By Alister Bull Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has fallen deeper into recession, data showed on Wednesday, with the number of people filing unemployment claims reaching a 26-year high and consumers cutting spending for the fifth successive month.
Governments across the world have tried to boost expenditure to ease a recession ushered in by a credit crisis in the United States, with Japan and Germany becoming the two latest countries to unveil new spending programs.
Japan's government approved an 88.5 trillion yen ($980.6 billion) budget, its biggest-ever, to cover a 12 trillion yen fiscal stimulus program and Germany pegged its second spending package at 25 billion euros ($34.97 billion).
But some economists have said increased spending so far has failed to boost confidence among consumers, markets and investors.
In the United States, consumers cut spending for a fifth successive month during November and their incomes shrank, according to a Commerce Department report that pointed to deepening recessionary pressures.
It said spending contracted by 0.6 percent after falling even more steeply by 1 percent in October. Incomes contracted by 0.2 percent after a slight 0.1 percent gain in October.
New U.S. orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell 1 percent in November, a less severe drop than anticipated.
The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 30,000 to a 26-year peak last week. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 586,000 in the week to December 20 from a revised 556,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said.
Across the United States almost 2 million workers have lost jobs this year, driving the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent.
HIGH STREET HIT
Many leading companies are struggling to find ways to keep their businesses afloat, cutting jobs, work days or reducing benefits to counter weakening demand.
But for others, the crisis has become too powerful.
Zavvi, the CDs, DVDs, gaming and books retailer, became the third British high street victim of the crisis in less than 24 hours. Administrators Ernst & Young said they intended to trade the 114-store Zavvi UK with a view to selling all or part of the business as a going concern.
Shares in Europe weakened, with a weaker crude price hitting energy companies. U.S. stocks were headed for a flat open.
Under pressure to do more to boost the economy, Germany, Europe's biggest economy, plans to limit to 25 billion euros its second package of stimulus measures, a regional politician said. (continue reading)
By Glenn Somerville - Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumers cut their spending for a fifth straight month in November as a year-old recession tightened its grip, but with prices dropping, they got more for each dollar, a report showed on Wednesday.
A separate report showed initial claims for jobless aid last week hit the highest level in 26 years.
The Commerce Department said spending shrank by 0.6 percent last month after falling by 1 percent in October. However, a sharp drop in prices pushed inflation-adjusted spending up by 0.6 percent, the first increase since May.
The report also showed incomes fell 0.2 percent after a slight gain in October, a sign of the strain consumers were under as the holiday shopping season started.
Separately, the Labor Department said the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 30,000 to 586,000 last week, the highest since November 1982, suggesting a steepening drain of jobs is likely into 2009.
"All in all, the scenario remains pretty weak," said Daniel Katzive, director of global foreign exchange for Credit Suisse in New York. The latest data wouldn't change most forecasters view that the U.S. economy is still weakening, he said.
The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is preparing a huge economic stimulus package to complement the Federal Reserve's efforts at boosting economic activity through reduced interest rates.
A third report from Commerce showed orders for long-lasting durable goods slipped 1 percent in November, a less severe drop than anticipated but it comes after the biggest drop in October orders since mid-2000. Orders plummeted 8.4 in October.
There were some positive notes in the durables report, as orders rose in November for computers, machinery and fabricated metal products. Transportation equipment orders, down 7.4 percent after a 12.7 percent October decline, was the main drag on orders.
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders were up 1.2 percent after falling 6.8 percent in October but analysts doubted it marked any turning-point in economic prospects. Most analysts think mid-2009 is the earliest point at which some relief from the current severe downturn may start to be seen.
"The pickup in orders in November does not meaningfully alter the underlying weak trend, but it was a relief to see at least a pause in the downward movement," said Michael Moran, chief economist for Daiwa Securities America in New York.
The spending report showed personal savings edged up in November to 2.8 percent of disposable income from 2.4 percent in October, still a low level but a possible sign the year-old recession is causing consumers to begin putting more into bank accounts rather than spending it.
Prices fell 1.1 percent as gasoline costs continued to slide. But so-called core prices, which strip out volatile food and energy costs, held steady for a second straight month.
(Additional reporting By Alister Bull; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
People visit an ice sculpture for the upcoming 25th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival at a park in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province December 23, 2008.
REUTERS/Sheng Li
by Bob Fertik - Democrats.com
On their History Rewrite Tour, Bush and Cheney insist the pre-war intelligence about Iraq's WMD's was bad and they were innocent dupes.
Of course we all know the truth from the Downing Street Memos and dozens of other sources, which is that "the intelligence and facts were fixed" around the policy of invasion. And here's one more damning piece of evidence, courtesy of Roads to Iraq. (The Aljazeera link is in Arabic - someone needs to translate it.)
In an interview with Aljazeera today, former Chief of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq told the TV that he and the Head of the IAEA “Mohamed Al-Baradei” were subjected to direct threats from Dick Cheney before the war.
Blix said that Cheney threatened to defame both men’s reputations if they didn’t came with the “required” answers.
It's the same story from everyone else - Bush and Cheney demanded pro-war lies under one threat or another - being defamed, getting fired, and even outing covert CIA operatives. The Bush Administration was nothing more than a mafia operation.
But here's the good part:
Blix also added that he is ready to be a witness on the United States’ false allegations before an International tribunal.
You go, Hans!
REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak
RealNews.com
Does the Employee Free Choice Act give workers rights or take them away?
Last week, a memo was released that circulated amongst Republican Party senators prior to the vote on the proposed auto bailout. The memo advocated stopping the bailout as an opportunity to 'take their first shot at organized labor', and the Senators were able to filibuster the bill, forcing President Bush to use money from the $700 B financial bailout package to finance GM and Chrysler and save them from bankruptcy. Ron Blackwell opines that the GOP's real target is the Employee Free Choice Act, a piece of legislation which would drastically change existing regulations around union organizing and has the support of President-elect Barack Obama.
By Danny Schechter, AlterNet
Outlaws used to rob banks; now banks rob us. Meet the new poster boy for Wall Street excess and larceny.
