Joint Chiefs Nominee

Washington Post Reporting

Unless the Iraqi government takes advantage of the "breathing space" that U.S. forces are providing, Mullen said, "no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference."

In written responses to committee questions, Mullen warned that "there is no purely military solution in Iraq" and that the country's politicians "need to view politics and democracy as more than just majority rule, winner-take-all, or a zero-sum game." Absent that, he said, the United States will be forced to reevaluate its strategy.

As Rice and Gates travel to Middle East, air of futility pervades

The President has lost almost all power to influence Middle East Policy.

Aides to Rice and Gates say the trip has three primary goals, each crucial: to persuade Iraq’s neighbors to do more to help stabilize the country, to counter Iran’s growing ambitions and to try to get real movement on peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

But America's credibility in the region has plummeted. The U.S. has failed to stabilize Iraq, destroy al Qaida, pacify Lebanon, isolate Syria or bolster moderate Palestinians. Instead, its policies have fueled Sunni Muslim extremism and emboldened Shiite Iran, which America's moderate Arab allies consider the two greatest threats to their rule.

So far, its support for Israel's ill-fated war in Lebanon and its efforts to undermine popular radical groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon have borne little fruit. Along with its support for autocrats such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, such actions have undercut American claims that it's championing Muslim democracy.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the Bush administration’s time in office. Leaders of friendly Arab states have lost confidence in President Bush’s ability to deliver on his promises and are wary of sticking their necks out too far to cooperate, according to diplomats and some U.S. officials.

“Our credibility is in tatters. They are not going to commit because they don’t trust us. That doesn’t mean they are not concerned about Iran. It just means they just don’t know what we are going to do,” said one senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters.

Later in the piece..

Before the Iraq war, Washington had strong ties with the gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. But the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government and the rise to power of Iraq’s majority Shiites shifted the balance in the region. With an unstable Iraq and their own Shiite minorities politically awakened, many governments feel U.S. actions have weakened their grip on power.

Some countries, such as Egypt, have maintained close ties with Washington, but Saudi Arabia and others have begun to distance themselves.

Rice and Gates have their work cut out for them. With 18 months left in office, it will be difficult to reshape the way the region sees the United States, said William Quandt, a professor of international relations at the University of Virginia, who as an aide to President Jimmy Carter helped craft the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.

“I don’t think they have a real strategy that has much chance of working,” Quandt said. Gates, who joined the administration in December, “may be able to calm things down a little. But that won’t change the course.”

Government Mirrors the Street

Iraqi Interior Ministry in similar Chaos as the Country.

This is Iraq's Ministry of Interior — the balkanized command center for the nation's police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt.

The very language that Americans use to describe government — ministries, departments, agencies — belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say.

That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a "federation of oligarchs." Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.

Iran attacks U.S. plans for Saudi arms deal

Iran not too happy with our Cold War style tactics.

Iran's Foreign Ministry accused the United States on Monday of seeking to create fear and divisions in the Middle East after reports Washington was readying major arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Who’s Minding the Mind?

Who is really in control when you are making decisions and judgments. The NYT discusses that here.

The give and take between these unconscious choices and our rational, conscious aims can help explain some of the more mystifying realities of behavior, like how we can be generous one moment and petty the next, or act rudely at a dinner party when convinced we are emanating charm.

“When it comes to our behavior from moment to moment, the big question is, ‘What to do next?’ ” said John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale and a co-author, with Lawrence Williams, of the coffee study, which was presented at a recent psychology conference. “Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness.”

Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.”

Ruined by war

A new study shows that many children and families are in dire poverty and most are struggling just to survive.

The survey recognises that armed conflict is the greatest problem facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition".

It suggests that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation.

Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat.

The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems.

More Corruption in the Iraqi Government

Shocking or just business as usual.

Desperate shortages of drugs and medical supplies in Baghdad's overcrowded hospitals are confronting the victims of violence. But the shortages are not because of a lack of money.

Medicines and supplies have been siphoned off and sold elsewhere because of corruption in the Iraqi government's Ministry of Health, according to a draft U.S. government report obtained by NBC News.

The report, written by U.S. advisers to Iraq's anti-corruption agency, analyzes corruption in 12 ministries and finds devastating and grim problems: "Corruption protected by senior members of the Iraqi government," the report said, "remains untouchable."

Certain Degrees Now Cost More at Public Universities

Should an undergraduate studying business pay more than one studying psychology? Should a journalism degree cost more than one in literature? More and more public universities, confronting rising costs and lagging state support, have decided that the answers may be yes and yes.

Starting this fall, juniors and seniors pursuing an undergraduate major in the business school at the >University of Wisconsin, Madison, will pay $500 more each semester than classmates. The University of Nebraska last year began charging engineering students a $40 premium for each hour of class credit.

And Arizona State University this fall will phase in for upperclassmen in the journalism school a $250 per semester charge above the basic $2,411 tuition for in-state students.

Such moves are being driven by the high salaries commanded by professors in certain fields, the expense of specialized equipment and the difficulties of getting state legislatures to approve general tuition increases, university officials say.

