Probably missed in all the furor over the 10 commandments display in Alabama is the fact that high-profile evangelical Christians disagree on Judge Moore's stand against the federal courts.

James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" is fully supportive of Moore's stand, while Jay Sekulow, prominent Christian lawyer; Richard Land, Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president; and Pat Robertson (!) oppose Moore's stand.

Dobson even mentioned Land by name, saying that Land is a "great friend and I agree with him on almost everything. I just think he's making a mistake here."
But Land, noting that the issue "has sadly and sharply divided evangelical Christians," said the court order must be followed and the judicial system allowed to work.
"Do evangelical Christians really want to say that this United States government is no longer a legitimate government and that we are no longer obligated to obey its courts when we disagree with their rulings?" Land wrote. "If so, let us understand it for what it is. It is insurrection. I want to reform this government, not rebel against it as an illegitimate government beyond repair."

Land goes further to offer some examples where Moore's stand would be harmful to the evangelical Christian movement.

"Would we have supported the Florida Supreme Court in defying the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling and continuing with yet another recount effort [in the 2000 presidential election] while the Electoral College was thrown into crisis by having perhaps two sets of electors from Florida and no agreed upon president?" Land asked.
"If the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, would we support the California State Supreme Court defying the U.S. Supreme Court and saying that since their state constitution explicitly guarantees the right to privacy, they planned to defy the federal government and continue to permit abortion on demand in California?"

Interesting, but not likely widely reported.

For those who are interested, the legal opinion for Glassroth v. Moore can be found here in PDF format.

UPDATE: I read the opinion and Chief Justice Moore really screwed the pooch. His defense contradicted his stated intention when he unveiled the monument and he made the mistake of believing himself above the law, which is made abundantly clear at the end of the opinion.

He doesn't even seem to understand that the first amendment applies to the states via the 14th amendment. In his world each state could have its own religion and if you happen to be a Jew or a Muslim or an atheist living in a Christian state, you'd have no recourse at the federal level. You'd be treated like a second-class citizen and your only recourse would be to move to a friendlier state.

Read the opinion. There are some genuine howlers in there.

Note that this is a cross-post.

-----------------

Paying a bit more for gas lately, hmmm? Well, you should love this commentary from AME in the United Arab Emirates:

This week the Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi lands in Moscow to sign a historic energy pact and to forge a new relationship with the kingdom’s main rival as top oil producer.

It has to be said that Mr. Al Naimi is gaining considerable weight in many circles. Independent observers credit him with keeping the oil price at least $1 per barrel higher in recent years than it would have been without him.

High oil prices of the past three years leave Mr. Al Naimi with a personal prestige perhaps unrivalled since Sheikh Yamani in the 1970s. Now the winning of new friends and influence in Russia is on the agenda.

This is a typically clever move by Mr. Al Naimi. In order to keep Opec oil prices towards the top of their $22-28 per barrel range then more than a little cooperation from Russia will be required.

Pragmatic Russia may heed this call from Saudi Arabia. Russia pays around $7 per barrel in oil production costs, compared with Saudi’ $1-2 a barrel, and would be financially crippled if oil prices fell to $10 per barrel as they did in 1998.

But no sign of that today, as mounting resistance to US rule in Iraq is keeping world oil supplies tight. Indeed, if the tentative US economic recovery blossoms this autumn, oil prices could head much higher.

History never quite repeats itself, but the situation in today’s financial and commodity markets does bare more than a passing resemblance to the mid-1970s.

Of course, we're all hoping for a return to the petroeconomic conditions of the mid-1970s. But wait ... the outlook gets even better:

For readers of this column who have business interests in the Middle East, and that is the AME Info target audience, this is very good news. The late 1970s were a golden age in the Middle East and we are seeing a repetition of this scenario.

Conversely for Western markets this means inflation, a property crash, possibly another stock market crash and anemic growth.

Now it is possible that the many manifest geopolitical problems of the Middle East serve to undermine such a golden scenario. But there is nothing that says economic expansion can not happen under unstable conditions.

So are the happy hopes of AME and its Editor-in-Chief, Peter J. Cooper.

Interested in Mr. Cooper? Here's his AME bio:

Peter J. Cooper was the launch editor of Gulf Business magazine in 1996, and is an award-winning British financial journalist with 15 years' experience. He returned briefly to the UK last year to complete his first book, Building Relationships, The History of Bovis 1885-2000. An Oxford graduate, Cooper studied politics and economics with William Hague, now leader of HM Opposition. He was also a trainee in the European Commission in Brussels as a specialist in the economics of developing countries, and speaks French and some German.

The other day I was thinking it's nice that the biggest controversies in this country on church and state involve displays of the Ten Commandments. Even so, one of Glenn's readers has a great statement on the matter:

I have to wonder which Founding Fathers Ben Gibbons thinks were so determined to see Christianity sewn into the very fabric of our government and society.

Was it John Adams, who said of the framers, "It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."

Or maybe it was Jefferson, who said "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law"?

Or Franklin, who said "When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

If there's a reason why Iran is terrorized by corrupt mullahs and we aren't, I think it starts here. We forget that at our peril.

I do think the monument in Alabama should be removed simply because it's a monument. I have no problem with celebratory deism, such as a national motto of "In God We Trust" or having "under God" in the Pledge, but a monument tips the pale. A simple plaque would be OK, but the judge is using this as a campaign issue and wouldn't be satisfied with that. Another reason judges shouldn't be elected, but appointed instead.

I also wonder if the judge has really thought this through. If he pushes this too far he could accomplish the exact opposite of his stated intention: he could end up with a SCOTUS ruling that bans all religious displays in public places, including their own PLAQUE of the Ten Commandments. Of course, he would point to that as further proof that this is a "godless" country when he created the problem in the first place. On the upside he would probably get more votes. See comment above about elected judges.

[When you are done reading this, please go here]

As we make our slow crawl towards September 11, 2003 and the second anniversary of that day, I can't help but notice that the media has decided to move on.

With the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks only three weeks away, TV networks have planned nearly no special programming to commemorate the horrible events of that day.

In New York, many of the Sept. 11-related events will be private and attended only by the families of the victims.

Instead of breaking into regular programming, the major broadcasters will cover the day in their regular newscasts.

I felt a small fist of fury take hold of my heart when I read that. The fury is mingled with sadness and fear and that strong voice that has resided in my head for almost two years now keeps repeating: We Must Not Forget.

We do not need another slo-motion replay of those enormous blades of steel crashing into the World Trade Center, for that image is surely burned on the retinas of every single person who was witness, whether physically or through the television.