Every era has its bad guy, its high profile criminal who flames into public view through media circuses and tabloid headlines. In the 1930s, there was Al Capone brought down by the taxman. In the 40s, Willie Sutton was a big bad guy who once said he robs banks because "that's where the money is." In the 1950s, the Mafia seized our attention while here in New York, we had George Metetsky, the mad bomber. In the 60s -- well, you know the saying: if you can rember that era, you weren't there ...
Many of these larger than life gangsters were anti-social outlaws robbing banks and the like. Now the banks are robbing us. Until he is outdone, we now have a new poster boy for Wall Street excess and larceny: the bland personage of Bernard Madoff, the consummate Wall Street insider, philanthropist and pillar of the financial community. He has now been credited in this credit crisis for the biggest theft in history.
Madoff seems to have won the gold medal for absconding with the most gold -- to a tune of $50 billion and counting. It was all, he admitted, a Ponzi scheme. He was a reverse Robin Hood: he took from the rich and enriched himself in a life style festooned with many houses, boats and stays at $5,000 a night hotels.
The Notice
Go to The Madoff.com site today and there is this notice that thousands of investors are reading while holding back tears and outrage.
On December 15, 2008, the Honorable Louis L. Stanton, a Federal Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, appointed Irving Picard as Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investments Securities LLC ("BMIS") pursuant to the Securities Investor Protection Act ("SIPA") as set forth in the attached order.
Mr. Picard supersedes Lee S. Richards, the previously appointed Receiver for BMIS and all claims by customers of BMIS will be processed by Mr. Picard as SIPA Trustee. Customers and claimants should refer to the website of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation for information about the processing of claims. SIPC.ORG.
Mr. Richards continues to serve as Receiver for Madoff Securities International Ltd. pursuant to the attached order. The Trustee Irving Picard has engaged Lazard Frères & Co. LLC to assist in the sale of the trading operations of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
Should you have further questions, please contact the Trustee at the following number: 888-727-8695.
In short: Good Luck at Getting Any Of Your Money Back.
Whistleblower Rebuffed
Of course this dry legalistic language doesn't tell the whole story -- the story of the failure of the Regulators to act, or about the submission to the SEC on November 7th, 2005 of a 19 page detailed document charging that "The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud."
It was written by financial expert Harry Markopolos and sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission with a request for deep confidentiality. He exposed the the man now being called "made-off." The title of his report: "The World's Biggest Hedge Fund is a Fraud." It projected scenarios including this one:
"(Very Likely) in bold, "Madoff Securities is the World's largest Ponzi Scheme" He believed that "this would be another black eye for the brokerage industry."
Bingo!
Victims We Can Relate To
That black eye punch was never thrown. Instead, it was three years before Madoff went down. He continued to operate his con game, defrauding customers worldwide. At the same time, the investors he ripped off later became "sympathetic victims" in our media -- like Steven Spielberg -- as opposed to subprime home borrowers who were often demonized as schemers and told they were naïve and should have known better. A CNBC "documentary" showcased a parade of wealthy Madoff victims.
Bernie was a high flyer, a part of a clubby and incestuous elite world of golf clubs, resorts, and philanthropy with tax benefits. He was a leader of the Wall Street world, at one point the Chairman of NASDAQ. Universities invited him to lecture on how markets work. He was admired, considered a role model, a genius. His firm handled l0% of all Stock Exchange trades.
His niece married an SEC regulator. Mary Schapiro, Barack Obama's pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), previously appointed one of his sons to a regulatory body that oversees American securities firms. Madoff himself said he had often visited the SEC where he complained of over regulation. (continue reading)
REUTERS/Ervine Lin
That's right: Conservatives are terrified that a new system would be so good we would never want to get rid of it.
A common thread is emerging in the right-wing response to health care reform. Its opponents aren't claiming that public health care will be bad. Rather, they are terrified that the new system will be so good that no citizen would buy expensive private insurance -- or vote for politicians who wanted to take public insurance away.
Barack Obama's team is sending clear signals that health care reform is a core economic issue, and the health insurance industry is becoming increasingly anxious by the future administration's determination to bring health care costs under control. Some Americans are seeing their health care premiums rising at four times the rate of inflation, if they have insurance at all. Health care reform is a pocketbook issue for all of us, according to the Obama team.
In tough economic times, it might be tempting to postpone health care reforms, but Obama is adamant that delay would be a false economy. In the American Prospect, Joanne Kenen and Sarah Axeen support claims about the high cost of doing nothing:
A recent report by the New America Foundation's health-policy program estimates that the cost of doing nothing about health care, including poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured, is well above $200 billion a year and rising. That's enough to cover the uninsured and still have some left over for other public-health needs.
If health care costs continue to rise at their current rates, it will cost $24,000 a year to insure a family of four by 2016, an 84 percent increase from today. At these rates, half of American households would have to spend at least 45 percent of their income to be insured.
In the Nation, Willa Thompson describes how a bicycle crash made her appreciate the connection between health care and politics. Thompson was 21 years old when she suffered major injuries after a collision with a truck. Luckily, she was covered by her parents' medical insurance until she turned 22. She later realized that if she had been just a few months older when the accident happened, she wouldn't have been able to pay for her medical care.
We all agree that something needs to be done. Let's briefly review the options that have been proposed so far: Obama wants to provide health care for all by requiring private insurance companies to cover everyone, and he wants to create a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. The second part of his plan, the public option, is what Republican opponents are so scared of.
Insurance companies love the idea that we will all be forced to buy their expensive product; they're not so keen about competition from the public sector.
Ezra Klein writes, "If you're looking for the coming fault line on the left of health care politics, keep an eye on what happens to the public-insurance option in the health reform bill." Will the public plan survive? Not if the Republicans and the insurance lobby have anything to say about it. As evidence, Klein cites this passage from a recent article in Congressional Quarterly: (continue reading)
by Jonathan Freedland - The Guardian (UK)
Heinous crimes are now synonymous with this US administration. If it isn't held to account, what does that say about us?
'Tis the night before Christmas and the season of goodwill. The mood is forgiving. Our faces warm with mulled wine, our tummies full, we're meant to slump in the armchair, look back on the year just gone and count our blessings - woozily agreeing to put our troubles behind us.
