Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Even in hard times, U.S. is blessed

An American flag flies over the New York Stock Exchange. | Reuters

By: Joe Scarborough
November 23, 2010 09:08 AM EST
If you did nothing but look at newspaper headlines over the past year, you could be forgiven for feeling a little less thankful than usual this holiday season.

More Americans are out of work than at any time in a generation. Our military machine is mired in two endless wars. And Washington's political class seems overmatched by the historic challenges before it. Democrats were fired from their jobs in Congress a few years after Republicans got their pink slips from voters. Meanwhile, approval ratings for Congress and both parties have plummeted to all-time lows.

Given that grim backdrop, it's fair to ask why anyone should be grateful for the state that America finds itself in this holiday season. Notwithstanding apocalyptic forecasts from both political extremes, the fact is that America remains a richly blessed nation.

Despite two years of bleak forecasts and doomsday scenarios, the United States is still the most powerful economy in the world. We've been No. 1 for more than a century, and that's not going to change anytime soon.

The United States remains the center of the world in the areas of technology and innovation. We produce 20 percent of the world's gross domestic product, run the planet's largest stock exchange and hold its biggest gold reserves. America has won more than 260 Nobel prizes and has long dominated in the field of science. Japan hasn't even cracked double digits in Nobel prizes awarded, and the only time Chinese nationals won the award is after staging a human-rights struggle against their own government.

In an age of science and technology, maybe that explains why 150 of the world's top companies are based in the United States. That's more than twice the number of our nearest competitor.

The U.S. dollar is still the world's currency, with the greenback accounting for 50 percent of the globe's cash reserves. The European Union's euro is second by a mile.

For all the whimpering about how investment is leaving America, more invest in the United States economy than in any other country. Our closest competitor doesn't get half the money for economic investment in its country as America does here at home.

The United States is also the largest investor across the world, again doubling its closest competitor. So the next time you hear this year's frightening version of the old ‘80's classic, "The Japanese are buying Pebble Beach," just relax. Donald Trump is buying up their golf courses, too.

When it comes to productivity, the American worker remains the champion of the world. The truth is that U.S. workers are so good that we have become victims of our own success. If American factories' productivity were at 1993 levels, 10 million more workers would be required to equal 2010 production levels. Put another way, American efficiency is as responsible for the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past decade as outsourcing to foreign countries.

For those who look back to the halcyon days of the 1950s and wonder whatever happened to American manufacturing supremacy, remember that the United States owned more than half the world's GDP during those "Happy Days" for a reason. More than half of the world's industrial base had been destroyed by World War II. As Japan and Western Europe rebuilt over the next generation, it was inevitable we would lose that monopoly.

Despite all the grim warnings about the collapse of the "Made in America" brand, the United States is doing just fine and is still home to 20 percent of the world's manufacturing.

That's not to say that America doesn't face challenges moving forward. We face a structural debt because of our aging population. But once Washington faces the reality that demographics is destiny, that long-term problem will be resolved by simple math.

The bigger challenge comes from an economy that has dominated the industrial and information ages. A new era is dawning, and no country is better suited to dominate a century shaped by technology and innovation than the United States of America.

Our education system is unparalleled. The latest U.S. News & World Report education survey finds that 12 of the top 15 universities in the world are in the United States. A recent Chinese study declared 8 of the top 10 institutions of higher learning to be in America.

When it comes to ranking the world's top engineering and IT universities that will fuel economies in the future, our dominance begins to look gaudy. The top three ranked schools are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.A.), Stanford (U.S.A.) and UC Berkeley (U.S.A.). California Institute of Technology (U.S.A.) is ranked 5th, just behind Cambridge (U.K.).

America does come up short in the area of K-12 education because of social inequities that still plague our nation. But the Obama administration has challenged the education establishment, and a dramatic overhaul of public education may be the greatest achievement of the 112th Congress.

For centuries, a country's power has been measured by its military might. If that were the guide in the 21st century, America would be the most powerful nation in the history of mankind.

The United States spends more on its military than the next 15 countries combined. And it is hard to imagine a world capital that could keep the U.S. Marines away if our war machine decided to invade. When it comes to military might, we are without peer. This dominance continues despite the fact that America spends less on defense as a percentage of GDP than we did throughout the Cold War and Vietnam.

Our military's greatest challenge is getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and cutting the Pentagon's budget in ways that do not weaken our national defenses. For the sake of our long-term health, that has to be done sooner rather than later.

Beyond hard military power, the United States continues to be that shining city on a hill for all the world to see. America's soft power continues to be its greatest asset across the globe. Despite a decade of unpopular wars, there is still no country on the planet that draws immigrants like America.

Without apologies, I believe that American exceptionalism is a fact of history. The same promise of a better tomorrow that drew pilgrims to the New World in 1620 calls out to millions even today. And almost four centuries after the pilgrims celebrated our first Thanksgiving, we Americans have more to be thankful for than ever.

Happy Thanksgiving, America.

Rep Marcy Kaptur discusses the country’s mortgage mess, MERS, & legislation. Pulls no punches on corruption

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One Town’s Recurring Coal Ash Nightmare

Little Blue Run is Anything But: Would Federal Regulation Help?

By Kristen Lombardi | November 17, 2010

A view of the Little Blue Run pond in Pennsylvania, where millions of tons of coal ash waste has been dumped over its 35-year existence. Credit: Sierra Club

Stand before the pond known here in southwestern Pennsylvania as Little Blue Run, and you’ll see nothing that resembles its bucolic-sounding name.

