Friday, July 08, 2005
Thursday, July 07, 2005
articles 7/7
The right to abortion has diminished the number of Democratic voters.
by James Taranto
The Anticipated Attack
Don't blame Iraq for the bombings.
by Christopher Hitchens
The Voice Of Appeasement
National Review editorial
Courage Under Fire
War Footing
The attack in London is a stark reminder of what we must do to prevail.
by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Circus Comes to Town
If Bush nominates the right candidate for the Supreme Court, Democrats could be in trouble, again.
by Hugh Hewitt
Second Thoughts on Kelo
A proper understanding of property rights suggests that the Kelo decision wasn't so bad after all.
by John Hinderaker
The Two Roads
Will President Bush try to move the court or broaden the Republican party?
by Fred Barnes
Supreme Court politics
by Robert Novak
While Kennedy's ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush's stance could be fatal.
George Allen
by George Will
The ideal Republican candidate can meld two Republican tendencies that are in tension -- social conservatism and libertarianism.
The Next Sandra Day
Harry Reid may be willing to give up Roe v. Wade to get a trial lawyer on the Supreme Court.
by Walter Olson
AP
Giuliani: Attacks Eerie Reminder of 9/11
LONDON - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was yards away from one of the deadly explosions that struck London on Thursday, said the attacks were an "eerie reminder" of Sept. 11, 2001.
Gangstas Grow Up
Some of rap's fathers start taking responsibility.
by Martha Bayles
Circumcision may offer Africa AIDS hope
Procedure linked to much lower rate of new HIV infections
E-Vote Guidelines Need Work
A federal agency is publishing a new set of guidelines to address security concerns about electronic voting. But some experts say a preliminary version doesn't go far enough to ensure fair elections.
By Kim Zetter
AP
Man Lights Himself on Fire to Propose
GRANTS PASS, Ore. - To prove his love, a 38-year-old man set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his girlfriend to marry him.
The Coming Boom
Big Pharma has made billions pumping up the male population. Now neuroscientists are turning their attention to women.
AP
Body of Steelers Fan Viewed in Recliner
PITTSBURGH - James Henry Smith was a zealous Pittsburgh Steelers fan in life, and even death could not keep him from his favorite spot: in a recliner, in front of a TV showing his beloved team in action.
Monday, July 04, 2005
articles 7/4
by Noreena Hertz
Rock the Vote - Chapter 1
Rock the Vote, Pt. 2
LA Times
With Live 8, Rock Changes the Way It Calls for Change
Bob Geldof and U2's Bono redirect activism from the streets into the corridors of power.
Religion News Service
Clarification: Graham Remark on Hillary Clinton Was Not an Endorsement
1776
by George Will
Using narrative history to refute historicism, McCullough's two themes in '1776' are that things could have turned out very differently, and that individuals of character can change the destinies of nations.
Richie Daley's party
by Robert Novak
Last week's long-range confrontation between Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin was much more than a personal tiff involving two formidable Illinois Democrats who obviously are not fond of each other.
NY Times Magazine
A Church-State Solution
By NOAH FELDMAN
At the heart of the culture wars is the failure of both sides to accept America's rules for religious expression in public life and public money in religious life. Maybe that's because those rules are wrong.
W. Post Magazine
Return of the Angry Man
He might have simply disappeared after the Scream ended his presidential hopes. But as head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean is still going to go to New Hampshire. And South Carolina. And Oklahoma ...
By Sally Jenkins
CIA, Pentagon to Avoid Overlap
Agencies reach a new written agreement to try to prevent conflicts in spying, analysis activities.
Reversing the Bork Defeat
With a Republican Senate, President Bush has the chance to succeed where Reagan failed by getting a conservative constitutionalist confirmed to the Supreme Court.
by William Kristol
The Worst of Intentions
What Saddam's Iraq was up to.
by Daniel McKivergan
The Bork Precedent
What the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination has taught the Bush White House.
by Fred Barnes
Body of Evidence
A CNN anchor gets Iraq and al Qaeda wrong. But will the network issue a correction?
by Stephen F. Hayes
Rolling Rockefeller
The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee once saw "a substantial connection between Saddam and al Qaeda." Not any more.
by Stephen F. Hayes
Columbia and the Academic Intifada
Efraim Karsh
Deadly Immunity
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal.
The Neoconservative Convergence
by Charles Krauthammer
Mao and Us
The book review China's communists don't want you to read.
CBS Evening News
Radio Transmitter Credit Cards
The next generation of credit cards include tiny chips that work by waving the card in front of a reader. There's also added security, since no one gets to see your card numbers, reports Brett Larson.
BBC
U2 Before Live 8
Now For Some Good News . . .
by Steve Chalke
Many have understood the gospel as "God's got a big stick and he's on your case." But what kind of message is that for the single parent struggling to bring up her child with inadequate resources? What kind of hope is that for the young teenager who has only known a life of abuse at the hands of those he should have been able to trust? What kind of liberation does that offer the lonely, the redundant, the homeless, the forgotten, the cheated, the vulnerable or the countless individuals, young and old, who suffer from an acute sense of failure or lack of self esteem? What kind of good news is that for humanity as a whole? What popularly passes for "the gospel" might provide a faith to die by, but offers little hope to live by. And most worryingly of all, it bears scant resemblance to the message of Jesus.