We do not have to play a repeat of that day's events in order to commemerate the lives lost and the lives ruined. There are so many other things that could be said and most important of those things is how we are rebuilding; our lives, our spirits, America. We can do nothing worse than to make our enemies think that 9/11 has become an afterthought and two years later we are complacent and forgetful and perhaps we need another wake up call.

No, we should be showing progress while still paying tribute to those left behind. The coverage of 9/11/03 should show the babies of the widows of 9/11, carrying on the spirit and personalities of their fathers. It should show the plans for the rebirth of the site of the World Trade Center, the gardens that will spring to life there, the entries for the memorial design contest.

There should be investigative pieces on how far we've come in the War on Terror, all the terrorists who had their hands in that day who have been captured, all the cells that have been broken up. There should be a big reminder flashing across the screen at one point that there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since that day.

How are the firemen who walked out of the burning rubble coping? What about the people who made it down the stairwell and out into the open air and safety? Yes, there should be images of that day shown, perhaps a short montage just to jar our memories and wake whatever fight that was in our souls that has since gone to sleep.

I want to remember. I never want to lose that memory of the smoky sky above Manhattan that I viewed from my office window. I want to remember Pete Ganci's wake and the sharpshooters atop my neighbor's house during the memorial service for Claude Richards, I want to remember the haunted look in my firefighter cousin's eyes and the look of despair on my father's face. I want to remember the chilling feeling of looking at a sky free of jumbo jets for days on end and the quiet, the unnerving quiet, that made those days after so surreal and chilling. I need to remember these things because to forget would be to spit in the face of every single person who died that day.

Relive those events, if only for a moment. There are a million places to look in case you have forgotten, in case you turn on your television on September 11, 2003, hoping for something to help you remember that day, to live through it again just to not forget.

We cannot move on because we are still there. There are 12,000 body parts yet to be identified. There are people still in mourning, people who will never, ever get over seeing their loved one's name on this list. There are still people who want us dead, animals who would stop at nothing to see that the events of 9/11 are repeated, maybe somewhere else. Maybe your own backyard this time.

What does it say about our country when the protesters and conspiracy theorists will mark the day with more of an effort than the mainstream media is? When activists who want to put salt in our wounds and rip open our scars are commemorating that day (albeit in a disgusting way) more than our own media, who will be continuing on with soap operas and Jerry Springer as if this was just another day?

I will never forget. And I will do my best to make sure no one else does either because, obviously, the media has decided to just blow this day off in favor of ratings and advertising dollars.

For starters, you can go here and read the personal accounts I collected one year ago, for a project alled No Ordinary Day. There are more here. They will break your heart, they will make you cry and most of all, they will make you remember. Which you damn well better do.

********

I'd like to continue with the project I started last year. If all the voices gather together, we will never forget. I'm going to change the name of the project from No Ordinary Day to Voices.

I will add to the voices as you wish; memories, memorials, a few sentences a lengthy essay. Unlike last year, it doesn't have to be about your memories of that day, though it could be. Just use your voice so we don't forget. If we speak loud enough, if there are enough of us, we can become a symphony of shouts and tears and whispered pain, so we can always be heard and never, ever forget.

You can add your comments here and I will transfer them to the project, or you can add them to the comments there, or you can email them to me.

Voices.

Reason: Dream Interpretation: The March On Washington's enduring legacy.
It's been forty years since Dr. King gave one of the most memorable speeches in American history and I'm proud to get to post on it. A little scared, too, because a whole book could hardly do justice to the accomplishments of a man who embraced nonviolence and saved America from itself, as President Bush noted on a recent trip to Africa.

It's also amazing that it took 100 years to realize the potential of the 14th and 15th amendments. I can't imagine what life must have been like living under the lash of state power when the federal government had the power to fix it all along. That's why you'll never hear me bleating on about "states' rights" and the like: states have no rights, only people do. States have powers, which were being abused in hideous fashion.

Up to that time our form of government, federalism, had failed us. By failing to realize the potential of the 14th and 15th amendments several generations of black people had been systematically prevented from reaching their potential. It is a national shame but one we are rectifying with each passing year.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not without its own failings, mostly due to abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause, but it seems minor compared to the injustice that act rectified. It's also heartening to see John Lewis, at the end of the excerpt, acknowledge the progress that's been made.

The King speech also lent momentum to two of the most consequential pieces of civil rights legislation in American history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Act outlawed state-sanctioned and enforced racial discrimination in the form of Jim Crow laws. For example, it allowed blacks to come down out of that theatre balcony in Bristol Virginia. The Voting Rights Act insured that Southern blacks who were being systematically denied the franchise by corrupt voter registration officials would have access to the ballot box.

Sure, these laws are not perfect. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act has been interpreted as authorizing the creation of affirmative action programs. This despite the fact that Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) declared specifically that Title VII "would prohibit preferential treatment for any particular group," and famously promised that if this turned out to be wrong that he would eat the pages on which the statute was printed. I wonder if the Senator would have liked the pages sautéed or with a nice béchamel? And yes, the Voting Rights Act has led to "racial gerrymandering." Still, we are a far better, and fairer country because of those laws.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the only remaining speaker from the 1963 march, told the Washington Post, "I wish Dr. King could see the progress that we have made, see the distance that we have come."

Click below to see the entire "I Have A Dream" speech. I dare you not to be moved by it.

"I Have A Dream"
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
August 28, 1963

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

Ihave a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

FORWARD: Century of Hatred: 'Protocols' Live To Poison Yet Another Generation.
There's no comfort in the fact that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was actually lifted from a parody having nothing to do with Jews, but it is striking that the Protocols are still influential today. It's also striking, though not all that surprising, that the Protocols are being taught as fact at Berkeley when they are a forgery.

Given all that's occurred in the Middle East in the latest Intifada, now in its third year, it sickens me to think that this sort of trash is still held up as fact and used to instigate violence against Jews in general and Israel in particular.

That the idiots at MEChA have embraced them doesn't even surprise me anymore. Jew-hating seems to have become a global hobby throughout history and I will never understand why.

History's most virulent antisemitic propaganda essay, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," was first published 100 years ago this week. Though the Protocols turned out to be both a notorious plagiarism and a shocking forgery, the essay would exercise a powerful impact upon the modern era, principally as a critical factor in generating the Holocaust.

Despite its gross falsehood and the horrors it sparked, the Protocols strikingly continues to be promoted today, most alarmingly in such important institutional settings as the United Nations and Middle Eastern governmental media.

