South Titan Government Blog

The Education of David Stockman

2011-12-06T09:20:00.001-06:00

The GOP national security debate in six minutes

2011-11-30T08:32:00.002-06:00

Also, see below the four clips about campaign finance. Citizens United vs. F.E.C. ruling was not 9-0, but actually a 5-4 vote. Conservatives on the court, plus Kennedy formed the 5. The Presidents response to the ruling is posted below.

Reaction: High court strikes campaign finance laws

2010-10-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

Obama Blasts Supreme Court Ruling

2010-10-22T12:40:00.000-05:00

Alito mouths "not true" as Obama criticizes Sup Ct for opening floodgate...

2010-10-22T12:39:00.000-05:00

Explaining the Supreme Court on Campaign Finance

2010-10-21T12:20:00.000-05:00

Unmarried Americans Tend to Be Democrats

2010-09-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

More Americans Say Government Doing Too Much

2010-09-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

Editor in Chief Insights on Obama's Week

2010-09-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

American Girl and Culture Wars

2010-09-20T08:53:00.001-05:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1156543n

Church Attendance Falls Along Party Lines

2010-09-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

Church Attendance Falls Along Party Lines

2010-09-07T09:53:00.001-05:00

2010-09-07T09:51:00.000-05:00

The Articles of Confederation

2010-08-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

Work It Out - Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

2010-08-25T09:52:00.000-05:00

U.S. Combat Troops Leaving Iraq! Live Kuwait - Iraq Border

2010-08-19T12:07:00.000-05:00

Hank Johnson (Congress D-GA) - Warns Guam May Capsize

2010-08-18T09:17:00.000-05:00

Rachael Ray and Marcus Samuelsson at the White House

2010-06-15T06:41:00.000-05:00

West Wing Week: 06/11/10 or " Note to Self"

2010-06-15T06:36:00.000-05:00

The Beijing Blues

2010-06-06T08:27:00.000-05:00

A rising power is plagued by doubts.
By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK

Published Jun 4, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Jun 14, 2010

Over the last few months, foreign diplomats have privately groused to me about a world power's arrogant foreign policy. Except that they're talking about China, not the United States. A senior official from a developing country said, on background so as not to anger Beijing, "Chinese officials used to meet with us with a great sense of solidarity and warmth. Now they read us a list of demands." Diplomats in Beijing report that Chinese officials now treat them differently than they did just a few years ago. One complained that even getting meetings with senior officials had become difficult. "People I used to see routinely now refuse to give me an appointment," one said to me in Beijing last week.

Some of this is understandable. Success breeds confidence, as Americans well know. And China has been very successful. By common consent, the country has come out on top after the global economic crisis. Its massive fiscal stimulus is building a new generation of infrastructure, its banks are stable, its consumers have high savings rates, and the government keeps piling up reserves, which now total almost $2.5 trillion. But in a series of discussions with people in and out of the Chinese government last week, I was struck less by arrogance than by the doubt, uncertainty, and apprehension that seemed to be plaguing the Chinese.

My interlocutors remained confident about the regime's technical ability to handle the economy. While Wall Street frets about an overheating China, most people here seemed sure that the government would be able to adjust to keep growth steady—as it has in the past. Worried about a frothy real-estate market in Beijing? Well, banks have been ordered to stop giving mortgages, and property taxes are set to be raised. Beijingers now cannot buy more than one apartment per family. Once the froth subsides the rules will, in all likelihood, be revoked.

But a series of deeper changes is also underway. China has seen dramatic labor protests in recent weeks, from strikes at a Honda factory to grim accounts of suicide at the vast Foxconn complex, where iPhones are assembled. One scholar calls this "the end of the world-factory model," under which China would be the globe's low-wage manufacturer. "Our economy can't keep squeezing labor benefits because workers are unwilling to accept it," says Chang Kai, director of the Renmin University's Labor Institute.

This is a far cry from the attitude of the government only a few years ago, when officials warned that if Chinese workers asked for pay raises, businesses would move to Vietnam and Cambodia. In 2003 Zhang Zhixiong, deputy chairman of the labor union for Hyundai in Beijing, said, "Strikes in China jeopardize the country's reputation," and promised there would be none. Now Lee Chang-hee, at Beijing's International Labor Office, predicts that unions and collective bargaining are inevitably going to become part of China's landscape, driving up wages.

The quotations in the paragraphs above all come from China Daily, an English-language newspaper published by the government. Nothing like this would have appeared in any language five years ago in China, and the debate gets even more honest in private. A Chinese businessman said to me over lunch in Beijing, "In many ways the financial crisis and the discrediting of the American model has been bad for us. You see, we don't really have an ideology anymore. We don't know what we believe in. We used to think it was some version of the American Dream—liberalize, open up, grow. But then you had your crisis. We can say, it proves we're strong. But where do we go now?"

The angst is being exacerbated by China's ongoing political transition, in which the top leadership will be replaced in two years, and in which for the first time, the new president and premier will have no personal connection with or blessing from Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China. This has broader consequences. China knows it is now a great power and demands that it be respected and listened to. But short of protecting its narrow interests, the regime still doesn't seem sure what it wants internationally. What are its broader foreign-policy goals? Are they allies or rivals of the United States? What kind of a world does it hope to shape?

China is entering a new era, but seems ideologically and operationally ill prepared for it. That might explain why Beijing has been hesitant and halting in its attitudes on nuclear proliferation, North Korea, and Iran. It is less arrogant than ambivalent, something the United States also knows well from its own early history as a great power.

Find this article at
http://services.newsweek.com/id/238598

© 2010

Queen Elizabeth's Role

2010-05-06T11:36:00.001-05:00

Yar'Adua Dead at 83

2010-05-06T11:24:00.001-05:00

U.K. Election Day

2010-05-06T09:49:00.001-05:00

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Ahmadinejad: Bin Laden Is in D.C.

2010-05-06T09:44:00.001-05:00

Tom Friedman on Greece, BP and Terror

2010-05-06T09:39:00.001-05:00

2010-04-28T18:13:00.001-05:00

2010-04-27T09:42:00.000-05:00

Obama Budget Cuts Visualization

2010-04-26T09:09:00.000-05:00

2010-04-16T12:43:00.001-05:00

U.K. Elections Site

2010-04-07T13:05:00.002-05:00

Click here for The Times interactive 2010 U.K. election site

Gordon Brown makes constitutional reform overture to Lib Dems - Times Online#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

2010-04-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

Gordon Brown makes constitutional reform overture to Lib Dems - Times Online#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

2010-04-07T12:53:00.001-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

2010-04-07T12:49:00.001-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Political Implications of the Moscow Terror Bombings

2010-04-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

Political Implications of the Moscow Terror Bombings

2010-04-07T10:04:00.001-05:00

2010-03-31T20:56:00.001-05:00

2010-03-31T20:49:00.001-05:00

The Day the War Came Back to Moscow - By Anna Nemtsova | Foreign Policy

2010-03-31T20:45:00.000-05:00

The Day the War Came Back to Moscow - By Anna Nemtsova | Foreign Policy

What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?

