With more polling data coming out on the 2008 campaign coming out every day, I though it’d be useful to post summary of what it takes to accurately report on poll results:

A news report about a public opinion poll needs to have several qualities in order to serve both the public interest and that of the news organization.[1]

The report must be interesting enough to attract general readers and simple enough for general readers to understand. Polls make attractive topics for journalists because the most common results show either 1) a fairly clear winner and loser or 2) a close race. Both make for interesting, easy to write stories. It is rarer to see a journalist tackle in-depth analysis of a poll that takes on multiple aspects of an issue, such as the recent poll of Iraqis done by ABC News, USA Today, the BBC and ARD[2]. If a journalist were to write a story on that poll, he would likely pick out one or two poll questions to focus on.

This simplification is not necessarily a problem. In fact, it can be desirable. If a journalist were to include details on every question in a lengthy poll with careful attention to potential wording bias, sampling size, and methodology, few people would ever read the story. When writing for a general audience, it is better for a journalist to glean the most important facts and relay them with enough detail to assure readers that the poll is credible. While their job is to simplify complex data, it is essential that journalists be educated in statistics and polling methodology. With knowledge of how polling works, a journalist can determine whether the results are valid and whether the story should be on polling results alone or, in rare cases, the motives or shoddy practices of those conducting the poll.

Beyond being straightforward, the report should provide enough detail about the polling methodology for the reader to assess the validity of the results. There are several technical questions that the article should answer:

1) What is the margin of error and confidence interval?

2) What is the sample size?

3) Who is the population being sampled?

4) During what time span was the poll conducted?

Continue reading How to report poll results…

Cross-posted at The Proving Ground 

Politicians in America keep saying that we need to turn ideas into action if we want to keep this country great.  They say we need to beef up security if we want to keep our families safe.  According to them, Liberals think that money grows on trees in the yards of taxpayers.

Well, it’s possible that the taxpayer dollars used to pay for the Iraq War, estimated to be over $1 trillion dollars, could have really made an impact if they were put to a different use.

Per John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University and graduate of the University of Wisconsin, $1 trillion could easily allow the EPA to clean up every environmental superfund site in the U.S. and then some.  It could fund the Department of Education 18 times over and surely, “put muscle into the slogan “No child left behind.”  It could multiply our scientific research hundreds of times and put us years ahead in energy advances to cure our dependency on foreign oil and cure life-threatening diseases.  It could secure nearly every port and chemical plant.  It could even save the lives of million of children across the world dying of what to us are common, treatable illnesses.
Strangely, it seems that it would be almost impossible to convince Congress that any of these endeavors would be a strong investment.
ABC News: Who’s counting: How Iraq’s trillion could have been spent

Crossposted at The Proving Ground

It hasn’t made the front page of U.S. media outlets, but the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) just came out with a report claiming that “Millions of dollars in US rebuilding funds have been wasted in Iraq.” BBC

The report is coming out just as President Bush is asking Congress for Congress to approve $1.2 billion in additional reconstruction aid.

The BBC cites a couple of examples of waste or funds that have gone unaccounted for:

One case involved a payment by the US State Department of $43.8m to a contractor, DynCorp International, for a residential camp for police trainers outside the Adnan Palace grounds in Baghdad. The camp has never been used.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry ordered $4.2m of work there, never authorised by the State Department, that included 20 trailers for important visitors and an Olympic-size swimming pool.

The State Department has said that it is working to improve controls.

Another example cited in the report is $36.4m spent by US officials on armoured vehicles, body armour and communications equipment that cannot be accounted for because invoices were vague and there was no back-up documentation.

