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Obama accuses Clinton campaign of mud-slinging with Novak column

2007-11-18T10:22:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/18/MNUTTEMT6.DTL

Obama accuses Clinton campaign of mud-slinging with Novak column

Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Sunday, November 18, 2007

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(11-18) 04:00 PST Las Vegas --

The Democratic presidential race burst into its angriest brawl yet Saturday when Barack Obama charged Hillary Rodham Clinton with mud-slinging "swift boat" politics and intimidation - an accusation the New York senator sharply denied and said dramatized Obama's unreadiness for the nation's top office.

The set-to kicked off after syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak, in an item to appear today, wrote that "agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it."

The columnist suggested that "this word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent," and said that Clinton's strategy appeared to be aimed at wanting to "avoid a repetition of 2004, when attacks on each other by presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were mutually destructive and facilitated John Kerry's nomination."

Reached on Saturday, Novak would not reveal the source of the item but said the information did not come directly from the Clinton camp. "(It) was said to Democratic sources ... by people inside the Clinton campaign," he said. "It was not specified what it was, and it was said to a Democratic source. Clinton would not reveal it because she is such a good person."

Still, the Novak piece prompted an aggressive response from Obama, who - in an unusual move - released a six-paragraph statement that flatly accused Clinton of political hypocrisy and dirty tactics.

Obama's statement said that during the Democratic debate here Thursday, even as Clinton railed against "the politics of throwing mud," her campaign appeared to be either digging for dirt on his personal life or working in conjunction with Novak to intimidate him.

"If the purpose of this shameless item was to daunt or discourage me or supporters of our campaign from challenging and changing the politics of Washington, it will fail. In fact, it will only serve to steel our resolve," the Illinois senator said. He urged Clinton to "either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none."

And in his toughest attack on her yet, Obama added that "the cause of change in this country will not be deterred or sidetracked by the old 'swift boat' politics. The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it."

"Swift boat" refers to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," a group of veterans who disparaged the Vietnam War record of 2004 presidential candidate Kerry, D-Mass.

Clinton, who was campaigning for the support of union workers in Las Vegas on Saturday before heading to California, quickly refuted Obama's statement.

As the senator was about the accept the endorsement of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, Jay Carson, a spokesman for Clinton, said her campaign categorically denied the Obama statement and the suggestion in the Novak column.

"Do you really think Bob Novak will be the repository of information about the Clinton campaign?" he said. "We have no contact with Bob Novak; we don't have any idea what this column is based on. ... We have absolutely no idea what the reference is in this column. None," he said. "This column is wholly baseless."'

With less than two months before the crucial Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, Saturday's exchange reveals the escalating tensions between Clinton and Obama, who are virtually tied in Iowa.

Clinton didn't address Obama's statement in her Las Vegas appearances, but she did take some direct shots at her rival. "My health care plan covers every American," she said. "Sen. Obama's doesn't."

Clinton's campaign accused Obama of using Republican talking points with the Novak column.

"These are the kinds of attacks that Republicans engage in, and the kinds of traps they set for Democratic candidates," Carson said. "A Republican-leaning columnist puts out a statement, a baseless statement accusing Sen. Clinton of some sort of activity. ... What (Obama) is doing is parroting Republican talking points."

Carson suggested that the tactic - coming from a candidate who has trumpeted "the politics of hope" - was a symptom of Obama's inexperience, and he suggested Obama is untested for the tough road ahead.

"Democratic candidates who don't know how to avoid traps like this are not going to do very well in a general election against Republicans," Carson said, adding that Obama should "get back to issues."

That prompted Obama campaign manger David Plouffe to charge Clinton's campaign with "evasion and deflection," and he demanded an answer to "two simple direct questions: Are 'agents' of their campaign spreading these rumors? And do they have 'scandalous' information that they are not releasing? Yes or no."

Carson's response: "No and no. ... You have to seriously question the experience of a candidate who would fall into this Republican trap."

The Obama campaign appeared to back off late Saturday, saying of the Clinton camp, "we take them at their word."

