Condo prices near a cliff - Apartment developers cheaply taking over failed conversion projects

Condo prices near a cliff - Apartment developers cheaply taking over failed conversion projects
By Susan Diesenhouse
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 23, 2006


So far the housing slump has been marked by slowing sales. Now there are signs that rapidly falling prices could be on the way.

Earlier this month a Chicago developer sold 150 condominiums in a two-hour lottery by discounting prices about 20 percent from what he would have asked last spring, an indication that industry observers say could signal widespread price reductions here and around the country.

For the first time in his 37 years as a developer, Nicholas S. Gouletas, chairman of Chicago-based American Invsco Corp., held a lottery to sell his condos, in this case 150 moderately priced residences in a 292-unit vintage high-rise at 182 W. Lake St. in the Loop.

Gouletas figures he still could make a 10 percent profit by cutting future carrying costs. He will avoid the expense of 2 1/2 years of mortgage interest payments, marketing, maintenance, insurance and taxes by not struggling to sell condos against the headwinds of a slowing housing market.

"We're responding to a dramatically changed market," said Gouletas, who plans to conduct lotteries to sell about 2,000 more units in nine other projects he is developing in Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando and Boynton Beach, Fla. "Let's admit it's a buyer's market and what they want is the best price they can get."

For those anxious to assess how far the decelerating housing market will fall, a lottery sale like this could indicate a steeper decline in prices as veterans in an industry replete with optimists head for the exits to salvage profits and avoid big losses. If this becomes a broad trend it would generate a dynamic destined to ripple through the overall economy.

"I haven't heard of a lottery elsewhere, but I've been waiting for them," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, a research firm in West Chester, Pa. It could signal a change in attitude among sellers who so far have been "holding tough on prices," he added.

"The condo market is quickly unraveling and reeling nationwide, with sales down 15 percent and prices down about 3 percent," Zandi said. Since new housing is still being built he expects sales and prices to continue to fall for a year and to remain flat in 2008.

"As the overall housing correction intensifies, the broader economy will weaken further," Zandi said.

On the bright side, Zandi said, Chicago and other big cities with diversified economies will fare better than smaller ones in a national economy that will continue to grow, albeit weakly.

However, he forecasts that metropolitan Chicago will add only about 35,000 new jobs in 2007, down approximately 25 percent from this year. "In the best of times Chicago doesn't generate a lot of jobs," he said.

But the distress reflected by Gouletas' lottery here is not an isolated incident of one unlucky project in a so-so location. In New York and Washington other developers are abandoning plans to convert big apartment buildings into condos.

A day after Gouletas' lottery the nation's largest apartment real estate investment trust, Chicago-based Equity Residential, closed on a $96 million deal to buy a 256-unit apartment building in suburban Washington from a developer whose condo conversion plan evaporated. The REIT plans to close soon on the $200 million purchase of a 300-unit building in New York that met the same fate.

As the condo market reels, property values are falling, a double-edged sword that hurts some investors and helps others.

"A year ago, we couldn't have afforded these buildings," said David Neithercut, president and chief executive of Equity Residential, which owns 926 properties with 197,404 units that Wall Street values at about $14.4 billion.

Now that developers don't think they can make sufficiently profitable condo conversion deals, he added, "we intend to acquire several of these properties where condo conversions were planned that never happened."

Prices for these apartment buildings probably have fallen about 20 percent from their peak in the summer of 2005, said Jonathan Litt, senior real estate analyst for Citigroup Investment Research in New York.

Nationwide, profits for condo developers have fallen from 50 percent to "20 percent for some, and for many to zero or less," Litt noted.

Chicago condo developers face some rough times ahead, Litt added. "This has been on the radar screen for a couple of years because developers have brought on a lot of inventory," he said.

Speaking about Gouletas' lottery, Neithercut of Equity Residential commented, "I'm no expert, but what I hear is a savvy condo conversion guy that didn't want to get caught holding in a market he's worried about."

Equity Residential, which owns some properties in the metropolitan area but never had a strong presence in downtown Chicago, is "moving our investments to high-barrier [areas] like New York, Boston, South Florida and California," Neithercut said, meaning places where the development approval process is stringent, long and costly.

In Chicago, "this is the first time I've seen a two-hour sellout," said Gail Lissner, vice president of Appraisal Research Counselors Ltd. a Chicago-based consulting and appraisal firm. But she added: "American Invsco is a mass marketer that looks for volume sales. This is their style."

Lissner does not have third-quarter numbers for downtown condo sales but her informal tracking indicates sales are still slowing. She has yet to see prices drop, but has observed owner concessions rising and developers pulling back.

Appraisal Research predicted that approximately 10,000 condos would come on the market this year, but Lissner said, "We're definitely seeing projects delayed and units not coming on the market as fast as we anticipated."

In the second quarter, the most recent numbers available, sales contracts and reservations totaled 1,496, about one-third less than the historically strong first quarter, according to Appraisal Research.

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sdiesenhouse@tribune.com

Wall St lower on further evidence of slowdow

Wall St lower on further evidence of slowdown
By John O’Doherty in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 22 2006 13:37 | Last updated: September 22 2006 21:48


Wall Street finished the week lower on Friday, as investor relief over the Federal Reserve’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged was countered by fresh evidence of slowing economic growth.

Large-cap technology stocks made some of the most dramatic moves during the week. Yahoo slumped 13 per cent over the five days to $25.52, wiping out the previous eight weeks of gains. The company said third-quarter results would be at the bottom end of their previously forecast range due to slowing advertising revenue.

Oracle provided a counterweight to Yahoo’s slump, climbing 7.4 per cent to $17.54. On Wednesday, the software maker reported a 29 per cent increase in first quarter profits, as its chief executive said the company was gaining market share from German rival SAP.

Hewlett-Packard shed 3 per cent to $35.11 over the week as its controversial investigation into boardroom leaks to the media began to unnerve investors. News reports said that chief executive Mark Hurd may have had a greater role in the investigation than had previously been thought.

Microsoft dipped 0.7 per cent to $26.66. However, the stock has now gained 25 per cent since the middle of June and is back in positive territory for the year.

Media group Tribune, owner of the Los Angeles Times, surged 9.8 per cent to $33.99, its best week in more than two years, after it appointed a special committee to oversee a business review that might lead to a sale of some assets or a leveraged buyout of the group.

At the close, the S&P 500 was down 0.4 per cent for the week at 1,314.78, a loss on the day of 0.3 per cent, or 3.25 points. On Wednesday, the index briefly hit its highest level in more than five years. The Nasdaq Composite was 0.7 per cent lower on the week, losing 0.8 per cent, or 18.82 points, on the day to 2,218.93.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week down 0.5 per cent, a loss of 0.2 per cent, or 25.13 points, on the day at 11,508.10.

Stocks made a brief rally on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent. However, on Thursday the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index fell sharply, increasing investor unease that economic growth was slowing faster than had been thought.

“The run-up to this point has been driven by an expectation that the Fed will stop raising rates and get the cooling in the economy they’re looking for,” said Joseph Battipaglia, chief market strategist at Ryan Beck.

“The price you’re paying for that is uncertainty about how much softening there will be in the economy. A soft landing is something that the Fed cannot engineer. It’s out of their hands.”

Fears of a slowdown in manufacturing affected Caterpillar, which sank 4.1 per cent to $62.77 – the week’s worst performance in the Dow. United Technologies, also suffered, losing 3.6 per cent to $62.30.

General Motors tumbled 3.3 per cent to $30.62 on reports that talks on a possible alliance with Nissan and Renault had made little progress.

Symbol Technologies, a maker of barcode scanners and mobile computers, surged 15.2 per cent to $14.64 after Motorola agreed to buy the company for $3.9bn.

Darden Restaurants leapt 9.3 per cent to $42.38 after its first quarter profits beat analyst estimates and it raised earnings guidance for 2006 on bullish forecasts for revenue from its Olive Garden chain of Italian-themed restaurants.

Home improvement retailer Home Depot suffered from the slowing housing market, sinking 3.4 per cent to $35.96. The stock has fallen 11 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Medical device maker Boston Scientific reported preliminary sales and earnings figures for the third quarter that came in below analyst estimates. Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the stock from “overweight” to “underweight”, and the shares tumbled 8.5 per cent to $14.85.

First Data, provider of electronic payment systems, sank 9.3 per cent to $40.49. Early in the week, its Western Union subsidiary – which the company plans to spin off – said income growth would be sluggish in coming years, as immigrants who use the service to send money to relatives grow concerned about government scrutiny of wire transfers.

Economic sentiment undermined by double whammy

Economic sentiment undermined by double whammy
By Tony Tassell
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 23 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 23 2006 03:00


Investor sentiment was jolted this week by a revival of two key market risks - a hard landing for the US economy and emerging market instability triggered by political crises.

Just as risk appetite appeared to have fully bounced back from the turmoil that unfolded in May, investors' nerves were unsettled by fresh evidence of a US economic slowdown and political troubles from Thailand to Hungary to Brazil.

The emergence of big losses suffered by US hedge fund Amaranth also underlined the risk of large, leveraged investors caught out by adverse market moves.

US Treasuries had their best week in 17 months, benefiting from safe haven buying and a dispelling of fears that the US Federal Reserve might be forced to raise interest rates to contain inflation. A sharp fall in oil prices towards the $60 a barrel market further eased inflationary fears as the Fed maintained its pause in adjusting interest rates at a monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

Emerging market assets - shares, currencies and bonds - suffered a big sell-off in reaction to a turbulent week marked by the coup in Thailand, riots in Hungary, a corruption scandal in Brazil and the collapse of the coalition ruling Poland. In South Africa, the dropping of a corruption case against Jacob Zuma, a former deputy president and popular leftist, raised talk of him becoming the country's next leader.

"Investors have underestimated political risks in emerging markets," said Kingsmill Bond, strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Emerging markets were also weighed down by concerns over their sensitivity to a US economic slowdown. Some analysts said emerging market assets had been hit by investors taking "risk off the table" ahead of the month and quarter-end on September 30. Hungary was one of the hardest hit after the scandal over an admission by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány that he had lied to voters. The country's stock market benchmark, the BUX index, fell by 6.56 per cent while the currency dropped 2.2 per cent.

Thailand was more resilient, with investors seeming to buy into weakness. The SET index fell 2.7 per cent after re-opening from Thursday. The baht lost 0.3 per cent. In Turkey the ISE 100 index lost 4.6 per cent over the week and the lira 3.8 per cent.

Lars Christensen, senior analyst at Danske Bank, said emerging markets might be in for a new sell-off that could be as severe as May's.

He said the risks looked largest in central and eastern Europe, where political uncertainties have risen sharply and external economic balances were relatively weak. Exposure should also be reduced to high-volatility markets like South Africa and Turkey.

However, he said there was no reason for a sell-off in Asian emerging markets where external balances looked robust, even in Indonesia.

"Asian emerging markets could be seen as a safe-haven in these volatile times," he said.

Philip Poole, strategist at HSBC, said emerging markets faced two competing factors. One was was the increased risk from a slowing of the US economy. However, they also benefited from the lower bond yields that resulted from this as they would increase the appeal of carry trades - borrowing in low-yield currencies to invest in higher return assets elsewhere.

The evidence of the US economic slowdown came starkly in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's August business conditions index that showed its first negative reading for three years.

This helped Treasuries surge over the week with investors starting to look to cuts in US interest rates next year. Yields on the 10-year note fell by 18 basis points to 4.61 per cent.

The economic gloom put US equities under pressure. By mid-afternoon on Wall Street, the S&P 500 index was down 0.5 per cent on the week; the Nasdaq 1 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.6 per cent.

Europe was relatively resilient, boosted by takeover activity. After hitting a four-month high on Thursday, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index ended down 0.2 per cent over the week.

Economy gets traction as election issue - Many voters say rising prices cut into their income.

Economy gets traction as election issue - Statistics indicate times are good, with low unemployment and high productivity. But many voters say rising prices cut into their income.
By Jill Zuckman
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 23, 2006

BRISTOL, Pa. -- Richard Vallejo's gift shop lost money for two years in a row before he finally shut it down last Christmas. Now he's trying to sell the building that houses his antique store, which also is losing money as his customers cut back on buying Hummel figurines and other luxury items.

"I keep listening to our president, who keeps saying the economy is good, and I don't know what he's talking about," said Vallejo, 63, alone all day in his quiet shop except for the company of Killer, his miniature pinscher. "I'm further in debt now than I was 10 years ago."

In the collar suburbs of Philadelphia, where statewide elections are won or lost, voters are confronting an economic conundrum. Most statistics say the nation's economy is flourishing, with low unemployment, high productivity and new jobs.

But many people who live here along the Delaware River and elsewhere across the nation say they are struggling to get by. They say their salaries stay the same but the costs of health care, gasoline, heating oil and college tuition go up, taking bigger and bigger bites out of their take-home pay.

"In the early '90s in Pennsylvania, the big deal was losing your job," said Terry Madonna, director of the Keystone Poll at Franklin and Marshall College. "Now the concern is you have your job, you're working a lot harder and you're making less."

With less than seven weeks until Election Day, polls show the economy has begun to draw even with or edge out Iraq as the top issue of concern to voters, prompting some campaigns to shift their emphasis.

"The economy is getting progressively worse and worse and I do believe it's getting to be more and more of an issue," said Patrick Murphy, the Democratic Iraq war veteran challenging Republican Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick to represent this Bucks County district.

Most recently, the Jones New York apparel plant here announced that it was cutting 323 jobs. Statewide, nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2001.


Emphasis on `good news'

Fitzpatrick, however, describes the economy as "a good-news, bad-news story."

"I'm one who's prepared and excited to talk about the economy's good news," said Fitzpatrick, who is completing his first term in Congress. "But even in a strong economy, people's increase in wages is being reduced by the spiraling cost of health care."

Some such costs have lessened in recent weeks as gasoline prices have plunged, although they still are high by comparison with previous years.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan research center for health care, health insurance premiums for family coverage have risen 67 percent since 2000.

Neither candidate in the 8th Congressional District race thinks much of the other's approach. Murphy complains that Fitzpatrick's vote for a Central American free-trade bill known as CAFTA will cost the state more jobs. Fitzpatrick accuses Murphy of planning to raise taxes and undermine recent economic gains, a common Republican attack on Democratic challengers around the country.

In Washington, President Bush and Democratic leaders also are sparring over the nation's economic health.

"We've overcome recession, attacks, hurricanes, scandals, and the economy is growing. Four-point-seven unemployment rate. It's been a strong economy," Bush said last week.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, however, called the president's economic policies "woeful."

"The middle class is being squeezed as more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck," said Pelosi, calling for a minimum-wage increase.

Historically, voters have paid close attention to their pocketbooks, and in most cases, personal financial issues have played a key role in elections. But this year, many candidates kicked off their campaigns with a heavy focus on the war in Iraq. In recent weeks, the White House has sought to shift the dialogue to the war on terror.

But according to a recent CNN poll, voters are more concerned about the economy than Iraq. And a new Pew Research Center poll found that voters believe Democrats would do better than Republicans on the economy by a 14-point margin.

"It seems like almost the forgotten issue of this election," said Christopher Borick, an associate professor of political science at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. "What history tells us [is] it's often the great determining factor in elections' outcomes. It's one of the driving forces in how people turn out on Election Day."

In 1992, for example, the Clinton campaign hit voters over and over with its mantra, "It's the economy, stupid." Even though economic indicators were showing an improvement in the economy's performance, voters still felt beleaguered and held President George H.W. Bush accountable.

"Politically, it's a failure not to be in touch with people's feelings," said Sal Russo, a Republican strategist and former adviser to President Ronald Reagan. "The first President Bush kept saying the economy was doing well and people felt he was disconnected."

Nevertheless, in Pennsylvania's Senate race, Republican incumbent Rick Santorum is touting gains in the state's economy, with 124,800 new jobs created since January 2003. It's a statistic also cited by the Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, as he seeks re-election.

Santorum's Democratic challenger, Bob Casey, on the other hand, talks about the poor economy hurting Pennsylvania's middle class in almost every television commercial he airs as he calls for Congress to balance the budget, eliminate tax cuts for multimillionaires and modify trade agreements to keep jobs in the U.S.

"Bob Casey believes the first step is to turn the economy around," said one ad. Another slaps Santorum for writing that most families could afford to have one parent stay home with their children: "I would like Rick Santorum to come to my house at the end of the month when we're doing our bills and tell me how we can live on one income," said Debbie Balcik, identified as a wife and working mother.

In response, the Santorum campaign denounces Casey as someone who refuses to acknowledge the reality of a robust economy.

"Bob Casey's delusional on the issue of jobs. It's as if he doesn't want to admit that Pennsylvania has increased jobs and the economy is growing," said Virginia Davis, Santorum's spokeswoman. "He's trying to create a dismal picture for his own political gain."


Union sees an opening

The AFL-CIO is trying to take advantage of the economic issues in Pennsylvania and 20 other states, expanding its political program to reach 12.4 million voters with phone calls, neighborhood walks, workplace contacts and e-mails.