The first publication to print the Protocols was the St. Petersburg newspaper Znamya — Russian for Banner — from August 26 to September 7, 1903. Pavel Krushevan, editor of the paper, was known for his ultra-rightist antisemitic views and found common cause with the so-called Black Hundreds, a group active on behalf of extremist causes.

Krushevan, however, was not the author of the Protocols. It was drafted under the prodding and guidance of Piotr Rachkovsky, director of the Paris branch of Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Sinister and wily, he cultivated the art of forging letters or documents in which Jews were targeted as revolutionaries and anarchists striving for democracy in czarist Russia. As early as 1891, he revealed his intentions in a private letter.

The published Protocols were said to be the secret decisions reached at a gathering of Jewish leaders. That gathering was initially held to be the First Zionist Congress, which met in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. Later, the source was attributed to B'nai B'rith.

What was stunning about the Protocols, as later scholarly investigation and research revealed, was that it was lifted almost entirely from a forgotten political satire published in Paris in 1864 and written by a well-known democrat, Maurice Joly.

Joly's pamphlet was designed to expose the repressive character of Emperor Napoleon III's regime, which ruled France at the time. Titled "A Dialogue in Hell: Conversations Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu About Power and Rights," the pamphlet made no reference to the Jews.

Read the whole article.

This is a painful post to write, but it needs to be written. I find the U.N. beneath contempt, for reasons I'll explain in a minute - but some of the posts out there in the wake of the terrorist attack on the U.N.'s Baghdad HQ crossed a very important line.

This post by Emperor Misha I, and a few of the comments associated with it, are probably the most widely publicized. Regrettably, in the comments section of this Winds of Change.NET post, team member Trent Telenko wrote in one of his comments:

bq. "Too bad the Al-Qaeda didn't use a bigger bomb (August 20, 2003 02:56 AM)."

That's unacceptable. What we have here, is a failure to communicate. Not theirs - they communicated all too well. So perhaps it's mine. Brothers, listen. Carefully.

read the rest! »

How effective really is the Philippines as a member of the U.S.-led global war against terrorism in light of recent events in Manila - the escape of Jemaah Islamiah terrorist Al-Ghozi from police custody and the failed mutiny of "disgruntled" soldiers - that once more exposed the enduring instability of government made even worse by pervasive charges of rampant corruption in the police force and in the military?

Political writer/analyst Robert Tagorda, in his essay posted over at the Tech Central Station and referenced in his weblog, asks how should the U.S. address the Philippine situation:

"...although the Philippines has shown willingness to contribute to the war on terror, its vehicles for meaningful contributions have, at the very least, brought disappointment. A quandary also exists: American and Australian assistance provides essential resources, but the Philippine government is so internally crippled that it cannot do much with them. Its own institutional problems hamper regional initiatives.

How should the United States address this issue? The Washington Times suggests that the Bush administration should apply diplomatic pressure by postponing an October visit to the Philippines: "The message needs to be clear that Mrs. Arroyo must get a grip on the chaos." Indeed, reform must come from within, but as Karl Jackson, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says, "self-help without resources always fails." Both the PNP and the AFP need to be professionalized. In the Southern Philippines, frontline troops receive combat pay of only 250 pesos a month and meal allowance of only 60 pesos a day. If Arroyo limits corruption, she can increase funding for basic military and law enforcement needs. Because the Philippines plays a strategic role in the war on terror, the United States should perhaps give additional funds."

Read the rest of Tagorda's essay.

Bush Campaign Reaching Out to Bloggers (washingtonpost.com)
Howard Dean is smart. Of course, they'll blame President Bush, but it'll be a lie. The Democrats will beat each other to death in the primaries and the winner will come out broke in March, just like the article says -- and I said here, here and here -- and won't be able to spend again until after the convention in August. The same thing happened to Bob Dole in 1996, which precipitated President Bush's decision to forego spending limits in the 2000 primaries. If the Supreme Court upholds the ban on soft money in September the Democratic winner will be relying on free media entirely.

Better to skip the public financing and the spending limits.

Howard Dean, who has proved surprisingly adept at raising campaign money, appears to be having second thoughts about his pledge to participate in the nation's program for publicly financing political campaigns.

The former Vermont governor told the Associated Press that although he intends to keep his pledge, he is also still willing to consider opting out of the program. "Could we change our mind? Sure," Dean said.

The program, designed to lessen the importance of campaign fundraising, provides federal dollars to qualified candidates who agree to spending limits. Earlier this year, Dean said his campaign would join the program.

But he has since proved a prodigious fundraiser. And Democrats have long feared that participating in the program during their primary would put their candidate at a disadvantage, since President Bush is expected to opt out.

Democrats fear their candidate could emerge from the primaries, as early as March, nearly penniless and unable to match the president's unrestricted campaign efforts for months -- until they receive their general election money later that summer, after their presidential nominating convention. It was that scenario that appears to have given Dean second thoughts.

"I think public financing is a good thing. The question is what do you do with an opponent who can murder you" for months, Dean said.

Any Democrat who is serious about winning the Presidency should just skip the public financing altogether.

There are times when you've got to count to one thousand, take a deep breath, and let the anger go.

Not because it's not justified.

Not because of any "Moral Equivalence".

Not because of "turning the other cheek".

But because it's not useful.

(Photo : Reuters)

Hate is not the answer.

(Photo : Yahoo)

I repeat, Hate is not the answer.

It's not constructive. It won't bring the dead back, nor stop further massacres of the innocent.

Having a little old fashioned auto da fe and burning the members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad at the stake would only give momentary pleasure, and would corrode the soul.

Demolishing the Dome of the Rock would neither bring the guilty to justice, nor damage their cause. It would be an act of Cultural Vandalism, something the Taliban knew all about. You do not beat an enemy by becoming him.

Nuking Mecca would merely demonstrate that it's possible to provoke others beyond endurance, so they engage in shameful acts that slay the innocent along with the guilty. We would be no better, in fact worse, than the people who perpetrated 9/11. We know better.

Engaging in ethnic cleansing in the name of security would be quite justified, but that particular strategy has been so over-used without any justification in the past that it's not feasible. Perhaps if compensation were paid, the land could be acquired by "eminent domain", and the borders moved. But that's just a band-aid, no solution at all in the long term.

So what must be done?