“It is something of a trend,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Even as they embrace such pricing, many officials acknowledge they are queasy about a practice that appears to value one discipline over another or that could result in lower-income students clustering in less expensive fields.

“This is not the preferred way to do this,” said Patrick V. Farrell, provost at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “If we were able to raise resources uniformly across the campus, that would be a preferred move. But with our current situation, it doesn’t seem to us that that’s possible.”

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Humans Have Spread Globally, and Evolved Locally

Historians often assume that they need pay no attention to human evolution because the process ground to a halt in the distant past. That assumption is looking less and less secure in light of new findings based on decoding human DNA.

People have continued to evolve since leaving the ancestral homeland in northeastern Africa some 50,000 years ago, both through the random process known as genetic drift and through natural selection. The genome bears many fingerprints in places where natural selection has recently remolded the human clay, researchers have found, as people in the various continents adapted to new diseases, climates, diets and, perhaps, behavioral demands.

A striking feature of many of these changes is that they are local. The genes under selective pressure found in one continent-based population or race are mostly different from those that occur in the others. These genes so far make up a small fraction of all human genes.

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Cannabis use linked to 40% rise in risk of schizophrenia

Smoking cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia by at least 40% according to research which indicates that there are at least 800 people suffering serious psychosis in the UK after smoking the drug.

Mental health groups called on the government last night to issue fresh health warnings and launch an education campaign to advise teenagers that even light consumption of the drug could trigger long-term mental health problems. The findings came after a rush of ministers declared their cannabis-smoking pasts and an order from the prime minister for officials to consider whether the drug should be reclassified amid fears about its more potent "skunk" form. Last night the Home Office said the research would be considered in that review.

The study, an analysis published in the Lancet medical journal of previous research into the effects of the drug on tens of thousands of people, provides the most persuasive evidence to date that smoking cannabis can cause mental illness years after people have stopped using it.

The overall additional risk to cannabis smokers is small, but measurable. One in 100 of the general population have a chance of developing severe schizophrenia; that rises to 1.4 in 100 for people who have smoked cannabis.

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Panel Votes to Hold 2 White House Aides in Contempt of Congress

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines on Wednesday to hold President Bush’s chief of staff and the former White House counsel in contempt of Congress.

In the debate before the 22-to-17 vote to pass the contempt resolution, Democrats on the committee firmly rejected the White House argument that the invocation of executive privilege blocked Congress from obtaining information from Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, or Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff.

"The way to avoid becoming fat is to avoid having fat friends"

New Study showing that Obesity may be a social thing shared among friends.

Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

Their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 to 2003.

The investigators knew who was friends with whom as well as who was a spouse or sibling or neighbor, and they knew how much each person weighed at various times over three decades. That let them reconstruct what happened over the years as individuals became obese. Did their friends also become obese? Did family members? Or neighbors?

The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person’s chances of becoming obese by 57 percent. There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends.

It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away, the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends. There, if one became obese, the other had a 171 percent increased chance of becoming obese, too.

Why We Don't Vacation Like the French

The most astonishing revelations in Michael Moore's Sicko have nothing to do with healthcare. They're about vacation time. French vacation time, to be precise.

Sitting at a restaurant table with a bunch of American ex-pats in Paris, Moore is treated to a jaw-dropping recitation of the perks of social democracy: 30 days of vacation time, unlimited sick days, full child care, social workers who come to help new parents adjust to the strains and challenges of child-rearing. Walking out of the theater, I heard more envious mutterings about this scene than any other.

"Why can't we have that?" my fellow moviegoers asked.

The first possibility is that we already do. Maybe that perfidious Michael Moore is just lying in service of his French paymasters. But sadly, no. A recent report by Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research suggests that Moore is, if anything, understating his case. "The United States," they write, "is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation." Take notice of that word "only." Every other advanced economy offers a government guarantee of paid vacation to its workforce. Britain assures its workforce of 20 days of guaranteed, compensated leave. Germany gives 24. And France gives, yes, 30.

We guarantee zero. Absolutely none. That's why one out of 10 full-time American employees, and more than six out of 10 part-time employees, get no vacation. And even among workers with paid vacation benefits, the average number of days enjoyed is a mere 12. In other words, even those of us who are lucky enough to get some vacation typically receive just over a third of what the French are guaranteed.

This is strange. Of all these countries, the United States is, by far, the richest. And you would think that, as our wealth grew and our productivity increased, a certain amount of our resources would go into, well, us. Into leisure. Into time off. You would think that we'd take advantage of the fact that we can create more wealth in less time to wrest back some of those hours for ourselves and our families.

But instead, the exact opposite has happened. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American man today works 100 more hours a year than he did in the 1970s, according to Cornell University economist Robert Frank. That's 2 1/2 weeks of added labor. The average woman works 200 more hours -- that's five added weeks. And those hours are coming from somewhere: from time with our kids, our friends, our spouses, even our bed. The typical American sleeps one to two hours less a night than his or her parents did.

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U.S. Is Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09

Shocking news, the war will continue for at least another two years. The problem is that everyone already knows this and no one is calling for us to pack up and leave today, but to address the serious problems that thinking only surging a small part of Baghdad will save the day.