In Pennsylvania, union voters and their families who cast ballots in 2004 made up 30 percent of the electorate, a 4-percentage-point increase over the previous election. This year, union officials are hoping for another increase in that percentage to propel their endorsed candidates--Rendell, Casey, Lois Murphy in the 6th Congressional District and Joe Sestak in the 7th--to victory.

Still, voters in Bristol say they haven't decided whom they will vote for, despite restiveness about their economic prospects.

"I think people are afraid to spend money," said Vallejo, owner of The Other Time Antiques. "They're afraid of taxes, of whether they're going to have a job next month and the cost of gas."

Although he's a Democrat, Vallejo has voted for Santorum as well as for Reagan. In 2004, he couldn't bring himself to vote for either the president or the Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

This year, he hasn't made up his mind how he will vote.

"I loved Clinton, I loved Reagan and I made lots of money with them," Vallejo said. "It's been terrible ever since."

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jzuckman@tribune.com

Bush seeks immunity for violating War Crimes Act

Bush seeks immunity for violating War Crimes Act
BY ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN
September 23, 2006
Copyright by the Chicago Sun Times



Thirty-two years ago, President Gerald Ford created a political firestorm by pardoning former President Richard Nixon of all crimes he may have committed in Watergate -- and lost his election as a result. Now, President Bush, to avoid a similar public outcry, is quietly trying to pardon himself of any crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of U.S. detainees.

The ''pardon'' is buried in Bush's proposed legislation to create a new kind of military tribunal for cases involving top al-Qaida operatives. The ''pardon'' provision has nothing to do with the tribunals. Instead, it guts the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal law that makes it a crime, in some cases punishable by death, to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and makes the new, weaker terms of the War Crimes Act retroactive to 9/11.

Press accounts of the provision have described it as providing immunity for CIA interrogators. But its terms cover the president and other top officials because the act applies to any U.S. national.

Avoiding prosecution under the War Crimes Act has been an obsession of this administration since shortly after 9/11. In a January 2002 memorandum to the president, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales pointed out the problem of prosecution for detainee mistreatment under the War Crimes Act. He notes that given the vague language of the statute, no one could predict what future ''prosecutors and independent counsels'' might do if they decided to bring charges under the act. As an author of the 1978 special prosecutor statute, I know that independent counsels (who used to be called ''special prosecutors'' prior to the statute's reauthorization in 1994) aren't for low-level government officials such as CIA interrogators, but for the president and his Cabinet. It is clear that Gonzales was concerned about top administration officials.

Gonzales also understood that the specter of prosecution could hang over top administration officials involved in detainee mistreatment throughout their lives. Because there is no statute of limitations in cases where death resulted from the mistreatment, prosecutors far into the future, not appointed by Bush or beholden to him, would be making the decisions whether to prosecute.

To ''reduce the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act,'' Gonzales recommended that Bush not apply the Geneva Conventions to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Since the War Crimes Act carried out the Geneva Conventions, Gonzales reasoned that if the Conventions didn't apply, neither did the War Crimes Act. Bush implemented the recommendation on Feb. 7, 2002.

When the Supreme Court recently decided that the Conventions did apply to al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, the possibility of criminal liability for high-level administration officials reared its ugly head again.

What to do? The administration has apparently decided to secure immunity from prosecution through legislation. Under cover of the controversy involving the military tribunals and whether they could use hearsay or coerced evidence, the administration is trying to pardon itself, hoping that no one will notice. The urgent timetable has to do more than anything with the possibility that the next Congress may be controlled by Democrats, who will not permit such a provision to be adopted.

Creating immunity retroactively for violating the law sets a terrible precedent. The president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution; that document requires him to obey the laws, not violate them. A president who knowingly and deliberately violates U.S. criminal laws should not be able to use stealth tactics to immunize himself from liability, and Congress should not go along.

Elizabeth Holtzman, a former New York congresswoman, is co-author with Cynthia L. Cooper of The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.

A Tortured Debate By Molly Ivins

A Tortured Debate By Molly Ivins
Copyright by AlterNet.
Posted September 22, 2006.


Some country is about to have a Senate debate on a bill to legalize torture. How weird is that?

I'd like to thank Sens. John McCain, Lindsay Graham -- a former military lawyer -- and John Warner of Virginia. I will always think fondly of John Warner for this one reason: Forty years ago, this country was involved in an unprovoked and unnecessary war. It ended so badly the vets finally had to hold their own homecoming parade, years after they came home. The only member of Congress who attended was John Warner.

A debate on torture. I don't know -- what do you think? I guess we have to define it, first. The White House has already specified "water boarding," making some guy think he's drowning for long periods, as a perfectly good interrogation technique. Maybe, but it was also a great favorite of the Gestapo and has been described and condemned in thousands of memoirs and novels in highly unpleasant terms.

I don't think we can give it a good name again, and I personally kind of don't like being identified with the Gestapo. How icky. (Somewhere inside me, a small voice is shrieking, "Are you insane?")

The safe position is, "Torture doesn't work."

Well, actually, it works to this extent -- anybody can be tortured into telling anything that's true and anything that's not true. The more people are tortured, the more they make up to please the torturer. Then the torturer has to figure out when the vic started lying. Since our torturers are, in George Bush's immortal phrase, "professionals" and this whole legislative fight is over making torture legal so the "professionals" can't later be charged with breaking the Geneva Conventions, Bush has vowed to end "the program" completely if he doesn't get what he wants. (The same thin voice is shrieking, "Professional torturers trained with my tax money?")

Bush's problem is that despite repeated warnings, he went ahead with "the program" without waiting for Congress to provide a fig leaf of legality. Actually, we have been torturing prisoners at Gitmo, prisons in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan for years.

Since only seven of the several hundred prisoners at Gitmo have ever been charged with anything, we face the unhappy prospect that the rest of them are innocent. And will sue. That's going to be quite an expensive settlement. The Canadian upon whom we practiced "rendition," sending him to Syria for 10 months of torture, will doubtlessly be first on the legal docket. I wonder how high up the chain of command a civil suit can go? Any old war criminals wandering around?

I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote. I'd like to see an evangelical vote on that one. I don't know how Sheldon defines traditional values, but deliberately inflicting terrible physical pain or stress on someone who is completely helpless strikes me as ... well, torture. And, um, wrong.

And I've smoked dope! Boy, everything those conservatives tell us about the terrible moral values of us liberals must be true after all. Now, in addition to the slightly surreal awakening to find we live in a country that's having a serious debate on a torture bill, can we do anything about it? The answer is: We better.

We better do something about it. Now, right away. What do we do? The answer is: anything ... phone, fax, e-mail, mail, demonstrate -- go stand outside their offices or the nearest federal building in the cold and sing hymns or shout rude slogans, chant or make a speech, or start attacking federal property, like a postal box, so they have to arrest you. Gather peacefully and make a lot of noise. Get publicity, too.

How will you feel if you didn't do something? "Well, honey, when the United States decided to adopt torture as an official policy, I was dipping the dog for ticks."

As Ann Richards used to say, "I don't want my tombstone to read: 'She kept a clean house.'"

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

New York Times Editorial - Tinsel on the defense budget

New York Times Editorial - Tinsel on the defense budget
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 21, 2006



Taxpayers may find it hard to believe that the must-pass $500 billion defense budget could be held hostage to a mischievous amendment empowering evangelical military chaplains to speak in the name of Jesus at nonreligious military gatherings. But that is the case in the U.S. Congress, where hard-right Republicans have held up passage of the defense bill in an attempt to license zealot chaplains to violate policies of religious tolerance at secular ceremonies.

Despite the firm opposition of the Pentagon and ecumenical chaplain groups, Republicans in the House of Representatives have been defending this egregious pro-evangelical thumb on the scale in negotiations with the Senate.

We expect the Senate, mindful of the nation's multidenominational legions fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, to reject the fine-print travesty. At its heart is religious intolerance - not respect of chaplains' consciences - and a naked attempt to elevate evangelical beliefs to primacy in the ranks.

These very abuses caused a scandal at the Air Force Academy two years ago after cadets complained that ranking officers tolerated evangelical chaplains' proselytizing and discriminating on campus.

Proponents hope to exploit the urgency of passing the defense bill - part of the annual attempt to make a "Christmas tree" of the measure by weighting it with nonessential favors for political patrons.

Another controversial amendment aims at allowing war veterans to introduce hunting to a pristine part of the Channel Islands National Park off the coast of California. A spokesman for Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, said the proposal would "preserve the herds" and provide veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with "the experience of a lifetime." Surely the Senate will oppose such a wacky exploitation of veterans as just another sop to the gun lobby.

Defense conferees who were truly conscientious would act to control predatory insurance salesmen at the gates of military bases. And they would force the Pentagon to end its awarding of unearned "bonus" payments to favored defense contractors. Government investigators found the Air Force's F- 22A Raptor plane 20 months late and 42 percent over budget, yet contractors reaped $849 million in bonuses.

Voters should wonder what in the name of (fill in deity) is going on in Congress.

Wall Street curse claims billions, again

Wall Street curse claims billions, again
By Heather Timmons
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 21, 2006



LONDON The big losses at the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors have their roots in a Wall Street curse that seems to strike at least once a decade: high-flying trader takes outsized risks and makes ridiculous paycheck, then implodes, possibly dragging the firm down with him.

But the events at Amaranth could be repeated much more often in coming years, veteran fund mangers say, thanks to hedge funds' recent love affair with the fast-moving commodities markets, and the "youthful aggression" of many traders.

Amaranth racked up some $5 billion of losses at the hands of a 32-year-old natural gas trader named Brian Hunter.

On Wednesday, Amaranth sold its energy portfolio - which holds what remains of its disastrous trades on price differences in the natural gas market - to J.P. Morgan and Citadel Investment Group, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. The sale leaves Amaranth, once a well-regarded $9.25 billion hedge fund, with $3.5 billion to $4 billion, a person involved in the negotiations said.

But there's a lot more aggressive new money out there in the volatile sector: Nearly $60 billion was invested by energy-related hedge funds in these markets, the Energy Hedge Fund Center estimates. Commodity indexes have $85 billion in assets, up from single digits just a few years ago.

Not all of these funds, or even most of them, have made bad bets, of course, and there is no guarantee that oil or natural gas prices will not soar again.

Still, veteran traders say the commodity markets are full of Brian Hunters: traders in their late 20s or early 30s who have never traded through severe conditions like the gasoline crisis of the 1970s, or the plunge in oil prices in the 1980s. Instead, they have watched as natural gas prices, as well as those of many other commodities, rose - unevenly, but with clear annual gains - since 2001. (The trading desk Hunter ran at Deutsche Bank suffered losses in 2003, but he maintains that he personally made money for the firm that year.)

He has not commented publicly since the losses were disclosed by Amaranth.

Where more experienced traders in commodities have pulled out of the market in recent months, or made long- term bets that these historically cyclical investments would fall, younger traders may have been convinced that the market could keep going up, say their peers. Emerging market demand for commodities and fears about petroleum supplies has created what traders refer to as a "super cycle," one that has driven prices higher, for longer, than ever.

Most people investing in commodities are "investing on the sustainability of the cycle, on things going higher," said Louis Gargour a former RAB Capital fund manager who recently founded his own fund, LNG Capital. Because so many people are buying and not selling, the short-term volatility has increased, which can particularly hurt people who are highly leveraged, as commodity traders are. "When the market retreats, it is vicious," Gargour said.

"The young guys just keep on buying and buying, and say, 'Who are you Grandpa, to say what value is?,'" said Gargour, who is 42.

Amaranth's losses came after Hunter bet that the spread between the prices of natural gas in March 2007 and April 2007 would increase because April's price would rise, but they declined instead.

While finance jobs like investment banking or equity trading are open to a vast range of ages and experience, trading in general, and commodities trading in particular, is generally staffed by young employees, which can exacerbate the big risk taking.

"Trading commodities has always been a youthful game, because it takes a certain youthful aggression" to make the bold decisions necessary, said Jay Levine, principal of enerjay, a broker and consultant. "In general, these young bucks have a certain knack of getting in and out of the market."

Commodities also appeal to younger traders because of their heavy leverage: only a limited amount of money is required upfront to trade. And because prices are very volatile, there's an element of instant gratification that also appeals. "Why sit in a stock for years waiting for it to appreciate when you can buy and sell something in hours?" Levine asked.

What younger traders often lack is a strategy to unwind their trades if the market goes against them. "Anyone that tells you they don't make a bad trade is a bold-faced liar," Levine said. What separates good managers from the bad ones is "how you recover from it, financially."

It may seem odd that Amaranth, which had several experienced risk managers on staff and bragged about its number of employees with doctorates, allowed Hunter to take such big bets without having such a strategy. But the problem is endemic to the industry, fund managers and traders say.

Hedge funds, particularly fast-growing ones, are particularly susceptible to the charms of a big risk-taker like Hunter, because they are under pressure to keep up their annual returns.

"The dirty secret of a lot of larger hedge funds is that returns fall off as assets grow," said one manager of a small hedge fund in New York who did not want to be quoted by name because he was insulting his peers. Often, "they turn into mutual funds in drag to some extent," he said, by going to multiple strategies, and taking lots of smaller positions to reduce risk. "It is harder to find valuation anomalies to put billions to work in," he said.

Having on board a trader like Hunter who has historically taken big bets and made huge profits helps to keep the returns up where they were when the fund was smaller, when he's making the right calls.

"All hedge fund managers are greedy, that's why they are in the game," said the New York manager. "If they have a 'star' they give them a lot of latitude," he said. "Often, skill and luck get confused."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote "Fooled By Randomness," a book on Wall Street that claims luck has as much to do with success in the markets as skill.

"When you're a hot trader, people are afraid of not laughing at your jokes," Taleb said.

"When you make a lot of money at a firm, you can start owning the firm," he said. "That's the biggest risk when you hire someone who is very successful - you end up working for him."

Gargour adds, "No one listens to the risk managers until it is too late."

Veteran traders are bracing themselves for more implosions in the commodities sector.

"We've had a big buildup of a lot of risk, without a big blowup," Taleb said. Commodities are more vulnerable to impact from rare events than others sectors, he said, and the markets are very local, both of which increases the chance for volatility. Commodity spreads are very likely to be squeezed, "and these squeezes are very vicious," he said.

Amaranth is no different from any other hedge fund, said Taleb, who shared an office with the Amaranth founder, Nicholas Maounis, in Greenwich, Connecticut, for several years. "They're probably not much better, and they are certainly not worse," he said. "People are playing Russian roulette, and someone has to be on the losing side."

CDC recommends routine HIV testing during visits to doctor, ER

CDC recommends routine HIV testing during visits to doctor, ER
By Jeremy Manier
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 22, 2006


Testing for HIV should be a routine part of doctor appointments and emergency-room visits for all patients between ages 13 and 64, according to new federal guidelines designed to identify AIDS patients before they develop life-threatening symptoms.

The policy may be difficult to implement, especially in Illinois, where the law sets tight standards for how doctors must obtain consent for HIV tests and how they can inform patients of the results.

Supporters of the new recommendations, released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said more widespread testing would improve care for the estimated 250,000 Americans who don't know they're infected. It also could help reduce the spread of the disease by up to 30 percent, since studies show that carriers of HIV cut back on high-risk behavior, such as unprotected sex, once they learn of the infection.

"People with HIV have a right to know that they are infected," said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding.

In essence, the non-binding guidelines would have health-care providers test for HIV much as they already screen routinely for conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

But the effort to treat HIV as just another disease may collide with entrenched cultural attitudes and laws that have set the ailment apart.

The special handling of AIDS emerged in an era when the disease was a virtual death sentence and an intense stigma around the virus inspired efforts to protect patients' privacy. Experts believed then that testing everyone would yield little benefit, since there was no good treatment. Until now, recommendations have called for testing people at high risk for HIV, such as drug users, health-care workers and homosexual men.

But attitudes about whom to test changed starting in the mid-1990s, when new treatments made the disease manageable, though still potentially deadly. Tests also have fallen in price, to about $8 for an ordinary test or up to $20 for a rapid test. Now, the CDC believes, the benefits of early treatment make routine testing imperative.

Implementing all of the CDC's recommendations may be nearly impossible under Illinois law. Illinois requires that patients be informed of HIV test results face-to-face, which can be difficult to accommodate with patients' work schedules. The law also prescribes pre-test counseling, which the CDC wants to keep to a minimum to allow the widest possible use of tests.

"Illinois has some of the more restrictive laws in the country," Bernard Branson, lead author of the CDC recommendations, said in an interview.

Many advocates for privacy and patients' rights say Illinois' restrictions are necessary. Ann Fisher, executive director of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, said her group has "grave reservations" about the policy, mostly because of its recommendation that doctors and states loosen their standards of informed consent for HIV tests.

"What they really want is not so much routine testing as what I call stealth testing," Fisher said.

