The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog

May God continue to bless

May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.

— Sen. Robert C. Byrd // “The Arrogance of Power,” March 19, 2003.

And so it begins . . .

Put Your Biscuit in the Basket

Up for some amateur bracketology? Head over to ESPN.com; I’ve set up a page where Green[e]house readers can go head-to-head with their picks for the NCAA men’s tourney. Follow the link, sign up, then make your best guesses — and remember, the group password is ‘trogdor’.

Dean on the War

Courtesy of Stonefishspine, yet again: an official statement — and a stunningly well-put one, at that — from Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on the pending hostilities in Iraq. The full text:

Tonight, for better or worse, America is at war. Tonight, every American, regardless of party, devoutly supports the safety and success of our men and women in the field. Those of us who, over the past 6 months, have expressed deep concerns about this President’s management of the crisis, mistreatment of our allies and misconstruction of international law, have never been in doubt about the evil of Saddam Hussein or the necessity of removing his weapons of mass destruction.

Those Americans who opposed our going to war with Iraq, who wanted the United Nations to remove those weapons without war, need not apologize for giving voice to their conscience, last year, this year or next year. In a country devoted to the freedom of debate and dissent, it is every citizen’s patriotic duty to speak out, even as we wish our troops well and pray for their safe return. Congressman Abraham Lincoln did this in criticizing the Mexican War of 1846, as did Senator Robert F. Kennedy in calling the war in Vietnam “unsuitable, immoral and intolerable.”

This is not Iraq, where doubters and dissenters are punished or silenced — this is the United States of America. We need to support our young people as they are sent to war by the President, and I have no doubt that American military power will prevail. But to ensure that our post-war policies are constructive and humane, based on enduring principles of peace and justice, concerned Americans should continue to speak out; and I intend to do so.

Amen.

A Change of Scene

I feel the need for levity — as Harry Potter said just before the end of Goblet of Fire:

. . . I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few laughs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need them more than usual before long.

In that spirit: heard any good jokes lately? Post to the comments. The best one wins a coveted $50 gift certificate for use at Kozmo.com — so don’t delay, send yours today!

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Speaking of levity, have I got the CD for you: Looking for . . . the Best of David Hasselhoff. Just take a look at this review:

In my left hand is a fava bean; far away, beyond an ocean and half a continent, is Mount Everest, towering into the clouds. David Hasselhoff is, as this album evinces, that mighty peak, and all other musicians — alive or dead and stacked into a pile and rolled into a sphere — are that fava bean. A fava bean, or a favored being, one who has been to the Olympian heights of musical transcendence, and has returned, Moses-like, to Earth to share his melodius bounty — which would you choose: the bean or the being, the fava or the favored?

Fava-licious. But wait — even if that didn’t push you over the edge, who could stay unconvinced after this?

Just as frogs use their eyeballs to help them swallow — just as rabbits turn around and ingest their excreta for one last trip through the gullet — just as a mother earwig cares for her young as tenderly as a hen her chicks — so it is with the call of Hassenfeffer and my heart. It’s an urge as strong and natural as a baboon’s perineal tumefaction that draws me to his croon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I’ve brought David Hasselhoff back with me. Claim your slice of valhalla and order today.

What Homeland Security?

Gosh, I sure feel better now that the White House has set the terror alert level to code orange — after all, since Sept. 11, President Bush has done a bang-up job of beefing up our domestic defenses, right?

Well, no.

The New Republic :: Jonathan Chait // “The Sept. 10 President”:

More dangerous even than the prospect of a chemical attack is the potential for terrorists to capture, or set off, a nuclear weapon. The risk sufficiently alarmed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham — a conservative Bush appointee — that he requested $379.7 million to protect various Energy Department facilities where nuclear weapons are designed, manufactured, and stockpiled. On March 14, 2002, Abraham wrote to Daniels pleading his case. “[W]e are storing vast amounts of materials that remain highly volatile and subject to unthinkable consequences if placed in the wrong hands,” Abraham implored. “[T]he Department now is unable to meet the next round of critical security mission requirements. … Failure to support these urgent security requirements is a risk that would be unwise.”

Apparently this warning failed to move the White House, which approved just $26.4 million for Energy Department security — 7 percent of Abraham’s request. The list of improvements Bush declined to fund included more secure barriers and fences, computer improvements to defend against hackers, equipment to detect explosives in packages and vehicles entering department sites, and a reduction in the overall number of sites that store bomb-grade plutonium and uranium. The department’s chief financial officer, also a Bush appointee, wrote to budget officials in March, “We are disconcerted that OMB refused our security supplemental request. I would have much preferred to have heard this from you personally, and been given an opportunity to discuss, not to mention appeal, your decision.” (Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss defended Bush’s position by arguing, “If we are talking about protecting the entire nuclear world, where does it end? I know we need some measure of security, but is the taxpayer willing to say we gotta have one hundred percent security at every single facility in America?” Chambliss subsequently won a Senate seat by portraying his opponent, triple-amputee, Vietnam veteran Max Cleland, as insufficiently committed to homeland security.)

Nor is the administration’s disregard for safety against nuclear terrorism limited to our own shores. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union left behind a landscape littered with unemployed nuclear scientists and poorly guarded weapons facilities. Because of this, the $1 billion the United States devotes to locking down unsecured nuclear material and scientists in Russia and elsewhere is perhaps the most cost-effective money in the entire federal budget. But it is still not nearly enough. In order to airlift enriched uranium out of Serbia last summe — a needed safety measure by any reasonable calculation — the administration was forced to rely upon private donations (see “Old Guard,” by Michael Crowley, September 9 & 16, 2002). A bipartisan Energy Department study in January 2001 urged raising the budget for such programs to $3 billion — still less than 0.15 percent of the federal budget. Bush, by contrast, last year proposed to cut overseas nuclear security funding by 5 percent and this year proposes less than $100 million of additional funds.