2010-03-31T20:36:00.001-05:00

By ROBERT A. PAPE, LINDSEY O'ROURKE and JENNA McDERMIT
Published: March 30, 2010
Chicago

ALMOST every month for the past two years, Chechen suicide bombers have struck. Their targets can be anything from Russian soldiers to Chechen police officers to the innocent civilians who were killed on the subway in Moscow this week. We all know the horror that people willing to kill themselves can inflict. But do we really understand what drives young women and men to strap explosives on their bodies and deliberately kill themselves in order to murder dozens of people going about their daily lives?

Chechen suicide attackers do not fit popular stereotypes, contrary to the Russian government’s efforts to pigeonhole them. For years, Moscow has routinely portrayed Chechen bombers as Islamic extremists, many of them foreign, who want to make Islam the world’s dominant religion. Yet however much Russia may want to convince the West that this battle is part of a global war on terrorism, the facts about who becomes a Chechen suicide attacker — male or female — reveal otherwise.

The three of us, in our work for the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, have analyzed every Chechen suicide attack since they began in 2000, 42 separate incidents involving 63 people who killed themselves. Many Chechen separatists are Muslim, but few of the suicide bombers profess religious motives. The majority are male, but a huge fraction — over 40 percent — are women. Although foreign suicide attackers are not unheard of in Chechnya, of the 42 for whom we can determine place of birth, 38 were from the Caucasus. Something is driving Chechen suicide bombers, but it is hardly global jihad.

As we have discovered in our research on Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, suicide terrorist campaigns are almost always a last resort against foreign military occupation. Chechnya is a powerful demonstration of this phenomenon at work.

In the 1990s, the rebels kicked out tens of thousands of Russian troops who had been sent to the region to prevent Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation, from declaring independence. In 1999, the Russians came back — this time with more than 90,000 troops — and waged a well-documented scorched-earth campaign, killing an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 civilians out of a population of about 1 million. Ordinary guerrilla tactics and hostage-taking — the keys to ousting the Russians the first time — now got the rebels nowhere. New tactics were employed and women were central from the start.

On June 7, 2000, two Chechen women, Khava Barayeva and Luiza Magomadova, drove a truck laden with explosives into a Russian special forces building in Alkhan-Yurt, Chechnya; while the Russians insist only two soldiers were killed, the Chechen rebel claim of more than two dozen fatalities seems more likely.

This was the first Chechen suicide attack and showed the many advantages of female suicide bombers. They were deadly, as Chechen female attackers generally are, killing an average of 21 people per attack compared to 13 for males. Perhaps far more important, they could inspire others to follow in their footsteps, women and men alike.

Ms. Barayeva made a martyr video, as many suicide bombers do before their attacks. While warning Russia that she was attacking for Chechen independence, she also directed a powerful message clearly meant to provoke men to make similar sacrifices out of a sense of honor. She pleaded for Chechen men to “not take the woman’s role by staying at home”; so far, 32 men have answered her call.

Just as important, Ms. Barayeva is considered responsible for inspiring a movement of “black widows” — women who have lost a husband, child or close relative to the “occupation” and killed themselves on missions to even the score. In total, 24 Chechen females ranging in age from 15 to 37 have carried out suicide attacks, including the most deadly — the coordinated bombings of two passenger flights in August 2004 that caused 90 deaths and (according to Russian authorities) the subway blasts on Monday that killed nearly 40.

The bombers’ motives spring directly from their experiences with Russian troops, according to Abu al-Walid, a rebel leader who was killed in 2004. “These women, particularly the wives of the mujahedeen who were martyred, are being threatened in their homes, their honor [is] being threatened,” he explained in a video that appeared on Al Jazeera. “They do not accept being humiliated and living under occupation.”

And female suicide attackers have one more advantage: They can often travel inconspicuously to their targets. A July 2003 investigative report by the Russian news magazine Kommersant-Vlast found that a potential female suicide bomber could easily avoid public suspicion. Just days after a Chechen suicide bomber, Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, tried but failed to blow up a Moscow cafe in 2003, one of the magazine’s journalists — wearing a niqab, tightly clutching a black satchel to her chest, and behaving in a nervous manner — was able to get a table at the same cafe without ever being questioned. Perhaps not surprisingly, Chechen women have carried out 8 of the 10 suicide attacks in Moscow.

Although we are still learning the details of Monday’s bombings, there were warnings that a major attack in Russia was coming. Twice this year one of Chechnya’s leading rebel commanders, Doku Umarov, issued video statements warning of attacks in Russia proper. “The Russians think the war is distant,” he said. “Blood will not only spill in our towns and villages but also it will spill in their towns ... our military operations will encompass the entirety of Russia.” He also made clear that his campaign was not about restoring any Islamic caliphate, but about Chechen independence: “This is the land of our brothers and it is our sacred duty to liberate these lands.”

With so many Chechen suicide attacks, one could easily be forgiven for being skeptical about the prospects for a lasting peace. Yet, a closer examination of the conflict’s history suggests solutions that both sides may be able to accept.

The trajectory of Chechnya’s suicide campaign reveals a stark pattern: 27 attacks from June 2000 to November 2004, no attacks until October 2007, and 18 since. What explains the three-year pause?

The answer is loss of public support in Chechnya for the rebellion, for two reasons. The first was revulsion against the 2004 Beslan school massacre in which Chechen rebels murdered hundreds of Russian children. “A bigger blow could not have been dealt on us,” one of the separatists’ spokesmen said at the time. “People around the world will think that Chechens are beasts and monsters if they could attack children.” Second, the Russians pursued a robust hearts-and-minds program to win over the war-torn population. Military operations killed significantly fewer civilians. Amnesty was granted to rebel fighters and nearly 600 Chechen separatists surrendered in 2006 alone.

Unfortunately, the Russians then over-reached. Starting in late 2007, Moscow pressured the pro-Russian Chechen government of Ramzan Kadyrov to stamp out the remaining militants. It complied, pursuing an ambitious counterterrorism offensive with notably harsh measures of its own.

Suspected rebels were abducted and imprisoned, their families’ houses were burned, and there were widespread accusations of forced confessions and coerced testimony in trials. An investigation by The Times in February 2009 reported claims of extensive torture and executions under the Kadyrov administration, and detailed “efforts by Chechnya’s government to suppress knowledge of its policies through official lies, obstruction and witness intimidation.” There is one more riddle to explain: Why did the current wave of Chechen suicide attacks gain force in the spring of 2009 after Russia announced an end of all its military operations in Chechnya? Because the Kadyrov government’s counterterrorism measures had grown so harsh that some had actually begun to view Moscow as a moderating force in the region.

