2945 (from 10/4), part One
I came across this, and I figure I'll put it up - it's entries from 10/4 that the computer would not allow me to post (internet censorship, you know):

2898 (10/4/07)--
The times article stopped printing and went haywire . . . I'm trying again . . .
I note a Mr. Bradbury in it . . .
The Sci-Fi angle? See previous entries. . .
Too - the lOopy/Sick kid today (button pushing all the early evening shift, then getting sick. . . ) . . .
washng dishes, I did as I did at Dunkin Donuts, softly spoke under my breath - recall the taping and computer recording htere by Missy and Vicky (and DHS ties; and Wackrow playups ere it . . . see previous etnries) . . .
Loopy got Sick then - just after I muttered perhaps his probie ought come by with a breathalyzer/drug kit . . .
and he was chattied down by the casting doirector . . .
The hUMF learning about this nytimes story coming forward? that explains the Juels lookalike leaving early. . .
HUFers always seem to have a bead on the news just ewre it comes out - see preivous entries . ..
And Jaguars . . . the CA and PA cars - Jaguars . . . for in JP (3d&UP - ah, the ME plate 99993D! tpday - all in the same sixx parking spotsat the base of LimeRock and Main Street in Rockland . . . ) . . . well, there was a Jaguar mechanic shop . . . dealing on the side . . . and this was shortly after Dara and 3D&UP and Yaffe (9/9/99 I was at Rosie's Place - see previus entries, and my posted herein resume . . . )
Well . . .
What;s the conection . . . Yaffe's military now - intelligence, too . . . see previous entries . . . and what are the odds that his wife so resembles the rreservation's specialist at the museum, and his wife's name is also the name of hte woman across the street?
And recall, years ago, the HU HR postings for people not afraid of new twchnology . . .
Hmmmm . . .
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2899 - (10/4/07):
At what point did the HUMF figure I;d break?
How deep is family involved? The import of hte Lorraine organized reunion this November? A chance to get all the kids together for a photo op?
See preivous entries. . .
I sthere anything ot be made of getting official on paperwork at work (for hte 3d time) today?
Will the times story on the Justice Department pushing torture have any impact on the ACLU's push to have domestic wiretapping recisited?
Sadly, The America of only 10 years ago no longer exists . . . and, even sadder, too many who can help restore it to health are cowered . . .
Co, and we all, should be a lot madder . . .
from the article posted earlier: ""Innocent people who are harmed by illegal government surveillance should be able to challenge that surveillance in court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project."
And what of those harmed by psyops teaching and learning . . . ?
See preivous entries. . .
nytimes.com:
October 4, 2007
Clues to 3 Plane Wrecks Could Be Lost in Files Purge
By STEVE FRIESS
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 3 — The Air Force destroyed all records from unsuccessful searches for aircraft missing before 1989, which is likely to make it much harder for Nevada investigators to determine the victims of three wrecks found in the recent search for the aviator Steve Fossett.
The planes were found in the Sierra Nevada region in the four-week search for Mr. Fossett, which was officially suspended on Tuesday without locating him or the single-engine plane in which he vanished on Sept. 3.
During the hunt through 20,000 square miles of rugged terrain in northern Nevada, searchers spotted three crashed planes that had never been noticed. Now that the Fossett search is over, the Civil Air Patrol and the Nevada Division of Emergency Management plan to return to those sites to investigate.
One resource that had been expected to help in the inquiry was “suspended mission files,” kept at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla. Those files are the paper trails of all failed searches for missing aircraft by the Civil Air Patrol, a volunteer Air Force auxiliary group, or any other Air Force resources.
But in 1994, the Air Force instituted a regulation requiring the destruction of records of noncombat missions after seven years. At that time, officials say, personnel at Tyndall destroyed suspended mission file records up to 1989.
Michael Strickler, a spokesman for the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, said, “In theory, we’re not supposed to have any records from anything past October 2000. Why we didn’t do that? I guess we just didn’t get around to it.”
Mr. Strickler said he did not know the reason for the regulation, which did not require Congressional approval. Calls to the Air Force division responsible for such regulations were not returned.
It is believed that the wreckages discovered in the Fossett search date back further than 1989, said a spokeswoman for the Civil Air Patrol Nevada Wing, Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan.
Major Ryan said she was stunned that the files were destroyed. The hope had been that, even if Mr. Fossett was not found, an exhaustive search would at least resolve other mysteries.
“That’s a little disheartening,” Major Ryan said. “They can transfer this stuff to microfilm. So what’s the problem? They’re keeping better track of your tax records.”
William C. Ogle of Gainesville, Fla., was among those disappointed about the destruction of the records. Mr. Ogle’s father, Charles Ogle, disappeared in 1964 after flying out of Oakland, Calif., for Reno in a single-engine plane.
“It sounds sort of dumb,” said Mr. Ogle, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida. “I don’t understand why they’d even do that. It sounds like some colonel or something probably got upset that there was too many files taking up too much space and said get rid of them.”
It is unlikely that the files were that voluminous. Of hundreds of search missions in the last decade, 18 ended without locating the target aircraft, according to Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter, the air patrol’s acting national commander.
A spokesman for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, Gary Derks, said he was less bothered by the destruction of the files because he was not convinced that they would resolve questions about the newly found wrecks.
At one point in the search for Mr. Fossett, officials thought that they had found as many as eight new wrecks. But Mr. Derks said some were spotted more than once, and others had been logged by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Initial surveying of the remaining three wrecks did not find human remains, Mr. Derks said.