Bush’s stinginess extends even to his own signature initiatives. Last December, the White House unveiled plans to vaccinate 500,000 health care workers against smallpox so they could safely treat a terrorist-induced outbreak. The administration set a 30-day deadline to complete the job, but, after a month, only 4,200 — less than 1 percent — have taken the vaccine. One reason for the low take-up rate is potential side effects: For every one million people inoculated, an estimated 15 or more will suffer blindness, swelling of the brain, or other severe reactions. This has made health care workers particularly reluctant because most of them lack proper insurance to cover the risk of disability or lost wages from such side effects. Hospitals, doctors, and unions have asked the administration to create a compensation fund to cover such contingencies — a notion members of Congress in both parties support. But the administration has refused, with the result that few health care workers have been inoculated. This means that, in the event of a terrorist smallpox attack, many may have second thoughts about treating the victims. Imagine you’re an uninoculated nurse, and there’s a smallpox attack causing hundreds of patients to be rushed to your hospital. Do you care for them — or flee to your home and get out the duct tape?

. . . . Or consider port security. Ninety-five percent of America’s imports get here via sea. Of the containers that make their way through our ports, though, only one in 50 is ever searched. As Stephen Flynn, a former Coast Guard commander who directed the Council on Foreign Relations’ homeland security report, told a TV interviewer last month, “We have virtually no security there.” The Coast Guard has estimated it would cost $1 billion immediately and another $4.5 billion over the next nine years to make domestic ports sufficiently secure. But, since September 11, they’ve received just $318 million. One program, the Container Security Initiative, which would screen cargo at foreign ports, was specifically endorsed by Bush last June. “The Customs Service,” he told an audience in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, “is working with overseas ports and shippers to improve its knowledge of container shipments, assessing risk so that we have a better feel of who we ought to look at, what we ought to worry about.” And yet Bush’s budget provides not one new penny of funding for the program.

Indeed, you could tell a story such as the ones above for any of a dozen homeland security improvements shot down or dramatically underfunded by the Bush administration. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), to cite one more example, has just 14 agents to track down 1,200 illegal immigrants from countries where Al Qaeda has been active. “They just have nowhere near enough people,” James Kallstrom, a former assistant director for the FBI and current security adviser to New York Governor George Pataki, told The New York Times last May. “They need a geometric increase.” INS requested $52 million to hire more agents but was turned down by Bush. Obey’s bill — the one Bush lobbied congressional Republicans to kill — would have boosted funding for all these things, along with FBI computer upgrades, grants to airport security, state health departments, more customs agents, vaccine research, and so on.

The president never wanted a homeland security department anyway — at least at first — but still, the sheer magnitude of the president’s bullheadedness about shoring up our security efforts comes as a shock. To the extent that Bush even has a policy on homeland security, it appears to come down to this: in duct tape we trust.

Cheap WineWhine

How do you take a relentlessly mediocre group of restaurants and make it even more so? Simple: by ordering your sommelier to serve your French wines to the fishes.

Putting patriotism ahead of profits, the owners of three Atlanta-area restaurants will pour a selection of French wines and liquors into local waterways Monday afternoon.

“As of today, Ray’s on the River Seafood House, Killer Creek and Siesta Grill have stopped serving French wines and liquors,” said Raymond Schoenbaum, one of the owners of the Killer Restaurants group. “We are proud to support America. The government of France continues to thwart our efforts to keep peace in the world. We will not support France until they support America. Doing the right thing is more important than money.”

Customers accustomed to wine with their meal won’t have to do without. “There are many great wines from other parts of the world at affordable prices,” said John Ellis, another of the owners. “Our customers may discover wines they enjoy even better.”

Well, there are many great restaurants in all parts of Atlanta at affordable prices — and y’all aren’t among them. I’ll take my business someplace where the owners behave like grown-ups and the bartender serves Pernod, thanks.

A Contest, a Gesture

Courtesy of Stonefishspine: Melanie Goux of Brushstroke.tv has decided to do her bit for peace — such as she can — by prompting us to do our bit through her peace poster competition. It comes complete with prizes — but the greatest prize in all this is the satisfaction that comes from doing a little bit of good. Hats off to her for thinking it up.

Not Necessarily the News . . .

. . . because who wants to talk about that right now?

• Michael Oh — an old acquaintance from high school days — made the Fast Company magazine Fast 50 honors list for 2002 for an ingenious bit of enlightened self-interest: setting up a free wi-fi network for businesses on Boston’s Newbury Street as a publicity-generating move for his Mac-vending business. Kudos to him for getting the press [see also here] — and if you’re in Boston, think about slinging him some business.
• Party like it’s 1984 in the Chuck E. Cheese: ladies and gentlemen, it’s Trogdor the Burninator. [Link courtesy of Tim Jarrett.]
• Slate house comedienne Dahlia Lithwick lives in Charlottesville? Sweet! Some babysitter down there is about to get the privilege of meeting two funny-as-hell kids.
• Courtesy of Idle Words, a timely celebration: that’s right, it’s France Week [or la semaine de France, to put a fine point on it]. It makes a great antidote to the cant coursing through the body politic — and I have to agree when he says that the TGV rocks.
• What, you’re making a big deal about a talking carp? Happens all the time. Mmmm, this is great gefiltefish . . .