Ayyat al-Akhras - a 17 year-old girl - was the youngest child suicide bomber, murdering 2 Israelis in a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002.
The PA (Palestinian Authority) has named a children's summer camp in her name. This is the second summer in a row in which a camp was named for Akhras and continues the PA policy of naming summer camps, sporting events and schools, after prominent terrorists.
IMRA

Hate is not the answer. But neither is pretending such inconvenient facts exist. The PA is not acting in Good Faith, has not acted in Good Faith, and will not act in Good Faith. Wishing so won't make it happen. It was worth a try - it was worth going the extra yard, the extra mile, the extra light-year, but eventually you have to face the unpalatable truth. The Palestinian leadership, and from all accounts a large and growing number of their subjects, just want to kill all the Jews. They're not alone.

8 August 2003: Sanaa Republic of Yemen Television in Arabic, official television station of the Republic of Yemen, at 0917 GMT carries a 28-minute live sermon from the Grand Mosque in Sanaa.

Shaykh Akram Abd-al-Razzaq al-Ruqayhi delivers the sermon.

O God, destroy the sons of Zion. O God, destroy the Zionist and American enemies of Islam, shake the ground under them, instill panic into
their hearts, and freeze the blood in their veins.

-IMRA

Hate is not the answer. Neither Hate preached over Government Television, nor Hate preached from the Pulpit, nor most especially Hate in the Mosque or the School.

This Hate must be stopped. It can no longer be ignored, swept under the carpet, or diplomatically excused as "they don't really mean it". They do.

But the cure for this sickness is not in our hands. It lies in the hands of Muslims everywhere. People of Good Will, who believe in Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful. Until obedience to Allah is stronger than the ties of Muslim Brotherhood, Islam will continue to be besmirched by these idolators, who worship only themselves, with a Gun in one hand and the Koran in the other, marching straight to Hell.

Hate is not the answer. Teaching Children to Hate is not the answer. We must stop this Child Abuse.

One of the most meaningful gauges of the integrity of the peace process and its likelihood of success is the degree to which the parties educate toward peace. It is by this yardstick that the Palestinian Authority's education apparatus, formal and informal, has been such a dismal disappointment.

Instead of seizing the opportunity to educate future generations to live with Israel in peace the PA has done everything in its power to fill young minds with hatred.
...
For example, the new 6th-grade Reading the Koran openly presents anti-Semitic messages as children read about Allah's warning to the Jews that because of their evil Allah will kill them: "...Oh you who are Jews ...long for death if you are truthful... for the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you..."

In other sections they learn of Jews being expelled from their homes by Allah, and in another Jews are said to be like donkeys: "Those [Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not observe it, are like a donkey carrying books...."

This religious-based anti-Semitism is particularly dangerous because children are taught that hating Jews is God's will. Islam also contains positive attitudes toward Jews yet PA educators chose to incorporate only hateful teachings.

- Jerusalem Post, via LGF

The reports of the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, confirm this. The CMP's charter is:

"..to encourage a climate of tolerance and mutual respect between peoples and nations, founded on the rejection of violence and the changing of negative stereotypes, as a means to resolving conflicts.

CMIP's main work consists of examining the content of school textbooks used in the Middle East, to determine whether children are being taught to accept and recognize the right of the other to exist. Curricula, school books for children and handbooks for teachers have been chosen because they are an indicator that reveals the views and values societies want to instill in their youth.

Hate is not the answer. Books that teach Hate are not the answer. An educational system devised to teach the joys of killing, killing, and yet more killing the devil subhumans, offspring of pigs and monkeys is not the answer. That system must be extirpated, root and branch, and the Child-Abusers who run it kept far, far away from the young.

I don't have The One True Solution to the massacres, the suicides, the homicides, the psychopathic death-cultists. But Hate is not the answer. A cold, calculating and inhumanly rigorous and honest examination of all the facts, especially the ones we don't want to acknowledge is in order. We must let go of our outrage. It is not helpful. Innocent Blood should not be answered with more Innocent Blood - though there will certainly be a place for judicious surgery. We must be subtle, and put aside Righteous Wrath, however justified. It is not helpful.

Hate is not the Answer. Don't get Mad, get Even.

My personal favorite is a transaction tax that doesn't just focus on consumption, but apparently there's actually a bill for a national sales tax working its way through Congress, though it'll likely go nowhere.

Even though it's not my preferred method, it would be a massive improvement over the Rube Goldberg system we have in place today. I prefer a transaction tax because I want the government to be neutral with regard to how money is used: savings isn't favored over consumption and the tax burden is spread equally over the factors of production -- land, labor and capital. Not so with a consumption tax, which taxes labor disproportionately. But, then again, so does the current system.

Also, to keep a sales tax from being regressive it would require adding complexity to it, whereas a transaction tax would be regressive at the level of the individual purchase, though the rate would only be .6%, but progressive in aggregate.

A nationwide sales tax would still be a major improvement and could be viewed as laying the groundwork for my dream scenario. Check out the Bowl of Gumbo for more on this bill.

Operation Red Tape - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED
This is crazy. After allowing 425 air conditioners to be sent to soldiers in Iraq, the Post Office suddenly called a halt to it because they have freon in them. Duh. You can contact the post office via email here or at the number in the excerpt. Idiots.

Frankie Mayo has a mission — to cool the air for as many U.S. soldiers in Iraq as she can by sending them as many as air conditioners as she can lay her hands on. What started with a single air conditioner sent to her son at the end of June has grown into Operation Air Conditioner, with tons of units being sent to the troops. It is more than just providing them a touch of comfort or a taste of home, it is about helping them avoid heatstroke and providing them comfortable sleeping conditions. But, Mrs. Mayo had 302 new air conditioners waiting to go on Friday, when the U.S. Postal Service pulled the plug.

Local and regional postal representatives ducked our inquiries yesterday. But at 4:50 Friday afternoon, Mrs. Mayo was told by a bureaucrat in an air-conditioned office at Delaware's Wilmington Distribution Center that it would no longer ship the air conditioners because they contain freon, which is listed as a class 2 compressed gas.

Postmaster General John Potter ought to be alerted to this by phone (202/268-2020), fax (202/268-5211) or e-mail (www.usps.com/common/contact_us/ and click on consumer feedback).

The USPS is incredibly belated in its sudden discovery. After all, Mrs. Mayo had already sent 425 air conditioners to the long-suffering soldiers with nary a comment, much less a holdup. Neither the blue-suits in USPS headquarters in Washington nor the brass at the Pentagon had complained. In fact, soldiers have been deluging Mrs. Mayo with requests.

Today the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal site publishes an article by Lance Cpl. Guardiano, a field radio operator with the U.S. Marine Corps' Fourth Civil Affairs Group and, as a civilian, defense editor of Rotor and Wing magazine.