“I suspect that in these cases the aircraft was located, the pilot was removed, and aircraft was left there,” Mr. Derks said. “Animals don’t eat shoes and pants. There would be something there to say a person was there.”
The Fossett search files will probably not be destroyed even if he is not found, because an Air Force regulation requires that cases “which have wide media coverage” or missions “having historical research interest” be sent to the National Archives after five years.
Mr. Fossett, 63, set more than 110 aviation records, including becoming the first person to complete a solo uninterrupted flight around the world in a hot-air balloon, and making the longest nonstop flight in aviation history.
He vanished while taking what was to be a short morning jaunt around the region surrounding a ranch 90 miles southeast of Reno owned by William Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate.
Mr. Fossett has yet to be declared presumed dead.
The Fossett and Hilton families continue to send out private search planes. Patrick H. Arbor, a close friend of Mr. Fossett and the former chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade, said, “It looks pretty hopeless,” but pointed to the extraordinary survival skills of Mr. Fossett, who is president of the National Eagle Scouts Association.
“If anyone on this earth could be out there crawling around surviving,” Mr. Arbor said, “it would be Steve.”
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I would guess records purging are a rage . . . see previous entries on USAF . . .
nytimes.com headline blurbs (as of 0019, 10/4 . . .):
Washington »
Democrats Won’t Block Hearing for Gonzales Successor
Senate Approves Military Spending
Republican Senate Stalwart From New Mexico Is Said to Be Retiring
nytimes.com:
October 3, 2007
Scrutiny for Insurers of the Aged
By CHARLES DUHIGG
The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee has asked 11 long-term care insurance companies to explain “troubling data” regarding how policyholders’ claims are handled and paid.
In letters sent this week, the senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, referred to data collected by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which indicated that nationwide complaints about long-term care insurance rose 92 percent from 2001 to 2006. The data also indicated that complaints involving claim denials resulted, in a majority of cases, in reversals that favored consumers.
“This is a pattern of error not typically found in other lines of health-related insurance,” the association wrote.
Senator Grassley has asked the largest long-term care insurers, including Genworth Financial, Conseco and Penn Treaty American Corporation, to provide detailed information on how policyholder claims, inquiries and denials are handled and whether employees receive rewards for denying claims.
In March, The New York Times reported that some long-term care insurers had established procedures that made it difficult, if not impossible, for some policyholders to be paid. That article, which focused on Conseco and Penn Treaty, was mentioned by Senator Grassley in his letters to insurers and by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce when it started a similar investigation in May.
Genworth Financial, in a statement, said the company intended to cooperate fully with Senator Grassley’s request. Conseco and Penn Treaty declined to comment or return phone calls.
This week, Mr. Grassley also asked the Government Accountability Office to examine how private equity ownership had affected the quality of care in nursing homes. In particular, Mr. Grassley asked the agency to examine how many nursing homes had been bought by private investment groups and how conditions had changed after those homes were acquired, and to examine the number of health and safety deficiencies cited by regulators at those homes.
A report in The Times last month said that private equity firms had bought thousands of nursing homes and then often cut expenses and staff, sometimes below minimum legal requirements, to increase profits.
Both investigations come at difficult times for the industries.
Many long-term care insurers have recently announced that they are raising premiums because they underestimated how many policyholders would eventually make claims. Genworth, the nation’s largest provider of individual long-term care policies, said last month that it would raise premiums by as much as 12 percent for some policyholders, the first such increase in the company’s history.
In June, Conseco announced that it was setting aside $250 million to pay a settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by policyholders. That same month, a subsidiary of Penn Treaty was suspended from operating in Florida after regulators said the company failed to file audited financial results. The company has appealed that ruling.
The nursing home industry has also faced questions recently. The Service Employees International Union, one of the biggest labor unions, sent letters to Congress this week asking lawmakers to examine the proposed acquisition of HCR Manor Care, the nation’s largest nursing home chain, by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. “Profit for investors cannot come at the price of patient safety and care,” the union said in a statement.
The acquisition of Manor Care is not yet complete. But, the Carlyle Group said, “We expect to maintain the same high quality care that seniors and their families have come to expect.”
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To sleep now . . .
Some sincere contact and conversation would be quite welcome now . . .
See previous entries. . .
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2900 -- (10/4/2007):
It is a lovely morning . . . I was trying to figure out if the air smelled of spring or a fall, but the moisture is of dew and rain on fallen leaves . . .
Kinda nice . . .
on the other side of the opthre street, there used to be an old pickup that sometimes drove into a driveway in front of a barn there - mom wanted to try to rent it for the car overwinter . . . the old pickup was rebuilt somewhat, with red and white and gray panels . . .the red and the white reminded me of blanton's truck - first the big red dodge that sat in the drive a while at 41 Glenwood . . . Somerville . . . then the smaller white toyota that GoatBike Dave had sent him . . . It just sruck me noew about he Carey Goldberg article quoting Hyman on hte depression-testing to protect the U technology: "as big as a car" - see previous entries. . . thus, a big truck to a smaller truck - metaphoric for hte microtech advances . . .
the barn? i twice told blanton the tale of the news article I had seen - ofthe picturesque MAine barn. .. a number of photographers had come by, snappig shots for postards it was so beautiful a barn in maine; and then someone went inside , and lots of weed was drying out in there . . .
Oy . . .
bostonherald.com:
Drug kingpin’s testimony cornerstone of slay trial
By Peter Gelzinis
Thursday, October 4, 2007 - Added 9h ago
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“And who did you supply with drugs?” the prosecutor asked Eddie Mills.