Paul's Gospel & Caesar's Empire
by Tom Wright
If Paul's answer to Caesar's empire is the empire of Jesus, what does that say about this new empire, living under the rule of its new lord? It implies a high and strong ecclesiology, in which the scattered and often muddled cells of women, men and children loyal to Jesus as Lord form colonial outposts of the empire that is to be: subversive little groups when seen from Caesar's point of view, but when seen Jewishly an advance foretaste of the time when the earth shall be filled with the glory of the God of Abraham and the nations will join Israel in singing God's praises.
How Sweet the Sound?
by Donald McCullough
If Grace Is So Amazing, Why Don't We Like It? Grace set to music is one thing, but what about grace itself? What about grace as an idea? Grace as an act? Grace as a force? We don't like it. It might be amazing, as the hymn insists, and it might be wonderful and marvelous and "a thought that changed the world" (as the band U2 sang on a recent album), and it might sometimes even be necessary, but when all the adjectives have worn themselves out with the hype and have called it a day, and we're left with nothing but the thing itself, then what? As I said, we don't like it.
The Emerging Church
What is the Emergent Church? The movement is spreading through different denominations and across the world. The author uses the life stories of Emergent’s leaders to paint a picture of this new expression of Evangelicalism.
by D. A. CARSON
Cool Kids Church
by ERIC LANDRY
Most of us here at Modern Reformation like the Emergent Church folks. Frankly, it’s a bit of a relief to have someone within Evangelicalism making the same points we’ve been trying to make for the past fourteen years. We also like their interest in liturgy, in church history (prior to 1972), and in engaging with Scripture in ways that take it beyond the “handbook for living” genre that so many of our own churches have adopted. And, truth be told, we were always the nerdy kids in the youth group, so now that the cool kids with their cool hair, tats, and body piercings are saying much the same thing we do we can’t help but look around with some appreciation.
But the appreciation is a nervous one. As much as we are warmed by their insightful criticism of Evangelicalism, we just can’t shake the sense that these children of the megachurch are taking their postmodern angst and marketing it to the urban jungles just like their chino-wearing, cool hair dads did in middle America. That, of course, leads us to wonder if Emergent will really offer anything substantially different than what they are critiquing.
After reading their books and blogs, conversing with them, and attending their conferences most of us just want to grab a beer and talk with these men and women. I think we would find that we have much in common and I would hope that our own like-minded efforts might serve to keep the Emergent folks from swinging the pendulum too far in an unhealthy direction. We’re grateful to New Testament scholar D.A. Carson for making the same point in his article, which we’ve adapted from his new book Becoming Conversant with Emergent. Carson’s article is a good overview of the Emergent movement’s concerns with a few pointed observations about evaluating the movement as it grows into maturity.
Shane Rosenthal, the executive producer of the White Horse Inn, had a chance to visit the Emergent conference that was held in San Diego this spring. His first-hand report also helps those who are curious about the movement get a better idea of its strengths and weaknesses. Turning to critique, Reformed theologian and editor in chief Michael Horton takes a hard look at the theology and practices that characterize the Emergent movement. We’ve also included a transcript of a discussion by younger Reformed and Lutheran pastors on how our own churches are responding to the concerns we hold in common with the Emergent movement. To make sure that we’re not dealing with caricatures we’ve included interviews with Brian McLaren and the late Stanley Grenz as well as extensive reviews of the seminal books in the movement.
Will the Emergent Church be anything other than another passing evangelical fad? We hope so. But in order to be such the movement will have to acknowledge how their history as an evangelical institution (as the Young leaders Network and Terra Nova Project, arms of the Leadership Network) continues to shape their present course. In order to be a real force for good within Evangelicalism the movement will have to go beyond Evangelicalism and appropriate a churchly tradition that gives it real depth, not just an ecclesiological field guide. Otherwise, their efforts at reform will be truncated, for Evangelicalism can’t be reformed. By its very nature the movement is shaped not by confession or doctrine but by personality, culture, and circumstance. And thus far, that seems to be what is shaping the efforts of the Emergent Church as well.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
articles 6/30
by Byron York
WSJ
Parking Meters Get Smarter
Wireless Technology Turns Old-Fashioned Coin-Operated Device Into a Sophisticated Tool for Catching Scofflaws and Raising Cash
Our Worsening Terrorism Problem
by David Ignatius
Conceit of Government
Why are our politicians so full of themselves?
by Peggy Noonan
WSJ Editorial
Wanted: A Constructive Opposition
Examining the Democrats' counsel on Iraq.
Balancing Security and Aesthetics
Protecting Washington landmarks from truck bombs is a monumental task.
by Catesby Leigh
Keeping It (Un)real
The Gorillaz - the world's greatest live, pre-recorded, re-mixed, all-animated band - talk about sampling global pop culture.
By Neil Gaiman
NY Times
Bank of America to Buy MBNA, Creating Top Credit Card Issuer
The deal, which was valued at $35 billion, would give Bank of America a 20 percent market share in the credit card industry.
NY Times
Weakness in the Data Chain
Security breaches involving credit card account information have revealed the vulnerabilities of the payments system
USA Today
U2 leads the pack in concert tickets
Overall, tours likely to spike as McCartney, Stones hit road
With 26 sold-out U.S. shows and $45.3 million in ticket receipts, U2 is the runaway leader in music's 2005 road race.
U2: How to dismantle a ticking time bomb
Band strives to be the ‘best,' not ‘vintage'
U2's starring role in Live 8 marks a confluence of anniversaries. It has been 20 years since the Irish band made a splash at Live Aid, the Africa-relief benefit that inspired the similar Live 8 concerts being staged Saturday. A quarter-century ago, U2 was celebrating its first single and recording its debut album, Boy. By some barometers, 2005 is also the 50th birthday of rock itself.