Read it here, and here's a sample:

It's understandable that Western press reports are fixated on attacks that kill American soldiers. But that focus is obscuring what's actually happening in the rest of the country--and it misleads the public into thinking that Iraqis are growing angry and impatient with their liberators.

In fact, there is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services are almost universally available (albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace here in central and southern Iraq.

I know because I'm one of those Marines. My reserve unit was activated before the war, and in April my team arrived in this small city roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad. The negative media portrait of the situation in Iraq doesn't correspond with what I've seen. Indeed, we were treated as liberating heroes when we arrived four months ago, and we continue to enjoy amicable relations with the local populace.

The "Arab Street" I've meet in Iraq loves--that's not too strong of a word--America and is deeply grateful for our presence. Far from resenting the American military, most Iraqis seem to fear that we will leave too soon and that in our absence the Baath Party tyranny will resume. This sentiment is readily apparent whenever we venture into the city. We don't make it far outside of our camp before throngs of happy, smiling children greet us.

Lieberman Rejects Strategy Of Running to the Left (washingtonpost.com)
This article is one reason I would consider voting for Lieberman in 2004. The House and Senate will both remain Republican, with a likely gain in Senate seats. Having a Democrat for President could open the door to reforms in entitlements that would never be accepted by a Republican. It would also make the Republican Congress take a stronger stand on spending to differentiate themselves from the President.

Lieberman seems to have written off Iowa altogether and is planning on a strong showing in the south and west, which he may very well get.

In appearances before crowds of Democrats looking for sharp attacks on President Bush's tax cuts, trade pacts and foreign policy, Lieberman is sounding a bit like a Republican as he laments the "old" and "outdated" solutions advocated by many Democrats. "It's right out of [Bush political director] Karl Rove's playbook," said Dean's spokeswoman, Patricia Enright. Some Democratic voters seem to agree -- he was the only candidate booed at recent candidate cattle calls.

By openly challenging the political adage that a Democrat must run to the left to win the nomination, Lieberman is pressing the case that only an unapologetic centrist strong on national defense such as him can beat Bush. Although many Democrats agree with much of his analysis of what it will take to defeat the president in a nation divided almost evenly between the two main political parties, others are angered by his decision to run hard against key Democratic constituencies. Some fault him for hurting the party to help himself.

"It's a bad strategy in a primary where Democratic activists are sort of on a shopping spree for someone who will fight and defend party principles in 2004," said Donna Brazile, the campaign manager for Gore-Lieberman in 2000. Brazile is not backing any of the candidates. "Alienating a large segment of the Democratic Party base will not bode well for the future. How do you bring [liberals] back [if] during the primary you made them feel like they were unwanted and unneeded? It's terrible for Joe."

Democratic strategist Joe Lockhart, President Bill Clinton's former spokesman, said it is "not good for the party," either. "I don't think anyone finds it helpful to be painted as an extremist," he said. Lockhart, who is not affiliated with any of the presidential campaigns, said many Democrats he has talked with consider Lieberman's recent string of attacks "over-the-top and counterproductive" to their efforts to oust Bush. "This can be calibrated a little softer," he said.

These Democrats worry that Lieberman is essentially doing Bush's bidding by painting the party as soft on security and stale on domestic policy. They contend the senator can run as a "New Democrat" without undermining the rest of the party in the process.

The nay-sayers may have a point: Clinton won by running left in the primaries and going to the center for the general election. We'll see. Maybe Lieberman has already decided he can't make that kind of move convincingly and just has to campaign as himself. Refreshing, if true.

WSJ.com - The Fed's Thermostat
I haven't harped on the deficit, though I dislike it, because I consider it transient. The reason I consider it transient is because we have mastered the single most important component to a strong economy: price stability. Inflation has been largely beaten and appropriately demonized over the years, and with an independent Fed, it's unlikely the government will try to use "the printing press" to cover the cost of government. There'll be no inflating our way out of fiscal problems.

At some point we will have to determine how much government we are willing to pay for and the manner in which we pay. My series of proposed solutions (a transaction tax to replace the entire federal tax code, notional accounts for Social Security and personal accounts for out-of-hospital healthcare costs) could, if implemented, go a long way towards fixing the government's fiscal situation.

So again, why am I not worried about the deficit? Because we have the fundamentals down and solutions are available. We just have to implement them.

The reason we're in this situation is the man quoted below: Milton Friedman.

The basic responsibility of the Federal Reserve is to produce as close an approximation as possible to price stability. Chart 1 provides evidence on how well it has performed that function. It plots for each quarter the annual rate of inflation in a comprehensive price index -- the deflator used to calculate real GDP.

The contrast between the periods before and after the middle of the 1980s is remarkable. Before, it is like a chart of the temperature in a room without a thermostat in a location with very variable climate; after, it is like the temperature in the same room but with a reasonably good though not perfect thermostat, and one that is set to a gradually declining temperature. Sometime around 1985, the Fed appears to have acquired the thermostat that it had been seeking the whole of its life.

A convenient way to explain the Fed's problem is with a truism called the quantity equation of money: the quantity of money (M) times the velocity of circulation (V) equals the price level (P) times output (y), MV=Py.

The Fed does not control directly any of the variables in this equation. For all practical purposes, the Fed controls one thing and one thing only: the volume of its own obligations -- that is, high-powered money or the base. (The Fed controls the amount of high-powered money through open-market operations: when it buys securities, it adds to the base; when it sells securities, it subtracts from the base. In addition, the Fed can change the discount rate and, to some extent, reserve requirements. But those powers are of minor importance compared to open-market operations and serve only to obfuscate the analysis.)

Control over the base enables the Fed, if it chooses to do so, to control within narrow limits any one of a number of monetary aggregates, such as M1, M2 or M3 (corresponding to each aggregate, there is a matching velocity). Its control over these is absolute. It could make the chosen aggregate rise or fall at the annual rate of 2% or 5% or 10%, or you name it, not day by day or week to week but certainly quarter to quarter and year to year. Control over the base also enables the Fed to peg any of a number of interest rates, such as the federal-funds rate or the three-month Treasury bill rate. In practice, the Fed employs a changeable peg of the federal-funds rate as its operating instrument. It pegs the fund rate by open-market operations, in the process determining the rate of monetary growth.

To keep prices stable, the Fed must see to it that the quantity of money changes in such a way as to offset movements in velocity and output. Velocity is ordinarily very stable, fluctuating only mildly and rather randomly around a mild long-term trend from year to year. So long as that is the case, changes in prices (inflation or deflation) are dominated by what happens to the quantity of money per unit of output.

