2703
At 1540 today, the Jr. Elders came to the door . . . I arose not from the chair, flipping back and forth on the TV frm the Sox/Sox game and the Japanese naval task forse slipping through the straight "In Harm's Way," whi is one of hte flicks that draws me in . . . I have always enjoyed the steel naval battles and stories . . . in fact, I read all of hte World War Two bookks form the Allen Jr. High School library in Greensborough, Noerth Caroline during my six-hourse-shy-of-a-year stay there. . .

Seems keys are missing at the museum - I;ve not been there in months, so it ain;t me . . . bit I recall Blanton once driving me back down thre when I had inadvertently pocketed a set after a volunteer shift, though he could not, would not go in . . . I thought that odd - but then again, well . . . see preivous entries. . .

Too - as so oft happens here in Rockland - it might be a fake e-mail incoming out of a conversation had in the house a short while ago: my mother seeking her car keys . . .

See previous entries. . .

17 spams deleted . . . quite an uptake in volume . . .

I'm halfway through "Life of Pi." I like Mantel's writing style . . .

bostonherald.com:

Power plants’ cleanup may create side-effect
By Associated Press
Sunday, August 26, 2007 - Updated: 04:38 PM EST

OMAHA, Neb. - As the nation’s coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they’ll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash.

More than one-third of the ash generated at the country’s hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled - mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things.

But in a process being used increasingly across the nation, chemicals are injected into plants’ emissions to capture airborne pollutants.

That, in turn, changes the composition of the ash and cuts its usefulness. It can’t be used in cement, for example, because the interaction of the chemicals may keep the concrete from hardening.

That ash has to go somewhere - so it usually ends up in landfills, along with the rest of the unusable waste.

"You’re replacing an air problem with a land problem - a disposal problem," said Bruce Dockter, a research engineer with the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota.

Coal ash naturally contains arsenic and mercury, and if the elements leach into groundwater they can contaminate drinking supplies. The EPA says ash disposed of in landfills could pose significant risks when mismanaged, and there are gaps in state regulation.

And the chemicals added to clean up emissions - such as ammonia, lime and calcium hydroxide - make the ash worse, environmental groups say, because they take toxins such as mercury out of the air but leave higher levels of it in the ash.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t classify coal ash - with or without the added chemicals - as a hazardous waste, although many environmental groups say it should.

"As a general rule, anything you do to make the air emissions cleaner makes the ash more toxic," said Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.

More than 120 million tons of ash and other leftovers come from coal combustion each year in the United States, and more than 46 million tons are reused, according to the American Coal Ash Association.

Environmental groups encourage reuse of the ash because it keeps most of the waste out of landfills. And substituting ash for cement means less mining for the materials typically used to make cement - consequently causing a drop in the amount of carbon dioxide that would be emitted by mining machinery.

But the EPA is pushing power companies to cut emissions of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which add to smog and acid rain and contribute to thousands of premature deaths, asthma and other respiratory ailments. A large portion of those emissions come from coal plants, the EPA says.

"If you live near a power plant, you want the cleanest air possible," said Dave Goss, executive director of the American Coal Ash Association. "If in exchange for clean air they have to dispose of material - that’s the challenge. The only option may be putting it in a landfill."

It’s not clear how many plants already using or will use the new technology or how much ash may be affected, but the technique is becoming widespread as companies work to comply with federal guidelines, Goss said.

The issue was raised as the EPA developed air emissions rules, but the power sector has found ways to minimize the impact, said EPA spokesman John Millett, who said the agency doesn’t believe the increased injection of the chemicals into ash will cause a significant drop-off in ash recycling.

But the effects are evident in Nebraska, for example, where the Omaha Public Power District sells about 135,000 tons of ash from its current plant near Nebraska City every year. Ash from a new plant being built nearby will be injected with chemicals to clean emissions, and it will be dumped in a 16-acre landfill to be built onsite at a cost of $2.7 million, said Mike Jones, a spokesman for the utility.

"You’ve got to do something with it," Jones said. "This was the best option."

The landfill will fill up in about five years and likely have to be expanded.

Xcel Energy Inc. will use the injection equipment on a new plant near Pueblo, Colo., and also will install the equipment on two existing units there. The ash will be dumped in a 250-acre onsite landfill.

But even if there is a drop in recycling, the trade-off might be worth it.

"The benefits of the additional (emission) reductions from these controls is immense," Millett said.