“All the (street) gangs in Boston were buying drugs from me,” said the short, stocky gentleman with thick shoulders and a shaved head.
Eddie Mills answered assistant district attorney David Meiers question in a voice as flat as a blown tire. He wasn’t bragging because he didn’t need to. From 1993 to 1997, Mills said he supplied a network of street dealers in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Brockton and Taunton with an endless river of crack and cocaine.
He ran his enterprise out of five or six “stash houses” across this city and tooled around in five or six different vehicles, each one outfitted with a “stash compartment” for the drugs as well as Eddie’s .40-caliber Glock.
You don’t go about converting anywhere between one and 10 kilos of cocaine per week into thousands of crack rocks without the assistance of a few ‘associates.” John “Black” Tibbs was once a member of Eddie Mills’ inner circle of drug dealers and henchmen.
Yesterday, Tibbs glared at his former boss/partner from behind a defense table as Eddie Mills calmly fingered him for the 1995 murder of 18-year-old Tennyson Drakes.
Mills told the jury that on the evening of Aug. 11, 1995, he had driven a motorcycle, carrying Tibbs, to the intersection of Nelson and Corbet streets in Mattapan to deliver a retaliatory blow in a long-running blood feud Mills and his drug ensemble were having with the RSO/Corbet street crew.
Mills then described how the friend he called Black got off the bike, approached a group of people standing outside a porch and opened fire with a .40-caliber Glock. When the shooting stopped, Mills said that Tibbs jumped back on the motorcycle, leaving Tennyson Drakes to die and two of his friends paralyzed.
Normally, this would be the key moment by the state’s star witness. But the trial of John Tibbs is anything but normal. For Tibbs is not the first defendant to answer for the murder of Tennyson Drakes. In 1996, Marlon Passley was convicted of killing the young reggae enthusiast and sentenced to life in prison. Four years later, the Suffolk County district attorney was forced to vacate Passley’s conviction, shortly after the feds put an end to Eddie Mills’ drug franchise.
It didn’t take long for the street entrepreneur to negotiate a deal with the feds. Among the litany of murders and other bits of assorted mayhem Eddie was involved in came the episode on Nelson and Corbet streets. There was no testimony in court yesterday that Mills knew Passley, felt sorry for him or harbored some deep-seated grudge against Tibbs. It was strictly business, that’s all. Eddie had a choice between six years in prison, or three times that many.
The rub here is that two days before Eddie Mills took the witness stand to say he delivered Tennyson Drake’s executioner to Corbet street, Mark Thompson, one of the men who survived that fusillade of bullets, testified that he still believed Marlon Passley shot him.
Passley had been involved in a prior beef with Thompson and Drakes at a Mattapan reggae club. But in a haunting voice every bit as certain as it was devoid of any emotion, Eddie Mills’ testimony is now the cornerstone of the commonwealth’s case that John Tibbs jumped off that motorcycle, clad in black and armed with his friend’s Glock, to pay the Corbet gangstas back for the lives they had taken.
The problem is: John Tibbs shot the wrong people. Tennyson Drakes and his fellow reggae followers were not Corbet players. They just lived too close to a free-fire zone.
“When you’re makin’ money,” Eddie Mills told the good people on the jury, “people get jealous. Even though I used to be cool with those guys, once I started makin’ money, I knew they wanted to rob and kill me. That’s just how it is.”
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boston.com:
Data for 450,000 mistakenly released
Social Security numbers on disks
By Michael Naughton, Globe Correspondent | October 4, 2007
The Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure has launched an internal probe and announced plans to review its protocols after the Social Security numbers of about 450,000 licensed professionals were inadvertently released.
The information was mailed last month to agencies that submitted a public records request for the names and addresses of professionals licensed by the division, said Kofi Jones, a spokeswoman for the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, which oversees the division.
The division mailed 28 computer disks to 23 agencies that use the information as a marketing or promotional tool.
Officials said that 26 of the 28 disks have been recovered and that they do not believe anyone's personal information was compromised.
But the news angered at least one professional, who accused state officials of being sloppy in the age of identity theft.
The disks would normally contain only the names and addresses of individuals licensed through the Division of Professional Licensure and the Division of Health Professions Licensure.
However, the fact that the disks also included Social Security numbers was an oversight officials said was caused by a software failure during computer upgrades last month. An employee noticed the error a week later, Jones said.
Officials said the last two disks, which contain the information of 16,000 licensed professionals, are still in the mail.
"We quickly contacted the recipients and told them they had incorrect information," Jones said. "Two of them have not been received yet, but the recipients agreed to return them as soon as they receive them. We also have signed affidavits saying they didn't use them or open them."
The division normally copies disks for various marketing agencies that request the information under the state's public records law, Jones said. The disks were mailed between Sept. 11 and 18, and since then, the division has launched an internal investigation and halted the copying of disks until a review is complete.
"We are working with an information security firm to review our practices and to work with us to create a new protocol for handling sensitive personal information going forward, to make sure it cannot happen again," Jones said. "We were definitely able to mitigate any impact of the licensees by moving as quickly as we did."
Most of the recovered disks were sent to locations within the state or in New Hampshire. The two remaining disks were sent to agencies in Pennsylvania and California.
The agencies are what Jones called regular clients that have been cooperative and have requested information from the division in the past.
Thirty professions overseen by the division were affected, including nursing home administrators, public accountants, registered nurses, and veterinarians.
One affected professional said the release of information concerned him.
"It's totally inappropriate for them to be releasing Social Security numbers," said Michael Bernstein, a veterinarian at the VCA South Shore Animal Hospital. "This is licensing information that has nothing to do with marketing. The thing that's concerning is that people that have these types of records are doing sloppy work."
