Archive for June, 2005

Hard-to-Get Policy Briefings For Congress Are Now Online

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/29/2005
in Energy Policy, Foreign Policy and Science Policy
. 0 Comments

This WaPo bulletin of June 28, 2005 is a true bombshell. The Congressional Research Service reports are now online. Not all of them, but about 3,300 are already posted in the database created by The Center for Democracy and Technology. I have wished for access to the CRS reports for years - thank you CDT!

It’s a bit like Napster — but for policy wonks.

A Washington research group has created a Web site where the public can read, submit and download the difficult-to-find public policy briefs members of Congress use to get up to speed on issues.

The Center for Democracy and Technology has created an online database of Congressional Research Service reports that anyone with an Internet connection can now tap free of charge.

The often-coveted but elusive reports are produced by CRS, a public policy research arm of Congress. CRS, which boasts hundreds of analysts and a $100 million budget, churns out hundreds of briefs each year on a wide range of topics. It recently issued one, for example, called "U.S. Treatment of Prisoners in Iraq: Selected Legal Issues." Another was titled, "Gasoline Prices: Policies and Proposals." A third was "Immigration: Policy Considerations Related to Guest Worker Programs."

The reports have long been praised as nonpartisan, concise and readable. But they are reserved for members of Congress, committees and their staffs. A member of the public can get one generally only if a lawmaker chooses to release it. There is also at least one company, Penny Hill Press of Damascus, Md., that gathers up reports and then sells them for as much as $20 apiece. LexisNexis announced last week that it will also begin offering the reports through its online service.

The CDT, a technology policy organization, complained that the reports are paid for with taxpayer money and ought to be readily available for free to anyone who wants one.

"Taxpayers pay $100 million a year for this resource, yet they don’t have ready access to it," said CDT spokesman David McGuire. "We don’t think they should have to pay twice to get their hands on it."

McGuire predicted the Web site, http://www.opencrs.com , will find an audience among academics, reporters, bloggers, librarians, college students and anyone else looking to bone up on an issue.

A spokeswoman for the Library of Congress — the CRS’s parent agency — said it did not have an opinion of the site. "We suggest that people get them through their congressional offices — that’s the way it’s supposed to be done," Jill Brett said. "If [the CDT] can get the reports and put them up, we can’t stop them."

The site includes searchable links to more than 3,300 reports — and thousands of updates of those reports — that were gathered by the center and five other groups: the National Council on Science and the Environment, the Federation of American Scientists, the library at the University of Maryland’s law school, a Web site associated with the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire and the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism…

Iraq’s Critical Nodes

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/24/2005
in Foreign Policy and Iraq
. 0 Comments

Michael Yon has just posted another important report. Yon has been allowed to join the patrol of Command Sergeant Major Jeffrey Mellinger, who is "responsible for the Multi-National Force in Iraq, including all Coalition officers, enlisted persons and civilians. Every canal and precipice in the battle space, from posh offices to combat-mired swamps, falls under his watch. Across deserts and over mountains, he checks the battle readiness and welfare of the troops. He does not rely on reports, but instead ventures for answers deep into the field with his small nondescript patrol."

Today’s report starts in Mosul, then transits through Baghdad to Kuwait

Sometime later we emerge in Kuwait, a peaceful country that had been swallowed in one gulp by its "civilized" neighbor. An Army medic who was part of the Coalition force that liberated a Kuwaiti hospital told me that when they first entered the nursery, there were dead and dying infants strewn about the floor. Tossed from their "cradles," their heads had been crushed under the boots of Iraqi soldiers, a parting shot as the Iraqi Army fled from real combatants. Meanwhile, retreating soldiers acting on the orders of Saddam Hussein set a forest of oil wells ablaze, raising environmental alarms when the vast Kuwaiti oil fields pumped enough acrid smoke into the atmosphere to create eclipse-like conditions throughout the region. If he couldn’t have Kuwait, he was hell-bent on making it so toxic no one else would want it, while stamping his boots in a tantrum of epic proportions.