In Nebraska, the dump sites are closely regulated, said Bill Gidley, a section supervisor with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. Landfills must have liners to collect seepage, and they are inspected every year.

This month, the Maryland Department of the Environment ordered the operator of an 80-acre Anne Arundel County coal ash dump to clean contaminated water detected near the site. Cancer-causing metals were discovered last fall in almost two dozen wells in the area. BBSS Inc. also was fined an undisclosed amount.

In a 2000 report, the EPA promised to re-evaluate the potential risks of coal ash and is developing regulations for disposal of coal byproducts in landfills, spokeswoman Roxanne Smith said.

There are ways to remove the pollutants from emissions without making the ash unusable. But that equipment can be up to four times more expensive, adding millions of dollars to the cost of meeting EPA guidelines, Goss said.

"The utility’s primary goal is to provide cheap, dependable electricity for you, the consumer, connected to the grid," he said. "In order to do that and maintain compliance, sometimes the only thing they can do is make the ash unusable."
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anything creates a side effect . . .

bostonherald.com:

U.S. crisis underscores global links
By Associated Press
Sunday, August 26, 2007 - Updated: 04:37 PM EST

NEW YORK - The sharp declines this month in many stock markets worldwide proves that not all that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

That city is among those areas of the United States hard hit by a slumping housing market. Combine that with a strong global appetite in recent years for investments based on U.S. mortgages bundled together, and a dotted line begins to emerge between faltering home loans in once-hot housing markets and troubles for hedge funds in Australia and banks in Europe.

"The speed at which the integrated markets now affect each other - that will probably be the biggest observation of what is going on now," said Georges Ugeux, chief executive of the investment bank Galileo Global Advisors and former head of the international group at the New York Stock Exchange. "The interconnection has now a level of immediacy that it means if there is coughing going on in New York people might have the flu in Germany the next day. There is no cover."

What started out as a storm in one corner of the debt market spread worldwide in a matter of days, exposing often overlooked ties among far-flung markets and illustrating how normally cool-headed investors can act in lockstep when frightened.

By comparison, some previous financial upheavals such as the Asian financial crisis that erupted a decade ago with the collapse of Thailand’s currency have taken longer to work its way around to the United States.

But in recent years, a big market has emerged for mortgages that are combined and sold off in the debt markets in a process known as securitization. That allowed institutional investors from all over to get a piece of a hot U.S. housing market and enjoy the steady income from homeowners paying down their mortgages.

It all worked well for years until fissures began appearing in the U.S. housing market. Many of the mortgages contained in those investments were given to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit. Many such homeowners now face ballooning mortgage payments in flat or even sinking housing markets. When home values were rising at a steady clip, homeowners who ran into financial difficulty could sign away their problems by refinancing. This is no longer possible for many borrowers, causing a financial pinch for homeowners and distant investors alike.

The many players in the subprime debt markets can make it difficult to tell who owns what, stirring widespread fear among investors. Situations like that of the French bank BNP Paribas illustrate the concern. It said earlier this month it had frozen three funds together worth about $3.79 billion and wouldn’t make investor redemptions until it could determine net asset values of its holdings. France’s biggest bank by market value had previously said it held a "cautious risk policy."

Other examples, like the collapse of two Bear Stearns funds with risky mortgage-backed investments, underscored a sense that such troubles could erupt anywhere.

"When the markets get shock news they become more volatile and short-run correlations become even higher. Your screen is either all green or all red wherever you look," said Alan Brown, group chief investment officer at Schroder Investment Management Ltd. in London.

Besides helping fuel the housing run-up, cheap access to capital made corporate dealmaking a breeze in recent years and led some big-time investors to rely on hefty financing to complete takeovers. The subprime problems made banks uneasy at the prospect of making loans and led to flagging confidence in debt markets worldwide.

"People thought that was just a U.S. phenomena but it does affect the rest of the world because, as we discovered, the lenders to all those leveraged deals were just as much financed by foreign banks as U.S. banks," Ugeux said.

While the wide spectrum of big investors holding subprime debt spread the risk, that’s likely of little comfort to most investors.

"At one level you could argue that by securitizing all these debt, the risks get diversified across the entire system, but the other argument is you don’t know where they all end up," Brown said. He said uncertainty about which investors might be holding bad debt has eroded confidence in many markets, making it harder for them to operate normally.