The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq. That signaled a shift from the previous strategy, which emphasized transferring to Iraqis the responsibility for safeguarding their security.

That new approach put a premium on protecting the Iraqi population in Baghdad, on the theory that improved security would provide Iraqi political leaders with the breathing space they needed to try political reconciliation.

The latest plan, which covers a two-year period, does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the “surge” in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008. But it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials said.

The goals in the document appear ambitious, given the immensity of the challenge of dealing with die-hard Sunni insurgents, renegade Shiite militias, Iraqi leaders who have made only fitful progress toward political reconciliation, as well as Iranian and Syrian neighbors who have not hesitated to interfere in Iraq’s affairs. And the White House’s interim assessment of progress, issued on July 12, is mixed.

Poll: GOP Likes Giuliani's Electability

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll of the Republican field shows Giuliani with a sizeable lead over his three principal rivals. The former mayor was the choice of 37 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, well ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain and the still-undeclared Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee, virtually tied at 16 and 15 percent, respectively. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ran fourth with 8 percent.

Giuliani's frontrunner status is fueled by a broad-based perception that he is the party's most electible candidate.
Nearly half of Republicans believe Giuliani is their party's best chance of winning in November 2008; that is three or four times higher than the percentage mentioning other candidates. Democrats and independents also said Giuliani would represent the Republicans' best shot at holding onto the White House.

But he has to get the nomination first.

Support for Giuliani is not deep -- only a third of his supporters said they are strongly behind his candidacy, which stands in contrast to the top two Democrats in the race for their party's nomination. Nearly seven in 10 of those who support New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton strongly back her candidacy, as do 56 percent of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's.

Poll: GOP Likes Giuliani's Electability

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll of the Republican field shows Giuliani with a sizeable lead over his three principal rivals. The former mayor was the choice of 37 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, well ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain and the still-undeclared Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee, virtually tied at 16 and 15 percent, respectively. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ran fourth with 8 percent.

Giuliani's frontrunner status is fueled by a broad-based perception that he is the party's most electible candidate.
Nearly half of Republicans believe Giuliani is their party's best chance of winning in November 2008; that is three or four times higher than the percentage mentioning other candidates. Democrats and independents also said Giuliani would represent the Republicans' best shot at holding onto the White House.

But he has to get the nomination first.

Support for Giuliani is not deep -- only a third of his supporters said they are strongly behind his candidacy, which stands in contrast to the top two Democrats in the race for their party's nomination. Nearly seven in 10 of those who support New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton strongly back her candidacy, as do 56 percent of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's.

U.S. judges order review of California prison crowding

Federal judges seeking to improve prison medical care called the state's latest efforts insufficient Monday and ordered creation of a three-judge panel to consider capping California's inmate population.

The move — the first for a state prison system — has the potential to prompt early release of inmates. Experts and elected officials, however, said that less-drastic measures might appease federal courts and that releases, if necessary, could be made in ways that minimize any threat to the public.

The rulings are an escalation of federal intervention in California's prisons, which now house nearly 173,000 inmates, 17,000 of them in gymnasiums, day rooms, classrooms and other areas not designed as dormitories. Prompted by class-action lawsuits on behalf of inmates, federal courts have declared the level of medical and mental health care in the prison system unconstitutional and turned over healthcare operations to a court-appointed receiver.

Inmates' attorneys sued to request a population cap in November 2006, five weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the prisons. The lawyers suggested that instead of releasing thousands of prisoners, state officials could use home detention, electronic monitoring or residential drug treatment programs to divert low-risk convicts and parole violators from prison.

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Orthodox Paradox

From NY Times Magazine

A number of years ago, I went to my 10th high-school reunion, in the backyard of the one classmate whose parents had a pool. Lots of my classmates were there. Almost all were married, and many already had kids. This was not as unusual as it might seem, since I went to a yeshiva day school, and nearly everyone remained Orthodox. I brought my girlfriend. At the end, we all crowded into a big group photo, shot by the school photographer, who had taken our pictures from first grade through graduation. When the alumni newsletter came around a few months later, I happened to notice the photo. I looked, then looked again. My girlfriend and I were nowhere to be found.

I didn’t want to seem paranoid, especially in front of my girlfriend, to whom I was by that time engaged. So I called my oldest school friend, who appeared in the photo, and asked for her explanation. “You’re kidding, right?” she said. My fiancée was Korean-American. Her presence implied the prospect of something that from the standpoint of Orthodox Jewish law could not be recognized: marriage to someone who was not Jewish. That hint was reason enough to keep us out.

Not long after, I bumped into the photographer, in synagogue, on Yom Kippur. When I walked over to him, his pained expression told me what I already knew. “It wasn’t me,” he said. I believed him.

Since then I have occasionally been in contact with the school’s alumni director, who has known me since I was a child. I say “in contact,” but that implies mutuality where none exists. What I really mean is that in the nine years since the reunion I have sent him several updates about my life, for inclusion in the “Mazal Tov” section of the newsletter. I sent him news of my marriage. When our son was born, I asked him to report that happy event. The most recent news was the birth of our daughter this winter. Nothing doing. None of my reports made it into print.