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Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy, many say

2007-11-18T10:19:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/18/europe/climate.php

Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy, many say

By Elisabeth Rosenthal and James Kanter

Published: November 18, 2007

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VALENCIA, Spain: The blunt and alarming final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released here by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, may well underplay the problem of climate change, many experts and even the report's authors admit.

The report describes the evidence for human-induced climate change as "unequivocal." The rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere thus far will result in an average rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, or 1.4 meters, it concluded.

"Slowing - and reversing - these threats is the defining challenge of our age," Ban said upon the report's release Saturday.

Ban said he had just completed a whirlwind tour of some climate change hot spots, which he called as "frightening as a science-fiction movie."

He described ice sheets breaking up in Antarctica, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and children in Chile having to wear protective clothing because an ozone hole was letting in so much ultraviolet radiation.

The panel's fourth and final report summarized and integrated the most significant findings of three sections of the panel's exhaustive climate-science review that were released from January through April, to create an official "pocket guide" to climate change for policy makers who must now decide how the world will respond.

The first covered climate trends; the second, the world's ability to adapt to a warming planet; the third, strategies for reducing carbon emissions. With their mission now concluded, the hundreds of IPCC scientists spoke more freely than they had previously.

"The sense of urgency when you put these pieces together is new and striking," said Martin Parry, a British climate expert who was co-chairman of the delegation that wrote the second report.

This report's summary was the first to acknowledge that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could result in a substantive sea level rise over centuries rather than millennia.

"Many of my colleagues would consider that kind of melt a catastrophe" so rapid that mankind would not be able to adapt, said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University who contributed to the IPCC.

Delegations from hundreds of nations will be meeting in Bali, Indonesia in two weeks to start hammering out a global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the current climate change treaty. The first phase of the Kyoto Treaty expires in 2012.

"It's extremely clear and is very explicit that the cost of inaction will be huge compared to the cost of action," said Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia University's Earth Institute. "We can't afford to wait for some perfect accord to replace Kyoto, for some grand agreement. We can't afford to spend years bickering about it. We need to start acting now."

He said that delegates in Bali should take action immediately where they do agree, for example, by public financing for demonstration projects on new technologies like "carbon capture," a "promising but not proved" system that pumps emissions underground instead of releasing them into the sky. He said the energy ministers should start a global fund to help poor countries avoid deforestation, which causes emissions to increase because growing plants absorb carbon in the atmosphere.

Although the scientific data is not new, this was the first time it had been looked at together in its entirety, leading the scientists to new emphasis and more sweeping conclusions.

But even as the IPCC was working toward its conclusions over the past several years, a steady stream of even more alarming data has come in.

"The IPCC is a five-year process and the IPCC is struggling to keep up with the data - we are all being inundated with new evidence and new science," said Hans Verolme, director of the Global Climate Change Program at the conservation organization WWF.

"And the new science is saying: 'You thought it was bad? No it's worse.' "

The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, an engineer and economist from India, acknowledged the new trajectory. "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," Pachauri said. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

He said that since the IPCC began work on its current report five years ago, scientists have recorded "much stronger trends in climate change," like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. "That means you better start with intervention much earlier."

"If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem to be getting progressively worse," Pachauri said later in an interview. "So you'd better start with the interventions even earlier. Now."

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Another computer with veterans’ data stolen

2007-11-15T14:55:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_veterans_stolendata_071115w/

Another computer with veterans' data stolen

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Nov 15, 2007 13:20:58 EST

In a déjà vu announcement, the Department of Veterans Affairs says a computer containing the names, Social Security numbers and birthdates of 12,000 veterans was taken over the Veterans' Day weekend from the VA medical center in Indianapolis.

Three computers were taken from an unlocked room at the Roudebush VA medical center in Indianapolis, and one computer contained records that could be used for identity theft. Federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies are investigating.

The records are of veterans who had been treated as patients at the hospital. They could include information about what medical examinations the veterans had received but not the results of the exams.