The resulting stock market and credit market shudders in recent weeks are short-term events and don’t reflect a major increase in how tightly global economies are connected, said Robert Brown, chief investment officer at Genworth Financial Asset Management.

"Those are temporary. When they’re done with, then all of the regions go back to a normal level of differentiation. That’s nice because it makes it a lot easier to find opportunities," he said.

The markets saw evidence of that trend last week - Asian and European stocks calmed when more stable trading returned to Wall Street.

Robert Brown contends the simultaneous growth seen in the past decade among the United States and other developed economies as well as developing nations is coincidental, not a reflection of an ever more linked global economy.

"We don’t believe asset categories around the globe are any more correlated than in the past," he said.

But whether markets eventually grow more intertwined or less so, many investors worldwide will have to first ferret out where subprime debt rests and whether they will be affected.
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see?

bostonherald.com:

U.N. climate talks focus on business end
By Associated Press
Sunday, August 26, 2007 - Updated: 04:22 PM EST

VIENNA, Austria - It’s the business end of climate change: ensuring that the $20 trillion the world will spend on energy over the next two decades is as environmentally friendly as possible.

This week’s latest round of talks on global warming, which get under way in Vienna on Monday, will focus on giving governments and private investors tips and incentives to keep a lid on greenhouse gas emissions.

"We need to ’climate-proof’ economic growth," Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s top climate official, told reporters Sunday.

More than 1,000 delegates were gathering in the Austrian capital for discussions on advising nations, corporations, bankers and public institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, on how to make the most of their energy investments.

A new report by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change says additional investments of about $210 billion a year will be needed - mostly in the developing world - to maintain greenhouse gas emissions at their current levels until 2030.

"If the funding available ... remains at its current level and continues to rely mainly on voluntary contributions, it will not be sufficient," the report warns.

Among the hurdles detailed in the report: The world will remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels, meaning it must find new and affordable ways to burn coal and oil more cleanly and recapture carbon dioxide emissions.

"The war against climate change is not a war against oil. It’s a war against emissions," de Boer said.

Experts say developing countries will need billions more each year to help them adapt to changes in their climates.

An example is the southern African nation of Lesotho. The impoverished country relies heavily on agriculture, yet it is being hit with twice as many droughts as it endured in the 1980s, Lesotho Environment Minister Monyane Moleleki said.

Complicating matters: Since 2000, January and February have become progressively warmer.

"When the rain does come, it comes in deluges - torrents - useless for our agriculture," he said, appealing to industrialized nations for technology and resources to help his country adapt and overcome what he called "a very dangerous situation."

"Climate change has been spooky to say the least," he said.

Maria Magdalena Brito-Neves, environment minister of Cape Verde, a chain of islands off western Africa’s coast, said climate change has also produced chronic drought and threatened delicate ecosystems.

"We are very vulnerable," she told journalists.

The Vienna meeting, which runs through Friday, is part of a flurry of talks leading up to a major international climate summit in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

De Boer said participants would "take the temperature" of global climate-control negotiations before two other key sessions that will precede the Bali conference - a Sept. 24 meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York, and a meeting three days later in Washington of the world’s 15 biggest polluters, including the U.S., China and India.

The U.N. is leading the push to discuss a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The treaty requires 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The European Union has set a new goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020 and by another 10 percent if other nations join in.

"It’s critical to have all the partners on board," including the U.S., which has not ratified Kyoto, said Josef Proell, Austria’s environment minister. "We need more than Sunday sermons. We need clear measures."
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Oy . . .

nytimes.com:

August 26, 2007
Liberian Ex-Leader’s War Crimes Trial Is Stalled
By MARLISE SIMONS
PARIS, Aug. 25 — When Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was arrested 17 months ago on war crimes charges and ordered to face international judges, it was heralded as a milestone for justice in Africa.

His trial, the first-ever war crimes trial for an African president, was due to start in April.

But having barely begun, the case has already lost its momentum. Last Monday hearings were postponed for the fourth time this year, and the court is now set to reconvene in January.

The latest disruption was the result of Mr. Taylor’s decision to dismiss his court-appointed lawyer, Karim Khan. His new lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, told the court that his team needed at least four months to study the 40,000 pages of evidence already before the court. And he said that Mr. Taylor’s personal archives, about 50,000 pages, had only just surfaced and needed to be examined.

The delays have caused much finger-pointing about who at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone is most to blame.