EPA Considers Two Options

Friday is the deadline set by the EPA for electric utilities, farmers, scientific experts, and ordinary citizens to offer suggestions on the agency’s 563-page draft plan, which includes two options.
Under the toughest option, the agency would essentially classify coal ash as “hazardous,” triggering a series of strict controls for its dumping. The EPA’s second option would deem coal ash “non-hazardous,” and subject it to less stringent national standards that amount to guidelines for the states.
In recent months, hundreds of people have shown up, some by the busload, in locales like Denver, Dallas, and Chicago, to testify at a series of all-day hearings on the agency’s proposal. The EPA says it has received more than 200,000 comments on its plan to date. And more is surely coming. The EPA will spend the coming months reviewing the public comments before finalizing its plan.

Worries About Drinking Water

For many following the debate in this Appalachian valley, Little Blue Run epitomizes the need for federal regulation. Residents believe their well water has grown increasingly tainted with coal ash, and they tick off a host of ailments — allergic reactions, cancers — they fear has come from living in its shadow.
Their concerns are not misplaced. Nestled in a farming community relying on well water, Little Blue Run is just the kind of unlined ash site that the EPA says poses a cancer risk from arsenic levels 900 times above what is deemed safe. Environmental groups have singled out the pond as one of 70 cases in 35 states where they claim coal ash has caused severe degradation.
In an August report, the Sierra Club, EarthJustice, and the Environmental Integrity Project documented how many of coal ash’s toxic components linked to health problems — arsenic, cadmium, and lead, for instance — are higher than permitted in drinking water around the massive dumpsite.
FirstEnergy Corp., owner of the Bruce Mansfield plant and its coal ash pond, disputes such findings of drinking water contamination, as does the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Company and state officials alike acknowledge the ash has affected groundwater on site. In fact, the DEP alerted FirstEnergy in a Feb. 16 letter that “elevated levels of Arsenic were detected” in 10 of 42 monitoring wells stationed around the pond — the second letter the department has issued since 2007. But this on-site contamination, they say, has not spread to the area’s drinking water.
“The key issue is the drinking water wells,” says Mark Durbin, of FirstEnergy, noting the company has never detected pollution in the 70 residential wells it has tested. “There has not been an impact on any drinking water well caused by Little Blue Run.”
Tell that to Barbara Reed, of Chester, W.Va., who lives a mile and a half from the pond.
Back in 1975, when the Little Blue Run stream was essentially taken for the pond — impounded — she, like other residents, remembers the former operators promising the community that the ash pond would be turned into a recreational park, where residents could hike, bike, and picnic. “Nobody told us, ‘We’re going to drop ash water with lead, arsenic, thallium, and other toxins into your backyard,’” she recalls.
Her son, John, owns a modest, wooden house located about 1,000 yards from the pond, which he spent years fixing. Reed says he has abandoned his property after tests, conducted by FirstEnergy in October 2008, detected arsenic above the maximum level allowed in his well water. Tests by the state found arsenic at similar levels — 14.6 micrograms per liter, as compared to the safety standard of 10 µg/L. A copy of the January 2009 results shows high amounts of thallium, manganese, iron, and aluminum, as well.
“We all drank this water,” Reed says, standing in front of her son’s now-shuttered home, “and we had no idea we were being poisoned.”

FirstEnergy, State Say Drinking Water Safe

FirstEnergy’s Durbin says the company has since re-tested the Reed well, which revealed arsenic at “barely detectable” levels. He calls the first tests “bad,” or “mistests,” due to cloudy water. State regulators report similar findings, saying the Reed well is not “hydrogeologically connected” to the pond, and pollutants affecting the water’s taste and smell are “very common” in the area.
“There is no evidence of primary constituents getting into the area’s drinking water supplies,” says Jeffrey Smith, a state geologist who has sampled water from 28 private wells since 2004, including Reed’s. The department is now investigating whether there is evidence of “secondary contamination,” it says.
Documents provided to the Center by environmental advocates suggest as much.
Lisa Widawsky, the EIP attorney who compiled the August report on Little Blue Run, collected public and private records from 22 residents, including Reed. They show high levels of pollutants like barium, cadmium, and chloride detected not just in residential wells, but also indoor faucets. In fact, the state itself ordered FirstEnergy’s predecessor, Pennsylvania Power Co., to replace one resident’s tainted drinking water because, the June 21, 1994, letter states, “it is very probable that the impoundment is responsible for the adverse effect on the water supply.”
“For both to deny that’s evidence of drinking water contamination,” Widawsky counters, “they’re not being very truthful.”
Over in Lawrenceville, W.Va., where the coal ash has been dried and seeded with grass, residents face a different problem: It’s “an unauthorized seep,” says Merle Byart, a 38-year resident, standing before a rush of water coming off the hillside, where Little Blue Run sits, and into his backyard.
Byart, like many neighbors, noticed his water turn “bad” after 2006, when FirstEnergy got permission from the state to expand the pond by stacking its coal ash. Not long ago, he cleaned his garage, washed his hands, and made his coffee with his water. Today, he worries about its gritty sediment, its “rotten eggs” stench. He believes the ash has been piled so high that ash-laden water is seeping into his yard — a possibility the company does not dispute.
“It could be any number of factors,” FirstEnergy’s Durbin says, referring to Byart’s seep. “The bottom line is we’re aware of it, and we have a plan to try to be a good neighbor.”
FirstEnergy has tested Byart’s water, including the seep, finding elevated levels of sulfates, iron, and total dissolved solids. “It’s not uncommon to have a spring or seep out of the ground from the pond,” says Durbin. State regulators have a standing consent order against FirstEnergy requiring the company to collect any ash water leaking from Little Blue Run, and direct it back into the pond.
The state, which inspects the pond monthly, has asked FirstEnergy to monitor increasing flow in the area. Still, the DEP’s Smith states, “There is nothing conclusive yet,” connecting that flow to the pond.