The CDC guidelines propose testing patients on an "opt out" basis, meaning it would be a routine part of a typical medical visit, but patients could choose not to have the test. That's a change from current practices, in which patients often must sign a form giving specific consent for an HIV test. Illinois requires written consent for any HIV test.

Advocates of the revised approach say it would make testing patients easier and remove any stigma of being singled out for an HIV test.

Fisher agreed with Branson about the legal problems the CDC rules would face here. "These guidelines cannot currently be implemented in Illinois," she said.

Illinois health officials will take the new guidelines under review, said Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health. The agency could change its regulations or recommend a change in law by the state legislature, depending on input from the community and medical experts, Arnold said.

Testing all patients could have a pronounced effect in Chicago and other urban areas, which tend to have the highest concentration of HIV patients and undiagnosed carriers of the virus.

Branson of the CDC said some of the inspiration for the new recommendations came from recent studies of routine HIV testing at Stroger Hospital of Cook County and other public health-care centers. Those studies have found that about half of the patients who tested positive had no risk factors that would have prompted doctors to give them HIV tests under the old guidelines.

----------

jmanier@tribune.com

- - -

The new guidelines

- All patients between ages 13 and 64 should be screened for HIV routinely when they visit hospitals or doctors' offices. People at high risk for HIV should be tested at least once a year.

- Testing should be done on a "voluntary, opt-out" basis--meaning that it's routine, but patients can choose not to be tested. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that HIV screening be incorporated into general consent forms for medical care; separate written consent is not recommended.

- Prevention counseling should not be required with HIV diagnostic testing or as part of HIV screening programs. CDC officials said such counseling might discourage doctors or patients from making the tests routine.

For more information, visit the CDC's Web site at www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/testing/resources/factsheets/healthcare.htm

Exploitation of 9/11 was shameful BY ANDREW GREELEY

Exploitation of 9/11 was shameful BY ANDREW GREELEY
September 22, 2006
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times


The remembrance of the World Trade Center last week was an unbearably ugly event, a national disgrace, another blot on the integrity of the country. Under the deft direction of the administration and the supine cooperation of television, it was turned into an event for the Republican congressional campaign, whether the individual candidates wanted such help or not. The imagery was designed to stir up anger and the desire for revenge. What ought to have been a national liturgy of reconciliation and rededication became an exercise in opening old wounds and pouring salt on them. In its wake, those who disagree with President Bush -- even senators of his own party -- become allies of the terrorists.

Do he and his advisers have no shame at all?

Most obnoxious was the exploitation of the grief of the survivors. Anniversaries are always difficult for the bereaved. They should be permitted to suffer in privacy, supported by their faith and their families. Long ago, however, those behind the TV cameras lost all taste and sensibility. Grief, like sex, is no longer a private matter. The pain must be emblazoned across the television screen so a voyeuristic public can revel in it. Have TV journalists no shame at all?

In the wake of the attack, we were told that everything had changed, that America would never be the same again, that the threat of death and destruction would forever hang over us. We must smoke out the terrorists and get rid of them, but they would always be out there waiting for us. We must get even with them but we must always be afraid of them. The response to this doomsday rhetoric was a mixture of sadness, fear and a deep need for revenge. The administration, not able to find Osama bin Laden, now plans to drag some of his henchmen -- tortured and illegally imprisoned -- before kangaroo military courts to prove how tough on terrorists it really is before the election.

Do the marketers of such propaganda have no shame at all?

The memorialization of death and destruction contributes to the ambient self-pity and self-righteousness that often paralyzes the nation. New York, where for a long time there has been a plenitude of both these vices, now has extra reasons to indulge in them. After five years of unseemly squabbling, its citizenry has been unable to agree on a replacement for the World Trade Center. Do the battling partisans of different plans in the Big Apple have no shame at all?

The various experts in Washington tell us that the terrorists will be back. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Vice President Dick Cheney warn us often that they are out there waiting, and we must not let down our guard. They do not explain why not a single person in this country has died because of terrorist action in the last five years. Having it both ways, they claim that their secrecy has prevented more terror and that there still is an overwhelming danger -- hence, we must prevent known terrorist sympathizers from entering the United States and expel those who are already here. When one asks what triumphs we've had so far because of their vigilance, their routine answer is that they can't answer for reasons of national security.

Have Messrs. Cheney and Chertoff and their fellow criers of "wolf" no shame at all?

We have been told often since the attack and we heard it ad nauseam on the anniversary celebration that America will never be the same again. Rarely does anyone examine this sick cliché -- which promotes the self-pity -- to see if it corresponds to reality. However, the Wall Street Journal (in its news section) did re-examine it last week and found that it did not correspond with reality. The American economy has bumbled along and American consumers continue to consume. Only the airline industry suffers, and that in part because of the fiendish harassment of its customers by a government that apparently takes satisfaction in treating every passenger as a potential terrorist. Do the cliché mongers and the passenger harassers have no shame at all?

Feds probe gov's fund-raising trips

Feds probe gov's fund-raising trips
BY CHRIS FUSCO, DAVE MCKINNEY AND NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporters
September 22, 2006
Copyright by the Chicago Sun Times


The feds are investigating two New York political fund-raising trips made by Gov. Blagojevich to see if East Coast donors were illegally nudged ahead in line for state business, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

This is the first indication the government is zeroing in on face-to-face discussions Blagojevich had with donors as it probes alleged corruption in his administration and the Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois.

An 'exclusive club'

A source familiar with the investigation said the feds are looking at three law firms placed on a preferred list of outside lawyers that TRS could hire. The three firms have donated more than $120,000 to the governor, including donations that came at the New York events.

"They were admitted to a very exclusive club, and one case could make you millions," the source said.

Blagojevich, his fund-raisers, the law firms and others who attended the October 2003 and December 2003 fund-raisers have not been accused of wrongdoing.

The governor's campaign confirmed Blagojevich met with several well-known, deep-pocketed Democrats during his travels but insisted there was no connection between pension business and donations to the governor.

"The governor has no role in what law firms TRS chooses to do business with," campaign spokeswoman Sheila Nix said.

The firms are top-notch, class-action litigators, with "a long history of giving to Democrats nationally, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama," Nix said.

None of the law firms have made any money at TRS since landing on the list because they only get paid if they win or favorably settle lucrative class-action lawsuits on the pension system's behalf.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment.

The case initially caught the feds' attention because both New York trips were partially financed by former TRS board member Stuart Levine, who is cooperating with the government and will enter a guilty plea next month.

In October 2003 and December 2003, Levine paid for flights aboard private planes to get Blagojevich and supporters to the East Coast, state records show. Once there, Blagojevich met lawyers, investment bankers and media executives -- many of whom wrote checks to his campaign fund.

On Oct. 29, 2003, Blagojevich huddled at New York's exclusive Harvard Club with lawyer Leonard Barrack, the former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee, and ex-Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), a consultant for Barrack's law firm, according to a copy of the governor's office schedule obtained by the Sun-Times.

Torricelli's political career ended in tatters in 2002 after he was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for improperly accepting gifts from a campaign donor.

On Nov. 3, 2003, Barrack's law firm -- Barrack Rodos & Bacine -- and Torricelli each gave Blagojevich $10,000. On Feb. 20, 2004 the TRS board voted to put the law firm on its select list of class-action lawyers.

Torricelli could not be reached. Barrack, whose firm also gave $5,000 to Blagojevich in 2002, did not return a message.

In another instance, lawyer Melvyn Weiss paid $5,000 toward lodging, meals and entertainment for Blagojevich's entourage during its December 2003 trip to New York.

Weiss, his law firm and its attorneys also donated $45,000 to the Blagojevich campaign, including $10,000 on May 13, 2004. Twelve days later, the TRS board voted to place Weiss' law firm on its list of outside litigators.

Last May, Weiss' law firm and two of his partners were indicted by a federal grand jury in a kickback scheme. Weiss did not return a message left at his New York office.

TRS says it used search

A third law firm tied to the fund-raising trip was Bernstein Liebhard and Lifshitz, which gave the governor $45,210 in cash and services, state records show. A call to the firm was not returned.

The New York firm donated $10,000 during the October 2003 fund-raiser and gave another $25,000 at the December event, where it also helped cover the cost of a fund-raising breakfast.

Bernstein Liebhard wound up being voted onto the system's preferred lawyer list after a February 2004 vote by the TRS board.

TRS released a statement Thursday night stating the three firms were placed on its list after a national search. The agency "thoroughly reviewed the qualifications of these firms, and they were selected based on their experience and qualifications."

Levine's lawyer could not be reached for comment.

cfusco@suntimes.com

dmckinney@suntimes.com

nkorecki@suntimes.com

Feds seize county hiring records

Feds seize county hiring records
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH, STEVE PATTERSON AND NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporters
September 22, 2006
COPYRIGHT BY THE CHICAGO SUN TIMES


FBI agents raided at least seven Cook County offices Thursday morning looking for evidence that officials were illegally doctoring tests or otherwise cheating to give government jobs and promotions to politically connected applicants.

"Step away from the computers," one of the 25 FBI agents who massed at the county's Human Resources Department told employees. The agents arrived at 9 a.m. and stayed long past dark poring through records, taking some with them.

The raids came a month after a Sun-Times story quoted county department heads as saying former Cook County Board President John Stroger's patronage chief Gerald Nichols pressured them to hire clouted people for jobs in which political hiring was prohibited. And the raids followed several years of news reports detailing alleged corruption, mismanagement and patronage hiring in county agencies.

FBI agents also appeared at Stroger Hospital, Oak Forest Hospital, the downtown Cook County Forest Preserve offices, Provident Hospital, Cermak Hospital and the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center to serve subpoenas for records.

The subpoena served on the Forest Preserve District requested information on employees whose hires were supposed to be free from political influence, said spokesman Steve Mayberry.

County attorney Laura Lechowicz Felicione said the other subpoenas and the search warrant served on the Human Resources Department sought the same information, though she refused to provide copies.

Feds made house calls, too

But sources said the raids and the federal investigation center around Nichols and allegations of corrupt hiring and promotion practices under him. Nichols couldn't be reached for comment.

"We're looking for possible evidence of a crime," said FBI spokesman Ross Rice. The search warrant is tied to a criminal affidavit that is under seal.

In an Aug. 21 Sun-Times story, Eric Petraitis, a mid-level county Highway Department boss, said Nichols called him after Petraitis interviewed two candidates for a job and Nichols told him to hire the one who got the lowest score. That employee, Dwayne Robinson, is a close friend of Ald. Todd Stroger (8th), the Democratic nominee to succeed his father as County Board president.

Petraitis said he had been coached in earlier interviews with former Ald. William Krystiniak (23rd) -- personnel chief for the Highway Department -- to fudge test scores for the clouted, so Petraitis dummied up a new evaluation form for Robinson with higher marks. Robinson got the job. The story quoted other unnamed current and former county officials saying Nichols had made similar calls to them.

One county employee recently interviewed by federal agents said they asked questions about Nichols and his role in hiring. Questions also involved patronage allegations raised in recent newspaper stories, the employee said, but Nichols "was definitely the center of their attention."

Federal agents also visited some county employees at home Wednesday night, handing them subpoenas, sources said.

Many employees sent home

The feds also dropped a subpoena at the Juvenile Detention Center, where youthful offenders are held. Detainees claim they have been beaten by workers there. Critics say the facility is overseen by unqualified political appointees.

Late last month, County Board President Bobbie Steele moved Nichols out of her office, then put him on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, allowing him to continue to draw his $114,000-a-year salary.

Attorney Michael Shakman asked a federal judge to appoint a monitor to oversee county hiring, saying the Sun-Times story on Nichols and an earlier one last year on a "clout list" of county hires produced by Commissioner Roberto Maldonado's office proved the county was violating the "Shakman decree" against political hiring. Maldonado did not return calls Thursday.

County Human Resources Director Mark Kilgallon called employees into a staff meeting after FBI agents arrived and told most of them they could go home for the day. Since John Stroger suffered a stroke in March, Kilgallon has jointly overseen county hiring with John Stroger's niece, county budget director Donna Dunnings.

Nichols at work for Stroger

Kilgallon, of Morton Grove, has given almost $3,000 to support the 8th Ward's political activities, while giving more than $4,000 more to support the political campaigns of John and Todd Stroger. A seven-year county employee who makes $141,725 a year, Kilgallon declined comment while escorting a federal agent from one personnel office to another. Kilgallon has been active in John Stroger's political campaigns and once shared office space with Nichols.

Todd Stroger tried hard Thursday to distance himself from Nichols, a longtime friend and neighbor who has been active in Todd Stroger's campaign.

Nichols still serves as secretary of the 8th Ward Regular Democratic Organization John Stroger headed for years. Asked who's running the organization now that John Stroger suffered a stroke and moved out of the ward, Todd Stroger said "that would be me at this point," though he said because he's busy with his campaign, state Rep. Marlowe Colvin is leading many of the efforts.

"I haven't spoken to Gerald in a real long time," Todd Stroger said. "He's not been involved in the organization since his administrative leave."

But Nichols was at the 8th Ward office Thursday morning calling supporters to sell them fund-raiser tickets to an upcoming event, Todd Stroger's campaign confirmed.

Peraica: Stroger is lying

Todd Stroger's Republican opponent Tony Peraica says it's "a lie" that Nichols isn't helping Todd Stroger's campaign, pointing to Nichols' public appearances with Todd Stroger at the Bud Billiken Parade, the Independent Voters of Illinois endorsement session and other political events.

Peraica said federal investigators will find "a criminal conspiracy to deny the rights of well-qualified persons and applicants jobs that were instead given to the politically connected. ... Test scores were rigged. Applications were falsified in order to allow hiring of clearly unqualified individuals, some with criminal histories."

The federal investigation of Cook County hiring could have implications not just for Todd Stroger's ward but for other clout-heavy wards such as Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan's 13th Ward, the Lipinski family's 23rd Ward, county Commissioner John Daley's 11th Ward organizations and others that have had success placing people on the county payroll.

As federal investigators pursue similar investigations of corruption in the city and state governments, they also have focused on Tony Rezko, a major donor to John Stroger's campaigns who has several relatives on the Cook County payroll.

Contributing: Rummana Hussain and Fran Spielman

It's not the labour market, stupid

It's not the labour market, stupid
By Samuel Brittan
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 22 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 22 2006 03:00


Bill Clinton fought the 1992 US presidential election on the slogan "It's the economy, stupid". This slogan, misguided though it was, has prompted me to think of another: "It's not the labour market, stupid".

Although people obsessed with financial markets do not always realise it, the labour market has long been the driving force behind macroeconomic policy and analysis in the developed world. It went through several phases.

The first I will call call phase zero. This was when inflation was assumed to be the product of institutional forces, principally trade unions pushing for more. There was supposed to be nothing finance ministers could do about it except to bribe or force trade unions to settle for less.

Phase one brought the realisation that the labour market was important. This was the era of the Phillips curve, after an economist at the London School of Economics. He promoted a chart in which the unemployment rate was plotted against the wage or inflation rates: it showed that the tighter the labour markets, the higher the rate of inflation. This phase came to an end in the 1970s, coinciding

with the first oil price explosion and the arrival of double-digit inflation,

in spite of high unemployment.

The second phase dawned when it was realised that this inflation/unemployment trade-off could only be temporary. When wage earners got wise to inflation they would insist on higher settlements. There was therefore nothing much to lose by making low inflation the ultimate objective of monetary policy. There was also no way in which finance ministers and central bankers could spend their way into desired levels of employment. In time these doctrines became highly respectable. But instead of talking about unemployment rates, governments and central bankers used the more anodyne term "output gap". This second phase was symbolised by the spread of inflation targets and central bank independence.

At any one time there are numerous knock-on or knock-off influences on the rate at which prices are rising, such as import price changes, changes in indirect tax and so on. But the ultimate influence was seen to be the state of the labour market. Look at the reports of any major central bank. They are all preoccupied with whether the core rate of inflation is going to be raised by catch-up pay increases.

This second phase is also fading away. Signs include the numerous occasions in which large knock-on price increases, or even accelerated growth of the money supply, have failed to trigger the feared inflation. If the US Federal Reserve or the Bank of England allows demand to rise too quickly, the impact is no longer mainly on wages and prices but on the flow of immigrants and/or the volume of imports.

I am not suggesting that inflation targets, which have worked surprisingly well, should be abandoned. If it's not broke, don't mend it. But if you can see some cracks in the machine, look for ways of strengthening it. So I will close with a few policy pointers.

The time for a worldwide labour market approach has not arrived. One big obstacle is lack of reliable information. Some observers believe that there is a reservoir of several hundred million able-bodied Chinese waiting to be drawn into international labour markets. Others believe that a shortage of people with the right attitude and skills has already triggered substantial pay increases for Chinese workers in the coastal belt.

Meanwhile, western policymakers have to pick up what clues and policy pointers they can find.

First, policymakers need to ase their own domestic decisionson the international as well as domestic economic environment.

Second, the financial indicators that our Victorian forebears looked at need to be taken seriously again. For instance, commodity prices (nowadays, of course, including oil), the gold price and asset prices including property and equities.