Monday, June 27, 2005
articles 6/27
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Bono, a lead voice for African aid as well as the rock group U2
AP
The Young Labeled 'Entitlement Generation'
CHICAGO - Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales. Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: "So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation,'" the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today's young work force. "You think you're entitled to everything."
Making Karl Rove a Prophet
While its apologists demand an apology, the Left attacks material-witness detentions.
by Andrew C. McCarthy
Reading Them the Riyadh Act
Condoleezza Rice prods our dictatorial allies.
by Jonathan Karl
The Bush Paradox
Why do his fortunes lag as the economy improves?
by Jeffrey Bell & Cesar Conda
Rove speech exposes fundamental split
by Michael Barone
About two-thirds of Americans agreed that the United States is a fair and decent country. Virtually all Bush voters agreed. Kerry voters were split down the middle.
Scientologists vs. Psychiatrists
Why they don't get along.
By Daniel Engber
Seinfeld's Secret: It's Nothing, Really
By Tom Shales
White Horse Inn
An Interview with Chuck Colson
Sunday, June 26, 2005
articles 6/26
by Reuel Marc Gerecht
'King of the Hill' Democrats?
by Matt Bai
Time
The True Lincoln
He was underestimated as President, then turned into an icon at his death. Only now are historians discovering the personal and political depth of the leader who saved the nation
W. Post
The Combative Karl Rove Moving Front and Center
Once-reclusive presidential adviser has emerged as a flamboyant messenger for his boss's agenda.
NY Times
Ex-F.B.I. Chief Says He Felt Betrayal at Deep Throat's Unmasking
The acting director of the F.B.I. at the time of the Watergate break-in ended more than three decades of silence about his role in the scandal in an interview broadcast today.
NY Times Magazine
Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?
By MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
NY Times
Worry. But Don't Stress Out.
Computer data experts acknowledge that while there will continue to be breaks in security, a catastrophe is unlikely.
Newsweek
Grand Theft Identity
Be careful, we've been told, or you may become a fraud victim. But now it seems that corporations are failing to protect our secrets. How bad is the problem, and how can we fix it?
Identity Crisis
The hottest commodity on the black market today is your identity.
W. Post
Security Issues Undermine Net
Swamped by viruses, worms, spam, spyware and phising sites, experts contemplate building new version of global computer network.
NY Times
The Newspaper of the Future
The Lawrence Journal-World and its parent company have turned a dot on the map in Kansas into an online metropolis.
W. Post Magazine
A Tale of Nine Innings
It was the best of seats, it was the worst of seats, it was brilliant pitching, it was abysmal pitching, it was an evening of darkness, it was the spring of hope . . .
Cruise/Lauer interview transcript
NY Times
Talk Show Rarity: A True Believer's Candor
Saturday, June 25, 2005
articles 6/25
A last crusade in a career that reshaped American religion
"Finally, the Big One," blared a headline in 1957, when a dashing young evangelist named Billy Graham was poised to launch his first crusade in the largest and, by reputation, most wicked city in the nation. "Save New York!"
CardSystems Installs Security Fix
Credit-card processing company CardSystems Solutions applies security fixes to its computer network after a hacking attack that exposed data for 40 million credit-card and debit-card accounts to intruders.
NY Times
To Catch a Thief
In an age when credit and other account information seems to easily fall into the hands of thieves, merchants are fighting back against credit card fraud.
Creation science
by David Warren
What's a "Simulated" Baseball Game?
Fantasy baseball, for real.
By Daniel Engber
Is Elizabeth a dancing queen?
Everyone wants to know what QEII has on her brand-new iPod.
Male-targeted ads found to be in no man's land
a new study found that half the men in most parts of the world don't know what is expected of them in society and three-quarters of them think images of men in advertising are out of touch with reality.
Meet the Press will host Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the war in Iraq and an exclusive interview with Bono, a lead voice for African aid, as well as the rock group U2. The lead singer of U2, who is also a leading voice fighting poverty in Africa. Bono — the co-founder of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) — will make his first appearance on "Meet the Press" to discuss the global fight against poverty and the July 2 "Live 8" series of concerts — which seek to encourage the G8 nations to provide the world's poorest nations with complete debt cancellation, increased aid and more trade. Check your local listings for the exact airtime in your neck of the woods.
An Optimist Abroad
U2's Dance With Duende
Friday, June 24, 2005
articles 6/24
No cash, no problem: Technology finding new ways to pay
Damaging 'Deference'
by George Will
Stem-Cell Sleight of Hand
ario Cuomo accuses President Bush of letting religion run his stem-cell policy, but Bush isn't the one ignoring actual science.
by Wesley J. Smith
Why The Left Is Losing
by Karl Rove
The Politics of American Wars
Islamists have proved adept at winning liberal exemption from criticism.
by Victor Davis Hanson
Kennedy continuing the Democrat strategy of denial of legacy, regardless of the cost.
HughHewitt.com
"The Senate Democrats' #2 compares the American military to Nazis, Stalinists, and Pol Pot's killer, and the story never gets near to the cover of the Washington Post. Karl Rove makes a valid assertion about the behavior of liberals, backed by evidence, and the fake outrage of those Senate Democrats makes page 1, but in a story without the pointed reply of George Pataki which happens to pivot on Durbin's slander. At least the New York Times included a portion of the Pataki quote, which has now vanished from the original Newsday article. But there is no MSM bias, right?