As in families, so in the realm of public and international affairs. And this December that feels especially true. The "war on terror" that dominated much of the decade seems to be heading towards a kind of conclusion. George Bush will leave office in a matter of weeks and British troops will leave Iraq a few months later. The first, defining phase of the conflict that began on 9/11 - the war of Bush, Tony Blair and Osama bin Laden - is about to slip from the present to the past tense. Bush and Blair will be gone, with only Bin Laden still in post. The urge to move on is palpable.
You can sense it in the valedictory interviews Bush and Dick Cheney are conducting on their way out. They're looking to the verdict of history now, Cheney telling the Washington Times last week: "I myself am personally persuaded that this president and this administration will look very good 20 or 30 years down the road." The once raging arguments of the current era are about to fade, the lead US protagonists heading off to their respective ranches in the west, the rights and wrongs of their decisions in office to be weighed not in the hot arena of politics, but in the cool seminar rooms of the academy.
Not so fast.
Yes, the new year would get off to a more soothing start if we could all agree to draw a line and move on. But it would be wrong. First, because we cannot hope to avoid repeating the errors of the last eight years unless they are subject to a full accounting. (It is for that reason Britain needs its own full, unconstrained inquiry into the Iraq war.) Second, because a crucial principle, one that goes to the very heart of the American creed, is at stake. And third, because this is not solely about the judgment of history. It may be about the judgment of the courts - specifically those charged with punishing war crimes.
Less than a fortnight ago, in the news graveyard of a Friday afternoon, the armed services committee of the US Senate released a bipartisan report - with none other than John McCain as its co-author - into the American use of torture against those held in the war on terror. It dismissed entirely the notion that the horrors of Abu Ghraib could be put down to "a few bad apples". Instead it laid bare, in forensic detail, the trail of memos and instructions that led directly to the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
The report was the fruit of 18 months of work, involving some 70 interviews. Most of it is classified, but even the 29-page published summary makes horrifying reading. It shows how the most senior figures in the Bush administration discussed, and sought legal fig leaves for, practices that plainly amounted to torture. They were techniques devised in a training programme known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape or SERE, that aimed to teach elite American soldiers how to endure torture should they fall into the hands of pitiless enemies. The SERE techniques were partly modelled on the brutal methods used by the Chinese against US prisoners during the Korean war. Yet Rumsfeld ruled that these same techniques should be "reverse engineered", so that Americans would learn not how to endure them - but how to inflict them. Which they then did, at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and beyond.
The Senate report cites the memorandums requesting permission to use "stress positions, exploitation of detainee fears (such as fear of dogs), removal of clothing, hooding, deprivation of light and sound, and the so-called wet towel treatment or the waterboard". We read of Mohamed al Kahtani - against whom all charges were dropped earlier this year - who was "deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music, and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks". Approval for this kind of torture, hidden under the euphemism of "enhanced interrogation", was sought from and granted at the highest level.
And that doesn't mean Rumsfeld. The report's first conclusion is that, on "7 February 2002, President George W Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees". The result, it says, is that Bush "opened the door" to the use of a raft of techniques that the US had once branded barbaric and beyond the realm of human decency.
For this Bush should surely be held to account. And yet there is no sign that he will, and precious little agitation that he should. A still smiling Cheney denies the Bush administration did anything wrong. Note this breathtaking exchange with Fox News at the weekend. He was asked: "If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?" Cheney's answer: "General proposition, I'd say yes."
It takes a few seconds for the full horror of that remark to sink in. And then you remember where you last heard something like it. It was the now immortalised interview between David Frost and Richard Nixon. The disgraced ex-president was asked whether there were certain situations where the president can do something illegal, if he deems it in the national interest. Nixon's reply: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
It is no coincidence that Cheney began his career in the Nixon White House. He has the same Nixonian disregard for the US constitution, the same belief that executive power is absolute and unlimited - that those who wield it are above the law, domestic and international. It is the logic of dictatorship.
But Nixon was forced from office, his vision of an unrestrained presidency rejected. If Bush and Cheney are allowed to retire quietly, America will have failed to reassert that bedrock principle of the republic: the rule of law.
This is why there must be a reckoning. Bush will do all he can to avoid it: and it is wholly possible that one of his last acts as president will be to cover himself, his vice-president and all his henchmen with a blanket pardon. Even if that does not happen, Barack Obama is unlikely to want to spend precious capital pursuing his predecessor for war crimes.
But other prosecutors elsewhere in the world should weigh their responsibilities. In the end, it was a lone Spanish magistrate, not a Chilean court, who ensured the arrest of Augusto Pinochet. A pleasing, if uncharitable, thought this Christmas, is that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush will hesitate before making plans to travel abroad in 2009. Or indeed at any time - ever again.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
The Onion
GEORGE TOWN, CAYMAN ISLANDS—Amid the bleak backdrop of imminent economic collapse, worried observers got some good news last October when executives from the nation's top 10 failing companies celebrated the historic $700 billion government bailout with an ultra- extravagant $800 billion party aimed at restoring confidence and bolstering their resolve."It's never ideal for private corporations to rely on public funding, but we would not have been able to survive another week without letting loose and throwing this massive bash," Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain said aboard his newly purchased $22 million yacht, the Excelsior. "We can only hope it's not a case of too little too late."
Three thousand guests were reportedly flown on 750 separate private jets to the Caribbean, where they commemorated the last-minute financial aid package—which saved their companies from the subprime mortgage crisis that has left thousands of Americans without homes—with 4-tons of Beluga caviar, $250,000 bottles of vintage Dom Pérignon served over precious gems, a 36-hour fireworks display, an additional loan of $200 billion to cover the costs of the gala, and a private concert for each attendee with rock legend Rod Stewart.
Held October 4–7 on all three of the Cayman Islands, the historic economic-stimulus celebration, spokespeople said, sent an important signal to the world that Wall Street was weathering the crisis in style.
"I'm glad we were all humble enough to recognize that we couldn't do this on our own," said AIG CEO Edward Liddy, sitting in a hot tub filled with Cristal and seven dozen endangered-quail eggs. "Having come so close to disaster, it is crucial that I eat these 24-karat-gold-leaf-wrapped chocolate truffles to boost stockholder morale and show all the critics and naysayers that we are carrying on just as we always have."