Division officials said that individuals concerned about their information can place a fraud alert on their credit and monitor their financial accounts for unusual activity.
Individuals can also visit mass.gov/dpl or call 617-973-8100 for more information.
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recall the massive loss and theft of personal data from the university of california campusses shortly after thee civil right project went out htere - see previous etnries . . .
nytimes.com:
Education
Dartmouth Alumni Sue Over Changes
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: October 4, 2007
The Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College went to court to challenge governance changes that the Dartmouth board announced on Sept. 8. Under the plan, Dartmouth’s 18-member board is to be expanded by eight trustees chosen by the board, thereby reducing the proportion of trustees elected by the alumni to one-third, from one-half (not counting New Hampshire’s governor and Dartmouth’s president, who serve ex officio). In papers filed in Grafton County Superior Court, the association said the new plan violated the 1891 agreement under which the alumni and the board each selected an equal number of trustees.
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elite schools, even, can be taken over - see previous entries . . .
nytimes.cm:
October 4, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
A Swiftly Melting Planet
By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Toronto
THE Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn’t be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth’s interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.
A big reason such change happens is feedback — not the feedback that you’d like to give your boss, but the feedback that creates a vicious circle. This type of feedback in our global climate could determine humankind’s future prosperity and even survival.
The vast expanse of ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean always recedes in the summer, reaching its lowest point sometime in September. Every winter it expands again, as the long Arctic night descends and temperatures plummet. Each summer over the past six years, global warming has trimmed this ice’s total area a little more, and each winter the ice’s recovery has been a little less robust. These trends alarmed climate scientists, but most thought that sea ice wouldn’t disappear completely in the Arctic summer before 2040 at the earliest.
But this past summer sent scientists scrambling to redo their estimates. Week by week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., reported the trend: from 2.23 million square miles of ice remaining on Aug. 8 to 1.6 million square miles on Sept. 16, an astonishing drop from the previous low of 2.05 million square miles, reached in 2005.
The loss of Arctic sea ice won’t be the last abrupt change in earth’s climate, because of feedbacks. One of the climate’s most important destabilizing feedbacks involves Arctic ice. It works like this: our release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases around the planet causes some initial warming that melts some ice. Melting ice leaves behind open ocean water that has a much lower reflectivity (or albedo) than that of ice. Open ocean water absorbs about 80 percent more solar radiation than sea ice does. And so as the sun warms the ocean, even more ice melts, in a vicious circle. This ice-albedo feedback is one of the main reasons warming is happening far faster in the high north, where there are vast stretches of sea ice, than anywhere else on Earth.
There are other destabilizing feedbacks in the carbon cycle that involve the oceans. Each year, the oceans absorb about half the carbon dioxide that humans emit into the atmosphere. But as oceans warm, they will absorb less carbon dioxide, partly because the gas dissolves less readily in warmer water, and partly because warming will reduce the mixing between deep and surface waters that provides nutrients to plankton that absorb carbon dioxide. And when oceans take up less carbon dioxide, warming worsens.
Scientists have done a good job incorporating some feedbacks into their climate models, especially those, like the ice-albedo feedback, that operate directly on the temperature of air or water. But they haven’t incorporated as well feedbacks that operate on the atmosphere’s concentrations of greenhouse gases or that affect the cycle of carbon among air, land, oceans and organisms. Yet these may be the most important feedbacks of all.
Global warming is melting large areas of permafrost in Alaska, Canada and Siberia. As it melts, the organic matter in the permafrost starts to rot, releasing carbon dioxide and methane (molecule for molecule, methane traps far more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide).
Warming is also affecting wetlands and forests around the world, helping to desiccate immense peat bogs in Indonesia, contributing to more frequent drought in the Amazon basin, and propelling a widening beetle infestation that’s killing enormous tracts of pine forest in Alaska and British Columbia. (This infestation is on the brink of crossing the Canadian Rockies into the boreal forest that extends east to Newfoundland.) Dried peat and dead and dying forests are vulnerable to wildfires that would emit huge quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.
This summer’s loss of Arctic sea ice indicates that at least one major destabilizing feedback is gaining force quickly. Scientists have also recently learned that the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica, appears to be absorbing less carbon, while Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate.
When warming becomes its own cause, we might not be able to stop extremely harmful climate change no matter how much we cut our greenhouse gas emissions. We need a far more aggressive global response to climate change. In the 1960s, mothers learned that the milk they were feeding their children was laced with radioactive material from atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons and that this contamination could increase the risk of childhood leukemia. Soon women organized themselves in the tens of thousands to demand that nuclear powers ban atmospheric testing. Their campaign largely succeeded.
In response to the new dangers of climate change, we need a similar mobilization — of mothers, of students and of everyone with a stake in the future — now.
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washingtonpost.com:
Senate Approves Pentagon Budget
Associated Press
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A09


The Senate passed a $459 billion budget for the Pentagon yesterday, after adding $3 billion to try to gain control over the U.S. border with Mexico.
The Pentagon spending bill, passed by voice vote, does not include President Bush's request of almost $190 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill does award the Pentagon a 10 percent increase of $43 billion, much of which would be devoted to procuring new and expensive weapons systems.
The border-security money was already included in a spending bill for the Homeland Security Department, but was added to the Pentagon measure in a gambit by Republican leaders to save President Bush from an embarrassing override of his planned veto of the Homeland Security measure.