then concentrates on one of Iraq’s critical nodes, the two oil terminals that account for 85% of Iraq’s income. The terminals are of course prime targets of the jihadist and Baathist terrorists. Yon outlines the serious challenges that the American, Australian, British and Iraqi defenders face as they work to defend these assets:

…The naval officer says that because KAAOT sits slightly more than one mile outside of Iranian waters, the boats can legally fish the waters up to that point. Scanning the surface, the dozens of boats are difficult even to count as they move around from place to place. Our defenses do not have an entire horizon as a free-fire zone; the attackers can come up nearly atop the tankers and KAAOT. I know practically nothing about naval warfare, yet this looks like a security nightmare drawn straight from the "worst case security scenario" handbook. And tracking the movement of all these fishing vessels does nothing about the threat of divers, submersibles, or myriad other devious means.

Read the whole thing…

Troop Morale and the Home Front

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/23/2005
in Foreign Policy and Iraq
. 4 Comments

Belgravia Dispatch - a useful, short piece pushing the US Administration to explain (and justify) the pro-democracy, pro-Muslim policy:

Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, acknowledged that U.S. troops, too, were becoming aware of the drop in the public’s confidence.
"When my soldiers say to me and ask me the question whether or not they’ve got support from the American people or not, that worries me. And they’re starting to do that," he said.

The Hugh Hewitt’s will tell you it’s the Dick Durbins of the world that are the root cause of Abizaid’s concerns. Or the baddies of the MSM deflating war morale with slanted news coverage. People like Hewitt might have a point, to a fashion. But the real issue, I’d submit, is that no one in this Administration has come clean, really come clean, about how long and hard the war effort in Iraq will be. So the American people have been left surprised and dispirited about how bloody and difficult the going has been. Meantime, rank fools or spinmeisters are declaring victory in the blogosphere and in think tanks. This is as irresponsible and stupid as saying we have already been defeated and should pack up and go home. No one really knows how this effort will play out in the final analysis yet. What is clear, however, is that there is a lot of hard work yet to do–as Abizaid, who knows better than anyone, said today…

Guantanamo - what is true?

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/23/2005
in Counter Terrorism and Politics
. 0 Comments

Thanks to Powerline: Lt. Peter Hegseth sent this letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which editorially endorsed Dick Durbin’s comparison of US troops to Nazis, Communisists and Khmer Rouge killers:

As a recent veteran of Guantanamo Bay, I’ve been troubled by the willingness of some (namely this editorial page) to make uninformed inflammatory statements about the detention operations at GTMO. I believe that if any one of them had the opportunity to visit GTMO and witness the operation first hand, they would change their tone, if not their minds altogether.

Not only are the detainees treated humanely (top-notch medical care, hearty meals, recreational facilities, full access to religious observance, etc..) but I personally witnessed instances when detainees did not want to leave. It was not uncommon for my platoon to guard an airfield for hours in preparation for sending a detainee home, only to turn around and bring him back to the detention facility – because he refused to leave! These detainees are not stupid—they know that real torture and inhumane treatment await them at home. And while I know they’re not happy to be in GTMO, they rest assured that they will be treated well because Americans play by the rules.

I feel sheepish even having to defend this issue. While our servicemen (and innocent Iraqi citizens) are being blown-up and tortured overseas, the media obsesses over a handful of “mishandled” Korans and excessive air conditioning. (It’s also worth noting that these so-called instances of “abuse” at GTMO were all uncovered by internal Army investigations! It’s not as if the Army is torturing people and covering it up. On the contrary, the minute the Army gets wind of minor misconduct it swiftly removes and prosecutes those involved. This is an institution upholding the highest moral traditions of our country.) Would the terrorists do the same? No, I think they’d just wink at us…and then cut our heads off.

LT Peter Hegseth
Forest Lake, MN
U.S. Army National Guard, Infantry

The probability that the MST will publish this letter to the editor? For an Israeli perspective see Hugh Hewitt:

I received this e-mail from Yoni, a veteran of the Israeli defense services, now living in the U.S. but intending to return to Israel and pursue a political career in the future:
"Hugh,

Regarding Andrew Sullivan, torture is not what is happening at Gitmo and
that is not only his mistake but that of the left as a whole.