Oh, and one more thing: Erin go bragh, y’all. =,

Welcome to Iraq™: a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the G.O.P.

The Bush administration has a crash reconstruction program in store for the Fertile Crescent — inquire within. Nonprofits and U.N.-affiliated institutions need not apply.

Wall Street Journal :: Neil King Jr. // Bush Has an Audacious Plan To Rebuild Iraq Within a Year:

The Bush administration’s audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war’s end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children. . . .

Much of the heaviest work will fall to U.S. companies through a growing web of contracts with the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is expected this week to pick the prime contractor for a $900 million job rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, including highways, bridges, airports and government buildings. The agency is also contracting for five other large jobs, worth a total of between $300 million and $500 million, administering Iraq’s seaport and international airports, revamping its schools and health-care system, and handling large scale logistics such as water transport. The Army Corps of Engineers is also taking bids for work worth up to $500 million for building projects such as roadways and military barracks. Additional contracts to refurbish Iraq’s neglected oil industry would likely be handled through the U.N., which currently administers Iraq’s oil exports.

Four groups of U.S. companies are competing for the $900 million contract, which was put out for bids in secret last month. The companies were picked under rules that allow U.S. agencies to skirt open and competitive bidding procedures to meet emergency needs. All have done government work for years and have deep political ties to Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney once served as head of Halliburton Co., whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is part of one bidding consortium.

Other big bidders are Bechtel Group Inc.; Parsons Corp., which has allied with Brown & Root; and Louis Berger Group and Fluor Corp., which are bidding as a team. These companies made political contributions of a combined $2.8 million between 1999 and 2002, more than two-thirds of which went to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. Bechtel was the largest single donor, having given $1.3 million in political contributions. . . .

The U.S. postwar plans for Iraq, being directed by the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in the Pentagon, are striking in their scope and intended speed. The administration’s plan to rehabilitate the Iraqi school system, for example, envisions the chosen contractor sending in teams to obtain payroll lists and assess teacher salaries just as U.S. military forces secure parts of Iraq, according to a 10-page USAID contract proposal that went out to companies last month. The contract, officials say, could total $100 million, and will cover five pilot programs for “accelerated learning” to be launched within three months, and then rolled out nationwide within 10 months. Only a third of Iraqi children now enroll in secondary school, but within a year the contractor will have “all children back in school.”

I want to be an optimist here, but this beggars belief — after all, we would never have needed a ‘No Child Left Behind’ act if not for the abundance of school systems in the United States that haven’t managed to pull themselves together in spite of efforts that have taken years. And the Bush wants to transform the schools of a country half a world away in a clean ten months? Best of luck.

Lessig on Edwards

Stanford Law intellectual property guru Lawrence Lessig nails what intrigued me about John Edwards when I saw him speak at a reception here two months ago:

He was asked what were the three top issues, and, almost bored with the question, he rattled of the two top issues that his advisors had fed him (no doubt as fed to them by the polls). But much more interesting were the themes that seemed to move his passion. Top among these was the “think about all we have have lost” theme. Again and again he came back to this idea, each time more moving. He described the battle over federal judges; the battle over the Clean Air Act; the budget and tax cuts; the loss of respect and authority in the world. This was a group primed to believe that the Bush administration had been a disaster. But Edwards did something in that small group I can’t yet understand. He made that group feel what we had before simply believed.

Say what you will about the rest of the field — and I can think of a couple of others who might yet knock my socks off — but this man bears watching. If he ends up taking up the Democratic standard against Bush in 2004, I wouldn’t be the least bit displeased.

We Have Nothing to Fear . . .

. . . oh, who am I kidding?

Newsweek :: Fareed Zakaria // The Arrogant Empire:

To support America today in much of the world is politically dangerous. Over the past year the United States became a campaign issue in elections in Germany, South Korea and Pakistan. Being anti-American was a vote-getter in all three places.

Look at the few countries that do publicly support us. Tony Blair bravely has forged ahead even though the vast majority of the British people disagree with him and deride him as “America’s poodle.” The leaders of Spain and Italy face equally strong public opposition to their stands. Donald Rumsfeld has proclaimed, with his characteristic tactlessness, that while “old Europe” — France and Germany — might oppose U.S. policy, “new Europe” embraces them. This is not exactly right. The governments of Central Europe support Washington, but the people oppose it in almost the same numbers as in old Europe. Between 70 and 80 percent of Hungarians, Czechs and Poles are against an American war in Iraq, with or without U.N. sanction. (The Poles are more supportive in some surveys.) The administration has made much of the support of Vaclav Havel, the departing Czech president. But the incoming president, Vaclav Klaus — a pro-American, Thatcherite free-marketer — said last week that on Iraq his position is aligned with that of his people.

Some make the argument that Europeans are now pacifists, living in a “postmodern paradise,” shielded from threats and unable to imagine the need for military action. But then how to explain the sentiment in Turkey, a country that sits on the Iraqi border? A longtime ally, Turkey has fought with America in conflicts as distant as the Korean War, and supported every American military action since then. But opposition to the war now runs more than 90 percent there. Despite Washington’s offers of billions of dollars in new assistance, the government cannot get parliamentary support to allow American troops to move into Iraq from Turkish bases. Or consider Australia, another crucial ally, and another country where a majority now opposes American policy. Or Ireland. Or India. In fact, while the United States has the backing of a dozen or so governments, it has the support of a majority of the people in only one country in the world, Israel. If that is not isolation, then the word has no meaning.