The border-security spending, especially money to construct 700 miles of fencing to keep illegal immigrants from Mexico from crossing into the United States, is so popular among Republicans that, if necessary, they would vote to override Bush's homeland security veto to obtain financing for the fence.
The border money was added to the Pentagon bill by a 95 to 1 vote.
Loss of an override vote would be a major embarrassment as Bush battles with Congress over the 12 appropriations bills funding the government for the budget year that began on Monday.
Bush vowed to veto the homeland security bill because it exceeds his budget by more than $2 billion.
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and yet - from washingtonpost.com:
Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police
Experts Fear More Will Go to Insurgents
By Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A12


Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.
The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops.
"The problem is that the Iraqi government doesn't have -- as yet -- a clear plan for making sure that weapons are distributed, that they are properly monitored and repeatedly checked," said Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank. "The end-use monitoring will be left in the hands of a government and military in Iraq that is not yet ready for it. And there's not a way for the U.S. to mandate them to do it if they're not U.S. weapons."
News of Iraq's arms deal came as Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top U.S. commander for day-to-day operations in Iraq, told editors and reporters at The Washington Post yesterday that he expects a U.S. troop presence will be required in the country for a minimum of "at least three to five more years" and will involve 25,000 to 50,000 troops, depending on security conditions.
Detailed planning is underway for the U.S. military to begin scaling back its primary mission from one of fighting a counterinsurgency to an advisory and training role, which will involve pulling U.S. troops out of Iraqi cities and closing some U.S. bases, Odierno said. Odierno and Talabani, who met separately with Post editors and reporters, said they expect their governments to finalize a long-term bilateral security pact in 2008.
The capabilities of Iraqi security forces are pivotal to the U.S. exit strategy in Iraq, with the creation of a viable police force critical to reconciliation. Talabani said only one in five Iraqi police officers is armed and called for faster weapons delivery from the United States to beef up Iraq's fledgling army.
Iraq's police force is noted for infiltration by militias and insurgents out to use national resources for their own ends, said William D. Hartung, director of the New America Foundation Arms and Security Initiative. "Besides, aside from possibly wanting newer models, there are piles of arms and weapons floating around in Iraq," he said.
The Chinese arms deal sheds light on the larger dispute between the United States and Iraq over rebuilding Iraq's armed forces and police. Iraqi officials have long complained about the supply of weapons and equipment for their personnel, noting that Iraqi security forces often patrol in pickup trucks without body armor along the same routes as U.S. troops wearing flak jackets and riding in armored vehicles.
"There is general frustration in the Iraqi government at the rate in which Iraqi armed forces are being equipped and armed," Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie told reporters this summer. "This is a collaborative effort between the Iraqi government and the government of the United States, and the process is not moving quickly enough to improve the fighting capacity of Iraqi armed forces. A way must be found to improve this process."
Talabani yesterday expressed frustration with the delays. "The capacity of the factories here are not enough to provide us quickly with all that we need, even for the army. One of our demands is to accelerate the delivery of the arms to the Iraqi army."
Iraq has become one of the largest buyers of U.S.-made weapons. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that Baghdad has signed deals to buy $1.6 billion in U.S. arms, with another $1.8 billion in possible weapons purchases.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States is "working closely" to help Iraq obtain "appropriate and necessary" military equipment. But U.S. officials concede delivery problems.
"We haven't converted toaster factories to produce carbines and we're working hard just to supply our own troops," said an administration official involved with Iraq policy. "Our factories are working for our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."
In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16 assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the United States since 2004 missing.
Nevertheless, Odierno said, recent improvements in Iraq's security since the U.S. troop buildup have exceeded his expectations, with attacks down in September to the lowest level since January 2006 and U.S. troop casualties declining since June. A major factor has been U.S. operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose sanctuaries have been reduced by 60 to 70 percent since January, he said. He warned, however, that the group can regenerate.
Another factor has been the unexpected willingness of Sunni tribes to cooperate with U.S. and Iraqi forces, he said. But Odierno said he remains concerned over recent statements from Iraq's Shiite ruling faction demanding that the U.S. military stop recruiting Sunni tribesmen f0r Iraq's police force.
"That's uncomfortable to them, and I think that's part of why it's so important. This is about reconciliation," Odierno said. "We have to continue to move forward."
He said the U.S. military is shifting more of its resources to targeting Shiite militias, including what Odierno called "surrogates" who are trained, armed and funded by Iran, as well as "special groups" affiliated with the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"We are starting to see at low levels a split between those [Shiite militias] who have some relationship with Iran . . . and those who do not," Odierno said. He said the significance of the "fissures" is not yet clear.
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and yet - from washingtonpost.com:
Federal Guards to Protect Agents in Blackwater Investigation
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A15


The FBI said yesterday that a team of agents assigned to investigate allegations of misconduct by Blackwater contractors in Baghdad will be protected there by U.S. government security rather than Blackwater guards.
The State Department, which contracts with Blackwater to protect U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq, requested FBI "assistance" in a probe of a Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards allegedly shot and killed at least 11 Iraqi civilians. The investigation is likely to include travel to the site of the shooting in western Baghdad and interviews with Iraqi witnesses.
Under Blackwater's State Department contract, the company provides security for all official travel outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that security for the team would be handled by the department's Diplomatic Security Service.
The New York Daily News reported yesterday that Blackwater personnel would be protecting the FBI agents. That prompted Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department operations, to urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to bar Blackwater employees from the investigation.
McCormack said the issue was under discussion before Leahy's letter to Rice was received and he did not know whether Rice had seen it.