Third, in view of the greater frequency of so-called shocks, the inflation targets need to be pursued over an average of several years rather than immediately. In the heyday of the gold standard there were years when the consumer price index would rise by 5 or 6 per cent or more. What was different from the 20th century was that these price changes were not projected forwards and there was a belief that a pound or dollar in 25 or 50 years' time would be worth about the same as a pound or dollar today. Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, has shown signs of sympathising with this approach: he has looked forward to writing a letter to the chancellor of the exchequeron why inflation is more than 1 per cent above or below the 2 per cent target.

Fourth, there is no longer any need to throw out the old concern with employment and output stabilisation, so long as it is not pursued at the expense of letting inflation take off.

Finally, to show that these new attitudes do not mean that we have gone soft on inflation, the eventual target should perhaps be lowered to

1 per cent, or even just "stable prices".

Wal-Mart move intensifies generic drugs price war

Wal-Mart move intensifies generic drugs price war
By Christopher Bowe and Jonathan Birchall in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 22 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 22 2006 03:00


Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, yesterday shook up the US healthcare industry by saying it would slash the prices of nearly 300 generic drugs sold at its in-store pharmacies by as much as 60per cent.

Bill Simon, who oversees the retailer's pharmacy unit, said the company would start charging only $4 for a month's supply of some of the most widely used generics - copies of branded drugs whose patents have expired.

The move reflects growing scrutiny of generic drug prices, the retail prices of which often contain a large mark-up for middlemen including pharmacies and distributors.

Mr Simon said the programme, initially launched at 65 stores in Florida, would extend across the state by January next year, and then be extended to the retailer's nationwide network of more than 3,000 stores. Wal-Mart's $4 price for a 30-day supply of metformin, the most widely used entry-level diabetes drug, will be 49 per cent lower than the branded drug price. A similar $4 supply of lisinopril, a high-blood pressure medicine, was 67 per cent lower than brand prices.

Even with the planned reductions, he said Wal-Mart would not be selling the drugs at a loss, and that the company was not pressuring manufacturers for price cuts. Wal-Mart's move also comes on the heels of a crackdown on some generic drug pricing by UnitedHealth Group, the second-largest US health insurer. UnitedHealth has challenged the belief that generics are always cheaper, moving to discourage the use of 27 generic medicines because they were more expensive to the insurer than deeply discounted branded alternatives.

The leading US drug store chains, who make most of their profits from generic sales, saw their shares fall yesterday on the news. CVS was down 9 per cent to $32.27, while Walgreens fell 6 per cent, to $46.96, and RiteAid 6.5 per cent, to $4.45.

The US generic market faces increasing pricing pressure as more and more competition enters the lucrative market. This competition is pressuring manufacturers' margins, and moves such as Wal-Mart's adds to this pressure, according to David Maris, Bank of America analyst.

Wal-Mart this summer launched a marketing campaign focused on its pharmacy business, which it hopes can attract more customers and increase overall sales across its stores. Mr Simon said the pharmacies "are geared up to deal with significant volume increase" as a result of the new prices.

Over the past year, Wal-Mart has responded to political criticism of its healthcare provision for its own workers by saying it is committed to reducing overall healthcare costs. It is expanding a network of walk-in clinics in its stores, which offer lower cost care for basic medical issues.

Germany pressed to arrest CIA agents

Germany pressed to arrest CIA agents
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 21 2006 18:12 | Last updated: September 21 2006 18:12


German authorities were under mounting pressure on Thursday night to issue arrest warrants for US agents working for the CIA who allegedly kidnapped and detained a German national for four months in 2004.

August Stern, a Munich-based prosecutor, confirmed that he had received a list of about 20 names of people believed to have been involved in the kidnapping in Macedonia in December 2003 of Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese-born German, who was held in a US-run prison in Afghanistan until May 2004.

The kidnapping of Mr Masri sparked outrage in Germany last year, leading to tensions in US-German relations and the formation of a parliamentary inquiry earlier this year. Mr Stern’s comments followed German media reports that at least three of the alleged kidnappers had been identified as pilots living in North Carolina and employed by Aero Contractors, a company linked to the CIA.

The men – using the aliases Eric Fain, James Fairing and Kirk James Bird – had been among a group of 13 alleged CIA agents who are claimed to have stayed in a hotel in Mallorca on their way to Macedonia in late 2003, according to an investigation by the ARD, Germany’s main public television channel. ARD in recent weeks claimed to have located the men and asked for statements, but were turned down.

Passport copies and other information about the men were obtained in 2004 by Spanish police, but have only recently been requested and received by German investigators. Mr Stern insisted on Thursday that his investigation still needed more time before arrests warrants could be issued.

Opposition politicians on Thursday attacked the delays, and called on the German government to take action to help track down the alleged kidnappers. Max Stadler of the liberal Free Democrats said: “Concerning these secret CIA flights, we must not give the impression that Germany is not interested in a full investigation.”

In contrast to Germany, an alleged CIA abduction in Italy has led to the issuing of arrest warrants against 22 CIA agents.

In a fresh embarrassing twist for Berlin, a senior police official on Thursday told the parliamentary inquiry on Mr Masri’s case that the latter had been shadowed by German investigators in Germany in the months before he was kidnapped, and information was passed to the US. Germany has said repeatedly that it had no involvement in Mr Masri’s seizure. Government officials refused to comment on Thursday.

White House in deal on CIA prisons

White House in deal on CIA prisons
By Caroline Daniel in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 22 2006 01:19 | Last updated: September 22 2006 01:19


The White House on Thursday ended the impasse over its interrogation and detention policies when it agreed to compromise with a group of influential Republican senators, and said it would not seek to amend the terms of the Geneva Conventions.

President George W. Bush hailed the deal as meeting his goal of allowing the tougher interrogation of terrorist suspects at secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and prosecution of them using a new form of military tribunals.

“I’m pleased to say that this agreement preserves the most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA programme to question the world’s most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets.”

However, the compromise, struck on Thursday after six hours of intense negotiations, marks a second moral victory for Senator John McCain, who last year took on the White House over the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners, and Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John Warner.

“The agreement that we’ve entered into gives the president the tools he needs to continue to fight the war on terror and bring these evil people to justice,” said Mr McCain, who has made interrogations a signature issue and who has earned credibility on the issue after his years of being tortured in Vietnam. “There’s no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved.”

The battle had threatened to undermine both the Republican effort to show unity on national security issues and make that a cornerstone of party re-election efforts.

White House negotiators had also faced heavy criticism that they were undermining the Geneva Conventions, governing the rights of wartime detainees, by their insistence that they wanted to clarify the terms of Article 3. Although the new language was not made public, it did not now include changes to the convention, officials said.

The compromise language will be introduced as an amendment next week, when the bill could be brought to the Senate floor. Mr Bush on Thursday urged Congress to send him legislation before it wraps up business next week.

If the bill passes, it will also allow the creation of controversial military tribunals.

“The agreement clears the way to do what the American people expect us to do, to capture terrorists, to detain terrorists, to question terrorists, and then to try them,” said Mr Bush.

Musharraf deflects question on alleged US threat

Musharraf deflects question on alleged US threat
By Caroline Daniel in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 22 2006 17:44 | Last updated: September 22 2006 17:44



Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, on Friday transformed a White House news conference into a personal book promotion when he refused to answer a question about whether the US had threatened to bomb Pakistan “into the Stone Age,” citing his book contract.

In an interview with CBS that airs this Sunday to coincide with the publication of his memoirs, Mr Musharraf claims that Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, threatened Pakistan after 9/11 if it refused to help in the war in Afghanistan. “Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,” he recalls Mr Armitage saying.

Setting a new precedent for a non-answer on a question of international diplomacy at a White House press conference, Mr Musharraf said: “I am launching my book on the 25th, and I am honor-bound to Simon & Schuster not to comment on the book before that day” That prompted President George W Bush to interject, “In other words, “Buy the book,” is what he’s saying.”

Mr Bush denied he had known of the threat and conceded that was “taken aback by the harshness of the words.” He strongly defended the actions of Mr Musharraf after the attacks of 9/11 noting that he was “one of the first leaders to step up and say that the stakes have changed.”

The laughter, however, underlined continued tension in the relationship between the US and Pakistan, further highlighted by revived concerns about whether the US could strike at Osama Bin Laden in Pakistani territory, and doubts about the peace agreement Mr Musharraf has struck with tribal leaders on the border of Afghanistan, an area allegedly used by Taliban forces.

Although John Abizaid, commander of the US forces in the region, expressed skepticism about that agreement, Mr Bush emphasized his trust in his relationship with Mr Musharaff. “When the president looks me in the eye and says the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people and that there won’t be a Taliban and there won’t be Al Qaida, I believe him.”

Both leaders side-stepped concerns about targeting the al Qaeda leader, with Mr Musharaff dismissing the debate as about “the semantics of the tactics…. We are in the hunt together.”

Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, “Pakistan poses the most complicated a difficult long term foreign policy challenge on the US agenda. They have 110m people, an arsenal of nuclear weapons and are in a position to affect not simply Afghanistan’s future but that of global terrorism.”

Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan will dominate discussions next Wednesday when Mr Musharraf returns to the White House for a joint meeting with Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications?

Sharon L. Davis, Budget Analyst-U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, DC office spoke recently against rising drug prices and why you should shop at COSTCO for your medications. 

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. Ms Davis did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As she has revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In her independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, she obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. 

The data below speaks for itself. 

Celebrex: 100 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $ 0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 1 0 mg 
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306% 

Keflex: 250 mg 
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39 
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372% 

Lipitor: 20 mg 
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37 
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696% 


Norvasc: 10 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493% 

Paxil: 20 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27 
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898% 

Prevacid: 30 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77 
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136% 

Prozac: 20 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $247.47 
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973% 

Tenormin: 50 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47 
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362% 

Vasotec: 10 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37 
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185% 


Xanax: 1 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79 
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958% 


Zestril: 20 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809 

Zithromax: 600 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19 Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892% 

Zocor: 40 mg 
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27 
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059% 

Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this.

Please read the following and pass it on.

It pays to shop around.

This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10! 

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs. 

Although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. Just try it, by law they HAVE to let you in.

I can speak from my own experience: HIV MEDS are much cheaper at Costco.

Kaletra goes for over $800 at CVS and the same 120 tablets of the 200-50mg sell for $670 at Costco.

Viread 300mg 30 tablets goes for over $600 at CVS and goes for $446 at Costco.

Epzicon 30- tablets goes for over $1000 at CVS and $721 at Costco.

Fluconazole (Diflucan) 100 mg the generic sells at Cosctco for $16.36 (from the $300 cost of Diflucan)

For Hytrin's generic, Terazosin, 30 pills at CVS is over $30 and at Costco is $7.85

The generic form of Halcion's generic, Triazolam, 0.25mg 30 tabs goes for $40 at CVS and for $8.25 at Costco

You do the math!!!!

For more information contact:
Sharon L. Davis 
Budget Analyst
U.S . Department of Commerce
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458
Office Fax: 202-482-5480
E-mail Address: sdavis@doc.gov

Six reasons to attend Kim Clak's fundraiser at Sidetrack on October 18, 2006 at 6PM

I am a host for a fund-raiser to be held on Wednesday, October 18th to help support Kim Clark in his run for Congress in the 6th district of Michigan. Please put this date on your calendar now and I will provide a more formal invitation and additional information shortly.

You may be asking why you should attend a fund-raiser for a candidate running in Michigan (other than the obvious that I have invited you and it will be held at Sidetrack, where they have cosmos, margaritas and slushy drinks on tap)? Let me tell you. I plan on bending his ear on the following important positions:


Changing the national anthem to Gloria Gaynor's "I Am What I Am",


Requiring all employers to provide the Monday following Pride Day as a paid day off,


Mandating that all baseball players must play shirtless,


Quadruple the Fashion Police's annual budget,



Change the Blue State/Red State concept to Aquamarine State/Raspberry State, and finally,


Not only make the Cosmopolitan the national drink, but pink the national color.
I hope you will feel these issues are well worth your time and will come to the fund-raiser. In addition, you can also expect to hear directly from Kim on his political views.

Carlos T Mock, MD

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Is county ready for this kind of reform?

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Is county ready for this kind of reform?
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
September 21, 2006


It was with some surprise -- oh, let's be honest and say our jaws dropped -- to read that Mike Quigley, the reformer on the Cook County Board, the man who always questioned the way former president John Stroger did business, was throwing support to Stroger's son, Todd, in his bid to become the next County Board president. Sun-Times political columnist Carol Marin detailed the whole business in her column on Wednesday, noting that Quigley's chief of staff, Jennifer Koehler, is being seconded to work for Stroger's campaign. With Quigley's blessings.

"Would this be the same Mike Quigley who, beginning with his election in 1998, was the loneliest commissioner on the whole board?" Marin asked. "The guy crying for reform from a back bench? The lone vote for the longest time on cutting the bloated budget and confronting the endless corruption?"

Yes, indeed. One wonders about Quigley's motives, particularly when he tells Marin he would look "ridiculous" directly endorsing Stroger so he has sent him "the best and brightest" of his staff. Quigley says he needs to help Democrat Stroger, because the race for Cook County Board president has become a "grim choice" between Stroger and Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica. He adds that he hopes Stroger is being honest about wanting reform. Amen. It can only be said that politics makes strange bedfellows.

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - More must be done to help Mexicans succeed here

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - More must be done to help Mexicans succeed here
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
September 21, 2006


When it comes to Mexicans in the Chicago region's melting pot, we may need to do a little stirring. That's the conclusion of a task force sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Relations. It argues persuasively that because the number of Mexicans in the region is so big, and growing so rapidly, the area's future will be tied to our ability to integrate them into society and our economy. In other words, we can't afford to let them fail, because if they do, so will the region.

The task force's report didn't cover the immigration debate -- although the council has previously supported immigration reform similar to that pushed by President Bush and the Senate. Rather, it was more concerned about studying immigrants who are already here, determining how they fit into the region and looking for ways to improve the integration process.

It notes that 1.3 million Mexicans (defined as someone of Mexican descent, regardless of citizenship) live in the region, about one-sixth of the total population. The number is expected to double by 2030. That makes Mexicans by far the region's biggest ethnic group.

There are some key differences between Mexicans and the waves of Germans, Irish, Poles and other ethnic groups that built early Chicago. This is the first time, for instance, that the area has integrated such a large group in such a short time. And low-skill industrial jobs, which aided earlier groups, are vanishing, being replaced by service sector jobs that require more skill and more education. Finally, the task force argues, the fast pace of global economic change means Chicago must work quickly to keep its work force -- a work force with a a great number of Mexicans -- up to speed.

The study notes that Mexican integration has been hampered by many problems, including a lack of English proficiency, limited connections to the wider community and low levels of education. It makes a variety of recommendations aimed at overcoming those hurdles, calling on business and civic leaders, unions, educators, politicians and the Mexican community to cooperate to achieve them.

Those include supporting Mexican entrepreneurship, promoting job training, increasing financial literacy, improving bilingual education, raising academic expectations, strengthening parental involvement in schools, fostering Mexican participation in civic groups, promoting citizenship, voting and coalition-building, improving access to health care and health insurance, and creating "welcoming centers" to help immigrants adjust to life here.

It's a tall order. Many of the proposals will cost no small amount of money. But it's an investment that will pay dividends in the future.

This represents the consensus of the Sun-Times News Group of 100 papers in metro Chicago.

The Out & Equal Workplace Summit, as reported from Chicago

CHICAGO FREE PRESS
CONFERENCE HELPS CREATE CHANGE IN THE WORKPLACE
By Louis Weisberg, Staff Writer
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
September 20, 2006

Gay and lesbian workers have transformed the sensibilities of corporate America in recent years. Working quietly behind the scenes through employee groups, they've convinced the nation's boardrooms that equality in the workplace is good business -- helping to attract the best workers as well as to build marketplace loyalty among GLBT consumers. As a result, more than half of the Fortune 500 companies now offer domestic partner benefits to their gay and lesbian employees.
About 1,500 grassroots advocates for GLBT workplace rights gathered at Hyatt Regency Chicago Sept. 14-16 to learn from past victories and strategize for the future. The Out & Equal 2006 Workplace Summit was the largest in the annual event's eight-year history and it demonstrated the growing momentum of the movement, said Selisse Berry, executive director Out & Equal Workplace Advocates.
"The power of this conference really has changed people's lives," she said. "Many of these (attendees) are trying to do (advocacy) work within their company and trying to figure out how to get domestic partner benefits and create gay-friendly policies. Usually it's just a case of them not having the information. We give them the information and the tools."
Sometimes attendees are able to make a persuasive case to their companies simply by showing them the conference's program book, Berry said. "Their executives see who else is at the table," she said. "They might have seven direct competitors who are our sponsors."
That's often enough to prompt a positive response, she said.
This year's sponsors form an impressive list that includes Glaxo Smith Kline, Wal-Mart, Citigroup, Booz Allen Hamilton, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Aetna, GM, Kodak, Chubb, Motorola and many others.
The way that Wal-Mart developed an awareness of GLBT workplace issues is typical of a process that Berry calls, "the power of one."
"One Wal-Mart employee came to the conference two years ago," she said. "The next year he brought four of his gay colleagues. This year there were 43 attendees from Wal-Mart."
With workplace rights and protections becoming increasingly accepted nationally, the conference this year focused on expanding corporate policies to include perks that are commonplace for heterosexual workers, such as providing moving expenses for spouses of relocated workers. Another prominent topic this year was getting American companies to extend GLBT workplace policies to their overseas subsidiaries. This strategy is to create role models for corporate interests in Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in the world where GLBT acceptance lags behind.
Transgender rights also were a central focus of this year's event.
"In the beginnings, our transgender workshops were all about how to get over the bathroom issue," Berry said. "Now they're more sophisticated. We're advocating for expanding EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) policies to include gender identity as well as sexual orientation."
But Berry said her group's biggest focus at this time is leadership development. "We want to create a pipeline by working with employees who are out and are going to stay out and need specific career tracking to help them develop their careers," she said.
The goal is to ensure there are top-level GLBT executives and corporate officers in place to act as role models and progressive leaders of the future.