My World column looks at the Minneapolis Star Tribune's repulsive editorial on Durbin's speech, but that's just the obvious bias against truth at work. Placement and pitch matter just as much. The contrast between the MSM's smothering of Durbin's slander and his non-apology versus its treatment of the false outrage directed at Rove joins the massive set of examples of MSM bias which, while it will never be corrected, will always be there to explain the collapse of credibility among the elite media. Just so you don't miss it, here's what Governor Pataki said: "I think it is a little hypocritical of Senator Clinton to call on me to repudiate a political figure's comments when she never asked Senator Durbin to repudiate his comments. Senator Clinton might think about her propensity to allow outrageous statements from the other side that are far beyond political dialogue --insulting every Republican, comparing our soldiers to Nazis or Soviet gulag guards-- and never protesting when she serves with them."
The evidence to support Rove is here. And don't miss Teddy Kennedy's attack on Donald Rumsfeld and the war. RogerLSimon brands the Democrats as deeply reactionary, and he's right. Every action taken by the party's leaders in recent months, from obstruction across the board on Social Security, to the blocking of judicial appointments and Bolton, to the Dean and Durbin rhetoric and now to the war against the war are tied together by a bitter hatred of George W. Bush that makes the right's antipathy of Clinton seem like child's play. The GOP recovered from Clinton-induced derangement, but it is not at all clear that there is anyone in the Democratic Party who wants to recover from its current fevers. MartiniPundit has great analysis of Rove's speech and its aftermath, as does Stylish Since This Morning, Hoystory, and Let Freedom Ring."
Remember Tax Cuts?
With Social Security going nowhere, it's not too soon for the president to start recapturing the high ground of tax cuts, economic growth, and opportunity.
by William Kristol
Atlantic Monthly
Wolfowitz: The Exit Interviews
Eine Kleine Biographie
We need a serious book about Hillary Clinton. Ed Klein's isn't it.
by Peggy Noonan
They Can't Take That Away From Me... Unless They Can
by Stephen Bainbridge
After news of Napoleon's victory in the Battle of Austerlitz was conveyed to British Prime Minister William Pitt, Pitt pointed to a map of Europe and said: "Roll up the map; it will not be wanted these ten years." In light of the Supreme Court's decision to side with New London, we might just as well roll up the Takings Clause of the Bill of Rights, because we won't need it any longer.
'It's His War' -- Echoes of Vietnam From the Democrats
by Daniel Henninger
White House Boxing in the Dems
by Richard Wolffe & Holly Bailey
AP
Gas Station Owner Cashes in 1.4M Pennies
FLOMATON, Ala. - Edmond Knowles started out saving pennies in a 5-gallon can. Thirty-eight years later, he was storing them in four 55-gallon drums and three 20-gallon drums — nearly 1.4 million in all.
AP
Snapple's 17-Ton Popsicle Melts in N.Y.
NEW YORK - An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film, but much stickier.
A Modest Proposal
Ladies, it's time to put some clothes back on.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
articles 6/22
by Newt Gingrich & George Mitchell
Helping Hillary Now Will Hurt Republicans Later
by Dick Morris
NY Times
Regulators Start Inquiry in Data Loss
Regulators are investigating CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor where a security breach has put millions of American cardholders at risk for fraud.
W. Post
Bad Practices Drive Data Theft
Boom in data collection has created marketplace of valuable information stored in thousands of places
Debunking another Gitmo myth
by Michelle Malkin
Newsweek. Amnesty International. Jimmy Carter. Dick Durbin. The Guantanamo Bay-bashing continues.
The wage gap, give me a break
by John Stossel
Feminists keep demanding new laws to protect women from the so-called wage gap. Many studies have found that women make about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns.
Nazis Uber alles
by Jonah Goldberg
As you've no doubt heard, in a speech on the Senate floor (which was no doubt better in the original French), the senior senator from Illinois compared American behavior at Guantanamo Bay to the killing fields of Pol Pot, the Nazi concentration camps, and the Soviet Gulag.
Howard Dean gallops on
by Paul Greenberg
Is this just the usual Christophobia coming out in our elite, or can Dr. Dean not have noticed that the opposition's big tent is getting ever bigger? It's not just the WASPs' party anymore.
So Many Missed Opportunities
by Veronique De Rugy
The time has now come for fiscal conservatives to publicly admit the truth.
The Hyperbolic Opposition
by Ryan Sager
It's sad and dangerous not to have a loyal opposition to help keep the administration honest.
New Minds in Old Bottles
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
As we move from the information age to the conceptual age, the more things stay the same.
The PETA Principle
Will the group's efforts to curb animal testing run afoul of Bay Area sensibilities?
by Bill Whalen
Wired
The Fire Rebels
They're defying the firefighting establishment with a precision method of dousing flames. The hot new way to stamp out blazes: bursts of delicate fog.
By Joshua Davis
Time
New Research on Miscarriages
White blood cells may play a role
Time.com
50 Coolest Websites 2005
Our annual survey of top sites to inform, amuse and delight
Drawing Their Fish in the Sand
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
articles 6/21
Blue City Conservatives
Meet Seattle's biggest closet cases: the Republicans next door.
Personal attacks will only embolden her
by Dick Morris
NY Times
Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet
Conspiracy Theories
If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the Downing Street Memo.
By Christopher Hitchens
W. Post
Church can never accept abortion - Pope's book
That old black government magic
by Bill Murchison
You'll want to look hard beneath headlines like 'Bush Approval Falls in Nationwide Polls' to notice what's missing.