The Iraqi government has charged Blackwater guards with reckless behavior in this and previous shootings that resulted in Iraqi civilian deaths and property damage. Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince has said his personnel "acted appropriately at all times." The State Department contractors are immune from Iraqi law, and none has been prosecuted under U.S. law.
Also yesterday, the White House said it is opposed to a House bill that would extend current federal law covering Defense Department contractors overseas to those working for the State Department. A statement from the Office of Management and Budget said the bill was too vague and would have unspecified "intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security activities and operations."
It said the measure, which was debated on the House floor yesterday and is scheduled for a vote today, would add to the Defense Department's burden in the midst of military operations.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, is also backed by a trade organization of private security contractors that includes Blackwater and other firms working in Iraq.
---------
washingtonpost.com:
Lawmakers Will Proceed on Climate Plan
Leaders Focus on System of Tradable Allowances for Greenhouse Gas Emissions
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A04


Legislative leaders in the House and Senate said yesterday that they plan to press ahead with proposals to limit U.S. emissions linked to global warming, focusing on mandatory, economy-wide caps of the kind that President Bush explicitly rejected last week in a climate conference he hosted.
While the bills are less ambitious than many climate scientists and environmental activists have wanted, they indicate that Congress plans to press ahead with a sweeping climate change proposal despite the president's opposition.
Yesterday, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a white paper outlining a cap-and-trade system that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent to 80 percent below current levels. Under the system envisioned by Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and a key subcommittee chairman, Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the federal government would distribute greenhouse gas allowances that could be bought and sold, though the lawmakers left open the possibility of using taxes as well.
It remains unclear how much Republican support Dingell and Boucher's proposal will enjoy in the House, and when legislation might advance. Asked whether GOP members backed the plan, Dingell spokeswoman Jodi Seth responded in an e-mail, "You'll have to check with the Republicans."
Boucher has vowed to work with his GOP counterpart on the subcommittee on energy and air quality, former speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), but Hastert spokeswoman Lulu Blacksmith said her boss had not taken a position and "is in the process of reviewing the document."
The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works plans to move a bipartisan bill through committee in December, at a time when international climate negotiators will be meeting in Bali. Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will lead a Senate delegation to the talks along with John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).
"Moving global warming legislation is a top priority," Boxer said in a statement. "I am optimistic that we can get a strong global warming bill through the subcommittee very soon and through the full committee by the end of the year."
The panel plans to take up a cap-and-trade bill authored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) that includes a Federal Reserve-style board to help contain the costs imposed on carbon emitters and aims for a 70 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2050. It also will take up several other climate bills with both deeper and more modest emissions cuts.
Environmental advocacy groups welcomed these overtures. Steve Cochran, national climate campaign director for Environmental Defense, said yesterday's white paper "appears to be a serious attempt by Chairmen Dingell and Boucher to take the initial steps toward developing comprehensive climate legislation in the House."
David D. Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, said that while he and other environmentalists back an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases, Dingell and Boucher's blueprint amounts to "a very constructive opening move."
However, Lee Fuller, vice president of government relations at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said lawmakers have underestimated the challenge of reaching their reduction targets by assuming that as many as 145 new nuclear power plants will come online by 2030.
"Is that realistic? Our sense is no," Fuller said.
============
latimes.com snippets:
Congress moves to rein in contractors overseas
By Josh Meyer and Julian E. Barnes
The House is expected to make it clear that U.S. laws apply to all armed firms hired by the government.
• Blog: Blackwater's Prince tied to GOP
• Debate may derail firm's project
• Bush: Iraq exit would bolster Iran
-------
latimes.com:
Congress moves to rein in contractors
Efforts are underway to hold Blackwater, other firms accountable in Iraq. The White House warns of placing burdens on the military.
By Josh Meyer and Julian E. Barnes
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 4, 2007
WASHINGTON — Violent acts by private security contractors in Iraq have sparked a major new confrontation between Congress and the White House, with lawmakers on Wednesday moving to ensure that the armed guards be held accountable under U.S. law if they harm Iraqi civilians without justification.
With bipartisan support, the House is expected today to take up legislation that would make it clear that U.S. laws apply to all armed private contractors hired for overseas missions.
The measure was intended by supporters to clarify a federal statute that many contend allows private security guards protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq and elsewhere to avoid prosecution for shooting without cause.
However, the White House, backed by some of its allies in Congress, expressed "grave concerns" and said in a statement that the measure would place "inappropriate and unwarranted burdens" on the U.S. military in war zones.
Backers expected the bill, sponsored by Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), to pass with bipartisan support in a House vote today. Senate supporters were preparing to offer a corresponding measure. Administration officials did not say whether a veto would be considered if the measure passes.
Whatever the outcome, the fight has further inflamed debate over an increasingly controversial aspect of the U.S. mission in Iraq: the use of tens of thousands of heavily armed private security contractors. It also appeared to widen the gap between congressional war critics and the White House over the war and U.S. efforts to combat terrorism.
The question of contractor accountability has sparked several government reviews and has become an issue in the national presidential campaign.
In one review by the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that military experts urged a series of steps to provide improved accountability.
Gates said the recommendations for tightened oversight of Pentagon contractors "look very reasonable to me and I anticipate that we will move forward toward trying to implement them."
In debate on the House floor, Democrats called for greater accountability for the U.S. private security presence in foreign countries. Some Republicans defended the status quo as necessary to advance the U.S. war effort -- even though lax oversight of the contractors has drawn sharp criticism from the Iraqis and their fledgling government.
Other Republicans said they supported the intent of the Price legislation but criticized the bill as sloppy and vaguely worded.