Friedman closes by describing the "New Keynesianism" which sounds suspiciously like monetarism:

Yet it does, I believe, suggest the answer. Central banks the world over performed badly prior to the '80s not because they lacked the capacity to do better, but because they pursued the wrong goals according to a wrong theory. Keynes had taught them that the quantity of money did not matter, that what mattered was autonomous spending and the multiplier, that the role of monetary policy was to keep interest rates low to promote investment and thereby full employment. Inflation, according to this vision, was produced primarily by pressures on cost that could best be restrained by direct controls on prices and wages.

That Keynesian vision was thoroughly discredited by experience in the '70s and '80s. It has since been replaced by what has become known as New Keynesian Economics, which incorporates some key quantity theory (monetarist) propositions: that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon; that monetary policy has important effects on real magnitudes in the short run but no important effects in the long run (the long run Phillips curve is vertical), the crucial function of a central bank is to produce price stability, interpreted as a low and relatively steady recorded rate of inflation. Once the banks adopted price stability as their primary goal, they were able to improve their performance drastically.

Admittedly, this is an oversimplification. The accumulation of empirical evidence on monetary phenomena, improved understanding of monetary theory, and many other phenomena doubtless played a role. But I believe they were nowhere near as important as the shift in the theoretical paradigm. The MV=Py key to a good thermostat was there all along.

This one equation, MV=Py, seems so obvious and simple, but it was largely ignored by brilliant economists in the 1960's and 1970's and it took Milton Friedman's constant harping on the matter to open their eyes. As a result, today inflation is no longer a major issue and we have proven that low inflation doesn't mean high unemployment. And we have Milton Friedman to thank for that.

He also manages to squeeze in his own law of economics: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. I love that man.

A Sunday ago Lieberman made a bold pronouncement on Fox News: "…if we're against trade [and] for protectionism -- which never created a job -- we don't deserve to run the country." Here, Here. From this it would seem Lieberman could give Bush a lesson on Free Trade. But Lieberman is still a democrat, and still relies on protectionism prone unions to get elected. So to no surprise, Lieberman was in New Hampshire the very next day promoting his plan to bail out the US manufacturing industry by offering tax credits to companies who keep their production stateside. This plan is positively protectionist though without explicitly violating any trading agreements, which makes honest Joe possibly the biggest hypocrite in the primary heat.

There's more!!! Read the Full Article Here

OpinionJournal: Electricity Is a Federal Issue: Fifty million people losing power should change the political game.
Given the recent problems with the power grid that cut across multiple states and the Interstate Commerce Clause, it now seems time to have a single set of rules governing its management and ownership. That will have to come at the federal level.

I'm not advocating that it be nationalized, of course, simply that it be regulated by a single entity since it cuts across state lines in a major way. Congress should empower FERC to brush aside local regulations and devise a set of rules to ensure the stability of the grid and end disputes over jurisdiction that start at state lines. I suspect the utilities would prefer to operate to a single set of rules as well.

The electricity blackout that cascaded through the Midwest, Canada and New York was not supposed to happen. President Bush, Gov. Pataki and Congress have demanded a full explanation. Gov. Richardson of New Mexico already knows the answer must be that we have "a Third World electricity grid." Ouch! That's a bit of a leap. Experts were surprised by the blackout, and couldn't immediately pinpoint the backbreaking straw. The autopsy will take a bit of time to marshal and diagnose the evidence. With good sense, longer-term changes in the electric grid may be undertaken to make future blackouts less likely.

One conclusion is evident: The electricity grid is highly interconnected and interdependent. What happens in Ohio affects New York City, and vice versa. Given this complexity, the electricity system requires carefully designed and consistent rules of the road governing use of the existing grid. Electrical engineers have long known this, but the political and commercial classes have been wrangling over who should set the rules, and how. Despite the claims of Enron, the market cannot solve the problem of designing the rules governing use of the transmission grid. Which governments--state or federal--should set the rules? Now we cannot fail to see that policies at the state level are not the answer. This is a federal issue.

Agreed. For another Journal story on this very issue, and the legalities involved, go here.

Saudi Arabia's Teachers of Terror (washingtonpost.com)
Based on this article from two Senators, it appears that madrassas are, in large part, terrorist indoctrination centers. We need to make the Saudis decide whose side they are on. Their duplicity has got to come to an end and if it means severing formal ties with them, so be it.

Unless we are prepared to use the military, and I doubt many people in this country are, our options are limited in the short term. An oil embargo would be foolish because we would punish ourselves and for little gain: oil is fungible and can make its way into this country through third parties. Even so, over the long term the Saudis need us more than we need them. Their economy is a one-trick pony: oil. That provides us with the leverage to force long-term change.

Right now we import about 17% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. I don't know which way it is trending at the moment but I do know we have managed to diversify our oil portfolio over the last twenty years -- to the detriment of the Saudis -- and believe we will be able to continue to do so when Iraq is at full capacity in a few years. Russia has also been increasing its exports of oil drastically in recent years and that will likely continue.

The House of Saud has for decades played a double game with the United States, on the one hand acting as our ally, on the other supporting a movement -- Wahhabism -- that seeks our society's destruction. Because of other strategic interests, our government has long indulged the Saudis, overlooking their financial and structural ties to one of the world's most violent terror organizations.

After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made clear that America would no longer play that game. He said: "Every nation will have a choice to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It is time for Saudi Arabia to make that choice.

Upon its establishment as the nation's ruling family, the House of Saud forged an alliance with the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam. The deal that was struck gave the House of Saud control over political and foreign policy, while the Wahhabis would be free to take charge of the society's religious and cultural institutions.

Recently our subcommittee on terrorism held the first of a series of public hearings on the activities of this Wahhabi sect. The findings were alarming. Wahhabism is an extremist, exclusionary form of Islam that not only denigrates other faiths but also marginalizes peaceful followers of Islam. As witnesses testified, Wahhabism uses mosques and schools, called madrassas, to indoctrinate mostly young people with a hatred of Jews, Christians and traditional Muslims who reject this radicalism. Its goals are world domination and the destruction of its enemies.

Osama bin Laden is a follower of Wahhabism. So were all 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Bin Laden's al Qaeda trained the Taliban in Afghanistan, formed a movement that threatens the government of Pakistan and is the source of terrorist atrocities from Morocco to Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia itself.

Read the whole thing.

John Hawkins has a post contesting the description of Bush as a "big-government conservative", instead calling him a crafty politician. I agree with much of what John says, though I would like to see Bush pursue reform of the entitlement programs.

Any politician that proposes the end of Social Security or Medicare will have a career duration that can be measured on an egg timer. I suspect we'll embrace both of those programs to the point of bankruptcy and economic stagnation, if it comes to that.