Still, the picture is clear: Chechen suicide terrorism is strongly motivated by both direct military occupation by Russia and by indirect military occupation by pro-Russia Chechen security forces. Building on the more moderate policies of 2005 to 2007 might not end every attack, but it could well reduce violence to a level both sides can live with.

Because the new wave of Chechen separatists see President Kadyrov as a puppet of the Kremlin, any realistic solution must improve the legitimacy of Chechnya’s core social institutions. An initial step would be holding free and fair elections. Others would include adopting internationally accepted standards of humane conduct among the security forces and equally distributing the region’s oil revenues so that Chechnya’s Muslims benefit from their own resources.

No political solution would resolve every issue. But the subway attacks should make clear to Russia that quelling the rebellion with diplomacy is in its security interests. As long as Chechens feel themselves under occupation — either directly by Russian troops or by their proxies — the cycle of violence will continue wreaking havoc across Russia.

Robert A. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Lindsey O’Rourke is a doctoral student there, and Jenna McDermit is an undergraduate majoring in anthropology.

2010-03-26T17:16:00.001-05:00

2010-03-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

Dmitry Gets No Respect

President Dmitry Medvedev plays an unconvincing tough guy. And the more he tries to act tough, the weaker he looks.

Cheap in America: Stingy Americans? - ABC News

2010-03-24T14:14:00.000-05:00

Cheap in America: Stingy Americans? - ABC News

Cheap in America : Who Gives More? - ABC News

2010-03-24T14:07:00.000-05:00

Cheap in America : Who Gives More? - ABC News

The War on Drugs is Doomed

2010-03-23T14:09:00.001-05:00

They say that the first step in dealing with a problem is acknowledging that you have one. It is therefore good news that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation to Mexico tomorrow to talk with officials there about efforts to fight the mob violence that is being generated in Mexico by the war on drugs. U.S. recognition of this shared problem is healthy.

But that's where the good news is likely to end.

Violence along the border has skyrocketed ever since Mexican President Felipe Calderón decided to confront the illegal drug cartels that operate there. Some 7,000 troops now patrol Juárez, a city of roughly one million. Yet even militarization has not delivered the peace. The reason is simple enough: The source of the problem is not Mexican supply. It is American demand coupled with prohibition.

It is doubtful that this will be acknowledged at tomorrow's meeting. The drug-warrior industry, which includes both the private-sector and a massive government bureaucracy devoted to "enforcement," has an enormous economic incentive to keep the war raging. In Washington politics both groups have substantial influence. So it is likely that we are going to get further plans to turn Juárez into a police state with the promise that more guns, tanks, helicopters and informants can stop Mexican gangsters from shoving drugs up American noses.

Last week's gangland-style slaying of an unborn baby and three adults who had ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez has drawn attention to Mrs. Clinton's trip. The incident stunned Americans. Yet tragic as they were, statistically those four deaths don't create even a blip on the body-count chart. The running tally of drug-trafficking linked deaths in Juárez since December 2006 is more than 5,350. There has also been a high cost to the city's economy as investors and tourists have turned away.

Even with low odds of a productive outcome, though, Mexico can't afford to write off tomorrow's meeting. It is an opportunity that, handled correctly, could provide for a teachable moment. I suggest that one or two of Mexico's very fine economists trained at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman sit down with President Obama's team to explain a few things about how markets work. They could begin by outlining the path that a worthless weed travels to become the funding for the cartel's firepower. In this Econ 101 lesson, students will learn how the lion's share of the profit is in getting the stuff over the U.S. border to the American consumer. In football terms, Juárez is first and goal.

Mexico hasn't always been an important playing field for drug cartels. For many years cocaine traffickers used the Caribbean to get their product to their customers in the largest and richest market in the hemisphere. But when the U.S. redoubled its efforts to block shipments traveling by sea, the entrepreneurs shifted to land routes through Central America and Mexico.

Mexican traffickers now handle cocaine but traditional marijuana smuggling is their cash cow, despite competition from stateside growers. In a February 2009 interview, then-Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told me that half of the cartel's annual income was derived from marijuana.

This is especially troubling for Mexican law enforcement because marijuana use, through medical marijuana outlets and general social acceptance, has become de facto legal in the U.S., and demand is robust. The upshot is that consumption is cool while production, trafficking and distribution are organized-crime activities. This is what I called in a previous column, "a stimulus plan for Mexican gangsters."

The Americas in the News
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
In much of the world, where institutions are weak and folks are poor, the high value that prohibition puts into drugs means that the thugs rule. Mr. Medina Mora told me in the same 2009 interview that Mexico estimated the annual cash flow from U.S. drug consumers to Mexico at around $10 billion, which of course explains why the cartels are so well armed and also able to grease the system. It also explains why Juárez is today a killing field.

Supply warriors might have a better argument if the billions of dollars spent defoliating the Colombian jungle, chasing fast boats and shooting down airplanes for the past four decades had reduced drug use. Yet despite passing victories like taking out 1980s kingpin Pablo Escobar and countless other drug lords since then, narcotics are still widely available in the U.S. and some segment of American society remains enthusiastic about using them. In some places terrorist organizations like Colombia's FARC rebels and al Qaeda have replaced traditional cartels.

There is one ray of hope for innocent victims of the war on drugs. Last week the Journal reported that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were questioning members of an El Paso gang about their possible involvement in the recent killings in Juárez. If the escalation is now spilling over into the U.S., Americans may finally have to face their role in the mess. Mrs. Clinton's mission will only add value if it reflects awareness of that reality.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

Nigeria: Good Luck Charms

2010-03-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

Click Here for Article

Al-Qaeda in Nigeria: Grazing in the Sahara

2010-03-17T12:01:00.000-05:00

Al-Qaeda in Nigeria: Grazing in the Sahara

Twitter doesn’t start a revolution, people do / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

2010-03-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

Twitter doesn’t start a revolution, people do / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

Is Goodluck Jonathan the Answer to Nigeria's Woes?

2010-03-17T11:53:00.000-05:00

Is Goodluck Jonathan the Answer to Nigeria's Woes?

Will Nigeria Survive?

2010-03-17T11:43:00.002-05:00

By Gwynne Dyer

There are notable differences between Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, and Umaru Yar'Adua, the current president (more or less) of Nigeria.

For one thing, Yar'Adua did not found the League of Nations or win the Nobel Peace Prize, whereas Wilson did.

For another, Wilson was the president of Princeton University before he entered politics, whereas Umaru Yar'Adua's highest academic post was a lecturer in chemistry at the College of Arts, Science and Technology in Zaria, Kaduna State. But there is one striking similarity between the two men.