Why Worry?
The economic news isn't the best for President Bush.
by Irwin M. Stelzer
California's Union Blues
The Golden State's unions fight to keep their members from controlling their own money.
by Bryan O'Keefe
The Housing Bears Are Wrong Again
This tax-advantaged sector is writing how-to guide on wealth creation.
by Larry Kudlow
NY Times
Dial-Up Internet Going the Way of Rotary Phones
Cardinal Sin is dead, 76
The "house of Sin" has fallen silent. Retired Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, an outspoken advocate of democracy who played a key role in the revolts that ousted two presidents, died Tuesday.
Monday, June 20, 2005
articles 6/20
The Truth About Hillary
An author tells his story.
Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez
The Bolton Charade
by Robert Novak
Saving the Surplus
Three senators embrace the "personal lockbox" to reform Social Security.
by John Fund
Terms of Internment
How to win friends and influence enemy combatants.
by Alan Bromley
A tale of divorce
by Betsy Hart
A less perfect union
by Michael Barone
The recent rejection of the European Union constitutional treaty by the voters of France and the Netherlands has led to the opposite of the 'ever closer union' that has been the goal of the fathers of the EU since it was established in 1957.
A Better Idea Than Censure?
Shouldn't Democrats be asked to remove Dick Durbin from their Senate leadership?
by William Kristol
Breaking the Durbin Code
What Dick Durbin said, what he really meant, and why the Senate should vote to censure him.
by Hugh Hewitt
AP
Biden Intends to Seek Presidency in 2008
AP
Brain Areas Shut Off During Female Orgasm
New research indicates that parts of the brain that govern fear and anxiety are switched off when a woman is having an orgasm.
Grace-When Work Doesn't Work
by Randy Pope
Sunday, June 19, 2005
articles 6/19
What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)
Maryland's anti-gay-marriage crusaders share this with organizers nationwide: They say they are fighting a disease.
The Sorry Bunch
Listen and learn from our enemies.
by Victor Davis Hanson
NY Times
Gay or Straight? Hard to Tell
NY Times
F.B.I. Counterterror Officials Lack Experience, Lawyer Says
A lawyer who interviewed a number of top current and former counterterrorism officials at the F.B.I. said that the officials lacked a detailed understanding of terrorism.
Whether This War Was Worth It
In Analyzing Iraq, Consider the Effects of Having Done Nothing
By Robert Kagan
The Anti-Semitic Disease
by Paul Johnson
A Korean Solution?
Arthur Waldron
Time
Three big shots, eight very big shows. Bob Geldof, Bono and Richard Curtis talk to Josh Tyrangiel about what on earth they're doing with LIVE 8
"America doesn't have a lack of empathy; they just don't know the issues as well. Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa." -- Bob Geldof
NY Times Magazine
What Today's Dads Don't Do
The modern father, at home and unmoored.
War and Weakness
by Richard A Clarke
The Iraq conflict is sapping our military strength. Can an all-volunteer force sustain a long counterinsurgency?
The Housing Bears Are Wrong Again
by Larry Kudlow
Inside Report: Dean vs. Dean
by Robert Novak
Weekly Standard
A Decade of Reed
One Republican's long, lucrative march through the institutions.
WSJ
Popularity Isn't Everything
Perspective on the president's waning poll numbers.
Canada's medical gulag
by Paul Jacob
Canada is not a communist country. Really, it's not — except when it comes to medical care.
AP
Cell Phones Now Playing Role of Wallet
All Headline News
Apple Welcomes its Newest Customer: The Queen of England
What Fathers Do Best
Hint: Not the same things as mothers.
by Steven E. Rhoads
FATHER'S DAY NO LONGER ARRIVES without the national media highlighting Mr. Moms. The year before last, for example, Lisa Belkin of the New York Times described the life of one Michael Zorek, whose only job was taking care of his 14-month-old son Jeremy. Zorek, whose wife brought home a good salary as a corporate lawyer, felt he had become "remarkably good" at shopping, at cooking, and at entertaining his energetic toddler. He was angry at a parents' magazine whose essay contest was open only to mothers. "I'm the one who does the shopping, and I'm the one who does the cooking," he reasoned. "Why is it only sexist when women are excluded?"
This year the homemaking fathers even got to horn in on Mother's Day. On May 8, the Washington Post's Sunday Outlook section featured William McGee, a single dad who "couldn't help feeling excluded" by all the ads for products that "moms and kids" would both love. He mentioned, for example, the classic peanut butter ad, "Choosy Moms Choose Jif." McGee wanted advertisers to know that he is "one of many caring dads" who are choosy, too.
Brace yourselves for an onslaught of such features this week, even though, in the real world, there are still 58 moms staying home with minor children for every dad who does so. This is not just an accidental social arrangement, to be overcome once the media have sufficiently raised our consciousness about the joys of stay-at-home fatherhood. Mothers are loaded with estrogen and oxytocin, which draw them to young children and help induce them to tend to infants. And the babies themselves make it clear that they prefer their mothers. Even in families where fathers have taken a four-month-long paid parental leave to tend to their newborns, the fathers report that the babies prefer to be comforted by their mothers.
The problem with honoring fathers who do what mothers usually do--what used to be called "mothering"--is this: It suggests that fathers who do what most fathers do aren't contributing to their children's well-being. Yet we know this can't be true. Children who grow up in fatherless families are poorer, less healthy, less educated. They die much earlier, commit more crimes, and give birth to more babies out of wedlock.