"We think we could do much better," said Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.).
The House bill would attempt to clarify long-standing confusion over whether U.S. laws apply to government contractors working in other countries.
While existing statutes subject Pentagon contractors to U.S. law, the status of contractors hired by the State Department and other U.S. agencies is less clear.
In particular, legal experts are undecided whether the other contractors are covered by the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which applies U.S. laws to contractors working abroad.
The question has grown more important with revelations of violent incidents involving private security contractors. At least 11 Iraqis were killed Sept. 16 in a shooting involving employees of Blackwater USA, a private company hired to protect U.S. diplomats.
On other occasions, guards have shot and killed Iraqis and then left the country without facing legal consequences. In one incident, a Blackwater employee was quickly flown out of the country after killing an Iraqi vice president's security guard after a December holiday party.
Currently, the extraterritorial jurisdiction act applies to contractors "supporting the mission of the Department of Defense overseas." Some legal experts have interpreted that wording as pertaining only to contractors paid by the Pentagon.
Others say that while the wording is unclear, the law easily could be used to hold all private contractors accountable as it is -- even though the law has rarely, if ever, been used for that purpose.
"If the Justice Department wanted to, they could prosecute these cases under MEJA, but they are not doing that," said Kevin Lanigan, director of the law and security program at Human Rights First, a legal organization that has studied the issue of accountability for contractors. "But I do think it is useful and important to clarify this and end the discussion over whether it applies."
Beside clarifying the law, Price's legislation also would create an FBI unit to investigate accusations of wrongdoing by contractors in war zones.
"If we do not hold contract personnel accountable for misconduct, as we do for our military," Price said, "we are undermining our nation's credibility as a country that upholds the rule of law."
Some lawmakers agreed with White House objections that bill would leave the FBI stretched thin. "It is a diversion of assets they are using in the United States to keep our citizens safe and protect us from terrorists," Forbes said.
The White House also objected to what it said would be a sweeping extension of the U.S. criminal code overseas, calling it an "unintended and intolerable" consequence of passage of the bill.
However, the White House said it supports efforts to provide greater accountability for contractor misconduct and offered to work on other approaches.
Price said the Bush administration's opposition "should infuriate anyone who believes in the rule of law."
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a presidential candidate, has indicated he will sponsor a corresponding measure in the Senate. Like Price, Obama has been pushing for increased contractor accountability since February. He said he plans to attach the measure to the supplemental war funding bill if the Senate legislation fails.
"Most contractors currently act as if the law doesn't apply to them, because it doesn't," Obama said at a campaign appearance in Iowa on Wednesday. "That has to end."
=======================
thecrimson.com:
Ralliers Cry Foul in Firing of Librarian
Published On 10/4/2007 6:10:30 AM
By JEREMY S. SINGER-VINE
Crimson Staff Writer

Student protesters and union members gathered yesterday outside the Holyoke Center to protest the August firing of a Harvard library assistant who had been arrested for allegedly making terrorist threats in the Alewife T station.
The rally was staged by the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) and the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. The groups have demanded that the University rehire the longtime employee, David S. Toomey, an assistant at the Harvard College Library’s technical services division. The groups said Harvard discriminated against Toomey, a 20-year library veteran who they said has a medical disability.
Toomey was arrested on May 10 and charged with disorderly conduct and making terrorist threats after other commuters at the Alewife T Station allegedly overheard him say he had a bomb in his backpack. The criminal case has not yet been decided.
Shortly after the arrest, Harvard administrators put Toomey on leave and requested that other library employees report any concerns they had about his behavior, according to union representatives. The university fired Toomey, who was still on leave, on August 3.
Harvard College Library spokeswoman Beth Brainard said Toomey’s termination was due to “performance and work-related issues” and unrelated to the subway incident.
Brainard declined to comment further, citing University policy not to discuss specific personnel matters.
Karen O’Brien, Toomey’s union representative, said the University breached its contract with the union by firing Toomey without following the proper grievance process, which includes several levels of mediation.
“This termination came out of the blue. He said his part of the story, and then he got a letter saying he was fired,” O’Brien said.
Union representative Geoff Carens said Toomey was unfairly treated because of a permanent medical condition. The union declined to make Toomey or a lawyer available for comment.
“They have been harassing him for 10 years or more with tons and tons of petty complaints,” Carens said.
The dispute is in mediation, according to the University and union representatives, and University spokesman Joe Wrinn said that the process is being expedited for Toomey’s case.
The protesters outside the Holyoke Center are calling for even quicker action.
“I think it has been one of the more gross violations of workers’ rights in my time here,” said Adaner Usmani ’08, a SLAM member, before the rally. “We’ve been pushing for a better grievance procedure, and this is a clear example that [a better procedure] is necessary.”
Genevieve Butler, a former library employee who knew Toomey, joined the roughly 20 protesters yesterday.
“He’s a nice, quiet guy. What they are saying he did is totally out of character,” Butler said.
-------------------------------------------------
Sadly, this is the story most will read . . .
But - the U is fraught with this kind of stuff . . . see previous etnries . . .
thecrimson.com:
Boston Approves Allston Complex
Harvard says quick construction will help researchers
Published On 10/4/2007 6:21:03 AM
By LAURA A. MOORE and MICHELLE L. QUACH
Crimson Staff Writers

BOSTON—Harvard received unanimous approval yesterday to build its 589,000-square-foot science complex in Allston, the first project to get the go-ahead in the University’s 50-year planned expansion across the Charles River.
The four-building complex, approved last night by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, will house the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.