In 1919, about halfway through his second term as president, Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side and blind in his left eye. He never recovered sufficiently to resume carrying out the duties of the president ― but almost nobody knew it at the time.

Wilson's wife Edith safeguarded his position by allowing almost nobody else access to him for the last 17 months of his term. Even the vice-president and the cabinet almost never got in to see him. In effect, it was she who acted as the country's chief executive.

More recently, last November, President Yar'Adua unexpectedly left Nigeria for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia ― and didn't come back. He had made no arrangements for the vice-president to take over his duties while he was gone, but he remained abroad for three months, in a hospital bed and virtually incommunicado, while the business of government was paralyzed in Africa's most populous country.

Very little information was released about the precise nature of his illness, either. He already had serious kidney problems, but this time it was said that he had been struck down by acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart.

As the weeks passed and the unmade decisions piled up in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, suspicions grew that he was on life support and might never resume power again.

Finally, last month, the Nigerian Senate declared that Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan should become the acting president and carry out Yar'Adua's duties until such time as he might recover.

Soon afterwards Yar'Adua was flown back into Nigeria and driven to the presidential villa in the middle of the night.

Statements by his aides pointedly refer to ``Vice-President" Jonathan, implying that Yar'Adua is back in charge.

However, he spent his first week home in the back of an ambulance, while an intensive care facility was built inside the presidential villa.

His wife Turai has taken control of his agenda, and is allowing almost nobody in to see him. Even Goodluck Jonathan has been turned away repeatedly.

Yar'Adua's return, however incapacitated he may be, has severely undermined Jonathan's ability to take major decisions. He may be the acting president, but he cannot actually act. And so the paralysis in Nigeria deepens.

What is really going on here is the latest round in the perpetual power struggle among Nigeria's ultra-rich elites.

Political power matters greatly to them, since their wealth mainly derives from stealing the resources of the state, and in practice the competition is between the northern elite, who are Muslim, and the southern elite, who are Christian. Yar'Adua is a Muslim; Jonathan is a Christian.

It is a competition that has sometimes come close to tearing the country apart, and the animosities it generates play out at street level in the form of occasional massacres that seem to be religious in motivation.

Mass murders of Christian villagers in Plateau state early this month, for example, were probably retaliation for a similar mass killing of Muslims in January ― and the tit-for-tat massacres actually go back for many years.

But neither at the national nor at the village level is this struggle really about religious differences.

The desperate attempt to keep a (probably comatose) Umaru Yar'Adua in power is happening because replacing him in mid-term with Goodluck Jonathan violates a gentleman's agreement in the ruling party that Muslim and Christian leaders should alternate in power so that everybody who matters gets a fair turn at the trough.

Similarly, the massacres in Plateau state, which lies on the border between northern, Muslim Nigeria and the southern, Christian half of the country, are actually due to a conflict over land between the local farmers (whose Berom ethnic group happens to be Christian), and Fulani-speaking pastoralists who happen to be Muslim.

A struggle for power at the top, a struggle for land at the bottom, both defined as Muslims vs. Christians: It sounds like a formula for breaking Nigeria in two.

But it will probably never happen so long as Nigerian politics remains a conspiracy of the rich against the poor.

The northern elite plays the Muslim card repeatedly to preserve its monopoly of power in the northern states, but it will never stop collaborating with the southern elite to maintain the status quo, because all the oil is in the south.

The two groups compete fiercely over the division of the spoils, but if the north ever really seceded from Nigeria, the northern elite would lose its access to the oil revenues that keep it rich.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

2010-03-16T09:18:00.001-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

2010-03-15T09:37:00.001-05:00

Nigerian President Returns

2010-03-15T09:14:00.001-05:00

Nigerian President Article from BBC

2010-03-14T09:32:00.001-05:00

2010-03-14T09:30:00.001-05:00

2010-03-09T09:14:00.001-06:00

Need Help Before Your Test?

2010-03-07T17:52:00.000-06:00

2010-03-07T17:43:00.001-06:00

Mexican drug gangs use U.S. national parks as pot fields

2010-03-05T11:44:00.000-06:00

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. (AP) — Not far from the waterfalls of Yosemite and in the middle of California’s redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

Marijuana has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards and tripwires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than 30 tons of pot a year.

“Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they’ve gone to mega, monster gardens,” said Brent Wood, a supervisor in the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. He said Mexican traffickers have “supersized” the marijuana trade.

Interviews conducted by the Associated Press with law enforcement officials across the country found that Mexican gangs are largely responsible for a spike in large-scale marijuana farms over the past several years.

Local, state and federal agents found about a million more pot plants each year between 2004 and 2008, and authorities estimated that 75 percent to 90 percent of the new marijuana farms can be linked to Mexican gangs.

In 2008 alone, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, police across the country confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million plants from about 20,000 outdoor plots.

Growing marijuana in the United States saves traffickers the risk and expense of smuggling pot across the border and allows gangs to produce crops closer to local markets.

Distribution also becomes less risky. Once the marijuana is harvested and dried on the hidden farms, drug gangs can drive it to major cities, where it is distributed to street dealers and sold along with pot that was grown in Mexico.

About the only risk to the Mexican growers, experts say, is that a stray hiker or hunter could stumble onto a hidden field.

The remote plots are nestled under the cover of thick forest canopies in places such as Sequoia National Forest, or hidden high in the rugged-yet-fertile Sierra Nevadas. Others are secretly planted on remote stretches of Texas ranchland.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where growers can take the time needed to grow far more potent marijuana. Farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants, and the use cloned female plants to reduce the amount of seed in the bud that is dried and eventually sold.

Mexican gang plots can often be distinguished from those of domestic-based growers, who usually cultivate much smaller fields with perhaps 100 plants and no security measures.

Some of the fields tied to the drug gangs have as many as 75,000 plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually, according to federal data reviewed by the AP.

Sequoia National Forest in central California is covered in a patchwork of pot fields, most of which are hidden along mountain creeks and streams, far from hiking trails. It’s the same in the nearby Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood National Parks.

Even if they had the number of people necessary to police the vast wilderness, authorities say terrain and weather conditions often keep them from finding the farms, except accidentally.

Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives. The plots are patrolled by guards brandishing machine guns who survey the perimeter from the ground and from perches high in the trees.

The farms are growing in sophistication and are increasingly cultivated by illegal immigrants, many of whom have been brought to the United States from Michoacán state.

Growers once slept among their plants, but many of them now have campsites up to a mile away equipped with separate living and cooking areas.

“It’s amazing how they have changed the way they do business,” Wood said. “It’s their domain.”

Drug gangs have also imported marijuana experts and unskilled labor to help find the best land or build irrigation systems, Wood said.