"Do not worry, America," Liddy added. "It's business as usual at AIG."
In a sign of the new era of financial responsibility ushered in by the bailout, the CEOs estimated that they came in a full $100 billion under the party's projected $900 billion budget—a windfall they immediately reinvested in their companies' ailing executive-Christmas-bonus divisions.
Reuters
ROME (Reuters) - Down-and-outs and hard up pensioners in Milan will enjoy a rare Christmas treat this year: choice beluga caviar confiscated from traffickers.
Italian police seized over 40 kg (88 lb) of the delicacy, worth some 400,000 euros ($558,300), from two men who last month smuggled it into the country from Poland for sale in the shops of Milan and the rest of the wealthy Lombardy region.
The head of the local forest police who carried out the raid kept the bounty in barrack fridges for several weeks, but realized it would soon go bad.
"Tests showed us the food was still perfectly OK to eat but it couldn't be stored much longer, so we decided to give it to the poor," Juri Mantegazza told Milan daily Corriere della Sera.
A small amount of the sturgeons' eggs have been kept for further analysis while the rest has been sent to voluntary associations, charity kitchens and old people's homes.
"Everything that comes our way is very welcome, even though most of our guests don't even know what those little black balls are," said Virginio Colmega, a priest who helps run the House of Charity in Milan.
(Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Katie Nguyen)
by bellasugar
What would you do with approximately 250 bottles of nail polish? Why, painstakingly paint a giant colorful quilt on your car, of course.
According to The Gazette, that's just what Urbana, Maryland resident Jill Bell did. After finding a dent in her car's hood, she cleverly painted a Band-Aid over the unsightly bump. Chuckle. She liked the idea so much, she decided to paint her entire car with nail polish! I'm guessing (and hoping) she didn't use one of those $30-a-pop lacquers from Chanel's Moscow Collection.
Nope. What she did use? The help of others. "Lots of ladies in my church donated nail polish, and lots of ladies at Weight Watchers, too," she told the newspaper. Bell estimates that 100-250 bottles of nail polish were used to accomplish this feat — a feat that took 13 months to finish. Whoa.
Kane: This trip had to have been the most intense daily assignment of the year.
Reuters - Video
Dec 23 - Burger King's new meat-inspired cologne is sold out, and it's commanding fat prices on ebay.
The limited edition product costs just under four dollars. That's one-tenth the price of a bottle of Aramis.
Reuters
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - More than 100 passengers stranded for six hours on the world's largest ferris wheel were being evacuated and given medical treatment in Singapore after the attraction ground to a halt Tuesday.
The Singapore Flyer stopped working after a short circuit in one of the wheel's motor drivers cut its power supply, a company spokeswoman said.
There were 173 people, including many tourists, trapped inside the huge tourist attraction.
The wheel started turning again more than six hours later and passengers were ushered into ambulances, a Reuters witness said.
The spokeswoman for the Flyer said the stranded passengers were given water and food throughout their ordeal.
Standing at a height of 165 meters (541 feet), the Flyer started operations in the city state in February and is 30 meters (98 feet) taller than the London Eye.
It has 28 bus-sized capsules attached to a circular frame 150 meters (492 feet) in diameter. Each capsule can accommodate 28 people.
The Flyer is part of Singapore's drive to boost tourism revenues.
(Reporting by Melanie Lee and Christophe Van der Perre; Editing by Giles Elgood)
By Martinne Geller - Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Liquor companies and bartenders are finding inspiration in the financial crisis, devising new recipes and reviving old cocktail standards to keep spirits alive during the holidays.
They hope to lure Americans who are drinking more at home or finding that parties are drying up to cut costs.
The industry has seen a resurgence of drinks that hark back to the prewar eras of Prohibition and the Great Depression, such as the Sidecar, the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan.
Julian Cohen, head of the consumer insights team at Fortune Brands Inc's beverage division, said those "heritage cocktails," traditionally made with heavier-flavored spirits like bourbon and cognac, mirror a wider preference.
"You're seeing a lot of darker flavors -- honeys, blackberries and raspberries, versus things like pomegranate and papaya," Cohen said. "When times are tough we want to go to things that are comfortable ... that are part of our history."
That may help explain the rush at the Edison, a swank bar in downtown Los Angeles, whose menu boasts vintage drinks like the Singapore Sling and the Vesper Martini, introduced in Ian Fleming's 1953 James Bond novel, Casino Royale.
During "Happy Hour" on Thursdays, the speakeasy-style lounge charges the Depression-era price of 35 cents for libations with names like Bourbon Bailout. Your 401K is a drink served with a postcard soliciting comments on whether patrons' retirement accounts are half-empty or half-full.
"On Fridays, we have massive lines -- about 300 people turn up at the bar," said Greg Rogers, a bar spokesman. "We have seen an uptick in recent months in sales as well as patrons."
On a recent evening, Rebecca Mulligan, a 27-year-old painter, drank a cocktail called The Hemingway instead of her usual glass of merlot.
"I have (become) more adventurous now," she said of the drink, made with champagne and absinthe. "You need to keep your mind off the depressing depression talk."
Stolichnaya, a Russian vodka brand, has been working with bartenders to concoct drinks with names like Rejected Resume, Battered Bull and Welfare Punch, said a spokeswoman. Absolut vodka owner Pernod Ricard is packaging its unflavored vodka in a mirrored bottle holder reminiscent of a disco ball to liven up home parties.
BREAD, MILK, BOOZE
According to a survey conducted in October, about one-fifth of U.S. businesses were choosing not to have office parties this year. Out of those that were having parties, only 71 percent planned to serve alcohol.
On a personal level, declining home values, job losses and drained stock portfolios have forced many Americans to become more frugal in their purchases and leisure time.
Spirits makers therefore have good reason to reconsider their tactics. (continue reading)
The Onion
WASHINGTON—President George W. Bush was unusually reflective in the final weeks of his administration, taking time during speeches and press conferences to look back on key decisions, expound on his legacy, and tout his role in paving the way for the nation's first African-American president by serving eight years as its first openly gay president.