On top of millions of dollars in reconstruction aid going unaccounted for, “billions of dollars budgeted for capital projects remained unspent at the end of 2006.” BBC

Democrats have picked up on the report and, “In the House, at least two committees said they planned hearings to examine spending waste and abuse.” NYT

As for the effectiveness of the money the U.S. has spent so far on reconstruction, Special General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen said yesterday that, “billions in U.S. aid spent on strengthening security has had limited effect. He said reconstruction now will fall largely on Iraqis to manage — and they’re not ready for the task.” NYT

Even before the latest reports on U.S. spending in Iraq came out, SIGIR, “was nearly closed down last year by Republicans.” BBC

In November 2006, Republicans in the House Armed Service Committee buried a clause calling for the termination of SIGIR in a massive military appropriations bill.

In the past, the SIGIR investigations “have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.” NYT

The clause was placed in the bill during a closed-door conference. There’s no denying that the elimination of SIGIR was intended to go under the radar. “The one thing I can confirm is that this was a last-minute insertion,” said Susan Collins (R-ME). NYT

With Democrats in control of Congress, the office will continue oversight of the war at least through 2008.

In case you’re wondering, Stuart Bowen isn’t some liberal watchdog bent on ruining the reputation of the Bush Administration. Before he served as Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction, Mr. Bowen, “served President George W. Bush as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary and Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel. He has been a partner at the law firm of Patton Boggs LLP, in its Washington, D.C. office. Before his White House tenure, Mr. Bowen served as Counsel to the Bush-Cheney transition team; and from 1994 to 2000, he held a variety of positions on Governor George Bush’s staff in Texas, including Deputy General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, and Assistant General Counsel.” Wikipedia

Journalist Ed Harriman has been following the American audits of spending in Iraq and gave some insight on the current situation in an interview yesterday with BBC World Today Select:

BBC: Do you have a sense that the current Iraqi administration is better at keeping an eye on this type of thing than it’s predecessors?

Harriman: Oh no, not at all. And people are very distraught in Iraq at the moment because the government has become almost entirely unaccountable. What’s really interesting is that the American embassy in Baghdad seems to be unaccountable as well. And that’s after almost four years of the occupation…

BBC: Is it possible to calculate finally how much money is missing, one way or another?

Harriman: There are guesstimates because you never really get to the end of it because crooks are very good at hiding what they steal. But, we’re certainly talking about tens of billions of dollars.

Harriman’s findings have been published in a series of three articles in the London Review of Books:

Where has all the money gone? – 7.7.05

Cronyism and Kickbacks - 1.26.2006

The Least Accountable Regime in the Middle East – 2.7.2006

Sources:

BBC: U.S. money is ‘squandered’ in Iraq

BBC: World Today Select Podcast

NYT: Dems decry report of wasted Iraq aid

One of Greenpeace’s founders, Patrick Moore, explains in a Washington Post op-ed why he’s come to support nuclear power as a viable alternative source of energy.

Moore:

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions — or nearly 10 percent of global emissions — of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely…

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do — prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn’t been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

WP - Patrick Moore: Going Nuclear

Hat tip: Brewtown Politico

As gas prices approach $3.50 a gallon across the country, politicians are scrambling to come up with ideas to lower prices and make Americans happy. They’re scraping the barrel for quick fixes that will appease voters and make it look like they’re taking action.

The only problem is that there are no quick fixes.

As the Washington Post’s Charles Krathammer wrote this morning, the problem is one of supply and demand. When supply goes down or demand goes up, prices rise.

On the demand side, rapidly developing nations like China and India are using more energy than ever before, and subsequently burning more oil. And Americans are still driving SUVs and severely non-fuel-efficient vehicles to pick up the kids at soccer practice.
As far as supply, major hurricanes have disrupted oil refining and ethanol mandates combined with a deficiency in ethanol production have caused fuel shortages in some areas.

Krathammer: Why don’t we import the missing ethanol? Brazil makes a ton of it, and very cheaply. Answer: the Iowa caucuses. Iowa grows corn and chooses presidents. So we have a ridiculously high 54-cent ethanol tariff and ethanol shortages.
Ok, so we know why prices are so high. What do we do about it?