Moyses Mesa Barajas had just arrived in eastern Washington state from Michoacán when he was approached to work in a pot field. He was taken almost immediately to a massive crop hidden in the Wenatchee National Forest, where he managed the watering of the plants.

He was arrested in 2008 in a raid and sentenced to more than six years in federal prison. Several other men wearing camouflage fled before police could stop them.

“I thought it would be easy,” Barajas told the AP in a jailhouse interview. “I didn’t think it would be a big crime.”

Scott Stewart, vice president for tactical intelligence at Stratfor, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas, said recruiters look for people who still have family in Mexico so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working — and to keep them quiet.

“If they send Jose from the hometown and Jose rips them off, they are going to go after Jose’s family,” Stewart said. “It’s big money.”

When the harvest is complete, investigators say, pot farm workers haul the product in garbage bags to drop-off points that are usually the same places where they get resupplied with food and fuel.

Agents routinely find the discarded remnants of camp life when they discover marijuana fields. It’s not uncommon to discover pots and pans, playing cards and books, half-eaten bags of food and empty beer cans.

But the growers leave more than litter to worry about. They often use animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers.

Because of the tree cover, armed pot farmers have a tactical advantage over law enforcement agents.

“They know the terrain better than we do,” said Lt. Rick Ko, a drug investigator with the Sheriff’s Office in Fresno, Calif. “Before we even see them, they can shoot us.”

“If we are getting 40 to 50 percent (of fields), I think we are doing well,” said Michigan State Police 1st Lt. Dave Peltomaa. “I really don’t think we are close to 50 percent. We don’t have the resources.”

Vast amounts of pot are still smuggled into the United States from Mexico. Federal officials report nearly daily hauls of several hundred to several thousand pounds seized along the border. But drug agents say the boom in domestic growing is a sign of diversification by traffickers.

Officials say arrests of farmers are rare, though the Sheriff’s Office in Fresno did nab more than 100 suspects during two weeks of raids last summer. But when field hands are arrested, most tell authorities only about their specific job.

When asked who hired him, Mesa repeatedly told an AP reporter, “I can’t tell you.”

Washington State Patrol Lt. Richard Wiley said hired hands either do not know who the boss is or are too frightened to give details.

“They are fearful of what may happen to them if they were to snitch on these coyote people,” Wiley said of the recruiters and smugglers who bring marijuana farmers into the country. “That’s organized crime of a different fashion. There’s nothing to gain from (talking), but there’s a lot to lose.”

Border Corssing Tourism?

2010-03-03T20:09:00.000-06:00

Is Global Democracy in Retreat?

2010-03-03T10:16:00.000-06:00

Is Global Democracy in Retreat?

Legalization of Drugs

2010-03-02T14:52:00.003-06:00

In the U.S. one of the most commonly talked about subjects in politics is the legalization of drugs. The illegal use of drugs in the U.S. has been outlawed since the 20th century. This ban on illegal substances has lead to many consequences for the country such as violence, crime, and the "War on Drugs." These consequences not only harm the economy, but they also harm the lives of citizens.

The most popularly used illegal substance is a plant called marijuana. It goes by many other names such as "weed" or "bud" or even "grass." Smoking of marijuana was popular during the 1970's when the Vietnam War was going on and it was being protested against. Other illegal substances include cocaine (popular during the 1980's,) heroin, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs. The abuse of these substances can cause major brain damage and other damage to the body. Many of these drugs are highly addictive and ruin the lives of the users once they are hooked.

The United States is at a "war on drugs" with drug dealers and suppliers because of the distribution of marijuana to the states from Mexico. Marijuana is illegally smuggled into the U.S. and sold amongst drug dealers.

If the government legalized any substance it should be marijuana. It is the least lethal of all the substances banned in the U.S. and they would be able to profit off of it. The government could allow companies to sell the drug to people at a controlled potency that would be safe for the consumer and they would be able to safely obtain it. This would help the government because then they could tax the sales and gain revenue. Also this would stop the need for it to be smuggled into the United States from Mexico. This then would lower the crime and violence rate.

Other substances I believe though should always be outlawed like heroin and methamphetamine because of the effects they have on the body and the people around the users of them. If any substances were to be legalized, it should be marijuana.

The government legalizing the sale of marijuana would cause less crime, violence, and smuggling in the U.S. They would not only lower those rates, but also make revenue off the taxes on the drug.

Herkenham, M. "InfoFacts: Marijuana". NIDA. 2-28-10 http://www.drugabuse.gov/Infofacts/marijuana.html.

Pope, HG. "Marijuana". Drug Information Online. 2-28-10 http://www.drugs.com/search.php?searchterm=marijuana&is_main_search=1.

Melis, M. "Heroin". streetdrugs.org. 2-28-10
http://www.streetdrugs.org/eShop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=1040

Melis, M. "Cocaine - Crack Cocaine". streetdrugs.org. 2-28-10
http://www.streetdrugs.org/eShop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=1030

Melis, M. "Methamphetamine". streetdrugs.org. 2-28-10
http://www.streetdrugs.org/html%20files/Methamphetamine.html.

Why Mexico's Voters Turned Back to the Future

2010-03-01T14:18:00.000-06:00

Why Mexico's Voters Turned Back to the Future

Cortés’s regime change was good for Mexico | Hugh Thomson - Times Online

2010-03-01T14:14:00.000-06:00

Cortés’s regime change was good for Mexico | Hugh Thomson - Times Online

Remittances Down in Mexico

2010-03-01T09:45:00.001-06:00

Teen Brain Development

2010-03-01T09:42:00.000-06:00

In Britain, a Gift Registry for Divorces

2010-02-28T08:22:00.000-06:00

In Britain, a Gift Registry for Divorces

Study: Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives?

2010-02-28T08:19:00.000-06:00

Study: Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives?

Not Labour v Tory, but Gordon v Dave

2010-02-28T08:03:00.003-06:00

Today, at the Tories' spring conference in Brighton, David Cameron will deliver what will be widely and hysterically trailed as the "speech of his life". Well, he's delivered a fair few of those in the past four years, and he certainly has a talent for the genre. The Tory leader has grown used to the hyperbole that precedes such performances. Which is not to say that he is blasé about today's address. Far from it: this will be a speech without notes, and – given the Tories' position in the opinion polls – it has to be a belter.

What has gone wrong, and how bad is it? Here we have a Prime Minister plausibly accused of intimidating his junior staff, and a serving Chancellor of the Exchequer willing to declare (in a remarkable interview with Jeff Randall on Sky) that his boss unleashed the "forces of hell" upon him in August 2008 as punishment for telling the truth about the economic crisis. Last month, Gordon Brown fought off yet another coup attempt – the fourth or fifth of his brief premiership, depending upon how you are counting. Although microscopic growth has returned, the painful symptoms of recession are still being felt across the land. Against such a background, oughtn't the Conservative Party to be 20 points ahead in the polls, rather than six or seven?