What is happening at Gitmo is a variation of modern techniques of
interrogation. I can’t go into a lot of detail but people are restrained
in certain ways for extended time periods and also not allowed to sleep
and sensory deprivation is standard.

Do Israelis learn the Koran, yes some do, as well as learn Arabic, but we
also read Mien Komf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all three
books are equal in spreading hatred of Jews.

It was Sun Tzu who said it so clearly when it come to the issue of
victory or defeat. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not
fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the
enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know
neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

Israel and the USA have fallen into the last category due to the efforts
of the left in both countries, the good guys no longer know themselves. We
were not divided in WW2 and we won. If Andrew and Irwin were around 60
years ago America would have lost…

For details on actual US military policy (in contrast to media-imagined policy), this DOD bulletin has links to the particulars:

After this deliberate and determinative legal and policy review, the Secretary of Defense approved the use of 24 techniques for use at Guantanamo on April 16, 2003. Seventeen of the techniques approved for use at Guantanamo come from FM 34-52. Four of the techniques require notification to the Secretary before use.

It is the policy and practice of the Department of Defense to treat detainees in the War on Terrorism humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Convention.

No procedures approved for use ordered, authorized, permitted, or tolerated torture. Individuals who have abused the trust and confidence placed in them will be held accountable. There are a number of inquiries that are ongoing to look at specific allegations of abuse, and those investigations will run their course…

EU 35-hour week? India 35-hour day!

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/19/2005
in Economics
. 0 Comments

Tom Friedman improved his score with this op-ed:

BANGALORE, India It was extremely revealing traveling from Europe to India as French voters - and now Dutch ones - were rejecting the EU constitution - in one giant snub to President Jacques Chirac, European integration, immigration, Turkish membership in the EU and all the forces of globalization eating away at Europe’s welfare states. It is interesting because French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour workweek in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck.

Voters in "old Europe" - France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy - seem to be saying to their leaders: Stop the world, we want to get off; while voters in India have been telling their leaders: Stop the world and build us a stepstool, we want to get on. I feel sorry for Western European blue-collar workers. A world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart, and their governments don’t seem to have a strategy for coping.

…

Yes, this is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work - just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.

(ht: David Warren)

For more on Friedman’s second book on Globalization, see this interview. I’m not plugging it, haven’t read it yet. The Lexus and the Olive Tree was good, odds are the new book is worth at least a library loan.

Terrorism for Everyman - Is America losing the will to fight?

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/17/2005
in Foreign Policy and Iraq
. 0 Comments

Daniel Henninger wrote this powerful op-ed for the 17 June Wall Street Journal. Excerpts (emphasis mine):

As far as I can tell, this is the recent news out of Iraq:

Yesterday: "Six U.S. Servicemen Die in Iraq Violence."

Wednesday: "Surge of Violence Leaves 52 Dead in Iraq."

Monday: "Iraq-Bombing Update: Additional Bombings, Death Toll 10."

It is possible to extend this headline exercise of Iraq news to the horizon. As a physical principle no less established than the second law of thermodynamics, U.S. opinion polls in June outputted these headlines and stories:

June 12: "A Growing Public Restlessness: The June [Post-ABC News] survey found that 58% of its 1,002 respondents now disapprove of the way Bush is handling both the economy and the situation in Iraq.

June 11, AP: "Only 41% said they support Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, also a low-water mark." The "war," of course extends no further than these bombing reports.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the maestro of the Iraqi civilian slaughterhouse, has produced a steady shower of human blood, and as often happens, blood has been a public-opinion downer. Perhaps in his next life al-Zarqawi can come back as an American marketing consultant. Having established there is a U.S. market for American-associated death in Iraq, such as the front page of the Yahoo! news portal, al-Zarqawi is supplying it with daily product. The up-or-down polls he reads are his profit-and- loss statement.

…

The death march of homicidal zombies in Iraq is trying to push us toward accepting the idea that acts of unrestrained violence against other human beings is now a normal part of politics. It is not normal. Any civilized person should want to resist the normalization of civilian killing as a political act–whether in Iraq, Spain, Indonesia or Kashmir.