Politicians are calling for investigations into price gouging, but I doubt they’ll find anything. People are outraged that ExxonMobile reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter profits yesterday, but few stop to examine where the profits come from. In a brief segment today, CNN reported that only 1/3 of the $8.4 billion came the U.S., and only about half of that was from gas.

Oil conglomerates are still getting billions in undeserved subsidies from the U.S. government, but they don’t deserve all the blame.

The root of the problem isn’t the oil companies. President Bush has already stated the root of the problem: “America is addicted to oil.”

Supplying the answer?

So far, politicians (especially Republicans) have focused on increasing supply.

They propose drilling for more oil in ANWR, which will help for a few years… but isn’t worth the sacrifice of some of the last pristine landscapes on the planet (I’m a hippie, deal with it).

Some Democrats want to give each family earning under $15,000 a $100 gas rebate to help offset the increased prices.  Such a plan sounds good, but it doesn’t do anything to resolve the long-term problem.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is calling for a temporary repeal of the gas tax amounting in a savings of about $0.18 per gallon. The plan would save taxpayers about $100 million a day. Sounds like a lot, except for the fact that that’s $100 million every day that doesn’t reach the federal government. I would agree with those who say our government has been spending recklessly lately ($300 billion in Iraq, countless earmarks on nearly every spending bill), but this isn’t the way to go about solving the problem. Lobbying and earmark reform is (although those plans are about as dead as John Kerry’s chances of becoming our next president.)

Demand lower prices, new strategies

The only responsible way to solve this problem is to play with the other side of the equation and decrease demand.
The first step: increase efficiency. President Bush actually called on Congress today to increase fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, a request they should heed immediately. (The Washington Post reports, “White House officials said later, however, that they didn’t know when or how the president would use that authority.”)

However, just like the Iowa corn farmers stand in the way of potential ethanol viability (which I’m not convinced of anyway), auto worker unions stand in the way of stricter CAFE standards.

The president also proposed tax incentives to promote the sale of hybrid vehicles. Considering that there are currently tax incentives to buy larger SUVs, I think this would be a pretty good idea.

EVERYONE ignores the fact that all supplies of oil won’t last forever. Experts predict that world oil production will peak within the next five years, so much for increasing supply.

The bottom line

The real short-term solution consists of removing the tariff on Brazilian ethanol, providing investments in and incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles, creating financial disincentives for fuel-inefficient vehicles, changing the law to stop huge subsidies to oil companies (different from taxing windfall profits), developing electric-powered vehicles that can run on energy produced from any energy source.

The real long-term solution is to actually invest in alternative energy sources, especially solar and nuclear power. Anything else is only a stopgap to slow the inevitable expiration of fossil fuels.

WP - Kinsley: Tax the windfall

WP - Krauthammer: Say it with me: Supply and Demand

WP - Mufson and Murray: Profits, prices spur oil outage

Bloomberg - Shlaes: Who’s afraid of $100 a barrel? Only politicians

Gasbuddy.com: Gas temperature map

A nearly universal health care bill passed easily through the Massachusetts legislature today and is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA). The law mandates that all Massachusetts residents purchase health care by July 1, 2007.

From the NY Times’ front-page, must-read coverage of the bill:

Individuals who can afford private insurance will be penalized on their state income taxes if they do not buy it. Government subsidies to private insurance plans will enable more of the working poor to be able to afford insurance and will expand the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. And businesses with more than 10 workers that do not provide insurance will be assessed a fee of up to $295 per employee per year.

All told, the plan is projected to cover 515,000 uninsured people within three years, about 95 percent of the state’s uninsured population, legislators said.

Politicians have been talking about a “uniquely American” solution to health care that is somewhere in-between a single payer program and complete privatization. This looks like a great start.

The program is a pet project of Gov. Romney’s that he’s been pushing to get passed before the deadline for additional federal funding expired.

I saw Romney speak about the program when he was in Washington about six weeks ago and it sounds solid. This bipartisan effort will only help his cause moving towards 2008.