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Fortune :: Janice Revell // Bye-Bye Pension:

Brace yourself for a very un-fairy-tale ending to this story. Millions of American workers are sure to see a large slice of their retirement income go up in smoke. It may not happen right away, but the groundwork is being laid right now. Of course, people have been saying for years (including people at this magazine) that economic necessity — the chasm between the cost of promises made and companies’ ability to keep them — leaves management no choice but to reformulate, rethink, and in some cases renege on post-employment benefits for their workers. What’s new in the past few months is that they’re quietly taking action. The profoundest benefit cuts will happen perhaps a decade or more from now — but you may as well add them to your retirement worry list, alongside those limp 401(k)s, rocketing health-care costs, and underwater stock options (see Is Your Retirement at Risk?).

To some, especially those brought up in the new economy, pensions may seem like a holdover from the days when people envisioned retirement security as a three-legged stool, in which the first two legs are Social Security and household savings. And to be sure, the share of American workers with company pension plans has progressively slipped in each decade — from almost 40% at the beginning of 1980 to about 20% now.

Still, for those in many giant companies — more than 70% of the FORTUNE 500 — pensions remain a very big deal. From the oil-futures trader at Exxon Mobil to the drug researcher at Eli Lilly, the plans cover 23 million active workers and pay more than $111 billion each year to another 21 million who are already retired. One way or another, those benefits are going to be sharply curtailed — whether through a cash-balance conversion or other changes we’ll discuss in a bit. Warns Dave Hilko, a principal and benefits consultant at Deloitte & Touche: “There’s no guarantee on these pension plans any more.”

CNN|Money :: Mark Gongloff // U.S. Jobs Jumping Ship:

As painful as February’s big job cuts were, what’s even more painful is that many of those jobs are never coming back, as U.S. employers in a wide range of industries move more and more jobs overseas.

That’s old news for manufacturers, who have been cutting jobs and moving them offshore for decades, but it’s a trend that’s also starting to gather steam in a number of service industries, especially information technology, formerly one of America’s best-paying industries.

[Indian technology industry association] NASSCOM predicts that the Indian “business process outsourcing” industry — a narrow category that includes customer-support call centers — will export $21 billion to $24 billion worth of services by 2008 and employ more than 1.1 million Indian workers.

Those workers — in one narrow segment of the outsourcing industry in just one country — would replace about 1 million U.S. workers, according to consulting firm Gartner.

“This is not counting the offshore services provided by other countries such as the Philippines, Ireland and Jamaica, or the other IT services that are likely to [use] offshore resources,” a Gartner study said. “The scale of job migration potential is quite significant.”

. . . The Contact Center Association of the Philippines, an industry group for suppliers of customer support call centers, boasts that Filipino workers’ salaries are just a quarter to a fifth of those in the United States, with programmers earning $250 to $700 a month, compared with $1,600 to $3,600 in the U.S., and project managers making $700 to $1,150 a month, compared with $3,600 to $7,100.

Irresistibly lured by such rock-bottom costs, a wide array of companies — including Microsoft, Intel, Citigroup (C: Research, Estimates), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: Research, Estimates), Procter & Gamble (PG: Research, Estimates), AT&T (T: Research, Estimates) and AIG (AIG: Research, Estimates) — all have turned to Filipino companies for call center and other IT services.

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Business Week :: Bruce Nussbaum // The High Price of Bad Diplomacy:

Even if it wins a fig-leaf majority vote in the Security Council, America will be entering its first preemptive war faced with opposition from nearly all of its allies and much of the rest of the planet. A world that rallied to America’s side in unprecedented demonstrations of support after September 11 increasingly perceives the U.S. itself as a great danger to peace. How did things come to this? The failure of the Bush Administration to manage its diplomacy is staggering, and the price paid, even if the war ends quickly, could be higher than anyone now anticipates.

The political effect of this foreign policy imbroglio is already obvious. It can be measured in tattered alliances and global tensions, eroding support for President George W. Bush, and big changes throughout the Middle East. What remains unclear are the economic consequences. In the end, they may be far more significant.

Uncertainty is anathema to investment and growth. Much of the current weakness in the U.S. and the global economy is due to the immediate questions surrounding an Iraq war. Yet the Bush foreign policy of unilateral preemption is so ill-defined and open-ended that it could weigh heavily on the global economy well after the bombing stops. Look at the Administration’s agenda. The war in Iraq will be followed by an occupation that could last years, cost many billions of dollars, and involve tens of thousands of occupying troops. That’s a big price to pay if bungled diplomacy means that the U.S. bears most of the financial burden. Then there’s dealing with North Korea’s rush to build nuclear bombs. And Iran’s play for nukes.

The prospect of America taking on this long list of crises — and perhaps others — with little international support is making people everywhere jittery. They fear that, beyond the war in Iraq, the global economy may be continuously threatened by political and military unrest. It is not a picture conducive to worldwide economic growth and prosperity. The first decade of the new century is beginning to feel like the 1970s, when the turmoil of the Vietnam War cast a long shadow over the U.S. economy.

It may even get worse than that. Chief executives are beginning to worry that globalization may not be compatible with a foreign policy of unilateral preemption. Can capital, trade, and labor flow smoothly when the world’s only superpower maintains such a confusing and threatening stance? U.S. corporations may soon find it more difficult to function in a multilateral economic arena when their overseas business partners and governments perceive America to be acting outside the bounds of international law and institutions.

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I still, mind you, believe in a place called hope. But I’m hardly alone when I state that this president sure as hell doesn’t inspire much of it.

Your Honor, I Strenuously Object

. . . and this is why, back in my salad days as a practicing attorney, I always did my own proofreading.