"I'm inspired by our great country's willingness to look past the color of a man's skin—or, in my case, his overt homosexuality—and elect him based on his ability to lead," Bush told reporters following his meeting with president-elect Barack Obama on Nov. 10. "I've always been proud of my homosexuality, and I am so proud of the United States."
Bush added, "Thank you, America, for taking a chance on an openly gay man from Texas: tight jeans, cowboy hats, and all."
Recalling how he worried during his first campaign that voters were not ready to put a gay man in the White House, Bush said he was "shocked and overjoyed" to win in 2000, and could not have done it without homosexual adviser Karl Rove, his strong base of closeted gay ultra-conservative supporters on the Christian right, and his "best friend" Laura.
"While I tried to be commander in chief first and a homosexual man second, I knew that everything I did would be judged through the lens of 'America's first gay president,'" Bush said during an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson broadcast Dec. 1. "Looking back, my personal need to prove my manhood definitely influenced my actions. The arrogant swagger, invading Iraq, my ruthless support of the death penalty—heck, even setting back gay rights 25 years—all of it seems so silly now."
Former press secretary Ari Fleischer agreed, saying that Bush carefully cultivated his image as a masculine, simple-minded, heterosexual male in order to combat his insecurities about appearing weak before the international community.
"Believe me, sister, he overcompensated with a capital 'compensated,'" Fleischer said. "But when the cameras stopped rolling and the podium was put away, he was just fabulous. We had a fabulous, fabulous time."
While many will argue for generations about Bush's political impact, all seem to agree that his presidency at last proved to a once-disenfranchised group that anything is possible.
"I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime," said David Nevin, a 58-year-old homosexual living in New York. "And I probably won't again because he was a terrible fucking president who ruined it for all of us."
Added Nevin, "What a bitch."
More people believe in aliens and ghosts than in God, a new survey finds, according to a British newspaper.
The survey, however, was done by a marketing firm in conjunction with the release of an X-Files DVD, and details of how the poll was conducted were not reported in the Daily Mail. Survey questions, depending on how they are written, can greatly skew results, along with how subjects are sampled.
That said, the poll of 3,000 people found that 58 percent believe in the supernatural, including paranormal encounters, while 54 percent believe God exists. Women were more likely than men to believe in the supernatural and were also more likely to visit a medium.
Indeed, humans are prone to believing in things they can neither see nor find logical evidence for.
A survey of U.S. college students done in 2006 found 23 percent of freshmen had a general belief in paranormal concepts — from astrology to communicating with the dead. Interestingly, the number jumped to 31 percent among seniors and 34 percent among graduate students.
Researchers who have compared various human belief systems say our tendency to believe is deeply rooted.
"While it is difficult to know for certain, the tendency to believe in the paranormal appears to be there from the beginning," said Christopher Bader, a Baylor University sociologist. "What changes is the content of the paranormal. For example, very few people believe in faeries and elves these days. But as belief in faeries faded, other beliefs, such as belief in UFOs, emerged to take their place."
Religion and belief in the paranormal are not linked as one might imagine. A handful of surveys show just the opposite, in fact.
"Paranormal beliefs are very strongly negatively related to religious belief," said Rod Stark, another Baylor researcher. Some scientists think this is so because religions tend to discourage paranormal beliefs, and indeed most devout practitioners of a religion have been shown to be the least likely to believe in Bigfoot, ghosts or aliens.
By Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director - LiveScience
A 38-year-old man in Springfield, Ohio, told police he was reaching for something on the nightstand during sex when his pistol went off and shot his estranged wife in the chest, according to a local news report. Timothy Havens previously served 60 days in jail for assaulting Carolyn Havens, 42, who is now in the hospital.
The shooting comes just a handful of days after NFL player Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the thigh in a Manhattan nightclub.
While the Burress incident made big headlines, Carolyn Havens' tragedy is a far more common affair in this country where people shoot themselves or other family members far more frequently than many realize. A quick scan of headlines just this week finds:
--4-year-old accidentally shot and killed by relative
--17-year-old accidentally shot by younger brother
--Boy, 15, accidentally shot while deer hunting
--Dropped pistol discharges, wounds owner
The standard argument for keeping guns in the home is that they keep you safe, of course. The National Rifle Association trains about 750,000 gun owners a year. NRA courses teach proper handling and storage of firearms. Yet far more people who own guns — including many who see the guns as useful for self defense — never get such training.
There are somewhere between 193 million and 250 million guns in the United States, according to the Brady Campaign (in 1981, during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, Press Secretary Jim Brady was shot and seriously wounded).
Studies show that, statistically speaking, a gun in the home is more dangerous than protective. Some facts, according to the Brady Campaign:
More children, teenagers and adult family members are killed by firearms in their own home than by criminal intruders.
Guns kept in the home for protection are 22 times more likely to be used to kill someone you know than to kill in self-defense, according to a 1998 study in The Journal of Trauma.
The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns.
The unintentional firearm-related death rate for children up to age 14 is nine times higher in the United States than in 25 other countries combined, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There's a loaded gun in 10 percent of households with children; and there's a gun that's hidden but not locked away in one in every eight family homes. Not surprisingly, a study last year found that homicide rates are highest in states where more households have guns. Topping that list: Wyoming, Alaska and Montana.
"Our findings suggest that in the United States, household firearms may be an important source of guns used to kill children, women and men, both on the street and in their homes," said the lead researcher of that study, Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health.
We Americans, it seems, have a penchant for doing ourselves harm.
One other little-known fact: The odds of dying in an assault by firearm in this country are 1-in-325, less than suicide (1-in-121). And neither of those can compare to the odds of being killed on the road (1-in-100). All these methods of dying are in the top 8 overall (accidental injury is even higher).
by J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner
What would you do if you were a 12-year-old girl and several men jumped you, insisted you were a hooker and tried to drag you to their car? Would you submit or would you fight and scream for help?
From the Houston Press:
It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.
As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."
Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.