State Senator Robert E Travaglini describes the significance of the accomplishment:

“It’s a balanced bill,” said Travaglini, the majority leader. “Whenever you can have the medical community, the business community and the advocates all applauding our efforts, I think that’s indicative of a successful exercise. This is going to be a template for the rest of the nation to follow.”

While you’re in the area, be sure to notice the redesign of the NY Times site.

Here’s my most recent Badger Herald article, complete with exclusive TNV headline:

DNC, NH Dems butt heads

Monday, April 3, 2006

WASHINGTON — More than two and a half years remain before Americans vote for their next president, and potential candidates are already hitting the campaign trail, shaking hands and kissing babies.

But they’re not traveling to the swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio or Oregon or courting support in densely populated areas like New York, Chicago or Southern California. Instead, they’re visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, locations of the nation’s first presidential caucus and primary, respectively.

By the end of April, almost every member of the 2008 presidential field will have visited one of these two states to give speeches and schmooze with state party activists.

In early March, members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted 21-1 to allow one or two other states to hold caucuses before the New Hampshire primary. The DNC’s motivation for shuffling the schedule is to increase cultural and geographic diversity early in the nominating process, and a final decision is expected by early fall 2006.

But Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, criticized the DNC proposal, as she said it will pack events towards the front of the primary process and prevent candidates from competing in all of them.

New Hampshire’s primary is a “tried and tested” method of vetting presidential contenders, Sullivan said.

“Candidates have to speak to regular voters,” she added.

And in the current nominating process, performance during the first few primaries can make or break a campaign. If a front-runner fails to meet expectations early on, he or she can essentially be knocked out of contention like Howard Dean after he came in third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire during the 2004 campaign.

Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., a probable 2008 candidate, told PoliticsNH.com during his March visit to New Hampshire, “I just think that early in the primary process it makes sense to have more diversity in the process.”

Richardson said the New Hampshire primary would still be “the preeminent event,” even if the DNC added caucuses after Iowa.

Similarly, former Gov. Mark Warner, D-Va., reportedly stated to the New Hampshire Senate Democratic Caucus that the state should always hold the first primary in the nation.

What both Richardson and Warner failed to mention to folks in New England was that, while they support the Granite State primary’s hallowed status, both candidates are investigating ways they could benefit from new caucuses preceding or following the New Hampshire event.

As a westerner with a Latina mother, Richardson would like to see the Democrats add a western contest. And as the former governor of a southern state, Warner would like to see the Democrats schedule a southern contest early in the calendar.

“When they travel to the Granite State, the Democratic ‘08ers are going out of their way to show their fealty to New Hampshire,” ABC News’ Teddy Davis said in an interview with The Badger Herald. “But make no mistake: Behind the scenes, almost all of them have allies on the DNC’s Rules and By Laws Committee, and they are planning to make hay out of whatever calendar the DNC ultimately decides on.”

Wisconsin’s own potential presidential candidate has already stated his view on the issue.

During his September visit to New Hampshire, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told a crowd of fellow Democrats, “of course the first primary should be in New Hampshire.”

George Aldridge, spokesperson for Feingold’s Political Action Committee, said Feingold supports moving other states with more ethnic and racial diversity up in the process, but New Hampshire, he noted, “has something special that’s worth preserving in a historical context.”

If you’re interested, Chris Cillizza and Sylvia Moreno wrote on the same topic in Sunday’s Washington Post (my article had been finished by this point, mind you). They don’t have exclusive quotes from George Aldridge and ABC News’ Teddy Davis though.

While I stand by my previous statement that no matter of good things in Iraq can make up for the horrors still occuring within the native populations, I won’t deny that there are still good things happening in Iraq.