Depending on who is talking, the responsibility is variously pinned on the judges for trying to schedule the complex case with undue haste, on the court administration for being inept and short of money, or on Mr. Taylor — who has denied all criminal charges — for stalling.

One problem that has dogged the trial is that it was moved from the relatively inexpensive Sierra Leone to the much costlier city of The Hague.

Several countries, including the United States, which was deeply involved in creating the tribunal, feared that a trial in Freetown for such an influential politician could cause unrest in West Africa.

Court officials say this has created more bureaucracy while driving up salaries and travel bills for staff and witnesses.

“The court had to find new offices, move people, hire more staff, find safe quarters for witnesses, all on a very tight budget,” said Stephen Rapp, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor.

Turf wars arose with the host, the new International Criminal Court. An official with the Sierra Leone tribunal, who did not want to be named because he needs to work with both courts, said the international court initially tried to charge “an enormous sum” for the use of one of its rarely occupied courtrooms and insisted on renting out a whole floor of its cellblock instead of just Mr. Taylor’s two cells. In the end, prices came down.

But the new location has also put the Sierra Leone court under a stronger spotlight in a town with three other international courts, packed with lawyers, students and observers from the fast-growing field of international law, some of whom have been critical.

As it happens, the Sierra Leone court was planned to benefit from lessons learned from the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia, which were seen as slow, expensive and far from the wars’ victims.

When it opened in 2002, American officials involved in its creation, presented the new institution as a better model, one that would be cheaper, faster and leaner and would try only a few top leaders. One innovation was using both national and international judges.

But in practice, the court, now dealing with just 10 defendants, has had difficulty in carrying out its mandate. Operating in two cities — in Europe for Mr. Taylor and Africa for the other cases — has clearly complicated its mission, but critics say that from the start the court has been slow and inept.

Its original three-year mandate is expected to turn into eight years. The original budgeted cost of $54 million dollars — based on voluntary contributions — has tripled and is growing.

“Because of numerous mistakes and cost-cutting, it has become comparatively more expensive and slower than the other tribunals,” said Antonio Cassese, an international lawyer who wrote an efficiency report ordered by the United Nations that was published this year.

During recent hearings, several lawyers following the Taylor trial from the public gallery were critical of the prickly style of the leading judge and of her rush to open the trial this summer when the prosecutors and defense had agreed that September would be realistic. They said they believed that the bench had been under some political pressure to move the case along.

With their uncertain, voluntary financing, court officials have had to divide their attention, devoting time to drumming up contributions. “We now think this will be a four million dollar trial,” said Herman von Hebel, the new court administrator who, after a recent hearing, rushed off with Mr. Rapp, the chief prosecutor, on a fund-raising trip to different capitals. “We have funds in hand to last us through October,” said Mr. Rapp, adding that new pledges “will take us to into 2008.”

Mr. Taylor has protested the disarray but also exploited it. Although he is believed to have amassed a large fortune, he has claimed to be indigent and demanded legal aid, repeatedly requesting more time and more money to hire the additional top lawyers he wanted to defend him. He faces 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, for instigating or tolerating many of the enormous atrocities committed by rebels he backed during the Sierra Leone civil war of the 1990s.

Mr. Kahn, Mr. Taylor’s former lawyer, said that his client became more and more angry as court documents were sent to the defense late or incomplete and motions and requests sent to the court were ignored. “We were fighting a phantom, we often got no replies,” Mr. Kahn said.

On the opening day of the trial, Mr. Taylor stayed in his cell. “He told me the only thing which will embarrass this court is public attention,” Mr. Kahn recalled in a recent interview. As part of that strategy, Mr. Taylor fired him as the lawyer, knowing this would stall the trial, Mr. Kahn said.

Mr. Kahn, who walked out of court after announcing that he had been fired, said during the interview that he regretted having to leave “one of the biggest cases in the world.”

But Mr. Taylor’s tactics worked. The judges ordered that “sufficient” funds be provided to defend the accused, and the court has now almost doubled Mr. Taylor’s defense budget, to $70,000 a month. It also provides close to $30,000 monthly for other services such as office rent and investigators. Last Monday, Mr. Taylor took his seat in court behind his new team of three lawyers and the judges granted them preparation time until January.

Meanwhile, on orders of the United Nations Security Council, investigators continue to search for Mr. Taylor’s assets, which, if found, will be tapped for reimbursing the court. According to the chief prosecutor, governments in half a dozen countries are enrolled in the inquiry and $15 million in assets of Mr. Taylor’s business associates have thus far been frozen in Britain, the United States, France, Egypt and Lebanon. But legal proof is still needed that these businesses were fronts for Mr. Taylor.