What do most real-world dads do? When the kids get old enough, they teach them how to build and fix things and how to play sports. They are better than moms at teaching children how to deal with novelty and frustration, perhaps because they are more likely than mothers to encourage children to work out problems and address challenges themselves--from putting on their shoes to operating a new toy.
When the kids become older still, Dad is usually better than Mom at controlling unruly boys. Jennifer Roback Morse notes that all the surveys of who does what around the house never mention one of her husband's most important functions--he is responsible for glaring. When their son acts up, his glares just seem to have more effect than hers do.
Similarly, a fascinating study in the journal Criminology finds that female social ties in a neighborhood--borrowing food, helping with problems, having lunch together--are associated with much lower crime rates. Male social ties in the neighborhood have no effect on crime rates. But the beneficial effect of female ties almost completely disappears in communities dominated by fatherless families! You need husbands and fathers--what the authors call "family rooted men"--if the crime-fighting female ties are really to be effective. Perhaps mothers still say, "Just you wait until your father gets home," or its 21st-century equivalent.
Sometimes moms worry that their roughhousing husbands are making their boys more aggressive. But, in fact, fathers are teaching their sons how to play fight--don't bite, don't kick, stay away from the eyes--a form of play enjoyed by most boys around the world. On the playground, boys without fathers in the home are unpopular because they respond in a truly aggressive manner when other boys try to initiate rough-and-tumble play. A committee brought together by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council has concluded that "fathers, in effect, give children practice in regulating their own emotions and recognizing others' emotional cues."
Of course, dads do a lot for their daughters as well. For example, by providing a model of love for and fidelity to their wives, dads give teenage girls confidence that they can expect men to be interested in them for reasons beyond sex.
We could begin to do dads justice if we realized that their nature makes it unlikely that they will like intensive nurturing in the way that most mothers do. Testosterone inhibits nurturing. In both men and women high levels of testosterone are associated with less interest in babies. Low levels of testosterone are associated with a stronger than average interest in nurturing. If you inject a monkey mother with testosterone, she becomes less interested in her baby. And men have much more testosterone than women. Thus, in those two-career families where husband and wife are determined to share domestic and paid work equally, a common argument ensues because dads typically suggest that they get more paid child-care help; moms typically want less paid help and more time with their children.
If dads were as tormented as moms by prolonged absence from their children, we'd have more unhappiness and more fights over who gets to spend time with the children. By faithfully working at often boring jobs to provide for their families, dads make possible moms who can do less paid work and thereby produce less stressed and happier households. Dads deserve a lot of credit for simply making moms' nurturing of children possible. On Father's Day we should more often notice, and then honor, typical fatherly virtues and declare vive la difference.
Steven E. Rhoads is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously, newly available in paperback.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
articles 6/14
Next Generation of Conservatives (By the Dormful)
Fox News
Vice President Dick Cheney Talks With Sean Hannity
Boston Globe
The downloaders strike back
Newsweek
Military: The Family Business
They are proud to see their children follow them into service—and worried that their decisions could get their kids killed. Inside the military's special father-son bond.
NY Times
Playing God With Birth Defects in the Nursery
The issues that two doctors debated in a case from the 1970's remain highly relevant in modern neonatal intensive-care units.
Step by Step
A roundup of the past three weeks' good news from Iraq.
by Arthur Chrenkoff
Hunting Bubba
Can political consultants Dave "Mudcat" Saunders and Steve Jarding win rural voters back to the Democratic party?
by Matt Labash
Western Dems not sold on Hillary
by Robert Novak
Newsweek
Life in Solitary
Catholic hermits are reinventing an ancient tradition, living ever farther from society and ever closer to God.
Dear Sir: Your Data Was Stolen
Millions of tales of potential identity theft are circulating in the digital city. Mine is just one of them.
by Dan Goodin
Wired
Microsoft Censors Chinese Blogs
The company works with the communist country to scrub dirty words -- like "democracy" and "human rights" -- from its new MSN China portal.
Rolling Stone
The Gunslinger
Sen. Harry Reid is leading the charge against the GOP
Monday, June 13, 2005
Saturday, June 11, 2005
articles 6/11
Denver Post
Transactions paid in the blink of an eye
Fox News Channel
JPMorgan Hopes 'Blink' Equals Bling
CBS46
Chase Bank introduces microchip credit card
Atlanta is the first city in the U.S. to get blink cards.
Weekly Standard
Winning Ugly
Republicans are doing better than you think.
Commentary Magazine
Annihilating Terri Schiavo
Paul McHugh
Weekly Standard
Kerry: The New Al Gore
John Kerry spins further out into irrelevance.
by Daniel McKivergan
A Tale of Two Chairmen
Why the media loves the disastrous Howard Dean and doesn't understand the greatness of Ken Mehlman.
by Hugh Hewitt
The Global Shift
The world will soon better appreciate the United States
by Victor Davis Hanson
NY Daily News
Nerds make better lovers
Ready for a real relationship? Ditch thepretty boys and grab yourself a geek
AFP
Bono hails Group of Eight on debt relief
AP
Bono Doubles As Lobbyist for World's Poor
President Welcomes British Prime Minister Blair
...Second question, do I believe in my gut we can eradicate poverty? I do believe we can eradicate poverty.
By the way, Bono has come to see me. I admire him. He is a man of depth and a great heart, who cares deeply about the impoverished folks on the continent of Africa. And I admire his leadership on the issue. And so I do believe. I don't view - I can't remember how you characterized the rock stars, but I don't characterize them that way, having met the man.