Heavy Lobbying by Utilities

If the EPA implements its strictest proposal for coal-ash disposal, FirstEnergy would have to shutter its wet pond — for good. Durbin says the company wants “consistency across states,” but not a “hazardous” label. Like other utilities, FirstEnergy argues that state regulators already provide careful oversight of coal ash.
Utility trade organizations and other industry players have lobbied hard against federal regulation. Even before the EPA released its current proposal, officials at the Office of Management and Budget — an arm of the White House — had held more than 40 meetings on the issue dating back to October 2009, when the EPA sent OMB a draft favoring the hazardous approach. Most of the closed-door meetings were with electric utilities and their allies, such as state associations.
Michael Forbeck, of the Pennsylvania DEP, defends the idea of state oversight; he testified against federal regulation at a September hearing, in Pittsburgh. Currently, Pennsylvania manages coal ash as a solid waste, requiring such protections as liners and groundwater monitoring — which, he says, is more rigorous than what EPA proposes under its second option.
FirstEnergy plans to shutter its wet pond within five to eight years, he points out, regardless of what rule the EPA ends up implementing. He insists the state would never allow a stream to become an impoundment today.
“That was done in the ’70s,” Forbeck says, “and we’ve had to live with that.”
For many residents, living with Little Blue Run has left them feeling, in the words of Byart’s neighbor, Deb Havens, “stuck.” Every day, they worry about their water, their air, their health. Every day, they wonder how they can afford to leave when the pond has devalued their properties. Even if the EPA implements the tougher option, they say, it cannot reverse the environmental destruction that has already taken place.
Standing before Little Blue Run and its gray-blue muck, Havens’ eyes well up. “I don’t want this view. I don’t want to see it,” she says. “I’d rather be dead.”

We're Still at War:

Photo of the Day for November 23, 2010

Tue Nov. 23, 2010 2:30 AM PST

U.S. Army Pvt. Michael Cozad 2nd Platoon, Charlie Troop, 389th Cavalry Squadron, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division watches the rooftops for enemy snipers Charkh District, Logar Province, Afghanistan Nov.13, 2010. (U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Sean P. Casey 982D Combat Camera ABN/ Released)

Video: Crisis in the Korean peninsula

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Video: Obama finds foreign relations plate full

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World mayors sign climate change pact

By Guillermo Barros (AFP) – 2 days ago

MEXICO CITY — Mayors from around the world signed a voluntary pact Sunday in Mexico City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting meant as a precursor to UN-sponsored climate talks in Cancun opening next week.
The gathering in one of the world's most polluted cities assembled thousands of local and regional leaders to discuss a wide range of economic and social issues, including climate change

.

Bertrand Delanoe (L) shakes hands with Marcelo Ebrad

Participants from some 135 cities and urban areas -- including Buenos Aires, Bogota, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Vancouver -- signed the pact which states their intention to adopt a slate of measures to stem climate change.
Each city "will have to register its climate data (commitments as well as performance) in the city climate record" during the next eight months, said Gabriel Sanchez, president of Think Foundation, a Mexican non-profit.
Residents will be able to track their cities' performance online, officials said.
The pact will be presented at UN talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun from November 29 to December 10.
That's when top climate scientists from around the world hope to break the deadlock on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and channeling aid to poor, vulnerable countries after the widely regarded failure of the last climate summit, in Copenhagen.
Sunday's signing came a day after the close of the third conference of the United Cities and Local Governments, attended by mayors, legislators and officials from more than 1,000 cities and towns in 114 countries.
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said his counterparts should seize the opportunity ahead of Cancun to highlight their key roles in the fight to put the brakes on climate change.
"We have to tell the international community that it's in the cities that the battle to slow global warming will be won," Ebrard said in the lead-up to the meeting.
And he has brought the battle to his doorstep; the leftist Ebrard pledged last week that Mexico City, with its teeming population of more than 20 million, would reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by around 14 percent.
The mayors emphasized the vital role that cities, where more than half the world's population now live, can play in the fight against climate change.
Urban areas consume up to 80 percent of global energy production and emit 60 percent of greenhouse gases, according to Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The pact sent a "clear signal" to countries that will sit at the negotiating table in Cancun that it is possible to reach agreement, Figueres said.
Meanwhile, a new study released on Sunday found that fossil-fuel gases edged back less than hoped in 2009, as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India.
Annual global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tonnes, a retreat of only 1.3 percent in 2009 compared with 2008, a record year, they said in a letter to the journal Nature Geoscience.
The decrease was less than half what had been expected, because emerging giant economies were unaffected by the downturn that hit many large industrialized nations.
In addition, they burned more coal, the biggest source of fossil-fuel carbon, while their economies struggled with a higher "carbon intensity," a measure of fuel-efficiency.
Emissions of fossil-fuel gases in 2009 fell by 11.8 percent in Japan, by 6.9 percent in the United States, by 8.6 percent in Britain, by 7.0 percent in Germany and by 8.4 percent in Russia, the paper said.
In contrast, they rose by eight percent in China, the world's number one emitter of fossil-fuel CO2, which accounts for a whopping 24 percent of the total.

China hints at new climate future
BBC News (blog) - 1 day ago
UN: Climate pledges will fall short
UPI.com - 1 hour ago
Realistic expectations for Cancun
China.org.cn - 1 day ago

Gates to McCain:

No troop referendum needed on 'Don't ask, don't tell'

By Roxana Tiron - 11/23/10 03:30 PM ET

The Pentagon shouldn't ask members of the military if they think the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law should be scrapped because that would amount to a “referendum,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a leading Senate Republican on military matters.

Gates was responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) concerns that a Pentagon working group was not seeking the opinion of service members on whether the ban on gays in the military should be repealed.

The Pentagon has conducted a yearlong study into the implications of repealing the Clinton-era law. McCain, a key opponent of including a repeal provision in the 2011 defense authorization bill, has criticized the way the Pentagon approached the study, saying it should focus not on how to repeal the law but whether it should be repealed at all.