Bill Crawford of the National Review Online shares some of the progress being made:

• In March, fatalities fell to a two year low. Moreover, the number of deaths from roadside bombs fell one year low of twelve. In Baghdad, the number of attacks on our troops dropped by 58 percent this week, but this decline isn’t the only explanation for the decrease in deaths. The increased capability of Iraqi forces plays a big part.
• 600 Iraqis conducted an independent operation in Bayji. The operation led to the detention of 25 suspected terrorists.
• The leader of a terrorist cell was captured in an Iraqi-led operation in the city of Haswa.
• An operation northwest of Baghdad resulted in the discovery of several large weapons caches:

The caches contained 20 rockets, 53 rocket-propelled grenades, three anti-aircraft missiles with two launchers, an anti-tank missile, 24 mortar rounds, a mortar tube, and a variety of small-caliber artillery rounds. In addition to the ordnance, soldiers found items commonly used in roadside bombs.

• There were virtually no cell-phone subscribers during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Today, there are more than 5 million.
• Eighty percent of the Saddam Hussein-era debt has been forgiven by Iraq’s debtors.
• Women comprise 25 percent of the Iraqi parliament, which is the highest proportion in the Arab world and one of the largest percentages worldwide.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provides training on industrial equipment enabling Iraqis to operate and maintain equipment and power systems throughout the country.
• Nearly 100 percent of Iraqi children have been vaccinated.
• In March of 2003, per capita income in Iraq was $500. Today it has risen to $1,200.
• More than 30,000 new businesses have been registered in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.
• In education, 3,000 schools have been rehabilitated, 9 million new textbooks distributed, and 36,000 teachers have been trained.
• The country has more than 2,000 Internet cafes, and a free press.

There may be good things happening in Iraq, but it can’t make up for this:

From the NPR blog Mixed Signals:

Baghdad by Night

April 3, 2006 · NPR Baghdad producer JJ Sutherland sends this dispatch from the dark side.

I get a call the other night. They’ve found four more bodies in western Baghdad. They’re bound, hands and feet. They’re blindfolded. They’ve been shot in the head. Their bodies bear wounds from beatings and electrical burns, and someone has used a drill on their flesh. That’s just one phone call. I get a few more. Every night it seems, dozens of bodies turn up, both Shiite and Sunni, often killed in the same fashion.

We spoke with a journalist recently who works for an Iraqi television station. For the last nine days, he’s been sleeping at the office. He’s been threatened with death because of his work and he doesn’t want to bring the danger home to his parents and six sisters. He told the Ministry of the Interior about the threat. They told him to get a gun.

“Death is the simplest thing now in Iraq. A bullet in the head is nothing, especially against journalists. So crying and sadness are the norm,” he said to us. Later he added, “I have been in love for the last four years but my conditions don’t allow me to marry… not because of money, but because of how things are going on. There is no stability and you never know when a civil war will break out.”

A friend of mine tells me today that he’s bought weapons for his family and is teaching his wife, who hates to even hold a knife, to fire a gun. The day before yesterday, Sunni insurgents burst into one family’s home. The husband was killed, and then they set his body on fire. They didn’t bother killing the wife and four children first. They burned them alive.

My friend tells me this story and says, “I can understand someone who gets killed. I can understand beheadings. I can’t understand burning someone alive.” I’m stunned … both by his story and by the fact that killings and beheadings are understandable. Burning people alive apparently violates some behavioral norm that says chopping people’s heads off is okay.

It is becoming very clear to me that war can shatter a society and what it becomes as it puts itself back together can become a warped malefic grotesquerie — a social organism that eagerly eats itself alive.

At a press conference the other day, an American general said he thinks that Iraqis feel more secure. I think most of the Iraqis I’ve spoken with since I’ve been here might have a slightly different perspective.

– JJ Sutherland

I’m not pretending I have the answer, but something’s got to change.

HT: BoingBoing 

From Slate:

Why Do Giant Tortoises Live So Long?

They’re big, they’ve got armor, and they live on an island.

Done and done.

My apologies for the lack of posting this week, I’ve been working on several side projects lately (Ok, fine. I’ve been lazy and watching college basketball).

Posting will probably be remain pretty sporadic over the next couple months, but I hope to return in full force when I get back to WI in May.