Call Me Irresponsible

Time to finish the second of two op-eds written in a single afternoon. May I just state, for the record, that procrastination can really, really come back to bite you on the kiester? Thank you very much.

There’s Your Trouble, Mr. Bush

Everybody knows that country artists are just a bunch of mush-headed liberals, right? That must explain this:

And they don’t know when to stop. “Just so you know,” says [Dixie Chicks] singer Natalie Maines, “we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” It gets the audience cheering — at a time when country stars are rushing to release pro-war anthems, this is practically punk rock.

Mind you, this only amounts to a hint — nothing more. Still, when you throw this in with the president’s anemic poll numbers and the increasingly negative conventional wisdom on his performance, my intuition tells me that his base of support has started to rot more than most of us think.

How to Lose a Game of Chicken with the Turks

Speaking of the Ottomans: the bit about the new Turkish government rolling over for a U.S. troop deployment doesn’t seem to be working out so well. Funny, that — apparently, alternating blasts of browbeating and condescension haven’t exactly won us the Turks’ trust. Imagine that.

The Bush administration, of course, has yet to take a lesson from any of this:

If Turkey does not offer its full cooperation before President Bush orders an attack, [administration officials] warned, it risks losing the billions of dollars in aid that the United States has offered and damaging relations with a key ally.

“There’s a concern that their measurements of Washington’s thinking are not accurate,” said a diplomat in Ankara, the capital. “The hope is that Turkey joins the coalition, but time is slipping. The world is moving, and if the world moves to the next stage while Turkey is still waiting, that means Turkey is out.”

The incoming Turkish government, though, still wants assurances that it can squelch any moves toward statehood by the Kurds of northern Iraq — and isn’t willing to take the president’s word on that.

U.S. officials have expressed frustration with Turkey’s requests for further assurances, saying they have repeatedly stated U.S. opposition to a Kurdish state and that there is almost complete agreement on the language of a memorandum of understanding between the two nations about the future of Iraq.

Sedat Ergin, a political analyst and newspaper columnist, said Turkish officials are worried about the U.S. commitment to the agreement. Opposition by Iraqi Kurds to Turkish troops entering northern Iraq, statements from some Kurdish leaders about taking control of critical oil fields in northern Iraq and images of Kurdish protesters burning Turkish flags have led many Turks to ask whether the United States will hold the Kurds in check, he said.

“The United States and Turkey have reached an agreement, but the missing piece is a counterpart agreement between the United States and the Iraqi Kurds,” he said. “Turkey says it wants assurances from Washington, but what would really help are assurances from the Iraqi Kurds.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman foreshadowed all this about two weeks ago. In an op-ed that looks even more relevant today than it did then, he spelled out just what made the Turks feel queasy about settling for a presidential handshake:

So it seems that Turkey wasn’t really haggling about the price, it just wouldn’t accept payment by check or credit card. In return for support of an Iraq invasion, Turkey wanted — and got — immediate aid, cash on the barrelhead, rather than mere assurances about future help. You’d almost think President Bush had a credibility problem.

And he does.

. . . [C]redibility isn’t just about punishing people who cross you. It’s also about honoring promises, and telling the truth. And those are areas where the Bush administration has problems.

Consider the astonishing fact that Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, appears unwilling to cast his U.N. Security Council vote in America’s favor. Given Mexico’s close economic ties to the United States, and Mr. Fox’s onetime personal relationship with Mr. Bush, Mexico should have been more or less automatically in America’s column. But the Mexican president feels betrayed. He took the politically risky step of aligning himself closely with Mr. Bush — a boost to Republican efforts to woo Hispanic voters — in return for promised reforms that would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants. The administration never acted on those reforms, and Mr. Fox is in no mood to do Mr. Bush any more favors.

Mr. Fox is not alone. In fact, I can’t think of anyone other than the hard right and corporate lobbyists who has done a deal with Mr. Bush and not come away feeling betrayed. New York’s elected representatives stood side by side with him a few days after Sept. 11 in return for a promise of generous aid. A few months later, as they started to question the administration’s commitment, the budget director, Mitch Daniels, accused them of “money-grubbing games.” Firefighters and policemen applauded Mr. Bush’s promise, more than a year ago, of $3.5 billion for “first responders”; so far, not a penny has been delivered.

As if to prove Krugman’s point, Mexican president Vicente Fox is still making Bush wait for an answer. [President Bush’s open musing about “a certain sense of discipline” if Fox failed to toe the line hasn’t charmed the Mexican leader as much as he must have hoped.]

The whole spectacle is enough to make me wish I’d been a fly on the wall in the White House operator’s office for the phone call between Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the incoming Turkish premier, just to see the expression on the translator’s face when he translated what Erdogan must have said after hearing Bush ask for a Turkish committment for the umpteenth time: “Mr. President, money talks — bu—sh— walks.”

Calling Bu—sh— on the White House

Josh Marshall:

Speaking for myself, and perhaps for some other internationalists who feel as I do, part of our frustrated anger over the current impasse is watching the present administration traduce and plow under the work of half a century and seeing the administration’s acolytes greet every new disaster and *&$#-up as a grand confirmation of their beliefs and principles. It’s like we’ve been transported into some alternative reality where the debate about international relations is some awful mix of The McLaughlin Group and Lord of the Flies. As these folks should be starting to realize about now, months of this arrogant mumbo-jumbo eventually draws a response — at home and abroad.

As I told a colleague yesterday: if this orgy of overreaching — on matters foreign and domestic — doesn’t end up marking the apex of the modern conservative movement, I’ll eat my shorts.

A Tuba Solo?!