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nytimes.com:

August 27, 2007
‘To Catch a Predator’ Is Falling Prey to Advertisers’ Sensibilities
By BRIAN STELTER
In the last 18 months, NBC’s investigative segment “To Catch a Predator” has received wide attention, rejuvenating ratings for the network’s “Dateline NBC” newsmagazine and making a celebrity of Chris Hansen, the show’s host, who confronts men trolling online chat rooms hoping to meet teenagers for sex.

So why does NBC seem to be scaling back its commitment to “To Catch a Predator”? The network has filmed only one sting operation so far this year, compared with seven in 2006. In several ways, the high ratings for “Predator” have come at a high price for NBC. Some advertisers say they are wary of being associated with the show’s content, in which men lured to a house by the promise of a sexual encounter are instead surprised by Mr. Hansen and then arrested.

Critics have also raised ethics questions about the series because NBC coordinates the investigations with a private watchdog group and local police departments. And two lawsuits are pending against the network, one by a former producer and another by the sister of a man who committed suicide as police officers approached his house, accompanied by NBC camera crews.

But the show’s success underlines a growing problem for television executives looking to push the envelope of good taste in search of hits: how to pursue high ratings without alienating advertisers or provoking negative public opinion. In 2005, similar concerns prompted ABC to cancel a reality show called “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” in which conservative couples selected new neighbors from a pool of diverse contestants.

The criticism and lawsuits directed at “To Catch a Predator” have led to negative news coverage of the show, online and in magazines like Esquire and Rolling Stone. ABC News recently confirmed that its prime-time newsmagazine program “20/20” is preparing a report about “To Catch a Predator.”

An NBC producer denied that the network was trying to distance itself from “Predator.” “We’re really proud of it,” David Corvo, executive producer of “Dateline,” said in a telephone interview. “We’re not running away from it.” Officially, the network said it is “discussing future investigations” and declined to comment further.

Some media buyers were hesitant about buying ads on the series even before the recent spate of bad press reports. Andy Donchin, director for national broadcast for the advertising agency Carat USA, said advertisers could be wary of the show’s unsavory theme. “We’re all concerned with what content we’re associating ourselves with,” he said.

The most recent “Predator” episode, on July 25, included six national spot ads, significantly fewer than at other hours during NBC’s prime-time periods.

“NBC’s probably thinking about what their return on investment is, and might be thinking it’s better to move on,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at the ad-buying agency Horizon Media.

“Dateline” first explored the idea of Internet predators in 2004. “There was a time not long ago when stories about Internet crimes were a tough sell for TV newsmagazines,” Mr. Hansen said. “Executive producers were wary because images of people typing on keyboards and video of computer monitors did not make especially compelling TV, even when combined with emotional interviews with victims.”

But the network discovered that face-to-face conversations with would-be predators did make compelling television. The program’s producers work with a pedophile watchdog group, Perverted Justice. Members of the group pose as underage Web surfers and chat with adults and, if the conversation turns sexual, agree to meet in person. When the adults arrive at the meeting place, they are confronted by Mr. Hansen and then arrested.

The first sting, filmed on Long Island in 2004, was startlingly successful, as 18 men came to the decoy house. NBC almost immediately began planning additional investigations, Mr. Hansen said. The third sting, in February 2006, was the first to involve a local police force. That year, “Dateline” produced a total of eight multiday stakeout shows in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Florida and California.

The 2006-7 television season’s 11 episodes of “Predator” have attracted an average of 7 million viewers, compared with 6.2 million for other “Dateline” programs. The series has also been a boon for MSNBC, NBC’s cable news channel, which replays episodes in prime time and on weekends. In July, 19 of MSNBC’s 25 highest-rated hours were late-night “Predator” reruns.

The confrontations and arrests made for dramatic television and “Predator” quickly became a favorite water cooler topic of conversation. The format — Mr. Hansen waiting with a crew as the unsuspecting man approaches — has been parodied endlessly on late-night television and on YouTube.

But after the cameras stopped rolling, the men charged with felonies made their appearances in court — and those were often decidedly less dramatic.