I'll bet you already guess that the three men were police officers. They were investigating allegations of prostitution two blocks from Dymond's home. The prostitutes they sought were white and elsewhere, but the officers apparently decided that Dymond, who is African-American, would do because she was wearing tight shorts. Really.
Even though "Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries," she was arrested at school three weeks later for assaulting a public servant. With her face, I guess.
Two years later, Dymond and her family have filed a lawsuit (PDF) and expect to go into mediation in 2009.
This story is already getting plenty of buzz, but it needs more attention. Galveston Police Officers Justin Popovich, Sean Stewart and David Roark, and Sergeant Gilbert Gomez (who apparently supervised the attack) assaulted a young girl who didn't begin to match the description of the suspected prostitutes they were investigating. The women they were seeking allegedly engaged in non-violent, consensual activities of the sort that would hardly seem to justify a violent arrest anyway.
And the men were in civilian clothes in an unmarked vehicle, giving a frightened girl no reason to believe that the people attempting to kidnap her did so under color of any "legitimate" authority whatsoever.
They also, by the way, threatened to shoot her dog. What is it with cops and dogs?
This is bad enough. Once the dust settled, the Galveston Police Department would have been well-advised to issue an abject apology to the Milburn family and to, at least, pick up the tab for medical expenses. A little butt-kissing would have been in order, along with harsh discipline for the officers on the scene.
Instead, having sent a 12-year-old girl to the hospital after a severe beating by grown men, police apparently stewed for three weeks, and then compounded their error by arresting the victim at school for putting up whatever meager resistance such a girl is capable of under attack from three adults.
So the Galveston Police Department's position is that it's a criminal act for a little girl to resist being dragged into a van by strange men? If that's the lesson the police want to send to the community, then it's nothing more than an association of thugs intolerant of the slightest challenge to its authority. It's certainly not an agency for preserving the peace and defending the rights of local residents.
A police department like that shouldn't just be sued; it should be disbanded.
Hat tip to Radley Balko, a top-notch civil liberties journalist, for stirring the pot in this case.
By Murray Waas
Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.
Cheney conceded during his interview with federal investigators that in drawing attention to Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s Africa trip reporters might also unmask her role as CIA officer.
Cheney denied to the investigators, however, that he had done anything on purpose that would lead to the outing of Plame as a covert CIA operative. But the investigators came away from their interview with Cheney believing that he had not given them a plausible explanation as to how he could focus attention on Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s trip without her CIA status also possibly publicly exposed. At the time, Plame was a covert CIA officer involved in preventing Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and Cheney’s office played a central role in exposing her and nullifying much of her work.
Cheney revised the talking points on July 8, 2003– the very same day that his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller and told Miller that Plame was a CIA officer and that Plame had also played a central role in sending her husband on his CIA sponsored trip to the African nation of Niger.
Both Cheney and Libby have acknowledged that Cheney directed him to meet with Miller, but claimed that the purpose of that meeting was to leak other sensitive intelligence to discredit allegations made by Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to go to war with Iraq, rather than to leak Plame’s identity.
That Cheney, by his own admission, had revised the talking points in an effort to have the reporters examine who sent Wilson on the very same day that his chief of staff was disclosing to Miller Plame’s identity as a CIA officer may be the most compelling evidence to date that Cheney himself might have directed Libby to disclose Plame’s identity to Miller and other reporters.
This new information adds to a growing body of evidence that Cheney may have directed Libby to disclose Plame’s identity to reporters and that Libby acted to protect Cheney by lying to federal investigators and a federal grand jury about the matter.
Still, for those in search of the proverbial “smoking gun”, the question as to whether Cheney directed Libby to leak Plaime’s identity to the media at Cheney’s direction or Libby did so on his own by acting over zealously in carrying out a broader mandate from Cheney to discredit Wilson and his allegations about manipulation of intelligence information, will almost certainly remain an unresolved one.
Libby was convicted on March 6, 2007 of four felony counts of lying to federal investigators, perjury, and obstruction of justice, in attempting to conceal from authorities his own role, and that of other Bush administration officials, in leaking information to the media about Plame.
One of the jurors in the case, Dennis Collins, told the press shortly after the verdict that he and many other jurors believed that Libby was serving as a “fall guy” for Cheney, and had lied to conceal the role of his boss in directing information about Plame to be leaked to the press.
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in both opening and closing arguments that because Libby did not testify truthfully during the course of his investigation, federal authorities were stymied from determining what role Vice President Cheney possibly played in directing the leaking of information regarding Plame that led to the end of her career as a covert CIA officer, and jeopardized other sensitive intelligence information.
Speaking of the consequences of Libby’s deceit to the FBI and a federal grand jury, Fitzgerald, who is also the U.S. attorney for Chicago, said in his Feb. 20, 2007 closing argument: “There is talk about a cloud over the Vice President. There is a cloud over the White House as to what happened. Do you think the FBI, the Grand Jury, the American people are entitled to a straight answer?”
The implication from that and other comments made by Fitzgerald while trying the case was that Libby had lied and placed himself in criminal jeopardy to protect Cheney and to perhaps conceal the fact that Cheney had directed him to leak information to the media about Plame.
Although it has been widely reported in the media that Cheney and Libby have denied that Cheney directed Libby ever to speak to reporters about Plame, those reports have been erroneous. As Washington Post.com columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in this largely overlooked column, Libby instead had told both the FBI and a federal grand jury that he was uncertain as to whether or not Cheney had directed him to talk to reporters about Plame.
An FBI agent testified at Libby’s trial, as Froomkin pointed out, that Libby had told the FBI that during a July 12, 2003 conversation that Libby had with Cheney, the two men possibly discussed “whether to report to the press that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.”
That conversation occurred exactly four days after Cheney ordered the revision of the talking points and Libby had his conversation with Judith Miller about Plame.
And immediately after that July 12, 2003 conversation between Cheney and Libby, Libby spoke by phone with Matthew Cooper, then a correspondent for Time magazine, and confirmed for Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA and that she had played a role in sending her husband to Niger.