WINDY CITY TIMES
CHICAGO HOSTS OUT & EQUAL CONFERENCE
By Andrew Davis and Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Windy City Times
September 20, 2006

Seminars, LGBTA business leaders and networking opportunities were all around as more than 1,500 individuals took part in the 16th annual Out & Equal Workplace Summit, held Sept. 13-16 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.

The summit—whose $2 million budget was provided solely through corporate sponsors—brought together LGBT employees; straight allies; and human resource and diversity professionals to educate, offer resources and address workplace trends that affect the LGBT community.

Rooms on several levels of the vast hotel were utilized for the event—a reflection of how much the conference has mushroomed over recent years. To compare, in 2001 there were only 250 attendees. ( Interestingly, more than 17 percent of the participants identified themselves as heterosexual.)

Something that was important to the organizers of the summit was that every component of the LGBT community was part of the summit. “We’ve never been just a gay and lesbian event,” Out & Equal Workplace Advocates Executive Director Selisse Berry said during a media briefing. Proving this point, the conference featured forums such as “B & T: The Silent Letters in LGBT,” “The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits” and “Why Bi? Understanding Bisexuality as a Workplace Issue,” while also offering networking options such as a reception for transgender people.

However, the aforementioned seminars were far from the only interesting or instructional ones. Other forums and workshops dealt with everything from the “down low” to the changing LGBT presence in Hollywood. A seminar on gay marketing trends revealed some eyebrow-raising information as speakers addressed selling products to families, seniors and lesbians. For example, Sabrina Riddle of Olivia Cruises disclosed that 58 percent of its own customers ( according to a survey ) earn over $100,000 annually—a key factor that marketers would be wise to consider. Also, lesbians—who want their gender considered before their orientation, according to Riddle—comprise about 42 percent of the U.S. gay population (about 8 million women).

The impressive roster of summit keynote speakers included actor and activist George Takei ( TV’s Star Trek ) ; entertainment powerhouse Nina Jacobsen; writer Richard Florida ( Rise of the Creative Class ) ; and Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King.

Takei moved many with his speech at the breakfast/plenary session that took place on Sept. 14, which involved him drawing among various similarities between the past and the present. During one humorous interlude, he talked about what the technology on Star Trek had in common with what people use today: “We had an astounding sci-fi device on Star Trek that we all wore on our hips. We walked around all over with it. Whenever we wanted to talk with someone, we would get it, flip it open and start talking—loudly. But now it’s become a very real nuisance.”

However, he used a hard-hitting example to illustrate what the LGBT community faces: “Sixty-five years ago, when I was a boy, I looked out on the world behind the barbed-wire fences of U.S. interment camps. Pearl Harbor was fought and overnight, American citizens of Japanese ancestry were looked at as the enemy because we looked like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that ordered all Japanese Americans on the West Coast be summarily rounded up—with no trial or due process—and imprisoned in barbed-wire interment camps in some of the most God-forsaken places in the country. I still remember that scary day when U.S. soldiers with bayoneted rifles came to our home to force us out. ... It became normal for me to [ do things ] such as begin the school day with the pledge of allegiance; I could see the barbed wires as I recited the words “and liberty and justice for all.” ... [ However, ] I still see an invisible barbed-wire fence separating me and my partner and another group of Americans from a normal life.”

Also present at this particular event was Marty St. Clair of GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK ) . St. Clair, a virologist at GSK and an inventor of the use of AZT in treating AIDS, told the crowd that she was proud of her company’s role in HIV research and of her company’s pro-diversity stance as well as its “very active LGBT network.”

Another featured speaker was author Richard Florida, who spoke to a large early morning crowd at the Out & Equal summit on Sept. 15. The Rise of the Creative class examines creativity and its effect on economic development. Florida revealed that jobs come to innovative, warm and welcoming communities that house a “creative class” of people. Of interest to those in the crowd, Florida’s theory means that jobs also seek areas that are welcoming to openly GLBT people.

Florida, who is heterosexual, never expected the backlash that would occur from his 2002 bestselling book. “When we reported this finding, I was not ready for what was about to happen,” he said, adding that he suddenly had a difficult time obtaining funding for his research. The backlash came from conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats alike.

The incredible resistance showed Florida “how important it is what we do—gays and lesbians and straight allies—on the frontline.”

The professor and economist went on sabbatical to Harvard to study economic growth. During his stay, he wondered why companies were relocating to cities that already had a pool of creative, talented and entrepreneurial people. He posed the question to his young students, who replied that when they seek jobs, they want to go to cities that are diverse, energetic, creative and integrated. One student even said that seeing gay and lesbian couples holding hands in public would be a reason to go to that community.

A light bulb went off in Florida’s head. “Right now we are in a shift from an industrial to a creative economy. It comes from one source—us,” he said. “When the economy is powered by creative communities, everything changes.”

This new shift greatly benefits the GLBT community across the U.S. “In order to be creative, we have to be ‘out.’ We have to be able to self-express,” Florida added. That is because, he said, creativity requires diversity. Cities must be diverse, open and actively inclusive in order to grow economically and attract the good jobs.

Participants on all levels felt that the summit was particularly helpful and even fun. Several people took time to tell Windy City Times what they liked in particular about the conference. Reflecting on the summit, Jim Freeman, president of Out & Equal Workplace’s board of directors, told Windy City Times that among his favorite parts of the conference were Takei’s speech—which he called “poignant” and “powerful”—and spending time with his friends. Berry mentioned Takei’s and Jacobsen’s speeches but she also enjoyed how people have talked about how the summit has changed their lives. Greg Rohner, a summit co-chair, liked put the leadership techniques he has learned over the years to be put into play. However, Lori Fox, a transgender activist who was a workshop presenter, liked the bonding: “The connections you make are amazing. This is truly family.”

New York Times Editorial - Rules for the real world

New York Times Editorial - Rules for the real world
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 20, 2006



The White House has been acting lately as though the struggle over the proper way to handle prisoners is a debate about how tough to get with Osama bin Laden if he's ever actually caught. This week, we've had two powerful reminders of the real issue: When a government puts itself above the law, innocent people are put at risk.

On Monday, a Canadian government commission issued a scathing report about the story of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who was abducted by U.S. agents in late 2002 and turned over to the Syrian authorities, who obligingly tortured him for 10 months until he signed a transparently false confession.

The report said Arar never had any connection to terrorism. But the United States stonewalled Canada's investigation, which concluded that the Americans misled Canada about their plans for Arar. Sending him to Syria, where he would certainly be tortured, was not just immoral and un-American, it was a violation of international law.

In Iraq, U.S. authorities have been holding an Iraqi-born photographer for The Associated Press for five months without charging him with any crime. Military officials say they have evidence that Bilal Hussein has "strong ties" to insurgents, but refuse to show it to Hussein, his lawyers, The Associated Press or even to the Iraqi courts.

We don't know the truth. But we know how to get at it: If the American authorities have evidence against Hussein, they should present it. If he committed a crime, he should be charged. If not, he should be set free.

These two cases illustrate vividly why Congress needs to pass an effective law on the handling of prisoners that not only provides for legal military tribunals to try dangerous men like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to have organized the Sept. 11 attacks, but also deals with the other men, perhaps hundreds, wrongly imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, and sets rules for the future.

The bills now before Congress don't meet the test. The White House's measure endorses the practice of picking up any foreign citizens the United States wants, abusing and even torturing them, and then trying them on the basis of secret evidence. It effectively repudiates the Geneva Conventions, putting U.S. soldiers at risk.

The other bill, written by the only three Republican senators who were willing to defy the White House, preserves the conventions and creates a respectable trial process. But it defines "illegal enemy combatant" so broadly that the administration could apply it to almost any foreigner it chose, including legal U.S. residents. Both bills choke off judicial review and allow even those acquitted by a military tribunal to be held indefinitely.

Either bill might be acceptable if the U.S. government were infallible. As it is, they would legalize the sorts of abuses of power that the United States fought against in other countries for most of the 20th century.

Parsing words about torture

Parsing words about torture
By Steve Chapman
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 21, 2006


George W. Bush has a way, when asked about American treatment of alleged terrorists, of narrowing his eyes, jutting out his chin and stating emphatically, "We do not torture." It's the most convincing declaration by a president since Bill Clinton told the nation, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

Clinton was telling the truth, in his way, because he defined sexual relations to exclude oral intimacy. Like Clinton, President Bush has used a seemingly unequivocal statement for the purpose of equivocation. Renouncing brutality turns out to be a way of embracing it.

One thing he means is that we do not torture according to his exceedingly narrow definition of the word. Under current policy, only the worst forms of torture are forbidden. That means we reject such time-honored methods as breaking fingers, applying electric shocks to tender body parts, burning skin with lighted cigarettes or beating the soles of feet with metal rods. Or, as one Bush administration official put it last year, "We are against ... torture by anyone's common-sense definition of it, not some fancy definition."

The official policy is that while outright torture is banned, all sorts of other tactics designed to inflict pain, suffering and fear are allowed. Depriving prisoners of food, water, sleep or medical care is OK. Forcing them to stand or kneel in uncomfortable positions for long periods passes muster.

Likewise for holding someone's head under water to make him feel he's drowning ("waterboarding"). Or putting a prisoner in a cold room, soaking him with water and leaving him to shiver. Apparently, those are torture only by "some fancy definition."

But even the policy against torture is not as firm as it looks, since the administration itself sometimes finds it convenient to go by the fancy definition. In the State Department's annual report on human rights, it condemns various governments for abusing inmates with waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced kneeling and dousing with cold water. When they do it, it's torture. When we do it, it's an "alternative" method.

We can't even be sure how strictly the administration abides by its own rules, flexible though they are. Nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, and a study by the group Human Rights First found that at least eight of them were tortured to death. The longest prison sentence for anyone punished in these cases was five months.

Note that when Bush says, "We do not torture," he scrupulously avoids saying, "We have not tortured." Until 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explicitly authorized such now-forbidden tactics as stripping detainees, hooding them during interrogations, subjecting them to sensory deprivation and terrorizing them with dogs.

In a confidential report submitted to the White House, the International Committee of the Red Cross said conditions in Guantanamo Bay were "tantamount to torture." At Abu Ghraib, guards reportedly urinated on detainees, sodomized them with objects, forced them into sexually humiliating acts and threatened them with mock electrocution.

Our policy of abstaining from torture doesn't quite mean that those we capture will not be tortured. Under a policy known as "extraordinary rendition," the United States sometimes turns detainees over to governments that are less squeamish about these things. The advantage is that we may get the answers we want without having to do the dirty work ourselves.

This week, a Canadian government commission issued a blistering report about the treatment of a Canadian whom the U.S. arrested and shipped to Syria, where he was beaten until he confessed. We now know he was innocent. One Guantanamo inmate was sent to Egypt for interrogation. When he returned, most of his fingernails had been torn out.

Of course, the president and his allies defend nasty methods as an essential way of getting intelligence from terrorists. They say the CIA's techniques have extracted information that saved American lives. They think we shouldn't shut down this "aggressive" program, because it works.

But if methods short of torture can extract valuable information, why not go further? If waterboarding doesn't induce a terrorist to talk, why shouldn't we rip out his fingernails, break his bones, scorch his flesh or crush his genitals? The arguments used to justify the administration's coercive methods can be used to justify anything.

Bush's stated policy is "We do not torture." Anyone who really believes in the logic behind his policies ought to be asking, "Why on Earth not?"

----------

Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: schapman@tribune.com

President puts the bully in bully pulpit by Molly Ivins

President puts the bully in bully pulpit by Molly Ivins
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune and Creators Syndicate
Published September 21, 2006


AUSTIN, Texas -- Is it just me, or was that the worst presidential press conference in history? So I went back and read it over. Of course, in print you don't get the testy tone; I heard it on radio and thought the man was about to blow up--not just because he was being questioned, which President Bush appears to consider an offensive action, but because people continue to refuse to see things the way he does. How can they be so stupid, he appears to wonder.

I ask: How can he be so repetitive, repeatedly using the oldest tactic of a verbal bully--saying the same thing louder, as though that would make it true?

Last Friday's Rose Garden press conference seemed so awful I thought it worth wading through it again to see what set him off. Maybe if you saw it on television, it seemed better. Perhaps his banter with reporters works better on TV. But I left with the impression that this is a spoiled man whose frustration level when someone disagrees with him is that of a 3-year-old and that he's the last person you want to see operating under a lot of stress because he doesn't handle it well.

See what you think:

Q--"On both the eavesdropping program and the detainee issues . . . "

A--"We call it the terrorist surveillance program."

Yo. Sometimes I'm convinced this is a war of words. Should we call it surveillance or eavesdropping? Is the detainee issue about holding terrorists, or is it about torturing them and then trying them without telling them what evidence we have against them? If we stop calling it eavesdropping plus torture and with kangaroo trials, will it stop being eavesdropping, torture and kangaroo trials and become anti-terrorist activity? Who gets to name things? Would a rose by any other name, like skunkwort, smell as sweet?

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who knows more than Bush about torture in captivity, thinks abandoning the Geneva Convention rules leaves American soldiers in peril of being tortured in turn and us without a court of resort to look to.

It's a thorny issue, but Bush kept getting more and more annoyed as he reiterated, "And I will tell you again, David, you can ask every hypothetical [question] you want, but the American people have got to know the facts. And the bottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules, if they do not do that, the program is not going forward." (In other words, we will not hold tribunals for suspected terrorists.) In what court, in what world is not allowing the defendant to hear the evidence against him held to be just?

Bush kept insisting the legislation to permit such tribunals is vital and "the program will not go forward without it" because young intelligence officers might be accused of breaking the law (!).

"Let's see if I can put it [Article III of the Geneva Conventions] this way for people to understand. There is a very vague standard that the [U.S. Supreme] court said must kind of be the guide for our conduct in the war on terror and detainee policy. It's so vague that it's impossible to ask anybody to participate in the program for fear ... of breaking the law. That's the problem."

Actually, the problem is the proposed program of tribunals is illegal, and not young intelligence officers but potentially old war criminals are at risk as well.

Now here's a Bush classic, clarifying the matter with exquisite precision:

Q--"Well, recently you've also described [Osama] bin Laden as sort of a modern-day Hitler or Mussolini. And I'm wondering why, if you can explain why you think it's a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden, wherever he is?"

A--"We are, Richard. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question. They were asking me about somebody's report, well, special forces here--Pakistan--if he is in Pakistan, which this person thought he might be, who is asking me the question--Pakistan's a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we've got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.

"Secondly, the best way to find somebody who is hiding is to enhance your intelligence and to spend the resources necessary to do that. And then when you find him, you bring him to justice. And there is a kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throw-away lines, you know, when people say that."

Now that's a problem. Because in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, both administration officials and Bush himself repeatedly de-emphasized the importance of Osama bin Laden. This was, of course, after they had let him slip away at Tora Bora, a mistake increasingly denounced within the military itself.

As resources were transferred out of Afghanistan and toward Iraq, we were repeatedly told that bin Laden was not central to the war on terror, it would continue with or without him, he was no longer our focus. There was a flurry of commentary at the time about this odd decision, but Saddam Hussein was being presented as the great menace and monster, and bin Laden was off the table.

You might think this is a classic fork: Either they were lying then or they are lying now. But it would just take Bush longer to explain.

----------

Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist based in Austin, Texas. E-mail: info@creators.com

THE SHORT VIEW By John Authers - Judging by their reaction, traders found yesterday's Federal Reserve statement disappointing.

THE SHORT VIEW By John Authers
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 21 2006 03:00


Judging by their reaction, traders found yesterday's Federal Reserve statement disappointing. It is hard to see what they were hoping for.

The Fed left the Fed Funds rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent, as universally expected. But the accompanying statement stayed almost unchanged and that came as a surprise. Sentiment during the morning was that the Fed would change its wording to give a clear nudge towards the doves who want interest rates to go down, rather than the inflation hawks.