As a result of three-day sting last September in Long Beach, Calif., for example, 38 men were arrested on camera — the most of any sting that year. Judge Bradford Andrews in Superior Court, who heard 30 of the cases, said most of the men entered a plea and were placed on probation. “Most of them had no prior criminal record whatsoever, not even traffic citations,” he said. Under California law, they are now registered as sex offenders.

Over all, 256 men have been arrested in the operations, NBC said. Slightly fewer than half have been convicted of a crime.

A four-day sting in Texas last November led to 25 arrests and involved one death. Louis Conradt, a local prosecutor, Perverted Justice alleges, engaged in sexual conversations with minors online but did not show up to the decoy house, so the police obtained a warrant for his arrest. As officers and camera crews approached Mr. Conradt’s home in Terrell, Tex., he shot himself in the head. Last month, his sister, disputing the Perverted Justice transcripts, filed suit against NBC, seeking $105 million in damages. None of the men arrested in the investigation have been prosecuted.

“Dateline” has participated in two stings since the Texas one, most recently in New Jersey in March. The investigation was broadcast in July and averaged 7.1 million viewers.

While remaining popular, the program is also expensive to produce. NBC spent tens of thousands of dollars on each sting, installing hidden cameras and microphones. It has also paid Perverted Justice a consulting fee of roughly $70,000 for each episode. Questions about the network’s relationship with Perverted Justice are raised in a lawsuit filed in May by a former “Dateline” producer, Marsha Bartel, who contends that she was fired because she opposed what she called the program’s unethical production practices.

Her suit said that Perverted Justice did not keep accurate, verifiable transcripts of conversations with potential predators. Lawyers for some of the men arrested in the stings have focused on this point, claiming entrapment.

Ms. Bartel’s lead lawyer, Roger Simmons, said NBC had violated “one of the fundamental canons of journalism. “The line between what journalists do and what law enforcement officers do got fuzzy,” Mr. Simmons said. “The difference between what these reality shows do and what ‘To Catch a Predator’ does got fuzzy, too.”

NBC has said it will defend itself vigorously in both suits.

Perhaps hoping to capitalize on the distinctive “To Catch a Predator” format while softening the show’s unpleasant edge, “Dateline” producers are applying the show’s hidden camera style to a variety of other topics. In March, Mr. Hansen investigated e-mail swindles in “To Catch a Con Man.” In April and again in July, he hunted for criminals who exploit personal data in “To Catch an ID Thief.” The most recent iteration, titled “To Catch an iJacker” and broadcast Aug. 1, tracked down missing iPods.

Mr. Corvo said “Dateline” has an unofficial unit working with Mr. Hansen on other projects incorporating the “To Catch” concept. Half a dozen investigative pieces are in the pipeline, exploring adoption, insurance ploys and financial fraud.

“We feel like we’ve raised awareness of this issue a lot,” he said. “We want to make sure that, going forward, we complement what we’ve done in the past, not just repeat it.”

NBC viewers, meanwhile, are beginning to see other takes on Mr. Hansen’s investigations. Two weeks ago, the late-night host Conan O’Brien imagined the evolution of the brand: he presented mock commercials for “To Catch a Soda Refiller” and “To Catch a Cold.”

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I recall so much . . . the twice sent (and posted herein) document on a case against NBC Producors of htis hshow (see previous entries) and the myspace and spams incoming and created and targetted to me, as if I were one of hte preds trolling . . . see prevuious entries. . . the hyoersurveillance and genital attacks - as if (HLS sports and entertainment for hte union and the museum and the hu campus in general - which would explain the smiles form stus, profs, and alums alike - well . . .) as if overbearing personalities and subtle targetted psyops attacks would coerce me to a behavior pattern detestful?

You see- to justify the "blacklist" from the U, the hUMF must try to ipose upon me by convincing others of hte fact that I am so many things gut-wrenchingly and instinctually detestable - a terrorist, a sex predator, a racist . . . See previous entries. . .

Yet, to know me is to know all of that false - like the folks at Dunkin Donuuts in 04/05 here in Rockland, many of wqhom said they thouigh I owned the place I was so comfortable . . . Ronda Pelkey of "Spherion": saying I'm a good worker, that I'm honest nad polite, that I;m quite sociable - ah . . . she was nmeaning that I'm a Socialist, was she? so who is being political now?

oy . . .

And that trumped up Densmore/FredS/Katherine Harvey thing at the museum - see previous entrieso n the incodent report I wrote on that - I think its in one of hte 8/10/2006 entries. . .