"I am upset that the VA repeatedly fails to comply with its own policy to safeguard veterans' personal information," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the former chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, who has been pushing VA to improve computer security.

"The VA must give immediate assurance to over 12,000 veterans that it will provide full credit monitoring and protection of sensitive personal information," Buyer said.

VA officials had no immediate response to questions about the theft.

A policy established earlier this year calls for immediate notification of everyone whose information is missing and a review of the potential threat of identity theft in such situations. Buyer was the chief sponsor of the legislation that created the policy.

If there is a risk of identity theft, VA policy calls for the government to provide free credit monitoring to those affected.

The policy was created after the May 2006 theft from the home of a VA employee of a laptop and computer storage device with personal information on more than 26 million people.

VA also has been trying to make its computers and computerized records more secure, an effort that includes requiring personal data to be encrypted. It is not known if records taken in the Indianapolis theft were encrypted.

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Mental Health Problems of Iraq Veterans May Be Delayed

2007-11-15T14:54:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/AnxietyStress/tb/7387

Mental Health Problems of Iraq Veterans May Be Delayed

By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
November 15, 2007

Add Your Knowledge™

Additional Anxiety & Stress Coverage

Charles Milliken, M.D.
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

SILVER SPRING, Md., Nov. 15 -- For soldiers returning from Iraq, the full extent of mental health problems may take six months or more to surface, Pentagon investigators reported.

This could explain, in part, why the Department of Defense's mental health care system is overwhelmed, asserted Charles S. Milliken, M.D., and colleagues, of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research here, in the Nov. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Action Points

Explain to those who ask that this study suggests that mental health problems among returning veterans may be more pervasive than originally thought, and that reservists seem to be affected in larger numbers than active-duty soldiers.

Among more than 88,000 U.S. soldiers back from Iraq who had an immediate post-deployment screening, a follow-up about six months later revealed a higher number of positives for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), interpersonal conflicts, and referrals for mental health problems, they found.

In all, after the second screening, one-fifth of all active-duty soldiers back from Iraq and two-fifth of all reservists were found on screening to have a mental health concern requiring treatment.

"Reserve and active soldiers reported similar rates of potentially traumatic combat experiences (69.6% versus 66.5%), hospitalization during deployment (6% versus 5.3%), and overall mental health concerns on the post-deployment health assessment (17.5% versus 17%)," the investigators wrote.

"However, by the time of the post-deployment health reassessment, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers reported substantially higher rates of interpersonal conflict, PTSD, depression, and overall mental health risk (35.5% versus 27.1%, odds ratio: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.44 to 1.53; P<0.001)."

Although the Walter Reed group reported 20 months ago that 19% of returning Iraq veterans had mental health problems, the same authors now say they may have seriously underestimated the scope of the problem.

The largest increase from one screening to the next was in concerns about interpersonal conflict, which went from 3.5% to 14% among active-duty personnel, and from 4.2% to 21.1% of reservists.

Similarly, PTSD-positive screens increased from 11.8% to 16.7% among regular forces. Among reserves, the PTSD-positive increase jumped from 12.7% to 24.5%.

Depression was seen in 4.7% of active-duty forces at the first assessment and 10.3% at the reassessment, with depression among reserves rising from 3.8% at screening 1 to 13% at screening 2.

"A recent congressionally mandated task force found the existing Department of Defense mental health system to be overburdened, understaffed, and underresourced," the investigators wrote. "This study suggests that the mental health problems identified by VA clinicians in more than a quarter of recent combat veterans may have already been present within months of returning from war."

Other investigators have found that a quarter of all veterans treated at VA hospitals after returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought mental health problems home. When psychosocial and behavioral problems were thrown into the mix, nearly a third of these veterans who sought care at aVA facility had a diagnosis of a mental health-related disorder.