Had the Fed been that unequivocal, it is possible that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would have hit an all-time high. As it was, the S&P 500 reached a five-year high in the morning, only to slip a little once the Fed's words were known. The dollar strengthened against the euro and the yen, while the Treasury market, the most bullish about the prospects for rate cuts, gave up its morning gains.

This reaction seems to confirm that the markets, particularly bonds, had got ahead of the Fed. There are arguments either way. Signs of inflationary pressure persist, while the only clear sign of a slowdown comes from the housing market. But the balance of probabilities, after this statement, points clearly towards the doves.

To maintain credibility, the Fed, like any central bank, had to stress its watchfulness on inflation. Given this eternal verity, the governors moved the statement in about as dovish direction as they dared. The "cooling" in the housing market is no longer described as "gradual," as it was in August. And, on a day when falling oil prices briefly brought Brent crude below $60 per barrel, it said inflation pressures seemed likely to moderate, "reflecting reduced impetus from energy prices". The oil price correction is thus presented as a point for the doves. This is true of headline inflation, which includes energy prices.

But the fall in oil is more a point for the hawks: cheaper petrol should free consumers to spend more and push up "core" inflation, which matters more to the Fed. The positive gloss on the oil market made this Fed statement about as good as the market should have expected.

Get ready for the end of the great bond bull market

Get ready for the end of the great bond bull market
By Joachim Fels
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 21 2006 03:00


Conventional wisdom has it that the forces unleashed by globalisation have depressed world long-term interest rates in recent years and will keep doing so for many years to come. This view rests on two pillars. The first is an alleged global savings glut - an excess of desired savings over desired investment - fuelled by high savings rates in China and other parts of Asia, which has supposedly depressed real interest rates. Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve chairman, is a proponent of this theory. The second pillar is the vast supply of cheap labour in China, India and elsewhere, which weighs on the prices of manufactured goods, keeps inflation subdued and reduces the inflation compensation that bond investors demand when buying long-term bonds - or so the story goes.

However, these pillars rest on shaky analytical and empirical foundations. Yes, long-term interest rates have been exceptionally low in recent years. Yet this is unlikely to have been caused by a savings glut, but rather by a global liquidity glut that is now receding. Globalisation is more likely to push real interest rates and inflation higher than lower in the next few years.

The suggestion of a global savings glut does not sit well with evidence of a roughly unchanged aggregate global savings rate over the past decade. Also, it is difficult to reconcile with the fact that world economic growth has been the strongest in several decades over the past few years. A better explanation for depressed long-term interest rates is that central banks cut short-term interest rates to extremely low levels during the equity bear market of 2000-2003 and the following deflation scare and thus flooded the financial system with excess liquidity. The resulting yearning for yield dragged long-term interest rates lower as investors moved out along the yield curve. Conversely, the progressive normalisation of global monetary policies over the past year or so has already led to rising long-term interest rates.

With global liquidity being withdrawn and real interest rates no longer artificially depressed, other factors should soon start to shape long-term interest rates. Globalisation has made capital scarce relative to the huge supply of labour in the emerging world. Employing this labour will require a larger stock of capital, which implies very high rates of investment in fixed assets for years - infrastructure in India and machinery and equipment in China. Moreover, the larger demand for natural resources caused by rapid growth in the emerging world has raised commodity prices, which will spark higher investment in exploration in commodity-producing countries and in energy-substitution elsewhere. High savings ratios in Asia are likely to fall as income prospects improve and governments build social safety nets. Long-term real interest rates, which balance the demand for and the supply of capital, need to rise, signalling the relative scarcity of capital.

Another sea-change that lies ahead is a rise in inflation towards permanently higher levels than those of the past decade or so. It is increasingly obvious that the big disinflation that started in the 1980s ended in 2002/2003, when inflation had fallen to such low levels that central banks started to consider deflation as their main enemy. They opened the floodgates and reflated first the financial system, then their real economies and now consumer prices.

Moreover, inflation has been depressed since the mid-1990s by several factors that are about to dissipate. Deregulation in many sectors lowered prices, but has largely run its course. The information technology-induced US productivity acceleration, which kept unit wage costs low, is ebbing. Downward pressures on manufactured goods prices from globalisation are waning, too, as higher raw materials prices and accelerating wage costs in China induce exporters to raise export prices. Energy and food prices should continue to be boosted by globalisation, raising headline inflation rates around the world. It will be hard for central banks to keep inflation expectations low. With the output costs of squeezing inflation likely to be high in this new environment, monetary policymakers will probably accommodate moderately high inflation over the next few years.

Against this backdrop, investors, companies and governments should prepare for an end to the great bond bull market that has lasted almost a quarter of a century. It is unlikely to usher in a bear market of 1970s dimensions. But in a few years, the low bond yields of recent years will look like an anomaly rather than the norm.

The writer is managing director and chief global fixed income economist at Morgan Stanley

American courts cannot solve all the world's ills

American courts cannot solve all the world's ills
By Patti Waldmeir
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 21 2006 03:00


The US has been exporting its own notions of justice overseas for several years now, but the past few months have seen a dramatic increase in America's judicial trade surplus: whether it is Sarbanes-Oxley regulators raiding UK accounting firms, or US competition cops getting heavy with foreign cartels, or the feds arresting Scots who run internet gambling businesses from Costa Rica, America is increasingly flexing its judicial muscles abroad. We are watching the rise of a legal superpower, in a world where justice has no borders.

US regulators and prosecutors are one thing; but increasingly US courts are also getting into the business of crossborder justice. My last column (Unwanted: a global pollution policeman) spotlighted a case of the new legal imperialism in environmental regulation: a federal appeals court that is trying to use US law to regulate what a Canadian company does entirely in Canada. But now another federal court has ruled in a case that could invite US courts to meddle not just in US foreign policy (as in the environmental case), but in the domestic politics of faraway countries with very different political and legal traditions. In the old days, we called that imperialism; now we just call it globalisation.

The case involves Nigeria, that entrepreneurial African country whose lawyers seem to have taken lessons in creativity from their American brethren. The case has been going on for years, but recently a federal judge in Chicago issued a breathtaking ruling that could make it a blueprint for a whole new kind of litigation that could spread well beyond Nigeria to much of sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

The defendant in the case is one of Nigeria's many former military rulers, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. The plaintiffs include a Nigerian elder statesman and politician, and one of the myriad children of the extremely prolific Chief Moshood Abiola, the Nigerian politician who died in detention under General Abubakar's regime - and in the presence of two senior US diplomats.

This is the kind of heart-of-darkness tale that naive US courts with no experience of Africa are desperately ill-suited to hear, and the judge in the case made it very clear that he would happily have avoided ruling. But Judge Matthew Kennelly felt he had no option: the US Torture Victim Protection Act explicitly permits foreigners to sue their rulers in US courts for torture and extrajudicial killing. Judge Kennelly made clear why he considered this an "unenviable" task: "A court in this country is unlikely to be in a good position effectively to gauge the adequacy of another country's judicial system," he wrote. The torture act rightly requires foreigners to exhaust judicial remedies in their own country before turning to US courts - but how is a US judge to know whether it is practical, or simply futile for them to try? He may have a pretty dim view of sub-Saharan courts - but does that

mean these particular plaintiffs could not get justice there?

This judge struggled mightily with the task of figuring out whether the Nigerian plaintiffs could or should have filed suit instead in Nigeria and decided that, on balance, they did not need to. He based his ruling partly on an interpretation of Nigerian law - a tough call for somebody who, presumably, never passed the Nigerian bar - but also on a bit of boilerplate language in a US Department of State report condemning Nigerian courts (along with most sub-Saharan tribunals) as less than ideally fair.

The problem with that ruling is that it opens the door to similar suits from almost any disgruntled African who wants to force his country's rulers, or former rulers, to spend huge sums of money defending themselves (and their assets, and their reputation, and their prospects for a lucrative United Nations job) in a US court. No African leader who wants to send his children to university in the US, or retire quietly to Florida after a turbulent sub-Saharan term, can afford to ignore these suits. US courts enforce their judgments mercilessly.

No one is denying that victims of torture and state-sponsored murder deserve justice - and if there is really no alternative, they deserve American justice. But first - unless it is too dangerous for them to do so -- they should be required to try to get justice in their home country. "Imagine," said Judge Kennelly, "if the shoe were on the other foot." What would the US do if one of the Guantánamo detainees got a ruling from a foreign court against President George W. Bush, on the grounds that he could get no justice in US courts for his detention?

These judicial exports are dangerous business: they come back to haunt you.

Chávez wins applause calling Bush 'the devil'

Chávez wins applause calling Bush 'the devil'
By Mark Turner at the United Nations
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 21 2006 03:00


Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, assured his place in UN history yesterday by calling George W. Bush, the US president, "the devil" and saying he could still smell the "sulphur" hanging around the General Assembly chamber.

His diatribe against US imperialism, and calls for a re-foundation of the United Nations, may be nothing new, but the grandeur of his stage and the applause he won hammered home the mounting sense of developing world anger at an organisation many countries believe to be irretrievably under the sway of rich western powers.

Mr Chávez's invective came one day after Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian president, slammed the inequities of the UN Security Council, and Evo Morales, the indigenous Bolivian leader, brandished a coca leaf before the hall and called for an end to injustice.

While the 15-member UN Security Council has returned to centre stage in trying to resolve many of the world's most intractable crises, the General Assembly - of 192 countries - has found itself deadlocked over efforts to reform the way the UN is managed and how its resources are spent.

It cannot agree on a definition of terrorism, and has proved incapable of agreeing a strategy on nuclear non-proliferation.

All countries claim the UN needs reform, but the developing world is deeply sceptical of US efforts to overhaul its systems in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, and believe the secretariat incapable of resisting the demands of its industrialised paymasters.

Even more moderate leaders such as Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, warned that unless the UN gave a greater voice to the poor it risked losing legitimacy. "For the UN to continue occupying its moral high ground, it has to reform urgently, and lead by practical example as to what it means to be democratic."

Mr Chávez was less forgiving. "Let's be honest," he said. "The UN system born after the second world war collapsed. It's worthless."

He suggested: "We could call a psychiatrist to analyse yesterday's statement by the president of the United States," referring to Mr Bush's upbeat assessment of the situation in the Middle East.

"The hegemonistic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very existence of the human species," he said. "We appeal to the people of the United States and of the world to halt this threat which is like a sword hanging over our heads."

A taste for granola by Kevin Feldotto

A taste for granola by Kevin Feldotto
Copyright by The Colorado Springs Independent
Sept. 14-20, 2006
http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2006-09-14/yourturn.html

I live in Colorado Springs, home of God. There are more Christian ministries in this town than you can shake a Harry Potter book at. Apparently, this makes us some sort of Christian Mecca. I'm not buying it.

The ugly truth is that we are a town divided by hate. It's the granola-eating, pacifist, pro-homosexual tree-huggers versus the holier-than-thou, flag-waving, pro-life, Bible-thumpers, and we have been divided for a decade. We don't have time to stand in the park and yell at each other, so we wage war with our bumper stickers. "FOCUS ON YOUR OWN DAMN FAMILY" is a popular bumper sticker that reveals more about our community than about any organization.

Being a Christian conservative, I am keenly aware of this battle. Recently I saw a bumper sticker that made me spew my latte. It read, "DOING MY PART TO PISS OFF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT." While that would make some wish they had a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher, it made me laugh out loud.

Personally, I love controversy - not for the sake of confrontation, but because it makes people think.

I wanted to kidnap the owners of the bumper sticker (with my grenade launcher) and buy them a beer. I would ask them how they feel about the religious; how they feel about the right. Then I would ask them how they feel about Christians. I would then do something so radical, it would completely freak them out. I would listen; no arguing, no defending, just listening. In fact, I might just be nodding my head in agreement.

You see, I am one of the religious right, and I don't like us. Our ranks are filled with arrogant know-it-alls who wear the label
"evangelical" like some kind of medal; people who think "right" refers not to their political stance but to their level of
correctness. If you are not a member of the club, you probably know what I mean. As soon as they figure out your label, you get the distinct impression that you have dog doo on your shoes.

I was still laughing about the "religious right" sticker when it hit me: If Jesus had a car, he might have had that bumper sticker on it, right next to the one that said "WHAT WOULD I DO?"

Hear me out on this. Whenever Jesus went on the attack, who did he launch against? It wasn't the liberals; it was the religious right, the conservatives. It was the religious leaders who knew the Scriptures like they were written on their underwear. The pious people who were convinced that they had the corner on being right.

Instead of giving them a good ol' boy slap on the back, he got in their faces at every opportunity. Time and again, Jesus said,
"Have you not read?" He knew darn well they had not only read it, they had memorized it. When he repeatedly remarked, "You have heard it said this, but I say to you that," he purposefully challenged their authority. When Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, he was not ignorant of rabbinical law. He did it to force the issue.

I find it very interesting that he never seemed to hang with the religious right. He ended up at parties with the wild crowd, while the conservatives hovered outside and talked about what he was doing wrong. He intentionally spent time with those whom the conservatives looked down on.

What does this say about us as evangelicals? Perhaps we don't have the corner on being right. (Be still my heart.) Possibly, we have been unwilling to see our weaknesses because of our own arrogance.

Could it be that the bumper sticker, "THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS NEITHER" is more than just wordplay? We need to be willing to honestly ask ourselves if we have been wrong. No, I take that back. The question should not be "Am I wrong?" but "Where am I wrong?"

Now that I have voiced these heresies, I may get thrown out of the club. That may be OK. If you're a pro-homosexual, tree-hugging pacifist, let's talk. I actually like granola.

Kevin Feldotto has lived in Colorado Springs for 17 years. He can be contacted at ColoradoWriter@earthlink.net.

CIA ‘refused to operate’ secret jails

CIA ‘refused to operate’ secret jails
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 20 2006 22:07 | Last updated: September 20 2006 22:07


The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.

The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished.

When Mr Bush announced the suspension of the secret prison programme in a speech before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, some analysts thought he was trying to gain political momentum before the November midterm congressional elections.

The administration publicly explained its decision in light of the legal uncertainty surrounding permissible interrogation techniques following the June Supreme Court ruling that all terrorist suspects in detention were entitled to protection under Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.

But the former CIA officials said Mr Bush’s hand was forced because interrogators had refused to continue their work until the legal situation was clarified because they were concerned they could be prosecuted for using illegal techniques. One intelligence source also said the CIA had refused to keep the secret prisons going.

Senior officials and Mr Bush himself have come close to admitting this by saying CIA interrogators sought legal clarity. But no official has confirmed on the record how and when the secret programme actually came to an end.

John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, who was interviewed by Fox News on Sunday, said in response to a question of whether CIA interrogators had refused to work: “I think the way I would answer you in regard to that question is that there’s been precious little activity of that kind for a number of months now, and certainly since the Supreme Court decision.”

In an interview with the Financial Times, John Bellinger, legal adviser to the state department, went further, saying there had been “very little operational activity” on CIA interrogations since the passage last December of a bill proposed by Senator John McCain outlawing torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Mr Bellinger said the secret prisons remained empty for the moment. But he defended the US position that use of such prisons did not contravene international conventions as some in Europe have argued. He also said that, theoretically, the Pentagon as well as the CIA had the legal right to run such facilities. The CIA declined to comment.

Key figures among the 14 prisoners transferred to Guantánamo, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had been held in secret centres for three years or more.

Mayor Daley Among Hall of Fame Inductees

Mayor Daley Among Hall of Fame Inductees
Copyright by The Windy City Times
2006-09-20


The Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues has named the 2006 list of individuals and organizations for inclusion in the only known government-sponsored hall of fame that honors members of the LGBTA community, announced Commission Chairperson Clarence N. Wood and Advisory Council Chairperson Laura Rissover.

At the 15 previous Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, Mayor Richard M. Daley has participated in the awards presentation. This year, he will receive an award himself.

Past Hall of Famers vote on the new inductees each year, based on nominations submitted by the public.

Chosen nominees will be inducted at the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame’s 16th annual ceremony, at a date and time to be announced. The event will be free and open to the public.

Among the other honorees are:


Individuals

Margaret Anderson ( 1886-1973 ) and Jane Heap ( 1883-1964 ) , partners and free-thinking literary figures, for founding, editing, and publishing the avant-garde magazine The Little Review, which featured works by some of the most influential modern American and English writers between 1914 and 1929.

Jacques Cristion ( 1936-2003 ) , dancer, costume designer, and dressmaker; for more than 31 years of hosting and performing in the annual Halloween drag ball on the South Side, which created a community of gay men and lesbians that continues today.

Jill M. Metz, 54, lawyer and activist, for nearly three decades of work in developing domestic relations law for same-sex couples, producing LGBT arts events, lobbying for human rights, and serving the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, of which she is now board president.

Charles R. Middleton, Ph.D., 62, historian, educator, and ( as Roosevelt University’s current president ) the first openly gay man to head a major U.S. university, for the inspiration his professional achievements have provided and for his active support of sexual-minority interests in academia and in society.