Hey, um, have you heard about the new Strokes album? I don’t think I have either — but when I realized it I hit the floor laughing ‘til it hurt. Read it yourselves; I guarantee it’s the best fake album review you’ll have seen in many an age.

Going Extracurricular

I got into a mood somewhere between nostalgia and whimsy tonight, and you can see the results at Art of the Mix — where I’ve posted some notes about what I still consider the best mixed tape I’ve ever made. Follow the link and enjoy.

I’ll See You a Freedom Chocolate Cake and Raise You a Justice Coffee—

Tapped | The People’s Work:

The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings will change the name of “french fries” to “freedom fries,” a culinary rebuke of France, stemming from anger over the country’s refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq.

Ditto for “french toast,” which will be known as “freedom toast.”

The name changes were spearheaded by two Republican lawmakers who held a news conference Tuesday to make the name changes official on the menus.

Across the country, some private restaurants have done the same.

“This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France,” said Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration.

Boy, it’s a good thing Rep. Ney isn’t a complete idiot. But why stop there? There are so many countries opposing the war that still have foods and drinks named after them, including some, presumably, that are still on the House menu from time to time. German mashed potatoes. Belgian waffles. Dutch chocolate. Swedish meatballs. White Russians. Black Russians. Irish coffee.

And, of course, Turkey. It is a crime against our men and women in uniform — ney, against Americans everywhere — that, come November, they will be forced to celebrate their day of Thanksgiving by dining on this foul bird, no less treacherous than the country after which it is named.

. . . and after I sat down for my morning constitutional — constitutional bacon, freedom toast and a hard-boiled egg with a cup of justice coffee — I took my newspaper, walked through the living room across the brand-new democracy rug, and propped my feet up on the Ottom— er, liberty footstool, feeling the sun on my face and my wife beside me. I gaze into her eyes, she surprises me with a freedom kiss — and life is good.

By Jove, I Think He’s Got It

Spotted in the Eschaton comments section:

I still say the only epithet equivalent to “tax and spend liberal” is “smash and grab conservative.”

As an old friend once told me: “Ladies and gentlemen, meet my new *.sig file.”

“I’m Confused As Hell Right Now . . .”

You know what makes me miss college most? Memories of the joy of obsessing over complete piffle. =,

The Book Concept that Changed the World

I spied a review of a book called Coal in the New York Times yesterday, and it produced a thought — this steady stream of social histories about overlooked staples is starting to get a little clichéd. There’s Mark Kurlansky with his exhaustive tomes on salt and cod; there’s a history of how the potato rescued the Western world; then there’s this book exploring the world-changing powers of tobacco. And that’s not to mention the works on how various Celtic peoples saved civilization.

I want in on this racket — considering its longevity so far, it must be a gold mine. I’ve thought of a staple that everyone uses, that we could hardly contemplate life being the same without — I think I can safely say it changed the world.

What is it? Dirt.

Just imagine the book title: Dirt: How Modest Silicon and Nitrogen-based Molecules Shaped Our Lives. It’s pure genius, I tell you.

All I need now is the book deal. I’ll keep you apprised.

Pentagon: ‘Dirty Bombs are A-Okay’?

Depleted uranium is a bit like recycled sewage sludge — safer than the full-bore variety, but you still wouldn’t want a faceful of it. The Pentagon puts spent uranium to use in a variety of munitions thanks to the armor-piercing power that its density lends it, though — and from the looks of it, its applications are growing broader all the time.

As evidence that the United States is expanding its use of depleted uranium weapons beyond the relatively small 30-millimeter to 120-millimeter armor-piercing bullets and shells used by tanks and tank-killer aircraft in the Gulf and Balkans, weapons watchdogs cite the so-called “bunker-buster” bombs and missiles unleashed on Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has not confirmed the use of uranium or depleted uranium in the bunker-busters, and it has refused to identify the composition of the dense-metal warheads that enable the missiles to penetrate structures deeply buried under earth, steel and reinforced concrete.

But critics such as British researcher Dai Williams contend that only uranium — in one form or another — possesses the density and other characteristics necessary to achieve the penetration levels attributed to such weapons as the 2,000-pound AGM 130C air-to-ground cruise missile, and the guided bomb unit, or GBU, series of laser-guided hard-target penetrators intended to pierce bunkers and other reinforced structures.

Williams and others also claim that patents covering conversion or modification of earlier generation bombs for use as bunker-busters indicate that depleted uranium is being used in these weapons.

For example, the patent application for a narrow-profile version of the BLU-109B bomb (which is delivered by a GBU-24) specifically refers to penetrating bodies made of tungsten or depleted uranium.

“If they’re really using tungsten, why keep it classified?” Williams said. . . .

Depleted uranium has a few drawbacks. It is 40 percent as radioactive as pure uranium and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. In addition, the very volatility that makes it blaze like an atomic furnace upon impact converts a large percentage of the spent projectile into microscopic radioactive oxides that, when borne by the wind, may be inhaled by civilians miles from the battlefield.

Now, I know that terrorists would use radioactive material to poison and sow panic among Americans, while we would employ depleted uranium to speed the liberation of the fair people of Iraq. Still, one has to ask: what would the functional difference be between setting off a dirty bomb in Foggy Bottom and leaving the towns and countryside of Iraq strewn with radioactive dust? And how do the people we’re about to liberate feel about the possibility of our spewing bunker-busting toxins into their air?

Sure, Saddam gasses his own people. But I would think we’d reflect for a moment before launching a war that could incidentally produce hazards almost as deadly.

A Perle of Questionable Wisdom

Richard Perle is the closest thing the Bush administration has to a senseless twit, frankly.