Additionally, more than half the returning vets who had a mental health diagnosis were found to have two or more mental health disorders, wrote Karen H. Seal, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California at San Francisco and the San Francisco VA, and colleagues in the March 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Another study showed that only one in five veterans returning from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan with signs of posttraumatic stress disorder is actually screened for it, the Government Accountability Office reported in May of 2006. (See: A Quarter of Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Show Mental Health Problems)

The Walter Reed investigators reported in JAMA in March of 2006 that 19.1% of soldiers and Marines who returned from Iraq met risk criteria for a mental health concern, compared with 11.3% for those deployed to Afghanistan and 8.5% for those sent to other locations. The adjusted odds ratio for service personnel sent to Iraq compared with other deployment locations was 2.72 (95% confidence interval: 2.63 to 2.80, P<0.001).

Now, these authors say, they may have seriously underestimated the size of the problem.

In the current study, the Walter Reed team reported on a population-based, longitudinal descriptive study of the initial large cohort of 8,235 U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq who completed both a Post-Deployment Health assessment and a Post-Deployment Health Reassessment, with a median of six months between the two.

The main outcome measures were a positive screen for PTSD, major depression, alcohol abuse or misuse, or other mental health problems, as well as referrals for and use of mental health services.

They found that at the second assessment soldiers reported more mental health concerns and were referred at significantly higher rates compared with their immediate post-deployment assessment.

The authors found that soldiers indicated more mental health distress on the reassessment than on the first screening, and were referred at higher rates.

National Guard and reserve soldiers were also more than three times as likely as active soldiers to be referred for mental health concerns at the second assessment, when referrals from employee-assistance programs were included (36.2% versus 14.7%, odds ratio for reservists: 3.29, 95% CI: 3.19 to 3.40, P<0.001).

When the authors combined data from both and from employee assistance referrals, they found that clinicians had identified 20.3% of active soldiers and 42.4% of reservists as either needing referral or already being under care for mental health problems.

They also found that although soldiers frequently reported alcohol concerns, few were referred to an alcohol treatment program, and that most soldiers who used mental health services did so on their own, without a referral, even though the majority sought care within 30 days of being screened.

In addition, although soldiers were much more likely to report PTSD symptoms on the reassessment rather than on the initial screening, 49% to 59% of those who had PTSD symptoms identified on the first screening had improvement of symptoms by the second screening, and there was no direct relationship of referral or treatment with symptom improvement.

"Rescreening soldiers several months after their return from Iraq identified a large cohort missed on initial screening," the investigators wrote. "The large clinical burden recently reported among veterans presenting to Veterans Affairs facilities seems to exist within months of returning home, highlighting the need to enhance military mental health care during this period."

They noted that the reported increases in interpersonal conflict underline the lack of available services for the families of returning soldiers, and the higher rates of referral at second assessment for reservists may reflect concerns about their ongoing health coverage.

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America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

2007-11-15T14:52:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2873622.ece

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

Tom Baldwin in Washington

More American military veterans have been committing suicide than US soldiers have been dying in Iraq, it was claimed yesterday.

At least 6,256 US veterans took their lives in 2005, at an average of 17 a day, according to figures broadcast last night. Former servicemen are more than twice as likely than the rest of the population to commit suicide.

Such statistics compare to the total of 3,863 American military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 - an average of 2.4 a day, according to the website ICasualties.org.

The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a "mental health epidemic" – often linked to post-traumatic stress.

CBS News claimed that the figures represented the first attempt to conduct a nationwide count of veteran suicides. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The suicide rate among Americans as a whole was 8.9 per 100,000, but the level among veterans was at least 18.7. That figure rose to a minimum of 22.9 among veterans aged 20 to 24 – almost four times the nonveteran average for people of the same age.

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as suggesting that the military was covering up the scale of the problem. "Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total," Mike Bowman said. "They don't want the true numbers of casualties to really be known."

Mr Bowman's son, Tim, was an army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road. "His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn't there anymore," said his mother, Kim Bowman. Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim committed suicide.

A separate study published last week shows that US military veterans make up one in four homeless people in America, even though they represent just 11 per cent of the general adult population, and younger soldiers are already trickling into shelters and soup kitchens after completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless, at least 1,500 ex-servicemen from the present wars have already been identified.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people on any given night were veterans.