These matters have been at the heart of John Bolton’s marooned nomination to the U.N. Mr. Bolton’s adversaries criticize his impatience with large bureaucracies tasked to the war on terror, such as the State Department, and worry he won’t respect the U.N. "system."
The U.N. itself has never been able to even agree on a definition of terror. A high-level U.N. panel bluntly concluded last year: "Lack of agreement on a clear and well-known definition undermines the normative and moral stance against terrorism and has stained the United Nations’ image."

Little wonder, then, that our own news coverage of these repeated slaughters of civilians in Iraq also lacks any normative or moral context unfavorable to the perpetrators. And little wonder that in such a world the only "side" many people in the U.S. feel comfortable with is heading for the exits.

Neo-Neocon on Radical Son by David Horowitz

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/16/2005
in Politics
. 0 Comments

Neo-Neocon has been posting comments as she read Radical Son. Now she has finished the Horowitz book:

I’ve just finished Radical Son. Those who recommended it to me were correct; it’s a fascinating account of one of the biggest political "changers" of recent times. David Horowitz was way to the left of me in his "before" shot, but we seem to have ended up somewhat in the same place now.

Horowitz’s book is filled with quotable quotes. From time to time I will post a few. Here he is in 1986, addressing a pro-Sandinista crowd at Berkeley (in the belly of the beast, as it were):

Twenty-five years ago, as one of the founders of the New Left, I was an organizer of the first political demonstrations on this Berkeley campus–and indeed on any campus–to protest our government’s anti-Communist policies in Cuba and Vietnam. Tonight I come before you as a man I used to tell myself I would never be: a supporter of President Reagan, a committed opponent of Communist rule in Nicaragua.

I make no apologies for my present position. It was what I thought was the humanity of the Marxist idea that made me what I was then; it is the inhumanity of what I have seen to be the Marxist reality that has made me what I am now. If my former colleagues who support the Sandinista cause were to pause for a moment and then plunge their busy political minds into the human legacies of their activist pasts, they would instantly drown in an ocean of blood.

When confronted by a reality he couldn’t deny, Horowitz refused to retreat into the world of pretty ideas. He finally faced up to the reality of the carnage created by Communism (and enabled by its "useful idiots" on the left) during the course of the 20th century, from Stalin’s murders to Vietnam and Cambodia after the US pullout. History proved him right on the Sandinistas, too, although I wonder how many in that Berkeley crowd ended up taking note of that fact.

"They would instantly drown in an ocean of blood"…yes. Horowitz didn’t pull his punches when he spoke for the left, and he certainly doesn’t do so now that he’s on the right. That, at least, has not changed.

Christopher Hitchens interview by Peter Robinson Uncommon Knowledge

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/16/2005
in Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq and North Korea
. 3 Comments

This March 25 Hitchens interview covers a lot of ground:

  1. Hitchens conversion from Trotskyist to supporter of the Bush policy in the Middle East;
  2. Vietnam;
  3. Iraq;
  4. Iran;
  5. North Korea.

The interview transcript is here. An MP3 audio file is here for download.

An excerpt from the closing remarks follows:

Peter Robinson: Final couple of questions, describe the Arab world as you believe it will exist a decade from now. Alas I need–what I’m after here is is the Wolfowitz vision and Bush vision of democracy blossoming? Let me just ask you a couple of questions. Iraq will be a functioning democracy a decade from now?

Christopher Hitchens: There’s every reason to think that it could be, yes.

Peter Robinson: Lebanon?

Christopher Hitchens: In some ways, Lebanon already is a functioning democracy. It’s a?

Peter Robinson: Will there be a Palestinian state?

Christopher Hitchens: Yes, there certainly will be a Palestinian state.

Peter Robinson: A decade from now?

Christopher Hitchens: There should have been one two decades ago. There will be one a decade from now.

Peter Robinson: But that’s in prospect?

Christopher Hitchens: Yes.

Peter Robinson: Good. Happy to hear it. Describe the reputation of George W. Bush a decade from now. Last question.