“I do not believe that military policy decisions — on this or any other subject — should be made through a referendum of Servicemembers,” Gates wrote to McCain in a previously undisclosed Oct. 25 letter. The letter was first released Tuesday in an online post on the Wonk Room blog of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal organization that supports repealing the ban.

The Pentagon confirmed the existence of the letter.

Gates said he instructed the officials conducting the study to obtain input from troops so that Pentagon and military leaders can more “fully understand how a change in DADT policy may impact unit cohesion, military readiness and effectiveness, recruiting and retention, and family readiness.”

“This will ensure that we can properly advise the President and the Congress on the impacts of a repeal and develop an implementation plan that appropriately addresses any such impacts,” Gates wrote to McCain.

Gates assured the Arizona Republican and 2008 presidential contender that the leaders of the working group will provide him and Adm. Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with their “honest assessment of the impact of a change in the policy.

“If implementation would present insurmountable challenges, they will report that to us,” Gates said.

The Pentagon’s study will be publicly released Nov. 30. The Senate Armed Services Committee will schedule hearings soon thereafter.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman and McCain’s counterpart, expressed hope this week that hearings into the Pentagon’s report would help passage of the 2011 defense authorization bill with repeal language.

McCain, a former Navy pilot, has promised to fight against a defense policy bill that contains a repeal provision.

Posted on November 23, 2010 by WestWingReport

WWR Sr. mentioned how he ran the #ABC News camera at the WH when JFK's body came home. WWR Jr. is proud of him:

President Obama touts auto bailout results in pitch to Midwestern voters

By Jordan Fabian - 11/23/10 03:01 PM ET

President Obama on Tuesday made his pitch to Midwestern voters who could turn against him in 2012, saying his administration's policies helped save the region's economy.
Speaking at a Chrysler plant in Kokomo, Ind., on Tuesday afternoon, Obama said the 2009 auto bailouts helped save jobs across the Midwest. He cited the Kokomo plant as a prime success story and argued the nation was spared from the full-blown depression that might have resulted from the collapse of the auto industry.
Obama said he "knew that the very survival of places like Kokomo were on the line" when he enacted the unpopular bailouts and said recent signs of progress for U.S. automakers vindicate his decision.
"So here is the lesson. Don't bet against America. Don't bet against the American auto industry. Don't bet against the American auto worker. Don't bet against American ingenuity. Don't bet against us," the president said. "Today we know that was the right decision."
Obama's defense of the auto bailout comes on the heels of General Motors's IPO last week, which raised more than $20 billion for the company.
The Obama administration has touted GM's stock offering as vindication of the taxpayer-funded bailout of the automaker. The president on Thursday declared that the U.S. auto industry is "once again on the rise" and noted that "naysayers" were "prepared to throw in the towel and read the American auto industry last rites."
Tuesday's speech in Indiana signals that Obama is betting on an economic turnaround to help save him in states such as Indiana, which he is in grave danger of losing in his 2012 reelection bid.
In 2008, Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Indiana since 1964, giving him 11 electoral votes that usually fall in the Republican column.
But losses for Democrats in Indiana during this year's midterm elections indicate that the state's voters could be ready to abandon the president in two years.
Centrist Rep. Baron Hill (D), who appeared with Obama at the Kokomo event, lost his seat to Republican Todd Young by 10 percentage points. Democrats also lost Democrat Brad Ellsworth's seat by 20 points to Republican Larry Buschon.
Indiana Republicans now hold occupy six of the state's nine congressional seats, both Senate seats, the governor’s office and both houses of the State Legislature. Obama squeaked by his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), in Indiana by only 26,000 votes in 2008.
Before the event, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton downplayed any notion that speech was the first salvo of the 2012 campaign, saying that Kokomo was "a place the president visited during the campaign that's seen particularly tough times with unemployment getting as high — getting over 20 percent."
But Obama echoed part of his campaign stump speech on Tuesday, saying that his economic policies have put the country's economy on the right path, touting the fact that Chrysler has decided to invest an additional $800 million in the parts plant and noted that the overall economy is growing at a faster rate than many had expected.
"Anybody who doesn't believe in the Midwest, anyone who doesn't believe in manufacturing, come to Kokomo," Obama said. "We are moving in the right direction."

Posted on November 23, 2010 by WestWingReport

Keeping a close eye on the excited kids at Kokomo's Sycamore Elem. (Pool Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