Daniel Akaka, the chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said: "For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed."

The plight of US veterans is a matter of acute sensitivity for the Bush Administration which has set great store by standing up for – and support from – US troops. This year General Kevin Kiley, the US Army's Surgeon General, was among senior military officials dismissed for his role in the mistreatment of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newspaper revelations about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington became a lightning rod for criticism of the war in general. The outpatient clinic was described as squalid and rat-infested; a maze of red tape left many outpatients – often with severe brain injuries – wandering the corridors without help.

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Ex-drill instructor gets six months

2007-11-15T12:57:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drill16nov16,0,5264735.story?coll=la-home-center

Ex-drill instructor gets six months

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The Marine sergeant was convicted of abusing recruits during boot camp. A military jury rules that he should be reduced in rank, given time in the brig and drummed out of the Corps.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
12:13 PM PST, November 15, 2007

SAN DIEGO - Sgt. Jerrold Glass, a Marine Corps drill instructor convicted Wednesday of eight counts related to the abuse of recruits, today had his rank reduced to private, received a bad-conduct discharge and was sentenced to six months in the brig.

His parents were in tears, and eight Marine military police who were there to support Glass stood by him, some hugging him.

Jerrod Glass

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Prosecutors had sought a sentence of two years in military jail.

"If you come back with a light sentence it will appear you are endorsing this kind of conduct," Capt. Brent Stricker, one of the prosecutors, told jurors this morning. The case is the biggest of its kind in decades at the Marine boot camp here.

The same military jury that convicted Glass handed his sentence.

His attorneys had urged the jury to give a lighter sentence -- 30 days restricted to base and not being discharged. "There's a way to deal with Sgt. Glass without throwing him out of the Marine Corps," defense attorney Greg Jensen said this morning. "....It's not time to quit on this Marine."

The verdict and the sentence will be reviewed by Brig. Gen. Angela Salinas, commanding general of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, who has the power to reduce them but not to increase them.

Glass, 25, who was charged with kicking, punching, slapping and ridiculing the young men, could have faced 9 1/2 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.

Jurors on Wednesday indicated that they did not believe dozens of specific allegations in which the only witnesses were the accusers. In a four-day trial, nearly two dozen former recruits testified that Glass abused them for minor mistakes during training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and at Camp Pendleton.

Shortly after the sentencing today, Glass' parents spoke to reporters, stressing their contention all along that their son had only been following orders.

"If the Marine Corps wants to tell the public this doesn't go on every day, they either have their head in the sand or they're not being honest with the American public ... ," said Jerry Glass, a retired sheriff's deputy from Arizona. "My son is my hero, he'll always be my hero."

Said Glass' mother, Barbara: "I'm numb. I still believe in my son 100%. I still believe he didn't do anything he wasn't instructed to do."

Only one recruit actually came forward to report Glass' behavior, although many were ordered to testify for the prosecution. Having to do so clearly created conflicted feelings in some. Marine Pfc. Christopher Longo, who testified during the four-day trial that Glass smacked him in the jaw and made him drink so much water that he vomited, was at the sentencing to show support for his former drill instructor.

"Sgt. Glass is a good DI. He just lost his head," Longo said today. "Everybody makes mistakes. He doesn't deserve this."

A conviction of this scope is rare. In the last three years, the recruit depot, which has nearly 500 drill instructors, has seen 44 drill instructors charged with misconduct toward recruits. Of those 44, only two before Glass went to court-martial; others were punished or admonished through an administrative process.

Glass was convicted on two counts of violating orders, two counts of cruelty and maltreatment, three counts of destroying the recruits'

Glass spent two tours in Iraq as a dog handler before attending drill instructor school, from which he graduated with honors. The abuses occurred during his first two months as a drill instructor, and they came to light only after he beat a 19-year-old over the head with a tent pole because the recruit could not remember the combination to his foot locker.