Bono on CCM & Worship
White House.gov
President Visits National Counterterrorism Center
"...And today I'm pleased to announce the fact that upon John Negroponte's recommendation, that we will nominate Vice Admiral John Redd to be the Director of the NCTC. He's a man of enormous experience. He has served our country with distinction. He'll be a good boss. He'll be a person that will be able to carry on the tradition of John Brennan."
Personnel Announcement
Bloomberg
Admiral is antiterror nominee
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Bono: 'We Need to Talk'
Monday, May 30, 2005
Saddam's Business Partners
How the Oil-for-Food scandal happened and why it matters.
by Stephen F. Hayes
05/30/2005, Volume 010, Issue 35
| |
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic. "I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort. The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal. Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today. Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body. AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions. Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute. "Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78." Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering. None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq. The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise. In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein. Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq." When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled. Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community." Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned. The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck. "This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion. Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well." Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic. Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant. Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime." Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients. The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme. On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself. Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003. It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years. AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective. Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin. One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement. A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program." Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq." Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels. The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation. In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda." THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors. And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food. The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence." Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant." I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?" Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again. "That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!" In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering. Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. |
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Georgia Credit-Card Holders to Be the First in the Nation to Use 'Blink'
Associated Press
ATLANTA - About 400,000 credit-card holders in Georgia will be the first in the country to use a new technology that allows them to pay for items by waving their card near a terminal instead of swiping it through a machine.
Residents of Atlanta and 160 other cities in the state will test drive the new "blink" cards, which JPMorgan Chase & Co. will begin mailing to its customers June 1.
The company selected Atlanta as the first test city because "what we see in Atlanta is very much on the leading edge of being trendsetting," said Tom O'Donnell, senior vice president of JPMorgan's card division. "It's a dynamic place where people are on the go."
JPMorgan estimates that the new technology will help shorten lines at businesses and help merchants reach more customers by speeding up credit-card purchases. For example, the company predicts it would cut up to 20 seconds from a typical transaction at a fast-food restaurant's drive-through window.
In Atlanta, the cards will be accepted at hundreds of businesses starting next month, mostly at pharmacies, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and movie theaters.
Everything about the "blink" card is the same as a traditional credit card except that the new cards don't have to be swiped through a machine, so it shaves a few seconds off of a transaction. It looks like a normal credit card, but there is a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip embedded inside it. Barely visible, the flat microchip is smaller than a kernel of corn.
When a customer brings his credit card within a couple of inches of the terminal, it lights up and beeps, and the transaction is instantly captured.
"A big part of convenience is speedy transaction," said Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman with 7-Eleven convenience stores. "It's quicker because they're not fumbling around with cash."
Consumers can start "blinking" at 170 7-Eleven stores next month, and Chabris said that the company hopes to have all its 5,300 stores outfitted with the terminals by the end of the year.
"What we're looking for is adding a feature that gives them more speed and more convenience in terms of how they use their credit card. They now have an easier way to pay," O'Donnell said.
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On The Net
JPMorgan Chase & Co's Blink Cards: http://www.chaseblink.com/
Monday, May 23, 2005
Chase rolls out credit cards with "blink"
Chase Cards With "blink" Redefine Payment Experience for Cardmembers By Providing Increased Speed, Added Convenience, Enhanced Rewards Platform; Merchants Enjoy Faster Transactions, Increased Customer Loyalty
WILMINGTON, DE - May 19, 2005 - Chase Bank U.S.A., N.A., a division of JPMorgan Chase & Co. [NYSE: JPM], announced today that it will become the first bank to increase the speed and convenience of a credit card by broadly rolling out consumer cards with contactless functionality, called blink. Chase will begin a market-by-market rollout of the "Chase credit cards with blink" this summer, after working closely with merchants in each market to ensure the broadest possible acceptance at launch.
Working in conjunction with Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International Incorporated, Chase has identified merchants where speed and convenience are important to consumers, and has been actively building a roster of merchants in each market. Initially, Chase cardmembers will be able to blink at well-known movie theaters, convenience and specialty retailers such as 7-Eleven, quick service restaurants and drug stores. Chase will announce additional lists of specific merchants when they issue cards with blink in each market. Sheetz, Inc. - one of America's fastest-growing, family owned and operated convenience store chains - will be Chase's first partner to launch their co-branded credit card with blink functionality, allowing customers the ability to use Chase cards that blink at all of their locations.
To use Chase cards with blink, cardmembers simply hold their card near a point-of-sale terminal at checkout, instead of swiping their card or handing it to a store employee. As cardmembers hold their Chase card with blink near the point-of-sale terminal, the terminal will quickly emit a signal or tone to acknowledge payment confirmation.
"We believe these innovative cards with blink will provide merchants and cardmembers with the increased speed and convenience they want at the point-of-sale," said Carter Franke, chief marketing officer of Chase Card Services, the company's credit card division. "In the future, Chase cards with blink will also allow us to reward cardmembers at the point-of-sale and provide merchants and our cobrand partners with an opportunity to build even stronger customer loyalty programs."
In each market, Chase plans to offer its cardmembers hundreds of merchant locations accepting Chase cards with blink, providing them with numerous opportunities to make everyday purchases quickly in places where they might normally use cash. Consumers can use cards with blink everywhere they currently use credit cards - anywhere Visa and MasterCard are accepted - plus, use the new blink functionality wherever contactless payments are accepted. By the end of 2005, Chase plans to have thousands of merchant locations accepting Chase cards with blink across the country.