To make it up to you, here are the stories TNV is keeping tabs on:

• YouTube: Matt Stone and Trey Parker make fun on Scientology - USA Today: Voice of Chef leaves, but his character lives on
• AP: Scott Walker drops out of race for Governor
• Boston Globe: President Bush issued a “signing statement” along with the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, giving the proberbial finger to Sen. Russ Feingold and anyone hoping to keep tabs on the Administration’s actions.

“In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ‘’impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.’”

• NYT: Big Money dominates politics
• CBS: March Madness

I haven’t been feeling well lately.

I’m sick of people who want to limit the rights of those different than themselves.

I’m sick of people using divisive social issues to get people out to the polls.

I’m sick of people that believe anyone who doesn’t support school choice is inherently tied to the teachers’ union.

I’m sick of people who insist that anyone who is pro-choice is pro-abortion.

I’m sick of people who think that any Arab country or company is automatically a threat to the U.S.

I’m sick of talk about America’s addiction to oil without calling for more strict fuel efficiency standards.

I’m sick of people saying that I’m endangering my family if I don’t carry a gun.

I’m sick of seeing that the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights simply had a name change.

I’m sick of hearing about anything called a “bill of rights” that wasn’t written in 1789.

I’m sick of gerrymandering.

I’m sick of prime time television that has anything to do with dancing, figure skating, or a combination of the two.

I’m sick, and I’m still looking for a cure.

I haven’t had time to post lately, but I’ve got a few ideas in the docket and I should be attending some pretty interesting events this week.  Hopefully I’ll get a substantial post up by Friday.  In the meantime…
I saw this today and thought it ridiculous, clever, pointed, potentially unfair, and timely:

From Politics1.com:

GAY ADOPTION. State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children. According to Hagan, “credible research'’ shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.” Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents — just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood’s (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting. Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional “harm” when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagen admits he created his proposal to mock Hood’s proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the “blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive” nature of the bill. The GOP House leadership does not support Hood’s proposal.

Possibly surprising, but definitely sad, adoption by gay parents is already banned in Florida and similar bans are being proposed in at least 16 other states.

Since the Bush administration approved the sale of a British company that operates six major U.S. ports to United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World, lawmakers and executives from both parties and at all levels of government have been voicing passionate opposition to the deal.  They claim that putting the operation of U.S. ports in the hands of an Arab-owned company will endanger national security.

Despite calls to halt the deal, I’ve got to back the Bush administration on this one (although they should have been more public with the deal… Bush didn’t even know about it until it was completed and details came slowly from unofficial sources).

I agree that this deal should undergo a thorough vetting process, just like any major deal with large domestic and international implications, but I haven’t heard an effective argument as to how it would negatively impact national security.

The main complaints about the deal have been that the company is Arab-owned… that it  poses a threat to national security.

Shouldn’t we instead be encouraging economic ties with Arab countries in an effort to strengthen relations and gain support in the Middle East?

Today on Good Morning America, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) argued that he had issues with the deal because the UAE has allowed nuclear materials to pass through its ports and was home to two of the 9/11 terrorists.

I agree that the nuclear materials issue is sketchy, but it’s Dubai Ports World, not UAE who will be operating the ports.  And the Coast Guard will be in charge of port security, as they always have been.  (It’s reported that the Coast Guard is severely lacking in resources and funding, but that’s a different story.)

And just because two terrorists come from a country does not condemn the country.  Terrorists can come from any country, including the United States.
It’s not as though DPW will be hiring people from outside the U.S. to operate the ports.  The port workers will likely remain American workers who in those six cities, just as they were before.

I’m guessing that DPW might lose some business if they helped facilitate a terror attack.  These guys aren’t anti-western fundamentalists.  They’re a huge corporation that with major financial interests in the success of their operations in the United States.  If you’d want to commit acts of terrorism, there are cheaper ways to do it than aquiring a company for $6.8 billion.
I don’t know if this helps or hurts my case, but Jimmy Carter agrees.