Of four drill instructors assigned to the 40-man platoon, Glass was the least experienced and the so-called "kill hat," Marine slang for the one assigned to mete out punishment. All four were relieved of duty when the abuse allegations surfaced.

The two most experienced face criminal charges, and the "third hat" was reduced from sergeant to corporal and is no longer a drill instructor. Two officers and two noncommissioned officers with supervisory responsibility for the four drill instructors were relieved of duty and reassigned.

Glass did not testify during the trial, nor did he make a statement to the judge. The jury deliberated eight hours over two days. Votes on the counts were not disclosed, but a two-thirds vote is required for a conviction. During the trial, a dog handler who served with Glass testified that he had followed the cardinal rule of dog handling: Never hit a dog.

Marine rules prohibit drill instructors from touching recruits except in specific situations, such as when they are showing them how to march or hold a rifle.

Allegations of recruit abuse strike at the heart of the Marine Corps' boast that it runs the toughest recruit training of any military service but does so without the kind of rough, hands-on treatment that once was common. The Marine Corps revels in its history, with street names and buildings on its bases named after its heroes and battles. Soon after arriving for the 13-week training regimen, recruits are lectured about Marine history.

But the Marine Corps also lives with the legacy of one of the worst cases of recruit abuse in military history: the drowning of six recruits at Parris Island, S.C., in 1956 during a night march into a swamp led by a drill instructor who had been drinking.

tony.perry@latimes.com

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Democrats vow not to be bullied by Bush on Iraq

2007-11-15T12:54:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1530592220071115

Democrats vow not to be bullied by Bush on Iraq

Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:50pm EST

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Bush vetoes labor bill

House to debate Iraq troop withdrawals

Congress negotiators omit war from Pentagon funds

U.S. CBO estimates $2.4 trillion long-term war costs

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By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats who lead Congress likened President George W. Bush on Thursday to a bully on Iraq war policy and vowed to spend no more on combat without a deadline for bringing U.S. troops home.

"He damn sure is not entitled to having this money given to him just with a blank check," Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrats' Senate leader, told reporters.

"Americans need someone fighting for them taking on this bully we have in the White House," he said.

Reid and other Democrats, who hold slim majorities in both houses of Congress, accused Bush of wanting a free-flow of hundreds of billions of dollars for the Iraq war, all the while being tight-fisted on the home front.

"Every dollar we spend in Iraq comes at the expense of people in America," Reid said.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, defying the Republican Bush by tying the measure to $50 billion in new war funds. The money would be only about a quarter of what Bush has requested. The vote was 218-203.

Senate Democrats said they would force a vote very soon on legislation that sets a goal for ending U.S. combat in Iraq.

Under the Democrats' plan, there would be a non-binding goal to get all American combat soldiers out of Iraq by December 15, 2008. The measure faces an uphill fight in the Senate where Republicans have vowed to block it, and the White House has said it will veto it. Continued...

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French Strikers Disrupt Rails for a Second Day

2007-11-15T12:51:00.001-08:00

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111500489.html?hpid=moreheadlines

French Strikers Disrupt Rails for a Second Day

Transit Workers, Technicians, Students Join to Protest Economic Proposals

By Molly Moore

Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 15, 2007; 6:14 AM

PARIS, Nov. 15 -- Strikers shut down French trains and buses, disrupted electricity production at nuclear plants and barricaded universities Wednesday, giving President Nicolas Sarkozy the toughest challenge yet to his ambitious plans for restructuring the country's huge social welfare programs.

Commuter traffic backed up along miles of highways leading into Paris during the morning rush hour, while thousands of Parisians took to bicycles, in-line skates, children's scooters and sneakers to get to work.

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The strike continued on Thursday, as transportation workers shut down most rail lines and forced commuters to continue their improvisation. The Associated Press said the government was waiting for union leaders to respond to their offer of company by company negotiations.

But the transit stoppage was just the start of woes for residents, tourists and Sarkozy's six-month-old government. Technicians at the Paris Opera House and the Comédie Francaise and employees at electric and gas companies also walked off their jobs. Student strikes closed about one-third of the nation's universities.