Ethiopia Is Said to Block Food to Rebel Region

The continuing saga in the Horn of Africa as the US is forced to choose the lesser of two evils in "War on Terror."

The blockade takes aim at the heart of the Ogaden region, a vast desert on the Somali border where the government is struggling against a growing rebellion and where government soldiers have been accused by human rights groups of widespread brutality.

Humanitarian officials say the ban on aid convoys and commercial traffic, intended to squeeze the rebels and dry up their bases of support, has sent food prices skyrocketing and disrupted trade routes, preventing the nomads who live there from selling their livestock. Hundreds of thousands of people are now sealed off in a desiccated, unforgiving landscape that is difficult to survive in even in the best of times.

“Food cannot get in,” said Mohammed Diab, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government says the blockade covers only strategic locations, and is meant to prevent guns and matériel from reaching the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the rebel force that the government considers a terrorist group. In April, the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in the Ogaden.

“This is not a government which punishes its people,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman.

But Western diplomats have been urging Ethiopian officials to lift the blockade, arguing that the many people in the area are running out of time. “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy,” said one Western humanitarian official, who did not want to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”

The blockade, which involves soldiers and military trucks cutting off the few roads into the central Ogaden, comes as Congress is increasingly concerned about Ethiopia’s human rights record.

Ethiopia is a close American ally and a key partner in America’s counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa, a region that has become a breeding ground for Islamic militants, many of whom have threatened to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.

As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel

American tourists are feeling the burn on their European trips as items from Cokes to Dinner are pushing the limits of their wallets. Luckily those wallets are quite thick.

For Americans visiting Europe this summer, the steep decline of the dollar against the euro and the British pound has made eye-popping prices a lamentable part of the traveler’s tale. (The Kingsley family’s hotel room in London was $500 a night; five bite-sized chocolates at Harrods cost $10.)

“It’s O.K.,” said Mr. Kingsley, 59, with a resigned laugh. “I’ll just have to work a few extra years to pay off this vacation.” His wife, Laura, did her best to soothe him. “It’s just play money,” she said.

By now, five summers after the dollar began its long swoon against the euro and the pound, American travelers are used to $5 cups of coffee and triple-digit dinner checks in Europe’s great capitals. But the dollar’s latest plunge — to $2.05 to the pound and to a record of $1.38 to the euro — has turned mere sticker shock into a form of suspended disbelief for many tourists.

For Kaelon Kroft, a custodian from San Bernardino, Calif., it was the cost of Coke that shocked him most in Paris. “We just paid 9.5 euros for a can of Coke at a cafe,” he said. “At our hotel, the bar was serving a glass of Coke for four euros.”

“That’s over five bucks,” his wife, Kristi, added. Actually, at the current exchange rate, it is a fizzy bubble or two over $5.52.

The Krofts and the Kingsleys both scaled back their European holidays to limit the pain of the currency pinch. But neither family seriously thought of canceling the vacation, and their glass-is-half-full determination to make the best of things was echoed in interviews with American tourists from Ireland to Italy.

It is also reflected in the tourism statistics in France, Germany, Spain and other countries, which show that the number of Americans visiting Europe has increased this year, even as the value of the dollar has eroded. Travel experts say this speaks both to the resilience and rising affluence of American tourists, as well as to the perennial appeal of Europe as a destination.

How To Leave Iraq

Time Magazine gives it a go. They are calling for a slow withdrawal over the next few years with a reasonable sized force to maintain the peace. Somewhat similar to what many moderates have been calling for. Nothing new and shocking as we can all see no one really knows what will happen when we finally leave. The fact is that it will take quite sometime to due so given the logistics of moving out thousands of troops vehicles and supplies.

Cleric Switches Tactics to Meet Changes in Iraq

After months of lying low, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has re-emerged with a shrewd strategy that reaches out to Iraqis on the street while distancing himself from the increasingly unpopular government.

Mr. Sadr and his political allies have largely disengaged from government, contributing to the political paralysis noted in a White House report last week. That outsider status has enhanced Mr. Sadr’s appeal to Iraqis, who consider politics less and less relevant to their daily lives.

Mr. Sadr has been working tirelessly to build support at the grass-roots level, opening storefront offices across Baghdad and southern Iraq that dispense services that are not being provided by the government. In this he seems to be following the model established by Hezbollah, the radical Lebanese Shiite group, as well as Hamas in Gaza, with entwined social and military wings that serve as a parallel government.

He has also extended the reach of his militia, the Mahdi Army, one of the armed groups that the White House report acknowledged remain entrenched in Iraq. The militia has effectively taken over vast swaths of the capital and is fighting government troops in several southern provinces. Although the militia sometimes uses brutal tactics, including death squads, many vulnerable Shiites are grateful for the protection it affords.

At the same time, the Mahdi Army is not entirely under Mr. Sadr’s control, and he publicly denounces the most notorious killers fighting in his name. That frees him to extend an olive branch to Sunni Arabs and Christians, while championing the Shiite identity of his political base.