Fortunately, alternatives are available that can restrain the growth of both programs: notional accounts for Social Security and MSAs, or personal accounts, for Medicare Part 'B'.

Notional accounts would tie a person's withdrawal from Social Security to his contributions. Retirement age would become irrelevant because the annuity would be calculated based on the contributions, declared retirement age and life expectancy. This alone would stabilize the size of the liability associated with Social Security. From there funding options could be explored that would, hopefully, not cripple the economy when the boomers retire.

The beauty of this idea is that it doesn't require any transition cost and can be implemented immediately. Politically it would be very difficult, but I'm quite prepared to tell those economic terrorists at the AARP to go screw themselves. I'm not willing to sacrifice the entire economy because an interest group finds its constituency at risk.

Likewise with Medicare. Using personal accounts that roll over from year-to-year for all of the non-hospital parts of Medicare would create a functioning healthcare market in this country and the private sector would follow.

Those two programs are here to stay, short of a generational war. That being the case we need to make reforms that make them sustainable without crippling the economy. That's what President Bush should be focusing on.

Automatic Shutdowns Went Smoothly at Nuclear Plants (washingtonpost.com)
I worked in the nuclear industry for eight years and am not surprised by this report. The plants are engineered down to the slightest detail and, while it's not good for them to "scram", it happens and is fairly routine.

Nine nuclear reactors at seven plants in New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Ohio shut down automatically because of the grid failure Thursday, the largest stoppage in memory. There are 50 nuclear reactors in the Northeast and Midwest regions, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the safety of the industry.

Such abrupt stoppages can be risky, nuclear experts say, as the procedure can strain the plant's equipment. Water-cooled nuclear reactors operate at extremely high temperatures and pressures, on the order of 550 degrees Fahrenheit and 1,800 pounds per cubic inch, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, and rapid changes can damage machinery.

"It's obviously hard on the equipment, what you'd rather do is a very controlled shutdown, where you reduce temperature and pressure slowly. You have large valves slamming shut, pumps coming on, breakers opening and closing in a fast sequence," said Stephen Floyd, the vice president of regulatory affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It's like running your car at 60 miles an hour down the highway and then slamming on the brakes. It's not very good, but nonetheless it's designed to do it."

They describe it as "risky", but that's really a poor choice of words. The control rods, which are made of boron, are automatically inserted into the reactor to stop the reaction. It's more accurate to say that the sudden stop stresses the equipment.

UPDATE: No Watermelons Allowed has more info on this issue.

It's really too early to write an extended entry on the blackouts in the Northeast, though I may do one later. I just wanted to bring up a point that people seem to be missing, especially Robert Kuttner, who's never met a regulation he didn't like: the power grid itself is still a regulated monopoly. Power generation has been deregulated to allow the operators of the grid to buy power from whomever can provide it the cheapest. Blaming deregulation for what is, by most accounts, a grid failure, misses the target completely. Try again, Bob.

UPDATE:The New York Post has a good op-ed on the situation that takes a more balanced look at the issues:

But NRG and other private-sector generators aren't really the heroes of the story. Power executives lucky enough to inherit decades-old, pollution-spewing coal-fired power plants have gone through every fine-print rule in the book, and written some of their own, to avoid complying with environmental regulations. They enjoy fat profit margins while owners of newer, cleaner plants must struggle under onerous rules.

New power companies have spent billions to build fleets of 21st-century, environmentally friendly gas-fired plants. But they can't compete on price with older coal burners, since natural gas is three to four times more expensive to burn than coal. Republicans, and some Democrats, espouse the free market, but refuse to level the playing field by forcing older power plant owners to upgrade their assets.

Company executives who wish to build new power plants also face well-organized opposition to new construction everywhere; environmentalists don't seem to care that new clean generation replaces old dirty generation. Two years ago, Con Ed built several modest-sized gas-fired plants around New York City only after a bruising public battle that pitted the utility against misinformed residents and political opportunists.

New clean-coal technology could vie with expensive natural gas to replace high-emissions coal burners. But clean-coal investors are squeezed by both the radical and reactionary sides of the power plant battle. Owners of older coal-burning plants don't want to give up their fat profit margins to compete on a level playing field with new clean-coal burners, while environmentalists just say no to all coal. (And just forget about new nuclear.)

When government has been friendly to the private power sector, the industry has squandered its good will without compunction. Greedy management slates and power traders at major energy firms have repeatedly taken advantage of opaque power-trading markets to make illegal profits and thus ruin the public trust - witness Enron and others' long season of fraudulent round-trip power trades executed to take advantage of constrained supply in the West.

Several good points are made and I agree with most of them. I've addressed this in the past (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here) and still have the same point of view: the "new source review" regulations need to be done away with along with the concept of "grandfathered" plants.

New source review means that the EPA reviews maintenance records on older, grandfathered, plants and determines if they are maintaining existing equipment or creating a new source of power generation. This is occurring because the original Clean Air Act excluded numerous old plants on the theory that they would be closed soon anyway. They're still open.

All power generation in this country should operate under a single set of emission rules, namely the tradeable credits put in place in the early 1990's. That means doing away with the concept of grandfathered plants and forcing them to buy enough pollution credits to cover their emissions, upgrade their plants to bring them into compliance or shut them down. The situation we have now is a bureaucrat's dream -- new source review regulations -- and a power executive's dream if he owns an old plant because he doesn't have to account for the cost of his emissions.

We have an effective and efficient mechanism for limiting pollution through tradeable credits. It should be applied to all power plants equally.

By PoliticaObscura

After investigating the online records of incidences (at www.i-grid.com) of swag/swells/ and interuptions on the grid yesterday afternoon, I have identified the following as the first anomaly:

Local Time Event Type Location
08/14/03 04:05:55 PM Instantaneous Sag 2.6 cycles OHIO

This was followed by three more sags in Ohio over the course of three seconds and then a sustained deep undervoltage at 04:09:02 PM in Michigan.

The first anomaly identified in Canada was in Ontario at 04:10:57 PM, an Instantaneous Swell.

First power interuption occurred in the US at 04:10:34 PM in Michigan, while the first Canadian interruption was noted at 04:11:55 PM in Ontario.

So it looks like the problem started in the US.