Do I go overboard? Well, perhaps. One can feel secure in viewing playground insults like that as dimly as the barnyard epithets and trash talk that sound more at home on a wrestling broadcast than in, say, the Oxford Union. One might expect a relatively senior government official to understand that as well — right?

Not by the looks of a statement Perle made to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday:

Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.

Oh, really? Seymour Hersh — a terrorist, eh? Ah, yes: I remember it well, how he flew his ink-stained notebooks into the twin towers of Perle’s ego and penchant for mendacity. ‘Twas an act of blood-spilling savagery to rival September 11 itself.

I say that in jest, of course. But I say this with deadly seriousness: come off it, Richard. Having someone write a nasty article about you no more makes that person a terrorist than your statement to the contrary makes you an investigative journalist. Draping yourself in the rhetorical garb of the most wronged victims of our time — those who’ve taken the brunt of real terrorism, the sort that, you know, kills people — is a stunt requiring narcissism and self-pity in such abundant quantities that they probably merit a referral to a psychologist.

Matthew Yglesias has more:

I recall that Blitzer looked truly stunned and didn’t really know what to say. Eventually he came up with this:

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of — why do you say that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he’s widely irresponsible. If you read the article, it’s first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don’t understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can — look, he hasn’t written a serious piece since My Lai.

Given that Perle managed to spin out a response remarkably free of any substance to hang a counterargument on, I’ll have to improvise. But that’s not hard. Having spent time in the Fourth Estate trenches myself, I know that what Perle characterizes as “innuendo” and “distortion” sound remarkably like the time-honored journalistic arts of investigation and interpretation. Investigative journalists such as Hersh have to fall back on them all the time.

Practicing those skills adeptly makes one a terrorist? Please — if that be terrorism, then let us make the most of it. With people like Perle at the center of government, after all, we may need plenty more journalists like Hersh before long.

Hankerin’ for a Sammich

Tim kicked off reminiscences about “great sammiches of all time” on Friday — and really, who can pass up a topic like that? Who among us can’t remember a sandwich we’d love to be able to walk around the corner and get right this second?

These are the greats in my hall of fame:

• Turkey with house dressing on whole-wheat bread at — yep, I cribbed this from Tim — Take It Away in Charlottesville;
• Chicken souvlaki — or, when I’m feeling like a million bucks, chicken with brie, sliced apple, and honey mustard on a croissant — at Café Europa in Charlottesville;
• The Ednam — maple-smoked turkey with avocado, bacon, and mayonnaise — at the Bellair Market, in — guess? — Charlottesville;
• Turkey on a toasted roll with everything at the Potbelly on W. Webster, Chicago;
• The falafel sandwich — sans tobasco sauce — at the Oasis Cafe, stashed in the back of the Wabash Jewelers’ Mall in the shadow of the Chicago Loop el track;
• The catfish po’ boy at the [sadly defunct Midtown location of the] French Quarter Food Shop, Atlanta;
• Chicken salad with grapes and nuts on whole grain bread at The Bread Market on Peachtree, in Atlanta;
• The Cuban sandwich at the Kool Korner Grocery on 14th Street, in Atlanta; and
• Smoked peppered turkey on multigrain bread at Alon’s Bakery on Highland, in Atlanta.

No, wait, one more — when sufficiently tippled, the cheesesteak [and cheerful service!] at Littlejohn’s, in Charlottesville. But not on your life otherwise.

Ego Check

I think I should have skipped taking that ego search on Google a minute ago — I only register as the number 40 ‘Greene’ on the internet, and rank 72nd among people named ‘Greg.’ Curses!

Somebody Call the State House—

Political maven that I am, I have to keep tabs on important dates in the lives of local muckety-mucks — but still, this notice from The Note nearly made me do a spit-take.

Has anybody told Sonny?

Perfect Gentlemen

The Republican Party — according to, well, itself — “is making a renewed effort to win the hearts, minds, and votes of women.” And I’ve seen evidence of the campaign all over the place. Take, for instance, this:

Michael Savage, host of the nationally syndicated “Savage Nation” talk show, is on a tear. A scandal at the Air Force Academy was in the news; several female cadets had complained of sexual harassment, including an alleged rape.

Savage, leaning into the microphone, decides to blame the victim, who said she had been drinking with her male classmates and playing strip poker when the incident occurred.

“If a girl gets drunk and plays strip poker with high-testosterone guys, what does she expect is going to happen,” Savage rages, breaking into a mocking falsetto. “My gawd, I was raped.”

But wait, there’s more:

Abortion rights groups staged a protest Monday at the Georgia Capitol over a bill approved by the Senate last week that would require a mandatory 24-hour wait before the procedure. . .

After nearly six hours of debate, senators passed the bill 34-18, and eliminated a provision that would have exempted disabled women and victims of rape and incest from the waiting period.

Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, angered abortion rights groups when he said during a floor debate that it was “very, very rare for a lady to get pregnant during rape.”

Meanwhile, John Ashcroft has added his voice to the sales pitch:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has decided to reconsider the granting of asylum to a battered Guatemalan woman whose husband has threatened to kill her if she returns to her homeland, a senior Justice Department official has confirmed.

Ashcroft is also considering new gender-persecution regulations for asylum-seekers instead of a proposed set that was left hanging in the final days of the Clinton administration.

The regulations, proposed by Attorney General Janet Reno in December 2000, grew out of the case of the Guatemalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, who said she fled to the United States in 1995 after her husband repeatedly raped her, whipped her with electrical cords, broke windows and mirrors with her head, and vowed to kill her if she tried to leave him.