Lord Mandelson – using language that only he could get away with – accused the Tories of "willy wobbling all over the place". While the Cameroons would certainly deny any such "wobbling", they make little attempt in private to conceal their concern about the polls so close to election day – a mere 66 days, assuming Gordon goes to the country on May 6. Indeed, it would be odd if they were not concerned. For an Opposition on the brink of office, after many years in the wilderness, the polls at this stage are meant to be the calming influence that stops them going crazy with nerves. No such luck for the Tories in 2010: this one is going to the wire.

The manifest danger for the party is that all manner of false conclusions will be drawn from the narrowing of the polls. As ever, the poll wobble is being used to attack the modernising strategy that (as is so easily forgotten) got the party back into contention after three comprehensive general election defeats. Not enough tough promises, say others. It is important that the Conservatives have a plausible fiscal policy, but I very much doubt that an even longer list of the spending cuts they intend to make will improve their poll position.

Imagine Pete and Dud at the pub.

Pete: You know, Dud. These Tories wouldn't know a Laffer Curve if it crossed the road to punch them.

Dud: Too right, Pete. And I'll tell you something for nothing.

Pete: What's that then, Dud?

Dud: Until those Bullingdon boys produce a list of spending efficiencies
of the sort that will preserve Britain's triple-A credit rating, rather than the paltry £7 billion cuts that Osborne came up with at the last conference ...

Pete: Only £7 billion! It's a bleedin' insult!

Dud: Yeah. Until they do that, I'm sticking with the Natural Law Party.

Pete: As well you should, Dud. As well you should, etc etc.

Officially, at least, the two main parties have arrived at the same analysis. In his campaign launch speech last weekend, the PM said that the coming contest was not a referendum on the past but "a big choice; a choice about who's best for Britain's future". In an article in yesterday's Times, George Osborne agreed, using slightly different language, that the election had to be more than "a referendum on the Labour Party" and must instead be "a choice between five more years of Gordon Brown, or change with David Cameron and the Conservatives".

This, it has long seemed to me, is the clearest and most obvious route to victory for the Tories, but not one they have explicitly and unambiguously embraced until now. Whenever I give a presentation on politics, I use what I call my Kent Dorfman slide. There is a scene in National Lampoon's Animal House, you may recall, when the Delta House pledge committee is considering its candidates: up comes the slide of Kent "Flounder" Dorfman's pudgy features, and the entire room erupts in horror, objects are thrown, people scream. That is pretty much the effect that Gordon Brown's picture now has on an audience.

The question the Tories should urge the voters to ask when they go into the polling booth is not "Labour or Tory?" but "Cameron or Brown?". Last week's ICM poll in The Guardian showed that the Conservatives had fallen to 37 points, only seven ahead of Labour. But when the same respondents were asked who would make the best Prime Minister, Cameron soared to 42 per cent, way ahead of Brown on 28 per cent. The lesson is that the Tories have a positive interest in running this election as a battle between two quasi-presidential candidates, rather than between two national political movements.

Some of Mr Cameron's colleagues feel he has been a bit diffident, a bit distracted in recent days. They should perhaps bear in mind that last Thursday was the first anniversary of the death of his son, Ivan – a milestone that would leave the strongest of men subdued and introspective.

What is true, as Janet Daley argues (left), is that the Tory leader has to exude a clearer urgency of mission in his speech today: the "fierce urgency of now" as Barack Obama put it on the campaign trail, echoing Martin Luther King. There is a longing for a simple, authentic statement of leadership. "We need to see 'Dave Unplugged'," as one of his advisers puts it. And how much more so in the three television debates between the party leaders.

This will be a volatile election, thrillingly so. I am not sure the public is in the mood to let anyone "seal the deal" just yet: the sky-high disgrace of the expenses scandal saw to that. This time, the electorate will make Cameron sweat until the last vote is counted: there will be no Blairesque moment of national acclamation, no long-choreographed festival on the morning after the election. In these poll figures, the punters are sending the Tory leader a clear and impatient signal. They want to see him match their fury, to be their tribune: not the smooth spokesman of an alternative elite, or a scandalised economist, obsessed only with the detail of the deficit. They want a rebel leader, the head of a resistance movement. "This election is going to be a really bloody punch-up," in the words of one Shadow Cabinet member. That's for sure. Seconds out, round one.

Dan Cruickshank explores the Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament (Part 4)

2010-02-22T08:43:00.001-06:00

Dan Cruickshank explores the Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament (Part 2)

2010-02-22T08:41:00.000-06:00

Dan Cruickshank explores the Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament (Part 3)

2010-02-22T08:39:00.000-06:00

Dan Cruickshank explores the Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament (Part 1)

2010-02-17T10:07:00.001-06:00

Dan Cruickshank explores the Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament (Part 5)

2010-02-17T10:02:00.001-06:00

House of Lords: What's it all about?

2010-02-17T10:00:00.001-06:00

House of Commons Chamber enhanced podcast tour

2010-02-17T09:59:00.001-06:00

Thatcher's Last Stand Against Socialism

2010-02-17T09:58:00.001-06:00

Con of "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance

2010-02-14T00:35:00.001-06:00

"The choice, despite what some say, really is between having a free
country and having an officially religious nation." A debate occurring in
America is whether "under God" should be included in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Some American citizens believe it should be kept, while others have their
reasons to exterminate it. In a country with many different traditions and
beliefs, is including God in the Pledge fair to every citizen? Is it
Constitutional? To some American citizens, the answer would be "no".

In 1892, Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance. His
version of the Pledge was, "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic
for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Many argue that "under God" in the Pledge is tradition, but it was actually
added in 1954 during the Cold War. Americans against "under God" believe that it
should be removed and put back to its' original state.

Some Americans would also agree that "under God" goes against the
Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion", states the First Amendment. Some believe that the founders of the
Constitution wanted to exclude religion from state to promote freedom of
religion to every citizen so persecution would not occur.

"Love of country is not, nor should it be, measured by a citizen's
religious belief or lack thereof." Some would argue that stating God in the
Pledge is stating ones' love for him, not the country. They would argue that the
Pledge was created as a patriotic statement, not a pledge to God. For many
non-believers, "under God" is against what they believe, and it's not respectful
to those beliefs. Some are affended by the inclusion of "under God" in the
Pledge and want it taken out.

Though there is an option for children stating the Pledge in
schools, some parents believe their children will conform anyway. Their children
would say the Pledge out of fear of being different or unpatriotic. Many believe
that exterminating "under God" overall would solve this problem.

