. This first "Scramble for Africa" colonialized the continent for the better part of 80 years.

Direct empire and colonial rule are a bit out of fashion these days, but informal empire for resource and commodity exploitation most decidedly are not. So it is that once again, outside powers are moving in to gain title to the continent's material goods while denying them to Africa's resident population. As the French like to say, "The more things change the more they stay the same." This time the target is farmland--millions of acres of it.

The Fall 2009 edition of "On Earth," the Journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the article "Africa on the Auction Block" by Bruce Stutz provides a glimpse into what has been happening lately. Motivated by the doubling of world grain prices between 2007 and 2008, "wealthy nations with growing populations dependent on agricultural imports stepped up their search for alternatives to secure their own food supplies." Chief among the buyers of some 50 million acres, "equal to all the farmland in France" have been such nations as, "the Gulf states, India and South Korea. "

The land has been bought in desperately poor and hungry countries such as Madagascar, Mozambique, Sudan and Ethiopia. Often it has taken place with little or no oversight, or with collusion and dubious motives on the part of African officials. Stutz frames the issue well: "Will the quest for food security or profit bring much-needed investments in these poor host nations? Will it bring jobs, schools, roads, hospitals, irrigation, technology, port facilities and revenue from export duties? Or will these vast 'land grabs' as some have called them mark the beginning of a new era of agricultural colonialism, in which local farmers and herders are forced off their land and left to labor on foreign-owed plantations producing food for export?"

Uganda's parliament stepped in to halt a deal when it found out it envisioned leasing 2 million acres to an Egyptian consortium. Madagascar's president had "unilaterally agreed to grant the South Korean company Daewoo Logistics a 99-year lease on 3.2 million acres--nearly half the country's arable land--to raise corn for export." Public protests and the president's ouster in a military coup followed. But more deals are in the works, including Saudi Arabia's lease of 1.2 million acres in Tanzania and South Africa's interest in 25 million acres in the Republic of Congo. It is not hard to envision a future where hunger gets even worse for Africans as foreigners buy up the region's land and ship the produce overseas.

As the article concludes, it must not be forgotten that this prospect raises "not only a land rights issue. It's also a human rights issue."

Henry T. Perea

I went to an interesting sit down with California 31st Assembly District candidate Henry T. Perea last night. The Tulare County Democratic Women's Club invited Henry to the Methodist Church in the town of Dinuba (population 21,006). The setting was intimate. Eleven of us sat around a table with Henry, who told us about himself and his ideas for serving our Central Valley area and California as a whole and answered questions for about an hour and a half. It was pretty remarkable that a fellow running for such an important position would spend so much time with such a small number of people. He left a very good impression.

Like many area Latinos, his family started out working in agriculture. His grandmother was in the bracero program in World War II canning peaches. She instilled an ethic of service into her children, and Henry was brought up in a political family. His father was the first Latino on the Fresno City Board of Education and the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. His mother was a union negotiator.

While a student at Fresno State Henry interned in the office of Democratic Congressman Cal Dooley. He ran for the Fresno City Council at the age of only 23 and won an upset victory over a wealthy and well connected Republican opponent mainly by sheer determination and hard work. The opponent was endorsed by the Fresno Bee and practically the entire establishment of power people. But he was lazy. For Henry's part, he found an issue, the lack of equal infrastructure in his south area of the city (many streets didn't even have gutters and sidewalks). Henry outworked the opposition, personally knocking on every door in his district an amazing five times. Finally, unlike his competitor, he showed up extremely well-prepared for the debate. He won the seat and has been a Fresno City Council for 7 1/2 years. As for the infrastructure issue, he is proud to report that it was completed under budget and a year ahead of schedule. Last year he lost a hard-fought campaign for Fresno mayor.