As if I were in the wrong? No. . . just people who cannot handle someone of my honesty and integrity - hence the neurobiological assaults . . . think I'm wrong? Then why has museum hiring been, oit appears, removed from FASOEB to FAS?

See previus entries. . .

washingtonpost.com:

Reckless Abandonment

By Douglas Brinkley
Sunday, August 26, 2007; B01



Over the past two years since Hurricane Katrina, I've seen waves of hardworking volunteers from nonprofits, faith-based groups and college campuses descend on New Orleans, full of compassion and hope.

They arrive in the city's Ninth Ward to painstakingly gut houses one by one. Their jaws drop as they wander around afflicted zones, gazing at the towering mounds of debris and uprooted infrastructure.

After weeks of grueling labor, they realize that they are running in place, toiling in a surreal vacuum.

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers' altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They've been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can't be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I've concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine.

These days a stiff Caribbean breeze causes residents to jerk into a high-alert state of anxiety. Still unfinished is the overhaul of what some call the "Lego levees," the notoriously flawed 350-mile "flood protection system" that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers starting building in 1965.

The Corps has been busy fixing the three principal holes that opened in August 2005. Its hard work has, in fact, paid a partial dividend. A decent defensive floodwall is now on the east side of the Industrial Canal, attempting to protect the Lower Ninth Ward.

Unfortunately, that is where the upbeat news nosedives. The federal government has refused to shut the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet canal that helped cause the Katrina "funnel effect" flooding two years ago. In addition, entire neglected neighborhoods still have no adequate flood control.

The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower. Common sense dictates that the endangered areas -- if repopulated (and that is a big if) -- demand levees that can sustain Category 5 storms. It's a national obligation. Entire blocks are moldering away while the federal government lifts only a cursory hand to reverse the desultory trend.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest misperceptions the American public harbors is that Katrina was a week-long catastrophe. In truth, it's better to view it as an era. Remember, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted eight or nine years. We're still in the middle of the Katrina saga.

Bold action has been needed for two years now, yet all that the White House has offered is an inadequate trickle of billion-dollar Band-aids and placebo directives. Too often in the United States we forget that "inaction" can be a policy initiative. Every day the White House must decide what not to do.

The stubborn inaction appears to fall under the paternalistic guise of helping the storm victims. Bush's general attitude -- a Catch-22 recipe if ever there was one -- appears to be that only rank fools would return when the first line of hurricane defense are the levees that this administration so far refuses to fix.

New Orleans appears to be largely abandoned by the Department of Homeland Security, except for its safeguarding of the Port Authority (port traffic is at 90 percent of pre-Katrina numbers) and tourist districts above sea level, such as the French Quarter and Uptown. These areas are kept alive largely by the wild success of Harrah's casino and a steady flow of undaunted conventioneers.

The brutal Galveston Hurricane of 1900 may be a historical guide to the administration's thinking. Most survivors of that deadly Texas storm moved to higher land. Administration policies seem to tacitly encourage those who live below sea level in New Orleans to relocate permanently, to leave the dangerous water's edge for more prosperous inland cities such as Shreveport or Baton Rouge.

After the 1900 hurricane, in fact, Galveston, which had been a large, thriving port, was essentially abandoned for Houston, transforming that then-sleepy backwater into the financial center for the entire Gulf South. Galveston devolved into a smallish port-tourist center, one easy to evacuate when hurricanes rear their ugly heads.

To be fair, Bush's apparent post-Katrina inaction policy makes some cold, pragmatic sense. If the U.S. government is not going to rebuild the levees to survive a Category 5 storm -- to be finished at the earliest in 2015 and at an estimated cost of $40 billion, far eclipsing the extravagant bill for the entire Interstate Highway System -- then options are limited.

But what makes the current inaction plan so infuriating is that it's deceptive, offering up this open-armed spin to storm victims: "Come back to New Orleans." Why can't Bush look his fellow citizens in the eye and tell them what seems to be the ugly truth? That as long as he's commander in chief, there won't be an entirely reconstructed levee system.

Shortly after Katrina hit, former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert declared that a lot of New Orleans could be "bulldozed." He was shot down by an outraged public and media, which deemed such remarks insensitive and callous. Two years have shown that Hastert may have articulated what appears to have become the White House's de facto policy. He may have retreated, but the inaction remains.