A contemporaneous FBI report recounting the agents’ interview with Libby also asserts that Libby had refused to categorically deny to them that Cheney had directed him to leak information to the press about Plame. A heavily redacted copy of Libby’s interviews with FBI agents was turned over this summer to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey on June 3, 2008, reiterating an earlier request that Mukasey turn over to the committee the FBI report of its interview of Vice President Cheney in regards to the Plame matter:
“In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby states that it was `possible’ that Vice President Cheney instructed [Libby] to disseminate information about Ambassador Wilson’s wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President’s interview.”
Mukasey declined to release the Cheney report to Waxman in particular, and Congress in general.
But a person with access to notes of Cheney’s interview with federal investigators described to me what Cheney said during those interviews. Later the same person read to me verbatim portions of the interview notes directly relevant to this story.
***
At the time of the leak of Plame’s identity, Cheney, Libby and other Bush administration officials were attempting to discredit Wilson because of the charges that he was making that the White House had manipulated intelligence information to take the nation to war with Iraq. Wilson, a retired career diplomat and former ambassador, had traveled to Niger in February 2002 on a CIA- sponsored mission to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation. Wilson reported back to the CIA that the allegations were most certainly untrue.
Despite numerous warnings from the CIA and elsewhere in government that the Niger allegations were most likely false or even contrived, President Bush cited them in his 2002 State of the Union address as a rationale to go to war with Iraq.
On July 6, 2003, Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times charging that the Bush administration had “twisted” intelligence when it cited the alleged Niger-Iraq connection in the president’s State of Union earlier that year. At the time, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq could not find out weapons of mass destruction. Wilson’s allegations were among the first from an authoritative source that the administration might have misled the nation to go to war.
A central part of the effort to counter Wilson’s allegations entailed discrediting him by suggesting that his slection for the trip had been a case of nepotism. Cheney, Libby, then-White House political adviser Karl Rove, and other White House officials told reporters that Wilson’s wife, who worked at the CIA, had been primarily responsible for selecting him to go to Niger.
The day after Wilson’s op-ed, on July 7, 2003, Cheney personally dictated talking points for then-presidential secretary Ari Fleischer and other White House officials to use to counter Wilson’s charges and discredit him.
A central purpose for writing the talking points was to demonstrate that the Vice President’s office had played little if any role in Wilson being sent to Niger and that Cheney was not told of Wilson’s mission prior to the war with Iraq.
In talking points Cheney dictated on July 7, Cheney wrote as his first one: “The Vice President’s office did not request the mission to Niger.” The three other talking points asserted that the “Vice President’s office was not informed of Joe Wilson’s mission”; that Cheney’s office was not briefed about the trip until long after it occurred, and that Cheney and his aides only learned about the trip when they received press inquiries about it a full year later.
***
About a month prior to Wilson having written his own op-ed for the Times, he had told his story of his mission to Niger to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote a detailed account of Wilson’s trip and his allegations.
In reaction to that column, Cheney personally made inquiries about the matter to both then-CIA director George Tenet and then-CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, apparently on either June 11 or June 12, 2003, according to evidence made public at Libby’s federal criminal trial. Both Tenet and McLaughlin told Cheney of Plame’s role (in reality, a tenuous one) to the selection of her husband for the Niger mission.
On June 12, Cheney and Libby spoke, and Cheney told Libby about Plame’s supposed role.
In notes that Libby took of the conversation, Libby wrote that Cheney said he been told by the CIA officials that Wilson’s mission to Niger “took place at our behest”-in reference to the CIA. More specifically, the notes indicted the mission was undertaken at the request of the CIA’s covert Counterproliferation Division. The notes said that Cheney told Libby that he had been informed that Wilson’s “wife works in that division.”
Cheney then instructed Libby, according to the notes, to ask the CIA to set the record straight by saying that the Vice President’s office “didn’t known about [the] mission” and “didn’t get the report back”, in reference to the fact that Cheney’s office never received a copy of a CIA debriefing report of Wilson after he returned from Niger.
Surprisingly, despite the prominence of Kristof in particular, and the Times in general, the column was largely ignored– at least for a while.
But Wilson’s own July 6, 2003 Times op-ed column by rekindled the issue. Stoking the flames, Wilson then also appeared on Meet the Press that same morning to discuss his column.
Wilson’s column, prosecutor Fitzgerald asserted at Libby’s trial, ignited a “firestorm.”
Wilson’s charges, Fitzgerald went on to say, “came in the fourth month of the war in Iraq, the fourth month when weapons of mass destruction were not found. Coming as they did, they ignited a media firestorm… the White House was stunned.”
In a handwritten notation at the bottom of the July 6 op-ed, Cheney wrote out several rhetorical questions regarding Wilson and Plame: “Have they [the CIA] done this before? Send an Amb. to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro-bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”
The next day, July 7, Cheney crafted talking points to be distributed to the media which emphasized that his office had not requested that Wilson go to Niger, that the CIA had not told him about Wilson’s findings, and that he personally only learned of the matter long after the U.S. invaded Iraq– from press reports.
The four talking points dictated by Cheney to his press aide, Catharine Martin, stated:
*The Vice President’s office did not request the mission to Niger.
* The Vice President’s office was not informed of Joe Wilson’s mission.
*The Vice President’s office did not receive a briefing about Mr. Wilson’s mission after he returned.
*The Vice President’s office was not aware of Mr. Wilson’s mission until recent press reports accounted for it.
Martin, in turn, sent those talking points on to, among others, Ari Fleischer, the-then White House press secretary, who utilized them in his briefing or “gaggle” for the press that morning.
Fleischer told reporters that same day, according to a transcript of the briefing: “The Vice President’s office did not request the mission to Niger. The Vice president’s office was not informed of his mission and he was not aware of Mr. Wilson’s mission until recent press accounts… accounted for it. So this was something that the CIA undertook… They sent him on their own volition.”
Also hat same day, Fleischer, who was planning to leave his position as White House press secretary, had lunch with Libby, during which, according to Fleisher’s testimony at Libby’s trial, Libby spoke extensively about the role of Plame in sending her husband on the Niger mission.
At the lunch, Fleischer would testify, Libby told him: “Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife. His wife works for the CIA.” Fleischer testified that Libby even referred to Wilson’s wife by her maiden name, Valerie Plame.
“He added it was `hush-hush’, and on the QT,’ and that most people didn’t know it,” Fleisher testified.