Now Henry is endorsed by most of the movers and shakers, including, almost all the district's mayors, the termed-out incumbent and State Senator Dean Florez, a local power and a leading candidate for lieutenant governor. The 31st AD is an interesting mix of a district. It is 51% Fresno city urban and 49% rural. For those who are unaware, Fresno is hardly small potatoes. It has an estimated 2009 population of 500,017, making it number 36 in the nation. But the composition of the district makes it essential to be responsive to issues of both types. This Henry certainly is. He is intelligent, personable, still young at 31, and well-spoken. He is not afraid to state his views, but is considerate and listens well to the concerns people brought up. He had some interesting and attractive takes on the issues.

Major area issues to him include water, transportation and air quality. He is for conservation and environmental protection, but feels we simply must build new dams in the nearby Sierras and a peripheral canal for more water for the valley. He said he sat down with the Sierra Club the day before and knew they weren't going to like that but he told them anyway. Any candidate in this area must be for developing more water sources. I am a Sierra Club member myself and agree with Henry on this! We have the second worst air quality in the nation and suffer high childhood asthma rates as a result. He is for extending Fresno's banning of wood burning fireplaces in new homes area wide, the commencement of two new solar energy projects and the state high-speed rail system through the valley to cut down on car traffic. As a side benefit, he'll fight for the construction of its primary maintenance facility to be located in the Valley near its midpoint. That could mean 1,000 jobs to this badly depressed economy.

Speaking of the economy, he understands the importance of diversifying the region from its traditional over-reliance on the ups and downs of agriculture. Both vocational and degree-producing educational opportunities must be greatly expanded in the valley to remediate its chronically high unemployment, now standing at upwards of 15%. A better qualified workforce will encourage more employers to locate here, he reasonably maintains. He feels the way to begin making serious headway against gangs is with job training and creation. I couldn't agree more.

In terms of California's well-known governmental dysfunction, Henry has come to the point where he favors some of the ideas of California Forward, including holding a state constitutional convention, limited to prescribed issues. He thinks we absolutely has to get rid of the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget but favors keeping that 2/3 threshold for increasing taxes. He feels that as the recently-passed redistricting proposition takes effect beginning in 2012, there will be more competitive legislative and congressional races, but the sharpest dividing line will be less Republican versus Democrat than urban versus rural. I'm not so sure about that, but time will tell.

I was quite impressed with his characterization of public service. He said those who put down politicians and say, "Get a real job!" have no idea how hard you have to work. The most work isn't done on the floor in session, it is behind the scenes reading mountains of reports and bills and meeting with allies and opponents, frequently long after regular work hours to craft solutions and forge common ground enough to move improvements forward. That is, of course, in addition to all the time one has to put in to get and keep the job itself.

There is no doubt you have to be incredibly committed and energetic to do what he is doing. On service, he also quoted the late Senator Ted Kennedy, "We believe in public service as an honorable path, to be a voice for those who have none." If the people of the 31st Assembly District, which leans Democratic, elect Henry T. Perea to represent them, they will have done themselves a favor. He is a moderate progressive, suited for the area. Most of all, he will be a sincere and dedicated public servant.

McCain Comes Around

I received a pleasant surprise this morning while watching Bob Schieffer interview Senator John McCain on Face the Nation. The surprise was the reappearance of the candid and honest John McCain we used to know before the 2008 presidential election campaign. It reminded me of the McCain of the 2000 "Straight Talk Express" days, of the man who used to be my favorite Republican. It was good to see him back.

There he was, telling Schieffer that torture is not only illegal, but immoral and ineffective. "Under torture, a prisoner will tell you anything he thinks you want to hear," said McCain, sounding like either a peacenik or a man who knows something about torture first hand.

He spoke of going to Iraq with his friend, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. There they were allowed to talk to a man McCain referred to as, "an al Qaeda operative." The Arizona lawmaker related how he had asked the man how al Qaeda had begun making inroads in Iraq. "The first opportunity came in the general chaos after the American invasion, when there was no law and order in the country." "The second," he said, "came after the news about Abu Ghraib reached the people. Suddenly, there were thousands of young men eager to join our ranks." By relating this story it is clear that McCain gets it.