Edward Negron, 36, activist and substance-abuse counselor, for years of dedicated service as a volunteer, mentor, leader, and advocate in the LGBT, Latino, and recovering communities.

Laird Petersen, 49, currently state Rep. Larry McKeon’s chief of staff, for 25 years of volunteer and professional contributions to Chicago’s LGBT communities, including fund-raising and administrative work to support social service, HIV/AIDS, and political organizations.

Dick Uyvari, 62, athlete, real estate investor, and philanthropist, for 27 years of dedicated service to the LGBT sports community as a bowler, tournament director, leader, fundraiser, and sponsor.


Organizations

Congregation Or Chadash, for 30 years of service to Chicago’s LGBT Jews and their friends, families, and partners, both as a voice for sexual-minority concerns in the city’s Jewish community and as a Jewish voice in sexual-minority communities.

Sidetrack, for 25 years not only as an innovative, nationally known, and world-class music-video bar but also as an unparalleled backer of LGBT organizations and efforts of all stripes, ranging from social to social service to sports to cultural to political.

Star Gaze, a women’s bar that for 8 years has been a contributing and supportive member of the LGBT communities, with consistent commitment without qualification to LGBT organizations and individuals.


Friends of the Community

Marigold Bowl ( 1941-2004 ) and the Fagenholz Family, for being early advocates for diversity after WWII and for establishing, in the mid-1970s, gay bowling leagues that were some of the first openly gay social organizations in Chicago and that were followed by additional gay and lesbian leagues, the annual Chicago Pride Invitational bowling tournament, the Strike Against AIDS benefit, and support for DirectAID, Howard Brown Health Clinic, and Season of Concern.

Richard M. Daley, 64, Chicago’s mayor since 1989, for his years of historic top-level support for sexual-minority Chicagoans as integral parts of the city’s fabric, and for repeatedly and vocally bolstering their pursuit of fully recognized legal equality in all areas of civic life.


Hall of Fame Celebrity Auction Sept. 26

The Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues will host the 14th annual Hall of Fame Celebrity Auction on Sept. 26 at Sidetrack, 3349 N. Halsted. The registration reception will begin at 7 p.m.—with drink specials and the chance to view auction items—with the actual bidding slated to start at 8 p.m.

Proceeds will benefit the 2006 Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. The fund-raising season began with a 2006 fundraising effort with the 15th Pride and Joy Reception in June.

For more info, see www.glhalloffame.org or call Bill Greaves at 312-744-7911.



Matthew Shepard’s Mother at Roosevelt

Judy Shepard, mother of the late Matthew Shepard, will discuss ways people can erase hate and accept diversity at a free lecture sponsored by Roosevelt University on Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Auditorium theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, 21, was tortured and left for dead by two attackers near the University of Wyoming, where he was a student. The convicted murderers are serving life sentences in prison, but were not charged with a hate crime because there were no appropriate statutes at the time. Since Matthew’s death, his parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, have created The Matthew Shepard Foundation to honor their son.

For more information, call 312-341-3510 or see www.roosevelt.edu .


Ex-Project Runway Designer to Help Host ALMA Event

Celebrity couturier and former Project Runway contestant Nick Verreos will join the Association for Latino Men in Action ( ALMA ) in hosting “Project ALMA,” a fundraising event that will showcase work by some of Chicago’s leading Latino designers.

The event is Sept. 30 at FlatFile Gallery, 217 N. Carpenter, 7-11 p.m. Among the highlights will be a 2006-2007 fall-winter runway fashion show featuring the work of Latino fashion designers James De Colon, Horacio Nieto, Carol Piñeiro and Carla Soledad Rivera.

Show reservations are a must in order to guarantee seating for the event.

Call ALMA at 773-929-7688 or visit www.almachicago.org to purchase tickets.

Jackson Gets 15 Years

Jackson Gets 15 Years
By Andrew Davis
2006-09-20
Copyright by THe Windy City times



Calling the case “nightmarish,” Judge James Schreier sentenced AIDS activist and former City of Chicago worker MichaelJackson to 15 years in prison for the murder of taxi driver Haroon Paryani. The sentencing took place Sept. 20 at the Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California.

On Feb. 4, 2005, Paryani and Jackson became embroiled in an argument over cab fare. The situation culminated with Jackson running over Paryani three times with the driver’s own vehicle. On Aug. 20, 2006, a jury of nine women and three men found him guilty of second-degree murder.

“After all these years, I thought nothing could surprise me,” Schreier opined. “However, this nightmarish case is nothing less than shocking.”

In determining the sentence, the judge weighed the impact letters sent by people on behalf on the victim and the defendant as well as the testimonies of witnesses that the state called earlier on Wednesday. In reaching his decision, Schreier said that “ [ t ] his wasn’t a loss of judgment. The defendant was consumed completely by rage.” At one point the judge asked “what manner of man” runs over someone multiple times, acknowledging that this particular issue was the “salient factor” in deciding “a sentence that fit the crime and the criminal.”

Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mercedes Luque-Rosales implored Schreier to impose the maximum sentence of 20 years, stating that Jackson would probably ( with good conduct and time already served ) be imprisoned seven to eight years “for running over an unarmed man.” Thomas Breen, Jackson’s attorney, contended that Jackson did not set in motion the events that ultimately resulted in Paryani’s death. In addition, Breen said that his client was “out of control not out of anger, but out of fear.”

Among the witnesses the state called during the hearing was Susan McNamara, a nurse who claimed that Jackson attacked her at Good Samaritan Hospital after he was admitted there for a suicide attempt ( overdose ) in August of 2005. She told the court that Jackson swung at her at one point and later spat at her, with him allegedly saying, “Here’s some AIDS for you, you f--king bitch.” However, Breen got her to admit that she knew that she would not be infected unless the saliva made contact with an open wound. When Breen asked her if she had a wound, McNamara responded that she could not recall.

Another witness was an inmate at DuPage County Jail, where Jackson is currently awaiting trial for the Good Samaritan incident. While he admitted that he put Jackson’s penis in his mouth, he also added that the defendant did not tell him that he was infected with HIV or hepatitis. The inmate also said that it was done as a joke in front of several fellow prisoners and that Jackson never reached orgasm.

However, it was the third witness who was probably the most effective. Amir Paryani, the victim’s son, signed his impact letter while a sign-language interpreter simultaneously read the missive aloud to the courtroom. The son called Haroon “a man of faith, respect and kindness” as well as an “unforgettable person.” He added that his father “will never be able to come to our graduations and see us be successful people.” Amir also said that Haroon “wished for me to hear him singing in his own voice before he died.” At this point, the son broke down on the stand while his family wept.

Before being sentenced, Jackson himself made a brief statement. He commented how he was dedicated to saving lives and that “what happened [ that night ] was tragic to both families. I would never intentionally harm someone.”

After being sentenced, John Castronovo, Jackson’s part, left the building along with other supporters. However, Mayer Becker, a family friend, read a prepared statement. “Mike Jackson continues to maintain his innocence,” he read. “He deeply regrets that Haroon Paryani lost his life. However, the court did not fully consider the physical violence [ that took place that night ] . As his friends know, Mike has a kind and compassionate heart. ... Mike wants to thank those who stood by him.”

A post-sentencing motion to reconsider the sentence was denied by Schreier.

Of chickens, horses, and Hummers

On the farm lived a chicken and a horse, both of who loved to play together.

One day the two were playing, when the horse fell into a bog and began to sink.

Scared for his life, the horse whinnied for the chicken to go get the farmer for help!

Off the chicken ran, back to the farm. Arriving at the farm, he searched and searched for the farmer, but to no avail, for he had gone to town with the only tractor.

Running around, the chicken spied the farmer's new Hummer.

Finding the keys in the ignition, the chicken sped off with a length of rope hoping he still had time to save his friend's life.

Back at the bog, the horse was surprised, but happy, to see the chicken arrive on the shiny Hummer, and he managed to get a hold of the loop of rope the chicken tossed to him.

After tying the other end to the rear bumper of the farmer's Hummer, the chicken then drove slowly forward and, with the aid of the powerful truck, rescued the horse!

Happy and proud, the chicken rode the Hummer back to the farmhouse, and the farmer was none the wiser when he returned.

The friendship between the two animals was cemented: Best Buddies, Best Pals.

A few weeks later, the chicken fell into a mud pit, and soon, he too, began to sink and cried out to the horse to save his life!

The horse thought a moment, walked over, and straddled the large puddle.

Looking underneath, he told the chicken to grab his hangy-down thing and he would then lift him out of the pit.

The chicken got a good grip, and the horse pulled him up and out, saving his life.

The moral of the story? (yep, you betcha, there IS a moral!)

"When You're Hung Like A Horse, You Don't Need A Hummer To Pick Up Chicks!

Financial Times Editorial - Regulatory creep from across the Atlantic

Financial Times Editorial - Regulatory creep from across the Atlantic
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 20 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 20 2006 03:00



The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is like dropping a glass vase from a great height: the main impact is clearly felt where it falls, but shards and splinters can cause damage at some distance. Recent visits by US audit inspectors to the London offices of Ernst & Young will confirm the worst fears of those who believe US regulators have sweeping international ambitions. A new approach is needed if national watchdogs are to co-operate in regulating international companies efficiently and effectively.

Unhappiness about the inspection should not be directed at the staff from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Indeed, the fact that they and their UK counterparts are still on speaking terms suggests that they carried out their mission sensitively. The act requires them to produce reports every so often on foreign audit firms with US-listed clients: in the current regulatory climate, it would have been an unenviable task for the PCAOB to explain why it had relied exclusively on the work of others.

UK accountants have expressed two broad objections to the US inspections. First, they duplicate the work of the UK audit watchdog. Second, in contrast to the UK audit inspection arrangements, individual firms could be criticised publicly if the inspectors find slipshod work. The second deserves little sympathy, but the first is worth serious examination.

Having US inspectors trawling through foreign audit firms must mean wasteful activity. Even where there is a high degree of co-operation, some repetition is bound to occur. And achieving this co-operation will not be possible without large amounts of time and effort that could have been directed elsewhere.

Extending the US writ in this way is offensive at a deeper level. This requirement of Sarbox amounts to telling audit regulators throughout the rest of the world that the US authorities do not believe they will do a proper job. Behaving as though you have a monopoly of virtue is rarely attractive and in this case is also misplaced, since Sarbox falls far short of a regulatory ideal. Even more fundamentally, it is unacceptable that legislators in one country can declare unilaterally that their law should run outside their -jurisdiction.

The way ahead is not straightforward but the need to find one is pressing. As globalisation marches on, more businesses will have operations spread more widely around the world and thus become subject to more different regulatory regimes. If this issue is not addressed, it could lead to a significant increase in the costs of doing international business. Financial watchdogs are already making some - largely unsung - progress in co-operating, but deeper co-operation is needed.

The response to the Sarbox audit inspection regime should be to fight fire with fire. The European Union audit directive, which is due to take effect in 2008, requires member states to ensure that non-EU companies listed in the region be registered with a European audit regulator and regularly inspected. The requirement can be lifted only where a non-EU regime is reckoned to be broadly similar and both parties agree to accept the other's regulatory system. This should concentrate the minds of US legislators and encourage them to adopt a more reciprocal stance. Unless they do they will face a nasty surprise, when European audit inspectors arrive on US territory and demand to see the books.

Teen abortion law bashed - Democrats call act's revival political ploy

Teen abortion law bashed - Democrats call act's revival political ploy
By John Chase and David Mendell
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 20, 2006


Calling the Illinois Supreme Court's revival of an abortion law a political move, Democratic lawmakers vowed Tuesday to vigorously fight the resurrection of a parental-notification law passed 11 years ago but never enforced.

But a spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court said the ruling was not political, but based solely on legal judgment. He said that, in the unanimous decision, four Democrats on the court agreed with three Republicans to take up the matter.

The state court decided Monday that it would issue rules for a parental-notification law passed by the General Assembly in 1995. The law had never gone into effect because the court in the 1990s declined to write rules that would enforce it. The rules would govern how minors could seek exceptions to the law's requirements.

The current court has only one justice from the earlier group.

"It's not a political issue; it's a legal issue on which this court disagreed with an earlier court," court spokesman Joseph Tybor said.

Nevertheless, some Democrats said they would mount a campaign to repeal the law although they did not think it would come to that.

"There will be a concerted effort to stop this," said state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago). "What exactly that will be I do not know. But I can hardly see the pro-choice community sitting back and letting this move forward."

But until the Supreme Court officially acts, there would appear to be little that the legislature can do about a law that was passed in the 1990s and not enforced. The General Assembly won't be in session again until Nov. 14.

State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale), who sponsored similar parental-notification bills in the 1990s, predicted that the General Assembly would not repeal the law.

Dillard said Gov. Jim Edgar, who favored abortion rights, signed the bill into law. He also pointed out that states throughout the Midwest have similar notification laws in place.

"I don't believe that the pro-choice community will be able to garner enough votes that could overcome a bill that was approved by a pro-choice governor like Jim Edgar," Dillard said.

Feigenholtz, meanwhile, blasted the court for picking up the issue just weeks before a statewide election.

"The politics stinks," Feigenholtz said. "There's no reason the Supreme Court had to announce this now."

In his successful 2002 campaign for the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Bob Thomas did not hide his strong anti-abortion sentiments, but he maintained then that he would look at cases based on the law and not his personal views. Thomas declined to comment Tuesday on the court's decision, Tybor said.

Tybor also said Thomas had been looking at the matter since spring and did not have politics on his mind. Tybor dismissed charges from Democrats that the decision was prompted by pressure from anti-abortion activists or a letter from Birkett, the DuPage County state's attorney and the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.

"It wasn't political, and the outside pressure had nothing to do with it," Tybor said.

Feigenholtz and state Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago), both allies of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, noted that the law passed in 1995 when Republicans briefly controlled both chambers of the state legislature and that subsequent attempts to pass similar legislation failed.

Ronen said she still remained cautiously optimistic that rules would never be enacted. She said Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan would have a voice in the matter.

Madigan would have to ask a U.S. judge to lift his 1996 order disallowing the law to take effect because the law came without specific rules.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich also said the rule-making process would need to be carefully reviewed.

"We have every expectation that the attorney general will make sure the rules are written in a way that protects the safety of young victims of rape and incest," Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Madigan said she would look at the rules when they come to her and declined to comment further.

Ronen blamed Birkett for pushing the issue around election time.

"They're trying to inject politics into the safety of young girls, and I think that's very unfortunate," she said. "This looks kind of suspicious."

Republican Judy Baar Topinka, Birkett's running mate, said she favors abortion rights, but "believes it is common sense for parents to be involved in their child's decision to have an abortion," said a statement from a campaign spokesman.

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jchase@tribune.com

dmendell@tribune.com

Pennies for my thoughts by Garrison Keillor

Pennies for my thoughts by Garrison Keillor
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 20, 2006


I wish the pope had talked to me before he gave his "evil and inhuman" speech that got Muslims so testy at him. I could have told him, "Don't quote some old emperor's thoughts about Muslims unless you're willing to have people confuse his views with yours." You don't tell a Mormon, "My neighbor used to be Mormon and he says it's the weirdest religion since the Incas." He'll give you the hairy eyeball and go off to the temple and start converting your deceased ancestors.

If you're the Holy Pontiff, you should watch what you say, with the infallibility factor and all. You toss out an idea and suddenly people are on their knees repeating word for word what you said. You'd think the pope has some peeps to tell him this. He can't just put on a pair of Ray-Bans and toss back an appletini and shoot the breeze as if he were Joe Blow from Kokomo. I could have told him that, had he asked.

My advantage is that I'm in Minnesota and it's September, there's a chill in the air, and this makes us smarter. Cold is a stimulant of intelligence. This has been shown time and time again.

If only Ford Motor Co. had spoken to me before admitting publicly that it expects to fall behind Toyota in the near future. The execs must be spending too much time at the beach. That's weenie talk. They should have said, "Market share is not what it's about for us. We know in our hearts that we are making the right cars for America at this time, and we will keep making them no matter how unpopular they are. In the end, we'll be proven right." Walk tall, Ford. Don't cry in the beer. That's my advice. Too bad you didn't ask.

I am an elder, after all, my boyish grin and insouciant manner notwithstanding. I have been around the block. In other civilizations, I would sit cross-legged in my lodge and you people would approach me, bowing, and ask my counsel. You could do this anyway.

And that crazy Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio). He made a speech asking whether Democrats are "more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people." He should have talked to me first. The U.S. House of Representatives, in which Mr. Boehner serves as majority leader, is not an institution held in high esteem these days, and before he chucks road apples at Democrats, he should tend to his own business. The House took a five-week summer vacation, came back into session, debated the Abraham Lincoln Commemorative Coin Act, then spent four hours debating a bill to prohibit slaughtering horses for consumption--horse meat! In this country, horse meat is served only to carnivores in zoos, but various gasbags had to stand up and laud our equine friends, praise their role in the western migration, the U.S. Cavalry, etc., meanwhile the subjects of immigration, port security, terrorism and the war went unmentioned in the House chamber.