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Payout Is Bittersweet for Victims of Abuse

Esther Miller, one of 508 people who sued the Los Angeles archdiocese over sexual abuse, spoke on Monday after a judge approved a record $660 million settlement. Ms. Miller, with photos of herself and the priest accused of abusing her, said she had been suicidal and lost her job.

A judge approved a $660 million settlement yesterday between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and 508 people who had filed suit over sexual abuse by clergy members.

“Settling the cases was the right thing to do,” said Judge Haley J. Fromholz of Los Angeles County Superior Court.

School Diversity Based on Income Segregates Some

When San Francisco started trying to promote socioeconomic diversity in its public schools, officials hoped racial diversity would result as well.

It has not worked out that way.

Abraham Lincoln High School, for example, with its stellar reputation and Advanced Placement courses, has drawn a mix of rich and poor students. More than 50 percent of those students are of Chinese descent.

“If you look at diversity based on race, the school hasn’t been as integrated,” Lincoln’s principal, Ronald J. K. Pang, said. “If you don’t look at race, the school has become much more diverse.”

San Francisco began considering factors like family income, instead of race, in school assignments when it modified a court-ordered desegregation plan in response to a lawsuit. But school officials have found that the 55,000-student city school district, with Chinese the dominant ethnic group followed by Hispanics, blacks and whites, is resegregrating.

The number of schools where students of a single racial or ethnic group make up 60 percent or more of the population in at least one grade is increasing sharply. In 2005-06, about 50 schools were segregated using that standard as measured by a court-appointed monitor. That was up from 30 schools in the 2001-02 school year, the year before the change, according to court filings.

The San Francisco experience is telling because after the recent United States Supreme Court decision restricting the use of race-based school assignment plans, many districts are expected to switch to economic integration plans like San Francisco’s as a legal way to seek diversity. As many as 40 districts around the country are already experimenting with such plans, according to an analysis by Richard D. Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy research group.

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Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Key Quote....

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

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Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

In Defense of the Saudis

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has fought a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since Sept. 11.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, post a guard every 15 or 20 paces?"

Suspicious

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said.

Askari also alleged that imams at Saudi mosques call for jihad, or holy war, against Iraq's Shiites and that the government had funded groups causing unrest in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sunni extremists regard Shiites as unbelievers.

Other Iraqi officials said that though they believed Saudi Arabia, a Sunni fundamentalist regime, had no interest in helping Shiite-ruled Iraq, it was not helping militants either. But some Iraqi Shiite leaders say the Saudi royal family sees the Baghdad government as a proxy for its regional rival, Shiite-ruled Iran, and wants to unseat it.

With its own border with Iraq largely closed, Saudi fighters take what is now an established route by bus or plane to Syria, where they meet handlers who help them cross into Iraq's western deserts, the senior U.S. military officer said.

He suggested it was here that Saudi Arabia could do more, by implementing rigorous travel screenings for young Saudi males. Iraqi officials agreed.

"Are the Saudis using all means possible? Of course not…. And we think they need to do more, as does Syria, as does Iran, as does Jordan," the senior officer said. An estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters cross into Iraq each month, according to the U.S. military.

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Iraq Pullout - A Consensus Waiting to Happen

Op-ed piece from the Washington Post on a possible withdrawal.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to recognize what's necessary, politically and strategically. He is said to favor an announcement by September that the United States will withdraw some troops from Iraq before year-end as a sign that it is committed to a "post-surge" redeployment. The opportunity for a modest drawdown will arise this fall, when two battalions, several thousand troops at most, are scheduled to rotate out of Iraq. One of those is a Marine battalion in Anbar province, where the administration has been touting U.S. success. A good way to underline the gains in Anbar would be to reduce U.S. troop levels there.

Another chance for compromise is the United Nations authorization for the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, which must be renewed this year. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants a plan to reduce the number of American troops in his country as much as any member of Congress does. Here's the real opportunity for "timelines" on withdrawal -- ones jointly negotiated by U.S. and Iraqi diplomats rather than imposed by Congress. In a perverse sense, that's the greatest gift America can bestow on the Iraqi government -- to engineer the joint "liberation" of Iraq from U.S. occupation, but "slowly, slowly," as the Arabs like to say.

After Mosque Battle, Musharraf’s Troubles Persist

Pakistani students who had been detained during the standoff at the Red Mosque in Islamabad were released Wednesday and handed over to their relatives after government forces seized control of the mosque.

The Pakistan dilemma.....

“Those are the very questions that will have to be sorted out: Is this going to be the first shot across the bow, or was this a one-off he was compelled to do because the script went wrong?” said, Najam Sethi, the editor of The Daily Times. “That is not clear at the moment.”

On the issue of the Red Mosque...

The Red Mosque enjoyed decades of government backing but lately had become a source of embarrassment for General Musharraf as its leaders used their students to carry out Taliban-style antivice campaigns. Mr. Haq told the privately owned Geo television network on Tuesday night that it had become a sanctuary for militants from other parts of the country.