> I'm glad the blackout wasn't al qaeda... but don't think that this episode
> wasn't noticed by people like that! All the same, it was a great "drill".
> The old wake up call, as they say. Nobody has been killed or injured, that
> I've heard, and it's a good inexpensive lesson to us all. It's also good
> info for congress. Nobody wants to build power plants or run new power
> lines (especially Green party types) and then they wonder why stuff gets
> overloaded. There aren't enough redundancies in the system. Plus, all the
> technical power stuff has been clouded in the Enron smoke screen. What a
> mess. Well, now everyone will have to wake up and smell the coffee. I mix
> a great metaphor, don't I?
> > On the telly tonight, they are all saying, "We hope everything is business
> as usual in the morning." Ha! It's going to take days to bring all the
> system back up to capacity. They say they are opening Wall street in the
> morning.... we'll see.
> > The latest info is that the Niagara plant WASN'T struck by lightening....
> that's something Canada came up with. Stay tuned. After all the finger
> pointing is over with, it will be interesting to see what the truth is.
> Still, I'm proud of Americans again.... (and Canadians too). Everybody kept
> their wits about them and stayed calm. Ciao............ Mrs. G

Mrs G, may I please quote you Verbatim on "The Command Post"? (She said yes - AEB)

You see I'm proud to know you. You're right to be proud of Americans again.
The sight of everyone in NYC and elsewhere calmly, unhurriedly making their
way home, no panic, no huhu.... that was F***ING INCREDIBLE. ( You know I
reserve expletives for special occasions, so pardon my French). I saw it live
on the TV this morning, and I still can't believe it.

You, yes, the People of the USA, Mr and Mrs G, Eric, James, Sara, Gnat,
all of you could not have struck a more fatal blow to Al Qaeda and company if
you'd captured OBL, Saddam, and the next ten echelons down overnight. You just refuse to be terrorised.

I'm amazed. I hope that we in Oz would live up to the standard you've set.
With an example like yours, we just may do, should it come to that.

Regards (and somewhat in awe of you all), AEB

It was about 4:15 when the power went off and I just assumed that the air conditioners were sucking the life out of our power, so I headed for the fuse box. Damn. Wasn't a fuse.

Within five minutes, all the neighbors were out, asking each other do you have power? We hung around outside complaining about the humidity and waiting for the buzz and hum of the return of power.

Nothing.

Several minutes later we heard sirens. And then again, coming from another direction. A stream of cars came down our side street, indicating an accident on the main road. Several minutes later and sirens again, coming from elsewhere.

Streetlights must be out, our neighor Rick said. Rick, a retired policeman, turned on his police scanner. He listened quietly on his front lawn for a few minutes and then came running over, breathless. Whole northeast! Even Detroit!

So, what would your first reaction be? Yes, terrorism. We took it in stride, however, and everyone went in to their respective houses to check for candles, batteries and all the necessities.

WABC 770 was the only station I could get on the car radio. Sean Hannity was on the air, taking phone calls from all over and getting on the spot reporting. He reiterated one very important fact over and over. This was not a terrorist attack. Something went wrong upstate, perhaps in Buffalo.

I listened to a stream of on-the-spot reporters detailing all the ways in which New Yorkers were helping each other: sharing cabs; giving rides to strangers; directing traffic and just being patient. Those who still had connections on their cell phones were lending the phones to strangers to make calls to loved ones.

The comparisons to the '77 blackout in NYC, rife with looting and danger, are inevitable. And so are the comparisons to 9/11. While some of you may cringe or roll your eyes the truth remains; we've learned a lot from 9/11.

The city appeared to be in a complete state of calm. People walked the bridges just as they did on 9/11, in massive throngs of strangers among strangers, sharing the misery of the day.

I think we learned how to cope with both the big and the small, and to take situations like this in stride. It's as if a fire drill had rung, and everyone went to their proper places and did what they were supposed to and no one pushed or shoved.

Even with thoughts of terrorism still creeping into the back of our minds, we remained calm, if not a little pissed off that it had to happen on such a hot and humid day. Sure, I worried about the ton of meat I had in the freezer, and I worried about elderly relatives and I sort of shuddered remembering what happened after it got dark in New York in 1977, but I still retained my air of complacency. After all, we've been through worse things than this. Much. much worse.

Out here on Long Island, we mostly went on with our day, while keeping an ear tuned to the radio. The kids stayed in the pool until almost nightfall. We ordered pizza (thank goodness for gas-powered ovens), drank a few beers and waited for some good news.

As darkness approached, we headed across the street to my parents house, where my sister and her husband had already decided to camp out for a while. We listened to the Yankee game on the radio and read, talked and played games and told spooky stories and made spooky faces with the flashlight until we had to squint to see each other.

Such darkness. No streetlights, no light residue from the city, no planes streaking across the horizon, no neon or amber waves of sale signs sucking the pitch black from the sky. It was a sight to behold, looking upwards and we all craned our necks and admired the stars because there were more than we had ever seen before.

My son took out his telescope and scanned the sky for Mars. The rest of us laid on the grass and soaked up the scenery. The sky was flooded with constellations we never get to see. We pointed this way and that and looked for more and someone joked that they would go inside and print out a chart of the starts.

We felt lucky to be able to what people in other parts of the country whose sky isn't saturated with electric lights get to see every night, and as we lay there on the grass scanning the heavens, we let out a collective gasp as a bright shooting star sailed past us.

Eventually the moon made its way over our part of the world, an almost full moon glowing orange and resembling a partly deflated basketball. We sat in silence for a while until the we had to turn our chairs to keep our eyes on the moon and then I realized how late it was.

We took the kids home and waited. We heard that power was coming back on sporadically in parts of New York. We all camped out in the living room, but it was too hot to sleep well. I read by candlelight as the kids slept and woke and slept and woke, each time asking if the electricity was back.

It came back in fits and starts. I would hear the fan start whirring or the cable box click on and we would get all excited and prepare to move ourselves into the bedrooms and cool air and then the hum of electricity would become more like moan and darkness would fall again.

This went on most of the night and we finally fell dead asleep at about five, too exhausted to even care about being hot. When I woke up at seven, the fan was on. I waited, held my breath even, but it seemed to be permanent. We were back.

The first thing I did was not reach for the computer or turn on the tv. I sleepily lumbered into the kitchen and kissed the coffee maker. Welcome back, buddy, I said and hurredly scooped some grounds into the basket in case this was just a tease and I would be submurged into a coffee-less world again.

Now it's 8am, the coffee is made, the fans are on (we decided to hold off on the air conditioning to be kind to the power plants), my inbox is full and there are stories of the wonderful camraderie of New Yorkers in the paper.

And I'm going back to bed.

It took 2 hours to receive our first Op-Ed related to the power outage, courtesy Gerard Van der Leun; see his original post here.

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They say it is not a "terrorist incident" as the ent