Commemorative coins!!??! The U.S. Mint is still producing pennies, though a penny costs more than a penny to produce (and a nickel costs more than a nickel), and people throw the coins away because they're worthless and a nuisance, and other people don't bend down to pick them up, despite the saying "See a penny, pick it up, and the rest of the day you'll have good luck," and the Mint keeps cranking out more small change to replace those--it's deficit spending in action. It's foolishness on wheels. Boehner's majority is helpless to solve this or to deal with the great issues of this country aside from whether to feed Trigger to the lions. And then he hauls off and accuses Democrats of treason. Who is this guy and who is responsible for monitoring his medications?

You want to know what I think? Congress should leave town. Move north to where they can feel the crisp chill breeze of reality. Maybe a place in the middle of the country, along the Mississippi River. Let D.C. keep the Pentagon, the White House, the statuary, the vast marble and granite sheds of the federal bureaucracy, and move our nation's deliberative bodies to a place with a clearer view. There is plenty of land available along the Mississippi, rolling hills, woods, meadows. No need to spend money on a dome and pillars--just pitch two big circus tents, one for the House, one for the Senate, bring in FEMA trailers for housing, and let's see if we can't get more work out of these people.

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Garrison Keillor is an author and host of "A Prairie Home Companion."

It's never dull behind the scenes in Cook County politics

It's never dull behind the scenes in Cook County politics
BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
September 20, 2006
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times



Ald. Todd Stroger, the anointed candidate of the un-reformers, is in a mad dash to reinvent himself before the Nov. 7 election for County Board president. And Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley has just signed on as Stroger's unlikeliest ally.

If you had peeked into Quigley's office Tuesday over at the County Building, or looked on the floor of Tuesday's County Board meeting, you might have noticed that someone who is always there was missing. That someone is Quigley's longtime chief of staff, Jennifer Koehler.

Koehler, 36, has been given a two-month leave of absence from her $78,000 job with Quigley to become the deputy campaign manager for Stroger.

With Quigley's blessing? "Yes," said Koehler by phone from her new office at the Stroger for President headquarters at 35th and King Drive.

Would this be the same Mike Quigley who, beginning with his election in 1998, was the loneliest commissioner on the whole board? The guy crying for reform from a back bench? The lone vote for the longest time on cutting the bloated budget and confronting the endless corruption?

Yes indeed. It's the same Mike Quigley who took one for the team, squashing his own ambitions to run for County Board president this year so that fellow Commissioner Forrest Claypool could go head to head with incumbent President John Stroger. We all know the sorry storyline from there, don't we?

Stroger, felled by a massive stroke, won the March Democratic primary anyway, fueled in part by the giant patronage army that clogs the county payroll, many hailing from his home 8th Ward, where his son is currently the alderman.

Leaving nothing to chance for the general election, with the help of young Todd Stroger, voters were kept thoroughly in the dark this summer about his dad's prospects for recovery until the last possible moment that Claypool could have re-filed as an independent candidate for the November election. The deadline passed and Democratic Party ward bosses then did what they do so well. With secret handshakes, winks and nods, they made sure the son inherited his father's place on the ballot to face off against the Republican candidate, County Commissioner Tony Peraica.

In the jaded, anything-goes state of Illinois, we call that democracy in action.

It's left so-called "reform" Democrats like Claypool and Quigley on the horns of a dilemma. Mugged by their own party, what do they do? Take out an order of protection or go back for more abuse?

Claypool, for his part, at first said he didn't plan on voting at all. Not for Stroger or Peraica. For that he got smacked on Monday by a Daily Southtown editorial accusing him of being a sore loser, and worse, someone who once said "vote for me" but now says voting doesn't matter. Claypool told me Tuesday he is sending the paper a letter of apology, saying he will in fact vote, though not specifying for whom.

Quigley is traveling quite a different road. By lending Stroger his chief of staff, Quigley says he is taking the candidate at his word that "he is going to move the county in a different direction." Rather than just endorse Stroger, which Quigley readily admits would look "ridiculous," he has instead sent him "the best and brightest" of his staff, "one of the chief architects" of Quigley's reform agenda. Stroger, he says, has already adopted their proposal to install a new inspector general at the county, one with more independence and power.

Koehler, an attorney and a longtime activist for the National Organization for Women, argues that the social issues, including full access to abortion and family planning at county hospitals as well as a widening of gay and lesbian rights, are the kinds of things that separate Stroger's "progressive" agenda from the more conservative Peraica.

"Todd," said Koehler Tuesday, "is committed that things are fair for working minorities, for gays and lesbians and for women."

Peraica, who has promised to enforce "the law of the land," including Roe vs. Wade, is personally opposed to abortion and did not vote for a domestic partnership registry. But he argues these are not major crises looming before the county, that corruption and taxes are the crucial issues of the day.

I want to hear both these guys talk about all of this, in detail, and can't wait for the debates.

But for the moment, forgive me, I'm still struggling with the transformation of Todd Stroger from rubber stamp-political-progeny to forward-thinking-progressive. This might be a better "Extreme Makeover" show than any I've seen on TV.

Even Quigley, who claims to "see a glimmer in Todd," admits this election, for him, is a "grim choice . . . yes, it's sad that in a community of 5 million people, we've gotten to a point where it's Todd and Tony's wedding."

New York Times Editorial - Immigration's lost year

New York Times Editorial - Immigration's lost year
Copyrightg by The New York Times
Published: September 19, 2006


Leaders of the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush insisted for months that they were serious about fixing the immigration system. They weren't, and the more talk Americans hear about border security, about building walls and getting tough this time, the clearer it will be that hopes for effective immigration reform this year are past saving, pinned down by strong arms in the Republican-controlled House and kicked until dead.

The latest proposals are the product of a Republicans-only "forum" last week that distilled the bilge water of a summer's worth of immigration "hearings," which were actually badly disguised campaign events.

Like the summer hearings, the latest Republican legislation is an empty vessel, a sham product aimed at the November elections that sells the test-marketed concept of "security" with little to back it up. By decreeing that a 700-mile fence should be America's top immigration priority while rabidly opposing a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, the House Republicans are hotly pursing a failed strategy. What satisfies the talk-radio appetite for justice - wall 'em out and deport the rest - is not just needlessly cruel. It also won't work.

If the House Republicans have their way and enforcement-only becomes U.S. policy, illegal immigrants will keep their heads down and keep working, cowed into accepting low pay and abuse, dragging down working conditions for everybody else. Lawlessness among the employers who hire them will be encouraged.

Real immigration security means separating the harmful from the hard-working. It means imposing the rule of law on the ad-hoc immigrant economy. It means freeing up resources so that overburdened law- enforcement agencies can restore order at the border and in the workplace. It means holding employers, not just workers, responsible for obeying the law. And it means tapping the energy of vast numbers of immigrants who dream of becoming citizens and who can make the United States stronger.

These are huge tasks, and the anti- immigrant forces have nothing to contribute. They are out of ideas, except about getting re-elected. Their calculated half-measures mock Americans' support for comprehensive reform, which has been repeatedly confirmed in opinion polls.

How operation Baghdad was bungled

How operation Baghdad was bungled
By Stephen Fidler
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 18 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 18 2006 03:00


Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, has admitted that the US committed perhaps thousands of tactical errors in its invasion and occupation of Iraq. This excellent book by Thomas Ricks, The Washington Post's senior Pentagon correspondent, emphasises that the mistakes in Iraq were more profound than that: Washington's strategy was mis-begotten from the beginning.

Built on the goal of capturing Baghdad, the strategy was designed by Tommy Franks, the general who headed US Central Command. According to Ricks, Gen Franks was a long way from being a strategic thinker. He also succumbed to relentless pressure from Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, to pare down the invading force. This meant there were insufficient troops to maintain order once the Battle of Baghdad was won.

Mr Rumsfeld, it appeared, was trying to do at least two things at once: win a war and prove to the world that the US could succeed in conflict with a lean, mean, technologically sophisticated military machine. He wanted to overturn the doctrine of overwhelming force used in the first Gulf war and disdained the resistance to change he saw in the US army.

But there is a law of economic policy that Mr Rumsfeld perhaps should have taken to heart: one policy tool for one policy objective. His notion about force numbers meant the US had the wherewithal to unseat a dictator but not to handle an occupation.

Mr Rumsfeld was not alone in his "fire and forget" approach. Senior Bush administration officials consistently "worst cased" the threat from Iraq and "best cased" the difficulties of occupation. "The result was that the US effort resembled a banana republic coup d'état more than a full-scale war plan that reflected the ambition of a great power to alter the politics of a crucial region of the world," Ricks says.

Once in charge, Washington failed to respect the iron rule of dealing with counter-insurgency: put one person, preferably a civilian, in charge. In Iraq, there were two - the civilian head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, and the military, led by Ricardo Sanchez. They rarely talked.

The military had no viable counter-insurgency plan either. Ricks argues that the US army took from the Vietnam war only the lesson that it should not get involved in new counter-insurgencies. It failed to seal borders with neighbouring states, allowing foreign fighters to enter the country, and for much of 2003 and 2004 waged a conventional war against the insurgency.

This conventional war added fuel to the flames. In a counter-insurgency, the idea is not to kill as many of the enemy as you can; neither is it to throw large numbers of innocent -people into jail; nor to torture those that are there. Doing that alienates the population and in a counter-insurgency campaign the people are the prize.

As is clear from the many critiques of the conduct of the war cited by Ricks, the US military tries hard to learn from its mistakes and adapt its behaviour. However, because of the lack of a coherent strategy, he suggests, the lessons were learnt un-evenly, applied by commanders of some regions but not others. Even where there were local successes, frequent troop rotations meant that acquired local wisdom was lost. More-over, the mistakes made early in the campaign had so destabilised society and had given so much impetus to the insurgency that subsequent course corrections could do little to help.

Fiasco is one of two significant books from journalists on the military campaign in Iraq. The other, Cobra II, written by Michael Gordon of The New York Times and Bernard Trainor, a retired general, focuses on the campaign to capture Baghdad. It contains excellent descriptions of battles, but is more neutral in tone and the criticism of those running the campaign is more implicit. Ricks' book is more analytical, more judgmental, less wordy. It concisely explains the run-up to the war and the race for Baghdad but concentrates more on what happened after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled.

Although he cites the evidence for his assertions and the countervailing view, Ricks does not pull his punches. As well as a US administration that refused to admit its mistakes, or correct or remove those who made them, targets include Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who never publicly departed from the Rumsfeld line. He is critical of Gen Franks, Mr Bremer and George Tenet, the CIA chief who helped make the case for war, who he says were among those most responsible for mishandling the war. All three were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Now, Baghdad is described as resembling a "Hobbesian state", where all are at war against all others and where any security is self-provided. Failure of the military adventure is not guaranteed, but what would now be viewed as success does not look fantastic either. "We never got to the hard stuff," one reserve army officer is quoted as saying. "We did the easy stuff so badly."

The writer is the Financial Times' defence and security editor

Financial Times Editorial - Declare war on torture

Financial Times Editorial - Declare war on torture
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 18 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 18 2006 03:00


President George W. Bush says that what Congress does in the next two weeks could make or break the war on terrorism. He is right about that - but for all the wrong reasons.

The US president insists that unless Congress creates kangaroo courts for terrorism detainees, authorises him to spy on anyone he designates an enemy, and rewrites a key section of the Geneva conventions to legalise secret prisons and what he coyly calls "alternative" interrogation procedures, he will not have the tools he needs to win the war on terror. He hammered that message home again and again last week, on the stump, on the Hill and even in a nationally televised address to mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

He even appears to have twisted the arm of some top military prosecutors - some of his most vocal critics up until now - to get them to offer a lukewarm endorsement of some of his positions in a letter to Congress. The president wants his way, and he wants it now - before Congress goes into recess for the November 7 election.

Thankfully, there are at least some powerful senators, such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who are trying to stand in his way.

Their motives may have as muchto do with political positioning as with principle, but at least they have thrown up an obstacle - and defended the basic American values of justice and fairness that the war on terrorwas supposedly launched to protect.

Congress must not give in to all this politically-inspired haste. US legislators are faced with fundamental decisions about how terrorism suspects are monitored, interrogated and detained. But the new rules are fraught with unintended consequences: if Congress redefines the Geneva conventions, then foreign regimes that capture US soldiers in future may do the same - and use that as justification for torturing Americans. The new surveillance rules may catch many innocent Americans in their net - not just foreign plotters. And worst of all, as Colin Powell, former secretary of state, said last week, these measures would only further undermine the moral basis for America's war on terror, already in serious doubt around the world.

The president is right that America faces a moment of truth: at long last a national debate has begun on issues such as secret detention and illicit wiretapping that were previously governed by executive decree, not by democratic legislation.

But now that this crucial debate has begun, it should not be short-circuited to win a few more seats in an election year. Congress, the administration, and the American people cannot afford to get this legislation wrong. Haste may serve a short-term goal, but it will only further undermine America's moral authority in the longer term - and could help inspire a whole new generation of terrorists.

New York Times Editorial - Killing off America's future

New York Times Editorial - Killing off America's future
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 17, 2006



America's domination of the global information economy flowed directly from policies that allowed the largest generation in the nation's history broad access to a first-rate college education. By subsidizing public universities to keep tuition low, and providing federal tuition aid to poor and working-class students, the country vaulted tens of millions of people into the middle class while building the best- educated work force in the world.

Those farsighted policies, however, are a thing of the past. Cuts in college aid and soaring tuition at state colleges have made it difficult for young people to educate themselves.

The warning about American vulnerability was underscored yet again in a study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonpartisan research organization. The report highlights some ominous trends. As the boomers march off into retirement, the generation that replaces them is shaping up to be less educated by far. No longer the world leader in terms of the proportion of young people enrolled in college, America now ranks 16th among the 27 nations examined when it comes to the proportion of college students who complete college degrees or certificate programs.

When judged in terms of college affordability, 43 American states are given F's in the new report. The states - and the colleges themselves - have shifted aid once aimed at the poor students to the middle and upper income levels.

Unless we Americans renew our commitment to the higher education policies, we could soon find ourselves at the mercy of an increasingly competitive global economy.

New York Times Editorial - Bush untethered

New York Times Editorial - Bush untethered
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 17, 2006



Watching President George W. Bush on Friday in the Rose Garden as he threatened to quit interrogating terrorists if Congress did not approve his detainee bill, we were struck by how often he acts as though there were not two sides to a debate. We have lost count of the number of times he has said Americans have to choose between protecting the nation precisely the way he wants, and not protecting it at all.

On Friday, Bush posed a choice between ignoring the law on wiretaps, and simply not keeping tabs on terrorists. Then he said the United States could rewrite the Geneva Conventions, or just stop questioning terrorists. To some degree, he is following a script for the elections: Terrify Americans into voting Republican. But behind that seems to be a deeply seated conviction that under his leadership, America is right and does not need the discipline of rules. He does not seem to understand that the rules are what makes the nation as good as it can be.

The debate over prisoners is about whether the United States can confront terrorism without shredding its democratic heritage. The nation is built on the notion that the rules restrain behavior, because Americans know they are fallible. Just look at the hundreds of men in Guantánamo Bay, many guilty of nothing, facing unending detention because Bush did not want to follow the rules after 9/11.

Now Bush insists that in cleaning up his mess, Congress should exempt CIA interrogators from the Geneva Conventions. "The bottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules - if they do not do that - the program's not going forward," Bush said. But clarity is not the issue. The Geneva Conventions are clear and provide ample room for interrogating terrorists. Similarly, in the debate over eavesdropping on terrorists' conversations, Bush says that if he has to get a warrant, he can't do it at all. Actually, he has ample authority to eavesdrop on terrorists, under the very law he is breaking, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has introduced a bill to affirm FISA's control over all wiretapping. It would also give the authorities far more flexibility to listen first and get a warrant later when it's really urgent. But the only bill Bush wants is a co-production of Vice President Dick Cheney and Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that gives the president more room to ignore FISA and chokes off any court challenges.

The best thing Congress could do for America right now is to drop this issue and let the courts decide the matter. Bush can't claim urgency; it's not as though he has stopped the wiretapping.

Legislation is needed on the prisoner issue, although not as urgently as Bush says. Three Republican senators, John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, have a bill that is far better than the White House version but it, too, has some huge flaws that will take time to fix. It will be hard in an election year, but if the Republicans stand firm, and Democrats insist on the needed changes, they might just require Bush to recognize that he is subject to the same restraints that applied to every other president of this nation of laws.

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-- Carlos T. Mock, MD
www.pinkagenda.com
Www.carlostmock.com
Www.orgulloenaccion.org
Author: Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual Odyssey - Floricanto Press 2003. Nominated for a Stonewall Award by the American Library Association Round Table
Author: The Mosaic Virus – Book release scheduled for January 16, 2007 in Chicago, IL. Email for details