During the election campaign this McCain was nowhere to be found. The former proponent of American morality and adherence to international law and civilized behavior had adopted a strategy founded on appealing to the conservative base of the Republican Party alone. That group refuses to hear of anything the country might be able to improve upon, so during the election race McCain turned to backing the Bush-Cheney "enhanced interrogation" regime and ridiculing Obama's promise to abide by U.S. law and common decency.

It is good to see that now out of the grip of his campaign team of Rove-trained pols and an imagined need to draw distinctions with Obama even where he was clearly right, McCain has returned to sense and to his ethical center. It does not say much for the Republican base when its candidate feels he must cater to its mythologies at election time to win its votes, even when he knows they are not only erroneous but against his own principles as well. Those who will not hear the truth can never face reality and correct mistakes.

Welcome back, John. It was good to see you again.

Edward M. Kennedy, Rest in Peace

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's long battle with brain cancer ended last night. Teddy passed away at the age of 77. With the passing of the youngest Kennedy brother we come to the end of an extraordinary era in American society and politics. The famous Kennedy legacy of idealism came to be personified by perhaps its least likely protagonist these past forty-one years.

Ted was the youngest, fattest, and seemingly softest of the four sons of Joe and Rose Kennedy. He had a penchant for hedonism in some ways even beyond those of his older brothers. Yet with their untimely deaths he eventually pulled himself together, assumed the mantle of their service and came to surpass them in many important ways.

It is hard to believe that Teddy spent nearly as much time in the United States Senate as brothers Jack and Bobby lived. They joined eldest brother Joe, Jr., who died even younger flying for the Army Air Corps on a mission to take out a German V-1 rocket launching site in World War II.

They were meteors who flashed brilliantly across the public sky but were snuffed out decades too soon. He alone lived to the grayness of old age, and came to embrace the role of the incremental fight of advancing his cause by inches over the years. It was a role his early temperament did not seem suited for, but one he embraced and filled well. Today the accolades run the gamut from Al Sharpton and Howard Dean to John McCain and Nancy Reagan.

All seem to agree he was one of the last of a dying breed, the politician of conviction who could fight the good fight yet remain friends with his colleagues across the aisle. His ability to craft compromises on education, civil rights and health have been remarked upon by many of his colleagues and will be sorely missed. For though he was often vilified in earlier years by conservatives as the prototypical liberal bogeyman, he was paradoxically one who was better at the old-fashioned skill of finding enough common ground to advance his cause, incrementally, if necessary, over a long period of time.

He did not have to do any of this, of course. He could easily have retired to the easy life of Hyannis Port, sailing and dabbling in high society. Instead, this scion of wealth and prep school privilege was a tireless advocate for issues affecting women, minorities and the working class. Though they affected him little personally, he fought to increase the minimum wage to a living wage, and hardest of all for universal health coverage. His vote and his political skill in this last and currently hottest battle will be sorely missed.

Last January, after the Barack Obama win in Iowa, the Hillary Clinton victory in New Hampshire and subsequent Obama's success in South Carolina, Ted and his niece Caroline passed the Kennedy mantle to Obama, all but designating him the fifth brother. It was an unmistakable signal to the nation that Sen. Clinton's assumed advantage with the Democratic establishment may not have been as solid as it seemed. When she shortly proved unable to shake the young Illinoisan's lead on Super Tuesday, Obama was on his march to the presidency.

Most of all, Ted Kennedy's life and death bookend fifty years when one family inspired millions in the world's leading country probably more than any other. Though his style may be inimitable and his legislative accomplishments many, the youngest brother's true contribution
may have been to the nation's conscience, such as when he said at his bother Bobby's funeral, "those of us who loved him pray that what he dreamed shall come to pass."

Or as he memorably concluded at the convention after losing his party's nomination for President in 1980, the assurance that win or lose, in good times and in bad, in a world of regular people contending against powers and interests seemingly intent on keeping them down and leaving them out of many of the benefits of the society they helped build, that they were not forgotten by all the power brokers. As Teddy assured them, "The dream will never die."