An immigration judge granted her asylum in 1996, finding that the 10 years of abuse Alvarado suffered and the persistent failure of Guatemalan authorities to protect her entitled her to relief. The Immigration and Naturalization Service appealed and the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals reversed that decision in 1999. The board did not question Alvarado’s credibility, but said in a 10-to-5 ruling that neither the beatings nor her opinions about them qualified her for asylum.

. . . Before leaving office, Reno vacated the board’s decision and proposed regulations that would allow battered women to be granted asylum as members of a social group if they can show government complicity in their suffering. President Bush suspended this and all other pending regulations upon taking office. . .

Alvarado, now 35 and working as a housekeeper for nuns in the San Francisco area, could be forced to return to Guatemala. Her attorney, Karen Musalo, said Friday that three Justice Department sources have told her that Ashcroft intends to reinstate the immigration appeals board decision.

It’s a bit like what former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams (R) once said about bad weather having something in common with rape: “as long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

Êtes-Vous Spongeworthy?

Back by popular demand — it’s . . . well, you know.

Show Me the Money, Mr. President

So, it’s come to this, has it?

WASHINGTON, DC—Amid growing anti-war protests and polls indicating eroding public support for an invasion of Iraq, President Bush is offering U.S. taxpayers a rebate in the amount of $300 if we go to war.

“My proposed tax rebate will serve to stimulate the economy,” said Bush, waving a sample check made out to John Q. Public at a White House press conference Monday. “Americans will get a generous infusion of cash that can be used however they choose — all in return for simply supporting a first strike against Iraq. Now, who wouldn’t want an extra $300 in their pocket next month?” . . .

“The plan is almost identical to the tax rebate offered in 2001,” Bush said. “With the minor exception, of course, of the provision that Americans react favorably to the deployment of 210,000 troops to the Persian Gulf.”

“Which reminds me, have you seen these new iPods?” added Bush, pulling an Apple-brand MP3 player from his pocket and holding it up to the crowd. “It costs $299 for one of these little buggers, but it holds a thousand songs. They’re amazing.”

Hiding Behind the Flag

In a glimpse at the sort of lobbying I don’t like, the Post reports on a California congressman who told corporate flacks to — how to put this? — ask not what they can do for their country:

Days before the House Ways and Means Committee took up an innocuous military bill last month, Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) made an offer to other Republican committee members at their weekly luncheon: prepare a wish list of tax breaks under $100 million each, and they could add them to the measure. . . .

For a small cadre of local companies and one trade association, this was the equivalent of the lobbying mother lode. After years of trying, they would finally have their priorities added to a bill likely to become law — even if there were no guarantees that their amendments would remain intact throughout the legislative process.

The first test will come Thursday when the full House will take up the bill, which was designed to extend several tax benefits to members of the military. If the House accepts the committee’s version, and it survives an eventual conference committee with senators, then racetrack owners and horse breeders would have an easier time enticing foreigners to bet on their races; an alternative type of diesel fuel would get a tax break, and U.S.-made bows and arrows would sell for less.

So the mandarins of the GOP say we have:

• no money to stitch Afghanistan back together;
• no spare change for school districts that educate the children of soldiers in harm’s way; but
• cash aplenty for discount bows and arrows.

And people question Democrats’ love of country?

The Wanderer

‘Cause I’m the type of guy who likes to roam around:

• Dislike the Patriot Act? Well, hey — it could have been worse;
• Um, guys? Saddam Hussein ≠ Osama Bin Laden;
• Apple innovates again — film at 11;
• So, what do you call a volunteer kept working against his will?
• And the prize for most ostentatious invocation of Godwin’s Law goes to . . . ;
• Funny — I thought some of the professors at my law school were possessed by demons; and
• Who needs a tax cut when the deficit keeps on growing all by itself?

You Like Me. You Really Like Me—

Time to celebrate here at the Green[e]house — sometime late Sunday evening, this humble blog played host to its 20,000th visitor. Entertaining that many folks gets tough, I have to say — but y’all manage to keep it fun. Thanks for joining me for the ride.

While I’m here: I jostled around the blogroll last week, making room for some new names and reciprocating some recent permalinks. Thanks to everyone who’s paid me the honor of sending traffic my way recently, including:

• Clancy @ Cyborg Woman;
• Drew @ So Far, So Left;
• Eristic;
• the Expat Egghead;
• Seth Farber @ The Talking Dog;
• Thomas Inskeep;
• South Knox Bubba;
• Stonefishspine;
• Reid Stott @ PhotoDude;
• Tim @ Notes from Atlanta; and
• Matthew Yglesias.

I’d tarry longer — but I hear a box of celebratory Krispy Kremes calling my name. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .

Joke of the Day

So the president goes on vacation [imagine that] at Kennebunkport, and in an idle moment asks Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to join him on the yacht for some fishing. After a few hours on the water, though, a storm blows up out of nowhere — and before Bush can turn the boat back to land, the seas get so choppy that the boat capsizes five miles offshore, tossing all hands into the water without their life jackets.

So — who gets saved?

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut . . .

 . . . and sometimes you don’t. Toss today into the latter category.

I tend to throw myself into my work to fend off boredom or ennui, but one can only keep that up for so long before maxing out. Last week had a few great moments, though — including the annual legislative reception thrown by my technology lobbying clients, where I spent a few minutes joshing around with the lieutenant governor. Last year I spent the duration of the event holding up the wall, waiting for the evening to get overwith — so I’d call this year a marked improvement.

I plan to post some updates about state politics here later in the week. Hope you can all deal with the suspense.