“I with much regret have to say that this was a hub for all types of terrorists,” he said. “Anyone involved in any unlawful activity anywhere used to get protection here.”

He did not explain why the government, armed with this knowledge, had not taken action until a week ago.

The Day the Music Died

As more members of the generation born after World War II enter their 60s, and the effects of age conspire with years of hearing abuse, a number find themselves jacking up the volume on their televisions, cringing at boisterous parties and shouting “What?” into their cellphones.

About one in six boomers have hearing loss, according to the Better Hearing Institute, a nonprofit educational group. The AARP has reported that there are more people age 45 to 64 with hearing loss (10 million) than there are people over 65 with hearing loss (9 million). And more people are losing their hearing earlier in life, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Hearing loss from age (presbycusis) can begin before the Social Security years, but boomers are also likely candidates for noise-induced hearing loss, particularly the kind that results from continuous loud noise over an extended period of time (like a 115-decibel rock concert).

“They’re the first of that rock ’n’ roll generation,” said Sharon Beamer, the associate director of audiology professional practices for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, “the first to really grow up with loud music, personal stereo systems.”

But factory noise, construction din or the roar of subways may also be to blame.

“None of us protected our ears at all,” said Pat Benatar, the rock singer and guitarist, who is on tour. Nowadays, Ms. Benatar, 54, also lends her celebrity to Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers (HEAR), one of several public service groups with campaigns to prevent hearing loss.

“I’m still a junkie,” she said. “I still want it so loud.” Yet noisy restaurants bother her. When her dishwasher is running, she said, “I can’t hear any conversation at all.”

In the grand scheme of things (sending the children to college, paying off the mortgage, menopause), the inability to hear the dialogue on a reasonably adjusted television is a minor nuisance. Nonetheless, boomers said the realization that their hearing is no longer sharp provokes anxiety about age, frailty, dependency and obsolescence.

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Progress?

This new report seems to think so. But how significant are these benchmarks? Is the government strong enough and powerful enough to control at least part of the country within the next few years?

The report, released this morning, said the Iraqi government had shown satisfactory performance so far on 8 of the 18 benchmarks, including modernizing its military forces. But more work was needed on eight others, it said, including preparations for local elections. And in two areas, it was not yet possible to judge how things are going.

Or not...depending on how you look at it..

“Today’s report from the President confirms what many had suspected: the war in Iraq is headed in a dangerous direction,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “The Iraqi government has not met the key political benchmarks it has set for itself, and Iraqi security forces continue to lag well behind expectations.”

Bush Plans To Stress Next Phase In Iraq War

The current political challenge comes at a time when Bush has been talking increasingly with advisers about what situation he will leave behind in Iraq for his successor. Although he said in 2005 that "I will settle for nothing less than complete victory," Bush has concluded, with just 18 months left in office, that he will have to settle for less.

So the president has mapped out a best-case scenario for Iraq on Jan. 20, 2009, that would still see considerable numbers of U.S. troops on the ground, but in a different role. If events work out as Bush hopes, aides said, U.S. forces by then will have sharply reduced their mission, pulling out of sectarian combat and focusing instead on fighting al-Qaeda, guarding Iraq's borders and supporting Iraqi troops. Instead of operating under a U.N. mandate, the United States would negotiate an agreement with the Iraqi government for a smaller, long-term presence.

Such a reduced mandate would resemble the vision advanced in December by the Iraq Study Group, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). A Pentagon study last year concluded that even the more limited mission would require about 120,000 U.S. troops, compared with about 160,000 today, according to administration officials. But officials said it could be done with 60,000 to 100,000 troops.

Bush hopes the net result would be a situation stable enough that the next president -- even a Democrat with an antiwar platform -- would feel confident enough to sustain some form of U.S. mission despite domestic pressure to pull out altogether. But Bush aides said they are acutely aware that every forecast they have made for Iraq over the past four years has proved wildly optimistic.

Washington Post Reporting

Iraq minister: 140,000 Turkey troops on border

Turkey has massed 140,000 soldiers on its border with northern Iraq but so far there have been no violations, Iraq's foreign minister said Monday.

Hoshyar Zebari's comments came amid calls by Turkey's military for the government to give it the green light to carry out military operations in northern Iraqi against the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

"Turkey is building up forces on the border. There are 140,000 soldiers fully armed on the border. We are against any military interference or violation of Iraqi sovereignty," Zebari said during a news conference in Baghdad.

MSNBC reporting.

Olympics Highlight Human Rights in China

Child labor. Forced abortions. Religious persecution. Jailed dissidents. Cultural cleansing in Tibet and ethnic cleansing in Africa.

For China, the run-up to next summer's Olympics in Beijing is looking like a marathon through a human-rights minefield.

It's been decades since the games focused on which athletes were faster or stronger. But the Olympics have not been this politicized since the U.S.-Soviet boycotts of the 1980s.

China sees a chance to wow the world as it hosts its first event watched by billions of people. The increasingly image-conscious country will measure success both with medals and whether the 2008 Olympics burnish its rising star. That gives activists, governments and celebrities with a cause an opportunity to influence policies they've long assailed.