No TSA plans for cavity searches

Although the Transportation Security Administration has been enhancing its aviation measures this year, agency head John S. Pistole said Monday that it has no plans to get into one of the worst-case screening scenarios: cavity checks.
“We’re not getting into the business of doing body cavity [searches],” he said. “That’s not where we are.”
While security experts have talked for years about the possibility of terrorists attacking U.S. airliners by concealing explosives in their bodies to avoid detection, Pistole said coming up with a specific countermeasure for the scenario — instituting manual checks or coming up with a technological solution — does not seem necessary. Due to the nature of the improvised explosive devices terrorists are known to use, he said, whole body image scanners and other current technology would be able to detect them.
“Even if it is a body cavity, you still need some sort of external device,” he said.
The external device in question would be a trigger or activator for the explosives, he said, using the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian born man accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab allegedly had a packet containing the explosive PETN — the same compound used in the October parcel bomb incident — and a modified syringe holding a liquid acid that, when released onto the PETN, would have caused it to explode.
While a terrorist could hide explosives in a body cavity, Pistole said, the activating device would still have to be hidden outside of the body.
“That’s what the Advanced Imaging Technology machine can pick up,” he said.
Pistole also challenged media reports regarding the use of explosives hidden inside of terrorists, particularly a 2009 account of a terrorist who reportedly tried to kill a counterterrorism official in Saudi Arabia by having fellow attackers use a cell phone to detonate a bomb he smuggled in through a body cavity, similar to methods drug “mules” use to conceal contraband.
He said the forensics in the case were not conclusive, though.
“There’s a stronger indication in findings that it was actually an Abdulmutallab-type” of bomb concealed in the underwear strapped to the upper thigh,” Pistole said.
Some security experts, however, disagree on the severity of the cavity threat.
“Ironically, even these more intrusive pat-downs won’t stop a determined and moderately skilled terrorist,” said Chris Battle, a former director of public affairs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who manages homeland security issues for the Adfero Group, a public relations firm. These guys aren’t afraid to use body cavities.”
Pistole also addressed TSA’s much-maligned new “enhanced pat-down” policy, which required a transportation security officer to personally search anyone who refused to go through a whole-body imaging machine, including checking sensitive areas of the body. The plan had been in the works since the Abdulmutallab case was discovered, Pistole said, but he made the decision to implement it after the parcel bomb plot, and seeing evidence that terrorists are still determined to smuggle improvised explosive devices aboard aircraft.
“The idea is to be the least invasive we can and yet to accomplish the goal that everybody wants — to know that you’ve been screened and I’ve been screened and everyone on that flight has been screened,” he said. “There are only so many ways we can accomplish that.”
And, while he acknowledged that TSA made a conscious decision to not ease Americans into the policy through an advance public relations campaign, he said the agency will maintain the policy unless it can find an easier method that produces valid security results.
“I see flying as a privilege that is a public safety issue, and the government has a role in providing for the public safety and we need to do everything we can in partnership with the traveling public to inform them about what their options are,” he said, adding that those options include going through a pat-down rather than a whole-body scanner.
He said the agency is very interested in developing “automated target identification,” a software solution that would allow whole-body scanners to automatically find threats or anomalies, instead of requiring TSA staff to read and interpret images they generate.
While the technology is being tested internationally, so far it has produced a large number of false positives, Pistole said. And, he said, a false positive requires a pat-down.
-- Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

Posted on November 23, 2010 by WestWingReport

Firefighters tend to be pretty good cooks, but this looks like takeout. (Pool Photo/Mandel Ngan,AFP/Getty Images)

Federal Interagency Group Issues Peer-Reviewed “Oil Budget” Technical Documentation

November 23, 2010 | 12:46:13 PM EST

Contact: Justin Kenney, NOAA
202-482-6090
Nov. 23, 2010

Oil Spill Calculations Released in August Undergo Further Review
The Federal Interagency Solutions Group, established at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard and authorized under a directive from the National Incident Commander (NIC), is releasing today a peer-reviewed report that details the scientific calculations of the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill “Oil Budget Calculator” response tool announced last August. The report, developed in collaboration with federal and independent scientists and following an extensive review of the initial findings, revises as necessary the estimated short-term fate of the oil discharged from the wellhead through mid-July when the well was capped.
The Oil Budget Calculator’s purpose was to describe the short-term fate of the oil and to guide immediate efforts to respond to the emergency. It does not provide information about the impact of the oil, nor indicate where the oil is now. The Oil Budget Calculator uses collected or reported data, such as the amount captured at the wellhead, combined with model-projected estimates based on historical oil spill data for similar types of oil, as well as the expertise and observations of oil- and oil spill-response scientists from government agencies, academia and the energy industry.
Improvements have been made to the calculator since it was first used. The revised Oil Budget Calculator was adjusted based on modified calculations and modeling, as well as additional knowledge about the Deepwater Horizon spill provided by the science team. The revised calculations provide the basis for the updated budget issued in the report, as well as the best- and worst-case scenarios.
“As we said in August, we promised to provide the technical documentation for the Oil Budget report and refine our estimates where possible. This report fulfills that promise. The Oil Budget was not created to draw conclusions about the long-term environmental impact. The estimates were designed to guide operational response decisions and provide clarity on how much oil could be captured or mitigated and how much oil was not recoverable,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Fully understanding the damages and impacts of the spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem is something that will take time and continued monitoring and research by federal and academic scientists.”
Today’s report provides the technical basis underlying the Calculator’s oil fate estimates used to help respond to the spill. This report, following additional assessment and peer-review, is largely consistent with early results released by the federal government. The most significant change is a doubling of the expected amount of oil classified as “chemically dispersed” — revised from 8% to an estimated 16% with a possible range of between 10% and 29%. Additional data and studies have over the course of the past few months led the oil budget team to relax certain initial conservative assumptions with regard to the effectiveness of dispersant operations. The early estimate of the percentage of "other" (or, "residual") oil was 26%; the current version of the Calculator estimates it as 23%, and qualifies this estimate with the belief that, with high confidence, the true percentage should be between 11% and 30%.
Oil Budget (Released Aug. 4)
Category........................% of Total
Direct Recovery.................17%
Burned...............................5%
Skimmed............................3%
Chemically Dispersed.......8%
Naturally Dispersed.........16%
Evaporated or Dissolved...25%
Other...................................26%
Oil Budget Technical Report
Category......................+_% of Total......Change
Direct Recovery................17%.............None
Burned...............................5%...............None
Skimmed...........................3%...............None
Chemically Dispersed......16%..........+8%
Naturally Dispersed.........13%...........-3%
Evaporated or Dissolved....23%.........-2%
Other....................................23%...........-3%
The three lead editors of the report were William Lehr, Ph.D., senior scientist with NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration; Sky Bristol, science coordinator for informatics, U.S. Geological Survey; and Antonio Possolo, Ph.D., chief of the Statistical Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology. The report includes major contributions from 15 international academic institutions, government agencies and industry experts as well as additional contributions from a wide-ranging group of others. The peer-review process was independently coordinated through the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center in Durham, N.H.
The report specifically recommends future research and planning to be directed to three areas that would reduce the uncertainty of the estimates and improve future response activities:
(1) Protocols for surface and subsurface sampling: Although oil samples were collected for impact assessment, samples were not systematically collected to support the development of the Oil Budget Calculator. For example, samples often came from skimming barges where oil and water mixtures in different states of degradation were blended together. Future response plans should specify methods for gathering proper representative samples.
(2) Dispersed oil droplet size: A major improvement in estimating dispersant efficiency would be possible if practical operational tools and methods existed to characterize droplet size distribution of subsurface oil.
(3) Basic models for longer-term processes: Although longer-term processes such as biodegradation often happen outside the time frames of the response, understanding and being able to predict such longer-term changes may be useful in making response decisions.
This report was written to document for the scientific community and other interested parties the technical underpinnings of the Calculator and provide recommendations for future research and refinement of the tool for possible use in future spills. The full 217-page report, including appendices and peer-review team comments, is available online: http://www.restorethegulf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/OilBudge...
###
On The Web:
Oil Budget Calculator Deepwater Horizon Technical Documentation:
http://www.restorethegulf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/OilBudge...
NOAA Aug. 4 News Release: Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100804_oil.html
Official Web Portal for Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill: http://www.restorethegulf.gov