To accept the Pledge the way it is or to create change is a decision
many Americans against "under God" in the Pledge go through. For America to be a
"religious" country or to be a "free choice" country, "Under God" goes against
the separation of Church and State amendment in the Constitution, but it's
ultimately the government's decision to change it.

"The Issues - Pros and Cons of "under God""Kids World.2000-2009http://www.kidzworld.com/article/2267-pledge-of-allegiance-debate
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/2267-pledge-of-allegiance-debate.

"Is "under God" in the American Pledge of Allegiance appropriate or should it be
eliminated?" DebatePedia. 25 January 2010http://wiki.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_%22Under_God%22_in_the_American_Pledge_of_Allegiance

.

Video Games and Violence Con

2010-02-11T17:35:00.003-06:00

Video Games Cause Violence-Con

This long fought over controversy over whether or not video games influence violence can be defended by statistics and facts for both sides of the issue. The cons of video games and violence are as listed .

1. Over-dependence on video games could lead to social isolation, because kids often play alone.

2. Practicing violent acts may lead to aggressive behavior over watching TV.

3. Women are often portrayed as weaker characters that are helpless or sexually provocative.

4. Game environments are often based on plots of violence, aggression, and gender bias.

5. Many games only offer an arena of weapons, killings, kicking, stabbing, and shooting.

6. More often games do not offer action that requires independent thought or creativity.

7. Games can confuse reality and fantasy.

8. In many violent games, players must become more violent to win.

9. Academic achievements may be negatively related to over-all time spent playing video games.

Some of the effects of video games are: 1. they involve a constant hurting and/or killing of others. 2. There is no punishment for killing. 3. The more you kill the more you are rewarded. 4. The killing was almost always seen as justified. All these things seem to lead to the fact that killing is an acceptable method of solving problems (he hurt someone I love, so I'm going to go over to his house and kill him), or that violence is okay. Similar to constantly being exposed to television violence, video game can also lead to a desensitization of violence. The exposure to violence in video games can also lower a child's feelings towards others or to a point where they begin to see other people as objects rather than real people. Kids being constantly exposed to this kind of violence in video games can lead to being aggressive later.

Older players know the difference between reality and fantasy. They know the differences between right and wrong. They are aware that the violence being shown in video games is not real. So you would expect that violent video games would not affect them. However, violent games do affect older audiences. In kids, violence in video games caused an increase in aggression, but for older audiences the aggression was showed in different ways. Kids expressed their aggression in behavior or physical play. College students expressed their aggression through increased hostility on a test or heart rate.

A common effect that video games have among its players is that it develops high adrenaline rates that can lead to hyper-aggressiveness as well as symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Frequent playing of these games that increases your adrenaline can lead to stimulus addiction. Stimulus addiction is a common response among children immersed in violent games. People suffering from stimulus addiction need stronger and stronger stimulation to read the same emotional experience, sometimes leading to a search for more violence games.

This leads to the question: "Does violence in video games lead to violence in the real world?" Many parents worry that violent games not only cause rude behaviors in their children, but if it will cause violent behavior in them as well. Research done in 1998 has found that in a group of 5 to 7 year old, children imitated during free play what they had been just exposed to on video games. The children who played active but non-violent games showed that in their play, while children who played games with violent themes showed more aggression. This resembles the "monkey see, monkey do" behavior that most kids do. Females tended to be more stimulated than males. This is probably due to the fact that males tend to be more exposed to violence in general, making an increase in aggression more in females. A Stanford University study found that when third and fourth graders television and video game consumption were reduced to less than seven hours per week for 20 weeks, their verbal aggression decreased by 50% and their physical aggression decreased by 40%. There are many cases that show how players of violent video games exhibit increases in aggression, especially in younger audiences. However, there are very few cases showing how playing violent video games leads or was the cause of violent behavior. The most compelling argument condoning violence in video games comes from Lt Col. David Grossman. Grossman spent over 25 years learning and studying how to enable soldiers to kill and used video games as a tool to enable soldiers to kill. He states that "Children don't naturally kill; they learn it from violence in the home and, most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in television, movies, and interactive video games. We are teaching children to associate pleasure with human death and suffering. We are rewarding them for killing people. And we are teaching them to like it."

Those against violence in video and computer games say that they would like to see them censored. However, censorship of video games can't be done due to the First Amendment. It is though illegal to distribute obscene or offensive video games to children, including video games harmful to minors.

People have been talking about the ESRB system as well. The National Institute on Media and the Family decided to figure out how accurate the ESRB ratings were. The panel discovered that based on violent and sexual content, 32% of the games rated E (Everyone) were either questionable or inappropriate for 3-7 year olds, and that 57% of the T (Teen) rated games were deemed questionable or inappropriate for 12-17 year olds. So in conclusion, it would seem that it would better for the parents themselves to determine if the game is appropriate for their child and not solely purchase a violent game based on the ESRB rating. The other rating system is the Recreational Software Advisory Council system (RSAC). The RSAC is similar to the ESRB except that it rates computer games instead of consoles games. Nintendo and Sega have their own rating systems. So all rating systems are different and can be viewed differently.

A statistic fact has been recorded that the typical American child watches 28 hours of television a week and by the age of 18 will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence. To prove that statistic, the following cons of violence leads to video games have been argued from critics and researchers all over the world:

1. Increasing reports of bullying can be partially attributed to the popularity of violent video games. The 2008 study Grand Theft Childhood reported that 60% of middle school boys who played at least one Mature-rated game hit or beat up someone, compared to 39% of boys that did not play Mature-rated games.

2. Video games often reward players for simulating violence, and thus enhance the learning of violent behaviors. Studies suggest that when violence is rewarded in video games, player's exhibit increased aggressive behavior compared to players of video games where violence is punished.

3. Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence. It is common for victims in video games to disappear off screen when they are killed or for players to have multiple lives. In a 2005 study, violent video game exposure has been linked to reduced P300 amplitudes in the brain, which is associated with desensitization to violence and increases in aggressive behavior.

4. A 2000 FBI report includes playing violent video games in a list of behaviors associated with school shootings.

5. Violent video games teach youth that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy and an appropriate way to achieve one's goals. A 2009 study found that youth who play violent video games have lower belief in the use of nonviolent strategies and are less forgiving than players of nonviolent video games.

6. Violent video games cause players to associate pleasure and happiness with the ability to cause pain in others.

7. Young children are more likely to confuse fantasy violence with real world violence, and without a framework for decision making, they may repeat the actions they see in violent video games.

8. Violent video games require active participation, repetition, and identification with the violent character. With new game controllers allowing more physical interaction, the immersive and interactive characteristics of video games can increase the likelihood of youth violence.