The games raise a difficult question for a government famously dismissive of outside pressure: What accommodations might be made without losing face?

Even China's sharpest critics don't anticipate major shifts before the games begin Aug. 8, 2008. Cosmetic changes are possible on issues such as free speech and labor conditions. Concessions on Tibetan autonomy or the Falun Gong spiritual movement are off the table.

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4th of July

4th of July

Bourbon, Missouri, 7 am. The flag hangs for Jimmy Summers, 1986 - 2007, killed in Iraq a little over a month ago.

The Least Among Us

A new book, The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier takes on the highly debated issue on how to handle the poverty issues in Africa.

Collier’s is a better book than either Sachs’s or Easterly’s for two reasons. First, its analysis of the causes of poverty is more convincing. Second, its remedies are more plausible.

There are, he suggests, four traps into which really poor countries tend to fall. The first is civil war. Nearly three-quarters of the people in the bottom billion, Collier points out, have recently been through, or are still in the midst of, a civil war. Such wars usually drag on for years and have economically disastrous consequences. Congo (formerly Zaire, formerly the Belgian Congo) would need 50 years of peace at its present growth rate to get back to the income level it had in 1960. Unfortunately, there is a vicious circle, because the poorer a country becomes, the more likely it is to succumb to civil war (“halve the ... income of the country and you double the risk of civil war” is a characteristic Collier formulation). And once you’ve had one civil war, you’re likely to have more: “Half of all civil wars are postconflict relapses.”

Why, aside from their poverty, have so many sub-Saharan countries become mired in internal conflict? Collier has spent years trying to answer this question, and his conclusions are central to this book. Civil war, it turns out, has nothing much to do with the legacy of colonialism, or income inequality, or the political repression of minorities. Three things turn out to increase the risk of conflict: a relatively high proportion of young, uneducated men; an imbalance between ethnic groups, with one tending to outnumber the rest; and a supply of natural resources like diamonds or oil, which simultaneously encourages and helps to finance rebellion.

It was in fact Collier who first came up with the line “diamonds are a guerrilla’s best friend,” and a substantial part of this book concerns itself with what economists like to call the “resource curse,” his No. 2 trap. As he sees it, the real problem about being a poor country with mineral wealth, like Nigeria, is that “resource rents make democracy malfunction”; they give rise to “a new law of the jungle of electoral competition ... the survival of the fattest.” Resource-rich countries don’t need to levy taxes, so there is little pressure for government accountability, and hence fewer checks and balances.

Countries don’t get to choose their resource endowment, of course; nor do they get to choose their location. Trap No. 3 is that landlocked countries are economically handicapped, because they are dependent on their neighbors’ transportation systems if they want to trade. Yet this is a minor handicap compared with Trap No. 4: bad governance. Collier has no time for those who still seek to blame Africa’s problems on European imperialists. As he puts it bluntly: “President Robert Mugabe must take responsibility for the economic collapse in Zimbabwe since 1998, culminating in inflation of over 1,000 percent a year.”

If these four things are the main causes of extreme poverty in Africa and elsewhere, what can the rich countries do?

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A President Trying to Find His Legacy

One of the better articles I have read on President Bush trying to find his place in the history books....

At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search.

Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?

The Iraq Problem...

Bush is fixated on Iraq, according to friends and advisers. One former aide went to see him recently to discuss various matters, only to find Bush turning the conversation back to Iraq again and again. He recognizes that his presidency hinges on whether Iraq can be turned around in 18 months. "Nothing matters except the war," said one person close to Bush. "That's all that matters. The whole thing rides on that."

And yet Bush does not come across like a man lamenting his plight. In public and in private, according to intimates, he exhibits an inexorable upbeat energy that defies the political storms. Even when he convenes philosophical discussions with scholars, he avoids second-guessing his actions. He still acts as if he were master of the universe, even if the rest of Washington no longer sees him that way.

"You don't get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker," said Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who was part of one group of scholars who met with Bush. "This is either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."

In Comparison to Others

Other presidents have been crushed by the pressure. Lyndon B. Johnson was tormented by Vietnam War protesters outside his window shouting, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Nixon swam in self-pity during Watergate, talking to paintings and once asking Henry Kissinger to pray with him. Bill Clinton fumed against enemies and nursed deep grievances during his impeachment battle.

But if Bush vents like that, no one is talking. Kissinger, who advises Bush, said the president has never asked him to kneel down with him in the Oval Office. "I find him serene," Kissinger said. "I know President Johnson was railing against his fate. That's not the case with Bush. He feels he's doing what he needs to do, and he seems to me at peace with himself."

Bush has virtually given up on winning converts while in office and instead is counting on vindication after he is dead. "He almost has . . . a sense of fatalism," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who recently spent a day traveling with Bush. "All he can do is do his best, and 100 years from now people will decide if he was right or wrong. It doesn't seem to be a false, macho pride or living in your own world. I find him to be amazingly calm."