The White House keeps spinning Bush's abysmal poll numbers by claiming that his legacy will rise decades from now the way Harry S. Truman's did. But Truman had a reputation for straight talk and bold vision. If Bush wants history to perceive him as Trumanesque, then he must act Trumanesque.

Bush's predecessors moved mountains. Theodore Roosevelt set aside 230 million acres for wildlife conservation (plus built the Panama Canal). Franklin D. Roosevelt began a kaleidoscope of New Deal programs to calm the Great Depression and Truman oversaw the Marshall Plan rebuilding of Western Europe after World War II. Bush could seize the initiative and announce a real plan to rebuild, a partnership between the government, Fortune 500 companies and faith-based groups.

Unfortunately, right now New Orleans is having a hard time lobbying on its own behalf. Minnesota's Twin Cities have about 20 Fortune 500 companies to draw in private-sector money to help rebuild the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. New Orleans has one, Entergy, which is verging on bankruptcy. So besides U.S. taxpayers and port fees, New Orleans must count on spiked-up tourist dollars to jumpstart the post-Katrina rebuild.

But this is where the bizarre paradox of living in a city of ruins comes into play. Out of one side of its mouth the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce says, "Come on down, folks! We're not underwater!" Yet these same civic boosters -- viscerally aware that the Bush administration is treating the desperate plight of New Orleans in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind fashion -- don't want to bite the hand that feeds them large chunks of reconstruction cash. New Orleans is both bragging about normalcy and poor-mouthing itself, confusing Americans about what the real state of the city is.

Recently Mayor C. Ray Nagin, born with the proverbial foot in his mouth, tried to explain why the homicide rate in New Orleans is so appallingly high. When a TV reporter asked, Nagin merely shrugged: "It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there." This absurd comment -- and dozens like it -- hurts New Orleans's recovery almost as much as Bush's policy of inaction.

Everywhere I travel in the United States, people ask, "Why did you guys reelect such a doofus?" There is a feeling that any community that reelected a "first responder" who stayed in a Hyatt Regency suite during Hurricane Katrina, never delivered a speech to the homeless at the Superdome or Convention Center in New Orleans, and played the "chocolate city" race card at a historic moment when black-white healing was needed probably deserves to get stiffed by the federal government.

And Nagin isn't the only bad ambassador New Orleans has. It also has City Council member Oliver Thomas, Sen. David Vitter and Rep. William J. Jefferson -- all currently in deep trouble for potentially breaking the law. Dismayed by such political buffoonery, Americans have simply turned a blind eye to New Orleans's reconstruction plight. There is a scolding sentiment around the country that Louisiana needs to get its own house in order before looking for fresh levee handouts.

Then there are egregious contractor crimes such as over-billing and price-gouging. The medical infrastructure has largely collapsed. Mercy and Charity hospitals remain closed. A severe crisis in mental health care has erupted and gang violence is on the rise. The Environmental Protection Agency refuses to clearly state that it's safe to live in the metro area. Young professionals, recognizing that there are greener pastures all over the nation, are fleeing in droves.

Even with our trillion-dollar debt and excessive military expenses in Iraq, the American people, if presented with a bold plan, might be ready to save the beleaguered city. Perhaps the people haven't lost their good Samaritan grit.

Let's, for once, put New Orleans on the front burner. After all, Katrina exposed all the ills of urban America -- endemic poverty, institutionalized racism, failing public schools and much more. New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales.

How we deal with New Orleans's future will tell us a lot about our nation's future. In 2008 it should really be an up or down vote. Category 5 levees or not? An independent FEMA or a FEMA still ensconced in Homeland Security? Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up "no trespassing" signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains.

The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history.

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Yeah - recall BadKnees Man from Bread and Jams - see previus entries. . . his last comment was "You're a racist. This conversation's over." As if he were the be-all and end-all of some judgement? Or, perhaps, he was simply being overbearing because there was nothing to bear in the first place. . . REcall Ronda Pelkey's "Good luck trying to get someone to talk to" when I asked her if I ought speak with someone form HU HR, whose staff meetings she claims to attend. . .

Unless a false truth is promoted unto others, I can see no reason why a discourse would not be allowed.

So - again. . . what is being hidden and denied by inactivity, even discussion?

And to the point of continual runups and, years away frm HU employment, constant bugging, drugging, and shrugging still on the part of the hUMF?

Ah well . . . Let me ponder some steps, take some reasonable action, and let you, reader, know whayt's going on . . .

Be well . . .