Christopher Hitchens: I’m going to a debate in England in a few weeks, sponsored by the Economist, where I was asked to go come and take the side of the motion that said thank God for George Bush. And I wrote and said since I’ll be at the same festival saying there’s no God to thank, could we not rephrase the motion. And I said what–I would prefer to have it said that history will be kinder, much kinder, to Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair than to Mr. Schroeder or Mr. Chirac or Mr. Kofi Annan. And I think if I phrase it like that, I’ve answered your question.

Peter Robinson: You have indeed. Christopher Hitchens, thank you very much.

(ht: Normblog, Instapundit)

MIT Media Lab - the $100 Laptop Project

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/15/2005
in Technology
. 0 Comments

In January 2005 the MIT Media lab announced an initiative to design and manufacture 100 million Linux laptops with a manufacturing cost goal of $100 or less. The idea is to market the laptops directly to ministries of education, so that individual students will have their own laptop - similar to state of Maine initiative using Apple iBook laptops. The MIT website is silent on whether they envision restricting sales to developing countries only.

What is the $100 Laptop, really? The $100 Laptop will be a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop, which initially is achieved either by rear projecting the image on a flat screen or by using electronic ink (developed at the MIT Media Lab). In addition, it will be rugged, use innovative power (including wind-up), be WiFi- and cell phone-enabled, and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel. The cost of materials for each laptop is estimated to be approximately $90, which includes the display, as well as the processor and memory, and allows for $10 for contingency or profit.

…

Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What’s wrong with community-access centers? One does not think of community pencils—kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to "own" something—like a football, doll, or book—not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.

What about connectivity? Aren’t telecommunications services expensive in the developing world? When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.

What can a $1000 laptop do that the $100 version can’t? Not much. The plan is for the $100 Laptop to do almost everything. What it will not do is store a massive amount of data.

How will these be marketed? The idea is to distribute the machines through those ministries of education willing to adopt a policy of "one laptop per child." Initial discussions have been held with China, where there are approximately 220 million students (for which an order would drive prices way down). In addition, smaller countries will be selected for beta testing. Initial orders will be limited to a minimum of one million units (with appropriate financing).

(ht: Chicago Boyz)

CBO report: results of the Bush tax cuts?

Published
by
Steve Darden
on 6/14/2005
in Economics
. 0 Comments

Stephen Moore surveys the latest Congressional Budget Office report, Wall Street Journal 13 June, 2005. The growth in total tax revenues is consistent with the supply-side economics thesis. But this short article doesn’t really help us identify the independent variables. I.e., how much of the revenue increases were directly caused by the tax cuts vs. the general economic recovery?

Now we have overpowering confirming evidence from the Bush tax cuts of May 2003. The jewel of the Bush economic plan was the reduction in tax rates on dividends from 39.6% to 15% and on capital gains from 20% to 15%. These sharp cuts in the double tax on capital investment were intended to reverse the 2000-01 stock market crash, which had liquidated some $6 trillion in American household wealth, and to inspire a revival in business capital investment, which had also collapsed during the recession. The tax cuts were narrowly enacted despite the usual indignant primal screams from the greed and envy lobby about "tax cuts for the super rich."

Last week the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on tax revenue collections. The numbers are an eye-popping vindication of the Laffer Curve and the Bush tax cut’s real economic value. Federal tax revenues have surged in the first eight months of this fiscal year by $187 billion. This represents a 15.4% rise in federal tax receipts over 2004. Individual and corporate income tax receipts have exploded like a cap let off a geyser, up 30% in the two years since the tax cut. Once again, tax rate cuts have created a virtuous chain reaction of higher economic growth, more jobs, higher corporate profits, and finally more tax receipts.

This Laffer Curve effect has also created a revenue windfall for states and cities. As the economic expansion has plowed forward, and in some regions of the country accelerated, state tax receipts have climbed 7.5% this year already. Perhaps the most remarkable story from around the nation comes from the perpetually indebted New York City, which suddenly finds itself more than $3 billion IN SURPLUS thanks to an unexpected gush in revenues. Many of President Bush’s critics foolishly predicted that states and localities would be victims of the Bush tax cut gamble.

…

See also my earlier post on the Freedom to Choose Flat Tax , a concept so compelling that it’s astonishing there is so little discussion.

 

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