To an extent, Bush walls himself off from criticism. He does read newspapers, contrary to public impression, but watches little television news and does not linger in the media echo chamber. "He does a very good job of keeping out the extreme things in his life," Conaway, the congressman, said. "He doesn't watch Leno and Letterman. He doesn't spend a lot of time exposing himself to that sort of stuff. He has a terrific knack of not looking through the rearview mirror."

The influence of Faith on his policies

After reading Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900," Bush brought in the author and a dozen other scholars to talk about the lessons. "What can I learn from history?" Bush asked Roberts, according to Stelzer, the Hudson Institute scholar, who participated.

Stelzer said Bush seemed smarter than he expected. The conversation ranged from history to religion and touched on sensitive topics for a president wrestling with his legacy. "He asked me, 'Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?' And he laughed," Stelzer recalled. "I said, 'In part.' And he laughed again."

Much of the discussion focused on the nature of good and evil, a perennial theme for Bush, who casts the struggle against Islamic extremists in black-and-white terms. Michael Novak, a theologian who participated, said it was clear that Bush weathers his difficulties because he sees himself as doing the Lord's work.

"His faith is very strong," said Novak, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."

Scooter Gets No Jail Time

President Bush spared Libby by commuting his two-and-a-half year sentence while leaving intact his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case.

The NYT's editorial staff weighs in....

Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.

Largely Alone, Pioneers Reclaim New Orleans

This is the Gentilly neighborhood today, once a backbone of New Orleans and all but given up for dead less than a year ago after flooding from Hurricane Katrina turned it brown and gray and silent in 2005.

Gentilly, home to about 47,000 people before the storm and a thin fraction of that now, is not dead. Haltingly, in disconnected pockets, this eight-square-mile quadrant north of the historic districts that line the Mississippi River is limping back to life, thanks to the struggles of its most determined former residents.

But they have had to do so largely on their own, because help from government at any level has been minimal, in their accounts. In recent weeks, some residents have reported getting checks from the state’s Road Home rebuilding program, but four-fifths of applicants have not.

Each block still contains only a handful of occupied houses. But a beachhead has been established here, a residential area critical to this city’s survival and one that before the storm was dominated by black homeowners, professionals and multigenerational citizens of New Orleans.

A similar story is unfolding in two other once-flooded family-centered neighborhoods, neither of them flashy but both equally important to this city’s future: Broadmoor, in central New Orleans, and Lakeview, in the northwestern corner, show signs of life here and there along the wounded streets. Neighbors, encouraged by the earliest post-Katrina pioneers, are moving back in.

All over the city, a giant slow-motion reconstruction project is taking place. It is unplanned, fragmentary and for the isolated individuals carrying it out, often overwhelming. Those with the fortitude to persevere — and only the hardiest even try — must battle the hopelessness brought on by a continuing sense of abandonment.

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What Do We Owe the Iraqis

The War Supporters are quite clear on their stance...

For the war’s supporters, even as their numbers dwindle, the answer remains self-evident: our moral obligation requires us to persevere until peace is restored and justice guaranteed for all Iraqis. To withdraw prematurely would be tantamount to betrayal. Morally speaking, we have no alternative but to persist. For those keen to stay the course in Iraq, moral reasoning and policy preferences neatly coincide.

The Anti-War Crowds' stance is not nearly as clear....

For those opposing the war, it’s not so easy. However much they may want out of Iraq, few are willing simply to disregard the moral quagmire into which the nation has waded. Leaving Iraqis in the lurch certainly qualifies as problematic. Yet for those who see the war as wrong or ill-advised or merely lost, continuing to send American soldiers to fight and die in such a cause is equally untenable.

A morally acceptable approach to closing down the war will resolve this conundrum, ending the conflict in a way that keeps faith with ordinary Iraqis and with our own troops. In short, the war’s opponents must align their moral concerns, which are complex, with their seemingly straightforward policy prescription.

That alignment becomes possible if we recognize that America’s obligation is not to Iraq but to Iraqis. As a nation-state, Iraq – awash with sectarian violence and lacking legitimate institutions – can hardly be said to exist. We owe Iraq nothing.

In contrast, we owe the Iraqis whose lives we have blighted quite a lot. We should repay that debt much as we (partially at least) repaid our debt to the people of South Vietnam after 1975: by offering them sanctuary. In the decade after the fall of Saigon, some half-million Vietnamese refugees settled in the United States. Here, they found what they were unable to find in their own country: safety, liberty, and the opportunity for a decent life. It was the least we could do.

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Obama Raised $32.5 Million in Second Quarter

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois raised a total of $32.5 million from April through June, his campaign announced today, drawing 258,000 contributors since entering the Democratic presidential race nearly six months ago.

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Massachusetts Universal Care Plan Faces Hurdles

With the mandate that everyone in Massachusetts have health insurance taking effect on Sunday, more than 130,000 people — about a third of those who were uninsured a year ago — now have coverage, officials say.

But most of those who have signed up are poor enough to qualify for free or state-subsidized insurance.

People who must pay the full cost themselves, who are crucial to the success of the nation’s most ambitious effort to achieve near-universal coverage, may now be a majority of the state’s uninsured and not all are rushing to get coverage. Many of them are healthy young people in their 20’s and 30’s, state officials say.

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