Harvard planners hope that the $1 billion complex, which will sit at the intersection of Western Avenue and North Harvard Street, will turn Allston into a mecca for stem cell research.
“We really think it will advance research in human disease,” said Christopher M. Gordon, the chief operating officer for Harvard’s Allston Development Group. “We think it’ll help the economy, we think it will keep Boston as number one in the life sciences market.”
The new complex, home to sky bridges, winter gardens, and an inner courtyard, will utilize wind and solar energy to keep greenhouse gas emissions at an unprecedented 50 percent of the national standard.
At yesterday’s meeting, Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman said that obtaining approval on the project would prove essential in attracting and retaining world-class scientists at Harvard.
“If we can’t move ahead in a timely fashion, I think we will lose many of our leading scientists to other areas,” he told members of the Boston Redevelopment Authority before the decision was announced. “Keeping this dream team together is absolutely critical.”
Although many members of the community were in favor of the scientific aims of the project, some expressed concern about Harvard’s level of communication with neighbors during planning.
“To say that the community questions went unanswered at times would be an understatement,” said State Representative Michael J. Moran. “Question after question after question, night after night would go unanswered.”
But Hyman assured the community that Harvard was committed to addressing the needs of residents.
“Frankly, we’re not going to blow it,” he said. “We want to keep working with you over a very long time. So this has to be a mutually constructive and beneficial relationship.”
Over the coming months, Harvard will finalize a community benefits package and a plan to mitigate construction-related inconveniences.
===========
901 (10/4/07) --
Cute - the get fuzzy today . . . oy . . . see previous entries on that (especially the three books series in late '04) . . .
2 InBox and 10 spam from the yahoo account:
InBox --
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NYTimes.com Today's Headlines: Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations Thu Oct 04, 2007 43k
--------------
Spam --
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==============================
Oy, I say . . . the same . . .
form the Abt Associates website:
National Science Foundation Program for Graduate Students Benefits Faculty and Institutions
The results of an impact evaluation performed by Abt Associates indicate that the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Graduate Educations and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) offers important benefits for faculty and institutions participating in the program. Faculty members report that the IGERT program gives them the opportunity to do more interdisciplinary work, teach a greater variety of students, and teach a broader range of topics within courses.
Through support of interdisciplinary graduate education programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the IGERT program aims to educate U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional, and personal skills to become, in their own careers, leaders and creative agents for change. IGERT also aims to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. The IGERT program strives to facilitate diversity in student participation and preparation, thus contributing to the development of a diverse, globally-engaged, science and engineering workforce.
An evaluation conducted by Abt Associates examined IGERT program impacts on recruitment, students, faculty, and institutions, using surveys and interviews with IGERT participants and a comparison group of non-IGERT individuals.
While interdisciplinary activities are common among all faculty surveyed, IGERT faculty and department chairs report an additional shift towards more interdisciplinary work as a result of IGERT participation. IGERT faculty members team-teach with colleagues outside their departments and mentor graduate students from other disciplines in greater frequencies than non-IGERT faculty members. A majority of IGERT faculty members report that participating in IGERT has enabled them to teach a greater variety of students and incorporate a broader range of topics in courses. With respect to interdisciplinary research, more IGERT faculty publish and present research in journals and conferences from outside their home disciplines, and are more likely to work on research projects and co-author publications with colleagues from other disciplines.
According to the IGERT faculty respondents, participating in the program has been a stimulating professional experience, one to which they are willing to devote substantial time with little direct compensation while generally maintaining other departmental responsibilities. Large majorities of the faculty members feel that IGERT enabled them to establish work with colleagues in other departments and exposed them to new ideas. About half of the faculty members reported learning new research techniques, exploring research that would not otherwise be funded, or being in a better position to win new grants as a result of IGERT. These outcomes suggest important benefits for faculty participating in IGERT that have the potential to increase support for interdisciplinary approaches to graduate education.
Results also suggest that IGERT projects help advance interdisciplinary graduate education in participating institutions. Project PIs report that their projects have led to policy changes for interdisciplinary coursework and teaching, revised degree requirements, and created new degrees and certificates, as well as increased university support for interdisciplinary education in general.
Participating department chairs point to IGERT grants as stimulating the development of new courses, and to a lesser extent, new degrees and requirements for doctoral students. Additionally, faculty members and department chairs perceive stronger departmental and institutional support for interdisciplinary research and education at IGERT institutions than non- IGERT institutions, though support for interdisciplinary education overall is modest compared with interdisciplinary research. These reported institutional impacts vary across projects and may appear to be small within the scope of universities, but they are an indication that IGERT is catalyzing changes in graduate education via a funding mechanism that primarily supports graduate students.
---------------------------------------
And HU posting and unposting for a new interfaculty (interdisciplinary) initiative director . . .
Hmmm . . .
and in the corner of hte bar last night (spilling a drink even), the prof and stu crew oft seen behind the glass wall at the library . . .
Hmmm . . .
Ah, Good . . . 1000 and no call form work . . .
Good . . .
now to read that article, which I;m sorry to say I have not seen in any other news oputlet this far . . .
Arrest contests in California?
Oy . . .
more later . . .
---------------------------
2902 (10/4/2007):
Good news, form hone, is I could access the journal into the past - hopefully others can too -- read it form the beginning folks . . .
HU hR:
31746 F-T 058 Associate Director, Development
Harvard Business School External Relations 10/04/2007
31745 F-T 024 Workstation Operator B-Vacation Relief
University Operations Services Operatirons Center 10/04/2007
--------------------------------
Oy . . .