How to Schedule a War

The incredible shrinking withdrawal date.

By Tom Engelhardt | Tue Nov. 23, 2010 4:15 PM PST

[1]This story [2] first appeared on the TomDispatch [3] website.
Going, going, gone! You can almost hear the announcer's voice throbbing with excitement, only we're not talking about home runs here, but about the disappearing date on which, for the United States and its military, the Afghan War will officially end.
Practically speaking, the answer to when it will be over is: just this side of never. If you take the word of our Afghan War commander, the secretary of defense, and top officials of the Obama administration and NATO, we're not leaving any time soon [4]. As with any clever time traveler, every date that's set always contains a verbal escape hatch into the future.
In my 1950s childhood, there was a cheesy (if thrilling) sci-fi flick, The Incredible Shrinking Man [5], about a fellow who passed through a radioactive cloud in the Pacific Ocean and soon noticed that his suits were too big for him. Next thing you knew, he was living in a doll house, holding off his pet cat, and fighting an ordinary spider transformed into a monster. Finally, he disappeared entirely leaving behind only a sonorous voice to tell us that he had entered a universe where "the unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle."

In recent weeks, without a radioactive cloud in sight, the date for serious drawdowns of American troops in Afghanistan has followed a similar path toward the vanishing point and is now threatening to disappear "over the horizon" [6] (a place where, we are regularly told, American troops will lurk once they have finally handed their duties over to the Afghan forces they are training).
If you remember, back in December 2009 President Obama spoke [7] of July 2011 as a firm date to "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan," the moment assumedly when the beginning of the end of the war would come into sight. In July of this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of [8] 2014 as the date when Afghan security forces "will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country."
Administration officials, anxious about the effect that 2011 date was having on an American public grown weary of an unpopular war and on an enemy waiting for us to depart, grabbed Karzai's date and ran with it (leaving many of his caveats [9] about the war the Americans were fighting, particularly his desire to reduce the American presence, in the dust). Now, 2014 is hyped as the new 2011 [10].
It has, in fact, been widely reported that Obama officials have been working in concert to "play down" [11] the president's 2011 date, while refocusing attention on 2014. In recent weeks, top administration officials have been little short of voluble on the subject. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ("We're not getting out. [12] We're talking about probably a years-long process."), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, attending a security conference in Australia, all "cited 2014... as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves." The New York Times headlined its report [13] on the suddenly prominent change in timing this way: "US Tweaks Message on Troops in Afghanistan."
Quite a tweak. Added Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller: "The message shift is effectively a victory for the military, which has long said the July 2011 deadline undermined its mission by making Afghans reluctant to work with troops perceived to be leaving shortly."
Inflection Points and Aspirational Goals
Barely had 2014 risen into the headlines, however, before that date, too, began to be chipped away. As a start, it turned out that American planners weren't talking about just any old day in 2014, but its last one. As Lieutenant General William Caldwell, head of the NATO training program for Afghan security forces, put it [14] while holding a Q&A with a group of bloggers, "They're talking about December 31st, 2014. It's the end of December in 2014... that [Afghan] President Karzai has said they want Afghan security forces in the lead."