‘’The overall threat to the United States and security, I don’t think it exists,'’ Carter said on CNN’s The Situation Room. “I’m sure the president’s done a good job with his subordinates to make sure this is not a threat.'’

Calling for further review and investigation of the deal is fine, and even appropriate, but it’s inappropriate to oppose the deal outright simply because aquiring company is Arab-owned.
Looking at the fiasco from another angle, it looks as though the focus on terror and fear has finally come back to bite the Bush administration: The Democrats have learned that the national security card trumps all.

While I disagree with it, coming out strongly on this issue is a win-win for the Democrats.  If they defeat the deal, they can chalk one up for speaking out to defend the nation against terrorists.  If, after further investigation, the deal is deemed legit, they can say that they were just trying to defend the nation against terrorists.  And that’s patriotism.  You can’t argue with patriotism.  Just ask Karl Rove.

Same goes for all of the Republicans who’ve voiced concern with the deal.  Lately, after the NSA spying program and the Cheney incident, going against the administration hasn’t been seen as going against the party.

It’s easy to criticize the administration here, but it’s not right.

Hat tip: Fresh Politics and The Progress Report 

Anyone who’s interested in all the essential poltical news injected with reverent wit and wisdom should obviously be reading The Note every day, but, believe it or not, there are other forms of information floating around in cyberspace.

My new favorite, recommended to me a couple days ago, is “The Progress Report“, put together each morning by the crew at the Center for American Progress.

It’s true that the Center for American Progress is a progressive, partisan think-tank… but The Progress Report only has a hint of lefty rhetoric mixed in with tons of information and valuable heads-ups to developing stories (unlike it’s blog-cousin Think Progress).

The Progress Report breaks down the day’s top stories in an easy to read format, providing links to every source (I’d prefer that they cite, but it’d break the flow of their prose).

The Report features separate sections for more “provacative” stories and important issues that have gone “under the radar”.

Oh, and the link from the RSS feed is just the barebones, print-page style text, served just the way raw information should be.
Try it, I think you’ll like it.

Note: The googling monkeys have yet to be taken out for brunch.

My first article as a reporter for the Badger Herald was published in today’s edition:

Wiretapping scandal provokes Washington legislators

It’s not the headline I would’ve chosen. Scandal implies that the program was, without a doubt, illegitimate. There have been plenty of scandals plaguing Washington in recent months, but this doesn’t qualify. It very well may be that this particular system of warrantless wiretapping was illegal, but that’s a matter for further investigation and review.
A more appropriate headline would probably be “Wiretapping program potentially violates civil liberties and law”. The Bush administration contends the authority to engage in wiretapping was implied when Congress gave the “authorization for military force” agains Al Qaida after 9/11. The argument is really over whether that phrase actually gives them the right to do this or not. Sen. Russ Feingold doesn’t think so.

Most lawmakers, but Republicans and Democrats, don’t have a problem with what the program accomplishes, or even the methods used… but there is a concern that the president’s actions have bypassed the normal checks and balances enforced by judicial approval of warrents for such activities.

Similar arguments have been used for and against the alleged torture of terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay.

Here’s an excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced last week he will introduce legislation that would force the National Security Agency wiretapping program to be reviewed by the courts every 45 days.

As it currently stands, the program is re-authorized by President Bush every 45 days.

Dubbed the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” in an effort to focus on its role in thwarting future attacks, it allows the NSA to listen in without a warrant on conversations between Americans and suspected members of al-Qaida outside the country.

Lawmakers agree some level of terrorist surveillance is essential to national security, but some questioned the legality of warrantless spying during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Monday.

Specter, the Committee chairman, said during the hearing that he did not believe Congress’ authorization to use “appropriate force” in the War on Terror included domestic surveillance.

His sentiments were also echoed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

“I never envisioned that I was giving to this president or any other president the ability to go around FISA carte blanche,” Graham said.