The very next morning, on July 8, Libby met with reporter Judith Miller of the New York Times for two hours for breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown Washington in an effort to staunch the damage done by Wilson’s column.
Miller testified at Libby’s trial during the breakfast Libby told her that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that Plame had played a role in selecting him for his Niger mission.
In testimony before the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case, Libby testified that Cheney had instructed him before the breakfast to “get everything out.” Regarding the allegations that he leaked information to Miller about Plame, Libby told federal investigators that he had never done so.
During the same breakfast, Libby also disclosed to Miller portions of a then-still classified National Intelligence Estimate which Cheney believed demonstrated that the CIA was to blame for robustly endorsing the Niger information as accurate.
President Bush had personally and secretly declassified portions of the NIE for the specific purpose of leaking them to Miller. In disclosing selective portions of the NIE to Miller, only the President, the Vice President, and Libby knew about the secret declassification.
“So far as you know, the only three people who knew about this would be the President, the Vice President, and yourself,” Libby was asked by Fitzgerald during one session by Libby before the federal grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case,
“Correct, sir,” Libby answered.
Also that same day, July 8, 2003, Cheney met again Cathy Martin– this time on Cheney’s office on Capitol Hill. During the meeting, according to an account Martin gave federal investigators, Cheney told Martin that he wanted some changes and additions made to the talking points devised the previous day that had already been disseminated to Fleischer and other White House communications aides.
Martin told investigators that Cheney dictated the changes to her, and in each case, she took down word for word what the Vice President said. (Martin later repeated this same account under oath during Libby’s trial.)
Cheney told Martin that he wanted the very first of the talking points to now read: “It is not clear who authorized Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger.”
Cheney, of course, knew that the CIA had authorized Wilson’s trip and had sent Wilson to Niger. Both Cheney and Libby had been told by a large number of CIA and State Department officials by then that such was the case, according to the sworn testimony of those officials at Libby’s trial. And the day before, Fleisher had told the press that Wilson’s mission to Niger was “something that the CIA undertook” and that they had also “sent him on their own volition.”
Why would Cheney change the talking points from the day before if he knew that the CIA had sent Wilson and he and his staff had encouraged Fleischer to say that the day before? Obviously, saying it was unclear who had authorized Wilson’s trip to Niger was not only untrue, it also pointed reporters in the direction of asking about Plame.
Asked about this during his FBI interview, Cheney was at a loss to explain how the change of the talking points focusing attention on who specifically sent Wilson to Niger would not lead reporters might lead to exposure of Plame’s role as a CIA officer.
There was a matter, as well, as to why Cheney changed the talking points to say it was unclear who sent Wilson when in fact he had admitted earlier during the same interview with investigators that he clearly knew it was the CIA.
Finally, of course, there was the fact that on the very same day that Cheney changed the talking points that Libby was meeting with Miller and telling Miller that Plame worked for the CIA and had sent her husband to Niger.
In his closing argument during the Libby trial, however, Fitzgerald did mention the issue briefly. None of the media covering the trial, however (with the sole exception once again being Dan Froomkin), appeared to understand its significance or broader context, and did not report it.
Noting the change of Cheney’s July 7 and July 8, 2003 talking points, Patrick Fitzgerald said: “The question of who authorized became number one. That’s a question that would lead to the answer: Valerie Wilson.”
***
Four days later, on July 12, 2003 Cheney and Libby strategized again as to how to beat back Wilson’s allegations. They had traveled together, and with thief families, to the Norfolk Naval Station for the commissioning of the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan.
On the flight home, Cheney pressed Libby to talk to reporters to once again, hoping to beat back Wilson’s allegations and discredit the former diplomat. Immediately after landing, Libby spoke to then-Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper and confirmed for him that Plame worked for the CIA and had played a role in sending her husband to Niger. It was regarding that conversation that Libby told the FBI it was “possible” that Cheney might have told him to discuss Plame.
On July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted Libby’s thirty month prison sentence, saying he was doing so out of compassion for Libby’s family and because he believed that he believed that the sentence was excessive. The White House declined to say whether Bush might consider a full pardon for Libby.
In the next few days, it will become known whether Libby will in fact be pardoned by President Bush in his final days in office.
In the meantime, what the Vice President and the President told the FBI during their own FBI interviews during the Plame investigation will not be officially disclosed by the White House. Despite the fact that prosecutor Fitzgerald has said told Congress that he has no objections to the provision of the reports to Congress, the Bush administration has refused to follow through.
Special thanks to David Neiwart for editing assistance.
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The Key to Eliminating Your Slice
Making a proper “full shoulder turn” is one of the most important fundamentals of the golf swing, yet it's one of the most common mistakes made by golfers; and why so many have slice problems. A proper shoulder turn is when you rotate the shoulders so the leading shoulder comes under your chin, without letting your hips turn much at all. Below we explain the ways this eliminates the slice:
• If your shoulder rotation is stopped too early, your arms will tend to continue by fling across the target line and causing an outside-to-inside swing path, resulting in the dreaded banana-ball. A full shoulder turn will help the club fall “on plane”, which greatly reduces the chance of cutting across the target line and slicing the golf ball.
• A full shoulder turn will promote proper weight shift. Remember too keep your lower body from moving laterally. Do not confuse the full shoulder turn as meaning you must get the club back to parallel at the top of the swing. Many great golfers have a compact swing that comes up far short of parallel at the top, but all great golfers take a full shoulder turn when executing a full shot.
• A full shoulder turn will bring you to the top of the swing and assist in getting the hands and arms into proper position.
• Keep your chin up and off your chest so the leading shoulder can rotate and pass under the chin. If the shoulder hits your chin, it will cut the shoulder rotation short and encourage a slice.
• When a golfer does not utilize a full shoulder turn, they tend to rely more on the small muscles (hands and arms) to swing the golf club. This leads to inconsistent ball striking and shots prone to slicing. With a full shoulder turn, you will use more of your big muscles, which are much more consistent, and help you square the club face and avoid a slice. Don’t be in a rush; taking the club back slow will help you to finish the back swing with a full shoulder turn. More body, less arms.
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