[15]Nor, officials rushed to say, was anyone talking about 2014 as a date for all American troops to head for the exits, just "combat troops"—and maybe not even all of them. Possibly tens of thousands of trainers and other so-called non-combat forces would stay on to help with the "transition process." This follows the Iraq pattern where 50,000 American troops remain after the departure of US "combat" forces to great media fanfare. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was typical in calling for [16] "the substantial combat forces [to] be phased out at the end of 2014, four years from now." (Note the usual verbal escape hatch, in this case "substantial," lurking in his statement.)
Last Saturday, behind "closed doors" [17] at a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Afghan War commander General David Petraeus presented European leaders with a "phased four-year plan [6]" to "wind down American and allied fighting in Afghanistan." Not surprisingly, it had the end of 2014 in its sights and the president quickly confirmed [18] that "transition" date, even while opening plenty of post-2014 wiggle room. By then, as he described it, "our footprint" would only be "significantly reduced." (He also claimed that, post-2014, the US would be maintaining a "counterterrorism capability" in Afghanistan—and Iraq—for which "platforms to... execute... counterterrorism operations," assumedly bases, would be needed.)
Meanwhile, unnamed "senior US officials" in Lisbon were clearly buttonholing reporters to "cast doubt [19] on whether the United States, the dominant power in the 28-nation alliance, would end its own combat mission before 2015." As always, the usual qualifying phrases were profusely in evidence.
Throughout these weeks, the "tweaking"—that is, the further chipping away at 2014 as a hard and fast date for anything—only continued. Mark Sedwill, NATO's civilian counterpart to US commander General David Petraeus, insisted that 2014 was nothing more than "an inflection point" [20] in an ever more drawn-out drawdown process. That process, he insisted, would likely extend to "2015 and beyond," which, of course, put 2016 officially into play. And keep in mind that this is only for combat troops, not those assigned to "train and support" or keep "a strategic over watch" on Afghan forces.
On the eve of NATO's Lisbon meeting, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, waxing near poetic, declared 2014 nothing more than an "aspirational goal [21]," rather than an actual deadline. As the conference began, NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted [22] that the alliance would be committed in Afghanistan "as long as it takes." And new British Chief of the Defense Staff General Sir David Richards suggested that, given the difficulty of ever defeating the Taliban (or al-Qaeda) militarily, NATO should be preparing plans to maintain a role for its troops for the next 30 to 40 years [23].
War Extender
Here, then, is a brief history of American time in Afghanistan. After all, this isn't our first Afghan War, but our second. The first, the CIA's anti-Soviet jihad [24] (in which the Agency funded a number of the fundamentalist extremists we're now fighting [25] in the second), lasted a decade, from 1980 until 1989 when the Soviets withdrew in defeat.
In October 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched America's second Afghan War, taking Kabul that November as the Taliban dissolved. The power of the American military to achieve quick and total victory seemed undeniable, even after Osama bin Laden slipped out of Tora Bora [26] that December and escaped into Pakistan's tribal borderlands.
However, it evidently never crossed the minds of President Bush's top officials to simply declare victory and get out. Instead, as the US would do in Iraq after the invasion of 2003, the Pentagon started building a new infrastructure of military bases (in this case, on the ruins [27] of the old Soviet [28] base infrastructure). At the same time, the former Cold Warriors in Washington let their dreams about pushing the former commies of the former Soviet Union out of the former soviet socialist republics of Central Asia, places where, everyone knew, you could just about swim in black gold and run geopolitically wild.
Then, when the invasion of Iraq was launched in March 2003, Afghanistan, still a "war" (if barely) was forgotten, while the Taliban returned to the field, built up their strength, and launched an insurgency that has only gained momentum to this moment. In 2008, before leaving office, George W. Bush bumped his favorite general, Iraq surge commander Petraeus, upstairs to become the head of the Central Command which oversees America's war zones in the Greater Middle East, including Afghanistan.
Already the guru [29] of counterinsurgency (known familiarly as COIN), Petraeus had, in 2006, overseen the production of the military's new war-fighting bible, a how-to manual [30] dusted off from the Vietnam era's failed version of COIN and made new and magical again. In June 2010, eight and a half years into our Second Afghan War, at President Obama's request, Petraeus took over as Afghan War commander. It was clear then that time was short—with an administration review of Afghan war strategy coming up at year's end and results needed quickly. The American war was also in terrible shape.

[31]In the new COIN-ish US Army, however, it is a dogma of almost biblical faith that counterinsurgencies don't produce quick results; that, to be successful, they must be pursued for years on end. As Petraeus put it [32] back in 2007 when talking about Iraq, "[T]ypically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years." Recently, in an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News, he made a nod [33] toward exactly the same timeframe for Afghanistan, one accepted as bedrock knowledge [34] in the world of the COINistas.

What this meant was that, whether as CENTCOM commander or Afghan War commander, Petraeus was looking for two potentially contradictory results at the same time. Somehow, he needed to wrest those nine to 10 years of war-fighting from a president looking for a tighter schedule and, in a war going terribly sour, he needed almost instant evidence of "progress" that would fit the president's coming December "review" of the war and might pacify unhappy publics in the US and Europe.
Now let's do the math. At the moment, depending on how you care to count, we are in the 10th year of our second Afghan War or the 20th year of war interruptus. Since June 2009, Petraeus and various helpers have stretched the schedule to 2014 for (most) American combat troops and at least 2015 or 2016 for the rest. If you were to start counting from the president's December surge address, that's potentially seven more years. In other words, we're now talking about either a 15-year war or an on-and-off again quarter-century one. All evidence shows that the Pentagon's war planners would like to extend those already vague dates even further into the future.

On Ticking Clocks in Washington and Kabul
Up to now, only one of General Petraeus's two campaigns has been under discussion here: the other one, fought out these last years not in Afghanistan, but in Washington and NATO capitals, over how to schedule a war. Think of it as the war for a free hand in determining how long the Afghan War is to be fought.
It has been run from General Petraeus's headquarters in Kabul, the giant five-sided military headquarters on the Potomac presided over by Secretary of Defense Gates, and various think-tanks filled with America's militarized intelligentsia [35] scattered around Washington—and it has proven a classically successful "clear, hold, build" [36] counterinsurgency operation. Pacification in Washington and a number of European capitals has occurred with remarkably few casualties. (Former Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal, axed by the president for insubordination, has been the exception, not the rule.)
Slowly but decisively, Petraeus and company constricted President Obama's war-planning choices to two options: more and yet more. In late 2009, the president agreed to that second surge of troops (the first had been announced that March), not to speak of [37] CIA agents, drones, private contractors, and State Department and other civilian government employees. In his December "surge" address at West Point (for the nation but visibly to the military), Obama had the temerity as commander-in-chief to name a specific, soon-to-arrive date—July 2011—for beginning a serious troop drawdown. It was then that the COIN campaign in Washington ramped up into high gear with the goal of driving the prospective end of the war back by years.
It took bare hours after the president's address for administration officials to begin leaking to media sources that his drawdown would be "conditions based"—a phrase guaranteed to suck the meaning out of any deadline. (The president had indeed acknowledged in his address that his administration would take into account "conditions on the ground.") Soon, the Secretary of Defense and others took to the airwaves in a months-long campaign emphasizing that drawdown in Afghanistan didn't really mean drawdown, that leaving by no means meant leaving, and that the future was endlessly open to interpretation.
With the ratification in Lisbon of that 2014 date "and beyond," the political clocks—an image General Petraeus loves [38]—in Washington, European capitals, and American Kabul are now ticking more or less in unison.
Two other "clocks" are, however, ticking more like bombs. If counterinsurgency is a hearts and minds campaign, then the other target of General Petraeus's first COIN campaign has been the restive hearts and minds of the American and European publics. Last year a Dutch government fell over popular opposition to Afghanistan and, even as NATO met last weekend, thousands of antiwar protestors marched in London [39] and Lisbon [40]. Europeans generally want out and their governments know it, but (as has been true since 1945) the continent's leaders have no idea how to say "no" to Washington. In the US, too, the Afghan war grows ever more unpopular [41], and while it was forgotten during the election season, no politician should count on that phenomenon lasting forever.
And then, of course, there's the literal ticking bomb, the actual war in Afghanistan. In that campaign, despite a drumbeat of American/NATO publicity [42] about "progress," [43] the news has been grim indeed [44]. American and NATO casualties have been higher [45] this year than at any other moment in the war; the Taliban seems if anything more entrenched [46] in more parts of the country [47]; the Afghan public, ever more puzzled [48] and less happy with foreign troops and contractors traipsing across the land; and Hamid Karzai, the president of the country, sensing a situation gone truly sour, has been regularly challenging [9] the way [49] General Petraeus is fighting the war in his country. (The nerve!)
No less unsettling, General Petraeus himself has seemed unnerved. He was declared "irked" [50] by Karzai's comments and was said to have warned Afghan officials that their president's criticism might be making [51] his "own position ‘untenable,'" which was taken as a resignation threat. Meanwhile, the COIN-meister was in the process of imposing a new battle plan on Afghanistan that leaves counterinsurgency (at least as usually described) in a roadside ditch. No more is the byword "protect the people," or "clear, hold, build"; now, it's smash, kill, destroy. The war commander has loosed American firepower [52] in a major way in the Taliban strongholds of southern Afghanistan.