Democrats and Republicans grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez during the hearing, specifically questioning whether the Senate’s resolution to go to war in Iraq implicitly authorized surveillance normally approved in court under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Read the rest of the article at The Badger Herald

For the first time in history, Hillary Clinton, Tony Perkins, and prostitutes are all on the same side of an issue.

An organization of prostitutes, the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), is protesting the video game Grand Theft Auto, saying that it promotes violence toward ladies of the night (ok, that’s my term, not theirs).

“Citing a 2001 document from the National Institute on Media and the Family’s David Walsh, SWOP is calling “on all parents and all gamers to boycott Grand Theft Auto.’”

The surprising thing: Sex workers have an organization?!?! With a website?!?!

(I bet they’re damn good at lobbying though)

Gamespot.com: Prostitutes call for ban on GTA

hat tip: Slashdot

Bonus!

Forbes: The Economics of Prostitution

In the last 18 years, The Onion has grown and moved to New York, but it’s roots remain in Madison, WI. According to a NY Times article about the Satire of Record, Wisconsinites still dominate the editorial staff six years after the move to West Chelsea, and, more recently, SoHo.

(Joe Garden, features editor,) lives in Windsor Terrace, near several other Onion writers, who say that the neighborhoods around Prospect Park, with their greenery and college-town pace, remind them of Madison.

There are other reminders of their roots. “I have clogged arteries and a bad heart from all the cheese I ate living in Wisconsin, all the fat that I crammed down my throat,” Mr. Garden said, tapping his chest. “So that’s part of me. You can’t remove it, or it will destroy me.”

In fact, the absence of solid Midwestern comfort food has posed a challenge for the paper’s art department, which requires a certain girthiness of many of the people who pose for the fake news photos.

“Some of our writers, who we would use as body doubles of older Congress people, have started losing weight since we’ve been here,” Chad Nackers, the associate graphics editor, said one afternoon. “That killed us. We used to be able to do Dennis Hastert if we wanted.” And Mike Loew, the graphics editor, chimed in, “Oh, yeah, we had all the options, before everyone started eating sushi and getting all svelte.”

In response, the two have resorted to photographing visiting Wisconsin relatives when they need, say, a woman with a certain hairdo, or a burly man with a large mustache.

NY Times: An Onion uprooted, without tears

I’m not sure who made this juxtaposed editorial decision, but they highlighted an interesting contrast in Southeastern Wisconsin. The Journal Sentinel gave approximately equal space to these two stories on the bottom of its January 2nd frontpage: “Lakeside castles bring a backlash” and “Family center can’t cure all of area’s ills“.

The first story is about a proposed rule restricting the size of waterfront mansions in the Village of Chenequa, in Waukesha County. The caption accompanying the map of Waukesha County reads: “MANSIONS: TOO BIG?”. The second story is about the opening of a new community center in a Milwaukee neighborhood where 86% of the residents live below the poverty line. Both stories continue on page 5B.

These two communities are only 25 miles away.

Just something to think about as we start the new year.

Break out the goofy hats and confetti, The New Vernacular is one year old today! I started out with a little dinky blog on Blogger (a service I highly recommend to anyone wanting to start a blog) and wasted countless hours messing around with html code and templates, searching endlessly for a three-column layout that would suit my needs. I finally broke down in September, purchased some web space, and started thenewvernacular.com using WordPress (a service I highly recommend for anyone looking to blog more than a couple times a month). Considering the success and fun I’ve had writing here, it looks like I’ll be continuing for the forseeable future.

Here’s a look back at the best of TNV from the past 12 months:

The Bush Administration’s plan for fighting terrorists: superheroes

Dear UW Athletic Department…

Eliminate Chapter 220? Bad idea

How is Milwaukee’s school voucher experiment working out?

Bruno’s web site

Blogs and RSS - FAQ

A “Student Bill of Rights”?

What’s up with the gas tax holiday?

Coasties vs. Sconnies: The Reckoning

Debate over Bible study by RA’s at UW - Eau Claire