In the next several days, civil servants, teachers, postal and telecommunications workers, bank employees and judicial magistrates are scheduled to pile on, to press their own grievances over Sarkozy's plans or to demand pay raises and better working conditions.

"I will pursue these reforms to the end," a defiant Sarkozy told the European Parliament as the strikes were launched. "Nothing will blow me off course."

Sarkozy was elected in part on promises that he would streamline France's turgid bureaucracy and restructure workplaces to make the country more competitive in the global marketplace. Workers from most of the sectors he is attempting to change are piggybacking on the transit strikes to forestall those changes.

Government employees are trying to retain special pensions, students are resisting proposals to give universities more control over finances and admissions, and magistrates are opposing attempts to consolidate courthouses.

In the face of the second round of public-sector strikes in a month, Sarkozy's cabinet ministers warned that the disruptions could last for days. "Fasten your seat belts," advised Prime Minister Francois Fillon. "Millions of French people will be deprived of their fundamental freedom -- the freedom of movement and even perhaps to work."

Newspaper and television opinion polls released Wednesday show dwindling French public support for unions that for decades have shut down services to thwart government efforts to reduce pensions or shrink government institutions.

In a survey conducted for the daily newspaper Le Figaro -- which is generally pro-Sarkozy -- and television network LCI, nearly seven of every 10 people polled said the strikes were unjustified.

Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand held back-to-back negotiations with labor unions throughout the day in an effort to minimize the length of the strikes.

With most suburban trains idled and only a single automated subway line running on schedule Wednesday, Sarkozy said he was prepared to begin negotiating with unions over modifications to his program, French news media reported late in the day.

But workers for the national rail network and the Paris public transportation system voted Wednesday afternoon to continue the strike into Thursday, with daily votes on continuing the work stoppage in the following days, union officials said.

Many of the unions -- including transit workers, electric company employees and opera technicians -- were striking to protest Sarkozy's effort to eliminate a post-World War II benefit that allowed workers in certain hazardous or difficult occupations to retire with full benefits after 37 1/2 years of service, rather than the 40 years required of most workers. Sarkozy has said these special pensions for 500,000 eligible workers and 1.1 million retirees cost taxpayers about $7 billion a year.

Special provisions for Opera House workers date to an edict issued by King Louis XIV in 1698, according to French news reports.

Natalie Levy, wearing a skirt and black high-heeled pumps, attempted to negotiate a crowded rush-hour sidewalk aboard her son's scooter Wednesday morning. She hit a gaping crack in the concrete, wobbled and snapped a heel.

In no mood to sympathize with the unions or the government, she groused: "The unions are selfish and the government is spineless. How is Sarkozy going to reform the country and make workers more productive when he can't even get us to our jobs?"

--
Have a Nice Day!

Emory Merryman
+1-4153075230
http://indicativeserviceconcierge.blogspot.com/

Like A Long Wait

2007-10-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119188420773652765.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

CUBICLE CULTURE

By JARED SANDBERG

Nothing Can Kill
Drive and Inspiration
Like a Long Wait
October 9, 2007; Page B1

Home life has its interminable waits: for the clothes to dry, for the MIA cable guy or for a renovation. But at work, waiting is often endemic.

The specialization of office tasks creates an interdependence of staffers that makes every move susceptible to delays that can slip toward forever. A project can only be as speedy as its most sluggish participant.

When Tim Munson worked for a start-up, he had to funnel all requests to the company's founder for a nod, even pen and paper requisitions. "There were projects that were started my first year, and 5½ years later I was still waiting," says Mr. Munson.

Without anything to show for long waits, people stopped caring, waiting instead for their options to vest. Mr. Munson left to raise horses. "I only have to wait when I want to wait," he says.

FORUM

What do you do to ease the pain of lengthy wait at work? One person in today's column would talk about herself in the third person while waiting for a promotion in an effort to make it seem like someone else's problem. Similarly, what can you do to wrestle work from someone who's holding everything up? Share your experiences.