Early this year, then-commander McChrystal had significantly cut back [53] on US air strikes as a COIN-ish measure meant to lessen civilian casualties. No longer. In a striking reversal, air power has been called in—and in a big way. In October, US planes launched missiles or bombs on 1,000 separate Afghan missions [54], numbers seldom seen since the 2001 invasion. The Army has similarly loosed its massively powerful [55] High Mobility Artillery Rocket System in the area around the southern city of Kandahar. Civilian deaths are rising rapidly. Dreaded [56] Special Operations night raids on Afghan homes by "capture/kill" [57] teams have tripled [58] with 1,572 such operations over the last three months. (These are the tactics on which Karzai recently challenged Petraeus.) With them, the body count has also arrived. American officials are eagerly boasting to reporters about their numerical efficiency in taking out mid-level Taliban leaders ("…368 insurgent leaders killed or captured, and 968 lower-level insurgents killed and 2,477 captured, according to NATO statistics").
In the districts around Kandahar, a newly reported [59] American tactic is simply to raze individual houses or even whole villages believed to be booby-trapped by the Taliban, as well as tree lines "where insurgents could hide." American troops have also been "blow[ing] up outbuildings, flatten[ing] agricultural walls, and carv[ing] new ‘military roads,' because existing ones are so heavily mined… right through farms and compounds." And now, reports [60] Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post, the Marines are also sending the first contingent of M1 Abrams tanks (with a "main gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away") into the south. Such tanks, previously held back for fear of reminding Afghans of their Russian occupiers, are, according to an unnamed US officer he quotes, bringing "awe, shock, and firepower" to the south.
None of this, of course, has anything to do with winning hearts and minds, just obliterating them. Not surprisingly, such tactics also generate villagers fleeing [61] embattled farmlands often for "squalid" refugee camps in overcrowded cities.
Flip of the COIN
Suddenly, this war for which General Petraeus has won his counterinsurgency warriors at least a four- to-six-year reprieve is being fought [62] as if there were no tomorrow. Here, for instance, is a brief description [63] from a British Guardian reporter in Kandahar of what the night part of the war now feels like from a distance:

"After the sun sets, the air becomes noisy with US jets dropping bombs that bleach the dark out of the sky in their sudden eruptions; with the ripping sound of the mini-guns of the Kiowa helicopter gunships and A-10 Warthogs hunting in the nearby desert. The night is also lit up by brilliant flares that fall as slow as floating snowflakes, a visible sign of the commando raids into the villages beyond. It is a conflict heard, but not often witnessed."

None of this qualifies as "counterinsurgency," at least as described by the general and his followers. It does, however, resemble where counterinsurgencies have usually headed—directly into the charnel house of history.
Chandrasekaran quotes a civilian adviser to the NATO command in Kabul this way: "Because Petraeus is the author of the COIN [counterinsurgency] manual, he can do whatever he wants. He can manage the optics better than McChrystal could. If he wants to turn it up to 11, he feels he has the moral authority to do it."
We have no access to the mind of David Petraeus. We don't know just why he is bringing in the big guns or suddenly fighting his war as if there were no tomorrow. We don't know whether he fears the loss of the backing of an American president or the American people or even the US military itself, whether he despairs of President Karzai or the Taliban, or the whole mission, or whether he has launched his version of a blitz in the most hopeful of moods. We don't know whether he sees the contradiction in any of this, though no one, the general included, should be surprised when, for all the talk of rational planning and strategy, the irrationality of war—the mass killing of other human beings—grabs us by the throat and shakes us for all we're worth.
Petraeus has flipped a COIN and taken a gamble. However it turns out for him, one thing is certain: Afghans will once again pay with their homes, farms, livelihoods, and lives, while Americans, Europeans, and Canadians will pay with lives and treasure invested in a war that couldn't be more bizarre, a war with no end in sight. If this goes on to 2014 "and beyond," heaven help us.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project [64], runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com [3]. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's [15] (Haymarket Books). You can catch him discussing war American-style and that book in a Timothy MacBain TomCast video by clicking here [65].

Politics - what I see and what I do not understand

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

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