7-Eleven, Inc. will be an early adopter of the Chase cards with blink, testing the card in 170 of its stores. "Because 7-Eleven is synonymous with convenience, anything we can do to improve a consumer's shopping experience at a 7-Eleven store is always under review," said Rick Updyke, vice president of business development for 7-Eleven, Inc. "The new Chase cards with blink provide customers with a faster, easier transaction. Contactless payment fits well with 7-Eleven's strategy of providing consumers convenient, quick service. As such, we expect to roll out acceptance of these cards to our 5,300 U.S. 7-Eleven stores."
Chase cards with blink offer all of the same security and privacy protections consumers and merchants have come to expect from a leader in the payments industry, including cardmembers having zero liability for unauthorized purchases. Chase cards with blink include a technology that is embedded in the card and read by a point-of-sale terminal. To enable quick and convenient payments, Chase cards with blink hold the same data and security features that enable traditional credit card transactions. Cardmembers may also use Chase cards with blink just as they would a traditional credit card with a magnetic stripe. More information is available about Chase credit cards with blink at www.chaseblink.com/national.
Integrated Marketing and Advertising Campaign
Beginning with the first market, Chase will launch a fully integrated marketing and advertising campaign to help educate and excite local consumers and cardmembers about Chase cards with blink. The local campaigns will encourage cardmembers to "blink lunch," "blink a drink" or "blink a movie" by bringing to life how the card works at many local area merchants. The campaign will leverage television, radio, newspaper and billboard advertising to reach consumers, and will be complemented by several cardmember communications about the new card functionality.
Benefits for Cardmembers and Merchants
After taking part in a pilot program in Orlando in 2003 and evaluating the results of trials from around the world, Chase understands the value and benefits that Chase credit cards with blink provide to both cardmembers and merchants. Trial results confirmed that consumers find the contactless technology to be simple, fast and convenient, and that consumers enjoyed the added security from retaining possession of their cards while paying. The most significant timesavings can be realized in the drive-thru environment, where transaction time was reduced by as much as 20 seconds as compared to cash. Consumers also liked the convenience of not carrying cash for everyday purchases, meaning they no longer needed to fumble around for change and small bills, or be confined by the cash in their purses or wallets. In fact, 60 percent of respondents to a recent MasterCard survey said they use cash less often today than they did five years ago. For merchants, blink transactions speed checkout times and allow consumers to spend less time waiting in lines. Research has shown that customers who use blink cards often spend more per transaction and are happier with their store experience. Chase cards with blink also provide a reliable, trusted payment method that works well in environments where speed is important.
Making More Time for Americans
In support of the new Chase credit cards with blink and their ability to offer cardmembers more time and convenience, Chase recently commissioned a telephone survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. The Chase "Just in a blink of time" Index polled 1,000 adult Americans hoping to discover what really irks them about waiting in line to do everyday routine activities. The survey was conducted April 15 - 17, 2005 with the results representative of and projectable to the U.S. population. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent. The survey also revealed how Americans make the most of waiting in line and how they look for timesaving alternatives.
Americans most dread waiting in lines at the doctor's office (27%) and the Department of Motor Vehicles (26%), followed by the grocery store (18%) and the airport (14%).
Americans dislike waiting in lines, but the following behaviors make it worse - slow/inefficient cashiers (23%), someone changing their mind about an item that has been rung up (19%) and someone who leaves the line to run back for an item (19%).
One-third of Americans (32%) get frustrated after waiting in line for 10 minutes or less.
Half of Americans (52%) take the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator.
One-third of Americans will drive fast (35%), bring other things to do while waiting in line (33%) or buy fewer items to use the express lane (30%).
Also, one-quarter of Americans use a fast pass on the highway (24%).
A History of Innovation
Chase will be the first credit card issuer to widely roll out a contactless payment product, which is consistent with the company's longstanding reputation of innovation in the industry. In the past 18 months, Chase has successfully created a number of innovative payment products with many of their premier partners, including: the Starbucks Card Duetto Visa, a first-of-its-kind payment card blending Visa credit card functionality with the reloadable Starbucks Card; the Disney Rewards Card, a stored-value card jointly developed with The Walt Disney Company as part of Disney's Visa Credit Card program; and the AARP Visa Card which combines cardmembers' credit/membership card into a first-of-its-kind card that provides automatic discounts at the point-of-sale.
About 7-Eleven, Inc.
7-Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven, Inc. operates or franchises approximately 5,800 7-Eleven® stores in the United States and Canada and licenses more than 22,300 7-Eleven stores in 17 other countries and U.S. territories. During 2004, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of approximately $41 billion. Find out more online at www.7-Eleven.com.
About Sheetz
Established by Bob Sheetz as a single store in 1952, Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz, Inc. is one of America's fastest-growing, family owned and operated convenience store chains, with fiscal year 2004 revenue exceeding $2.8 billion. The company operates more than 300 convenience locations throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina, and is ranked 87th on the Forbes list of largest private companies. Sheetz provides an award-winning menu of Made?To?Order subz, sandwiches, saladz and specialty coffeez, which are ordered through unique touch-screen order point terminals. All Sheetz convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For more information, visit Sheetz on the Web at www.sheetz.com or call (800) 487-5444.
About JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $1.2 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries. The company has approximately 94 million credit cards issued. Under the JPMorgan, Chase and Bank One brands, the firm serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients. Information about the firm is available at www.jpmorganchase.com