When Heather Newcomb, who is currently waiting to hear back from clients and vendors, used to work at a bank, she waited for approvals and annual reviews. Just as routinely, she waited for someone to finish using the microwave, a product that was supposed to alleviate the pain of watching water boil.

"Invariably he or she has to reheat two or three times," she says of her colleagues.

She was always struck by how long things could be dragged out and how little one of her former bosses claimed he could do to speed the process. She attributes that to apathy. But she allows that maybe the boss was just too busy waiting, too.

"No matter how senior you are," she says, "it makes you feel like a fief in the big, fat corporate fiefdom."

Technology purports to help. But for every technological advance designed to eliminate waiting (call waiting, for example), there seems to be another enforcing the status quo (the "hold" button). You may be able to send an email at the speed of light, but that doesn't necessarily produce a faster response, just an earlier arrival at a longer wait.

Research shows that waiting for uncertain outcomes can be more uncomfortable than adjusting to the worst of them, which explains why impending mergers and reorganizations drive people mad. In a paper to be presented later this month, George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, studied people who underwent colostomies, or intestinal bypasses. Half of them had the possibility of having it reversed; for the others it was permanent.

Measuring their life satisfaction, the researchers found that those with permanent colostomies very rapidly improved whereas those who could ultimately reverse them stayed relatively unsatisfied. "Hope impedes adaptation," says Prof. Loewenstein.

To better cope, some people try to dupe themselves out of hope. Consultant Jacqueline Beckley, who travels on business a lot, began to view scheduled events as aspirations -- even flight schedules. "Leaving at all was all they could hope for," she says of airline passengers. "Since I got that framework in my head in February of this year, life got easier."

Whenever faced with long wait times, wealth manager Claudia Weinberger talks about herself in the third person in an effort to "make it somebody else's problem." Never mind that she's the somebody else. "That's a minor technicality," she notes. So when she was waiting for a promotion for two years at a prior company, she'd tell herself, "Claudia deserves it. She's been doing a good job."

The torment of waiting arises partly from an uncertainty that seems to gather over time. Julie Fordyce, a former corporate lender, once had a professor who believed that the longer the wait, the more likely something was about to happen and, at the same time, never happen at all. That applies to layoffs. "The longer you wait to get a pink slip, the more it seems that you may have escaped the ax, and at the same time, that the ax is millimeters from your neck," she says. "It's excruciating."

Waiting drives some of us to make dumb decisions. In a study conducted by Gregory Berns, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, respondents were given an option of receiving an electric shock now or a lesser shock after waiting. Roughly a third opted for more voltage sooner.

"The brain runs simulation of the future using the same process that simulates the experience itself," says Dr. Berns. This extreme response is what often governs bad decisions, he says. That may explain why some people, at the slightest whiff of layoffs, fire themselves.

Lee Miller, a former head of HR, has witnessed that "huge mistake" with a colleague who left his job rather than wait for an inevitable promotion. But Mr. Miller also understands how distracting idle time can be. He and colleagues once had to wait a full day on an urgent matter just to get approval from the company chairman, who was vacationing in Mexico and had to travel by donkey to get to a phone.

"We couldn't do any other work," explains Mr. Miller. "We were waiting."

Write to Jared Sandberg at jared.sandberg@wsj.com. For a discussion on today's column, go to WSJ.com's forums.

Reserving A Locker at the Gymn

2007-03-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

I have left the gymn several times at closing time. I have noticed that at closing times there are many lockers with locks still on them. Yesterday, I bought a cheap lock and used it to secure a big locker. I don't think anyone will cut off my lock. If they do, then it is no big deal. If they don't, then I get a reserved locker.

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COMMENT

Who's Blogging

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Nothing Can KillDrive and InspirationLike a Long WaitOctober 9, 2007; Page B1

Reserving A Locker at the Gymn

Nothing Can Kill
Drive and Inspiration
Like a Long Wait
October 9, 2007; Page B1