9. Playing violent video games increases aggressive behavior and arousal. A 2009 study found that it takes up to four minutes for the level of aggressive thoughts and feelings in children to return to normal after playing violent video games. It takes five to ten minutes for heart rate and aggressive behavior to return to baseline. Video games that show the most blood generate more aggressive thoughts. When blood is present in video games, there is a measurable increase in arousal and hostility.

10.Playing violent video games cause the development of aggressive behavioral scripts. A behavioral script is developed from the repetition of actions and affects the subconscious mind. An example of a common behavioral script is a driving script that tells drivers to get in a vehicle, put on a seat belt, and turn on the ignition. Similarly, violent video games can lead to scripts that tell youth to respond aggressively in certain situations. Violence in video games may lead to real world violence when scripts are automatically triggered in daily life, such as being nudged in a school hallway.

11. A 1998 study found that 21% of games sampled involved violence against women. Exposure to sexual violence in video games is linked to increases in violence towards women and false attitudes about rape such as that women incite men to rape or that women secretly desire rape.

12. Violent video games can train youth to be killers. The US Marine Corps licensed Doom II in 1996 to create Marine Doom in order to train soldiers. In 2002, the US Army released first-person shooter America's Army to recruit soldiers and prepare recruits for the battlefield.

It is obvious to observe the harmful affects that can be caused by video games. There are always two sides to an argument, and somtimes the negatives can outweigh the positives in certain situations. So out of all the negatives presented in this case,they show the outcome that killing is an acceptable method of solving problems, or that violence is okay, when in reality it is not. Hopefully everyone can now realize the other side of the argument that is being portrayed as no big deal, is in reality a very big deal.

Works Cited

Cesarone, Bernard. "Video Games and Children." Video Game Use. Kid Source, 20 Apr. 2000. Web. 3 Feb. 2010.

Holmes, Leonard. "Violent Video Games Produce Violent Behavior." Mental Health. About.com, 9 Nov. 2005. Web. 3 Feb. 2010.

Kalning, Kristin. "Does game violence make teens aggressive?" Technology and Science. MSNBC, 8 Dec. 2006. Web. 3 Feb. 2010.

Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now.

Video steers student into texting foes' camp

2010-02-10T13:58:00.001-06:00

Teen steers into texting foes' camp
By Martha Stoddard
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN — Like most of her friends, Jillian Humphries used to consider herself a whiz at sending text messages from behind a steering wheel.

“For most of us, texting and driving was a daily event,” the Benson High School student told state lawmakers.

The teenager reformed her ways after seeing a graphic video made in the United Kingdom. The video is a dramatization of a head-on crash caused by a teen driver sending a text message.

Now, although Humphries admits it is a daily test of will, she neither texts nor talks on a cell phone while driving.

She appeared Tuesday before the Legislature's Transportation and Telecommunications Committee to support a bill that would ban texting while driving in Nebraska.

Legislative Bill 845, introduced by State Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff, would apply to drivers of all ages.

Under the bill, a first offense would mean a $200 fine and the loss of three points on one's driver's license. The fine would be $300 for a second offense and $500 for a third or subsequent offense.

Harms said texting while driving has become a widespread problem and is getting worse.

“It's a tragedy waiting to happen, not only in this nation, but in this great state,” he said. “I believe lives are at stake every day.”

He said the growing popularity of text messaging has led to growing concern about driving safety.

The number of text messages sent monthly has exploded from 7.2 billion in 2005 to 135.2 billion last year, according to CTIA, a wireless telecommunications industry group.

Nearly one in five people who own cell phones admitted, in a 2008 survey, to reading or sending texts while driving.

The result is that texting caused between 200,000 and 1 million accidents during 2008, according to an analysis by the National Safety Council.

The council estimated that about 1 percent of drivers were texting at any given moment in 2008 but that such drivers accounted for between 3 percent and 18 percent of accidents.

Harm said Nebraska would not be the first state to ban texting by drivers.

Nineteen other states ban texting by all drivers, while nine ban it for young drivers. Nebraska bans texting and cell phone use by teens with learner's permits or provisional driver's licenses.

Bans also apply to federal employees who drive government vehicles and to commercial truck and bus drivers.

And just Tuesday, an Iowa House committee approved a limited ban on people texting while driving.

Harms noted that he is often asked whether a ban could be enforced. He said law enforcement officials say they can usually tell whether someone is texting by their erratic driving. Texting drivers will speed up, slow down or veer into another lane.

No one appeared in opposition to LB 845. The committee took no immediate action on the bill.

The committee also heard testimony on a bill that would ban cell phone use by school bus drivers, including employees of private companies that drive students under a contract with a school. LB 697 was proposed by a group of students from Lincoln East High School.

Pro Gambling

2010-01-29T14:57:00.002-06:00

Pro Gambling

Gambling is a very good thing to have in a state's government. Not only does it provide entertainment for its customers and create jobs, but it also brings money into the economy. With a cash-cow such as casinos, we would slowly rise from the debt that we have dug ourselves into.

The main reason for gambling is the chance to earn the big bucks, money. It's not all in slots or card games, but the lottery and scratch are very popular ways to gamble. You spend a dollar or two on a lottery ticket, and come next Saturday, you are a millionaire! This is what every person who gambles looks to do, become rich over night. People love the risk, and getting that extra rush makes it even more fun.

In 2008 (according to the American Gaming Association), casinos have employed over 375,000 jobs. That is not including sporting events, race tracks, and lotteries. The AGA also stated that eighty-five percent of casino employees find their job "satisfying", and about half plan to stay working their within the next ten years. With a government controlled gambling system, the number of jobs available would increase drastically.

The last reason why gambling is a good thing, is the amount of money it brings into the state. Casino worker's wages totaled over $14 billion. These wages go directly back out into the consumer economy. Commercial casino revenue totaled at $32.54 billion. Money gained by taxes for the state is also in the multi-billion dollar range.

So gambling is not all about having fun and blowing money, but about getting money back into the economy. Having gambling nationwide would at least triple the number of jobs available, and double the tax revenue gained for the states. Laws could also be made to lower the rate of gambling abuse. These are reasons why gambling is a good thing to have.

Works Cited
"Gambling." Northern Kentucky University. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .
"Industry Information : Fact Sheets." American Gaming Association. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. .

Google vs. Beijing

2010-01-29T09:30:00.001-06:00

Google vs. Beijing

Posted using ShareThis

Good news from Afghanistan: democracy is taking root (contains video)

2010-01-28T10:04:00.000-06:00

Good news from Afghanistan: democracy is taking root (contains video)

The Geopolitics of Electricity

2010-01-26T18:09:00.000-06:00

The Geopolitics of Electricity

A Failure to Imagine the Worst | Foreign Policy

2010-01-26T17:53:00.000-06:00

A Failure to Imagine the Worst | Foreign Policy

Command China vs. Network China

2010-01-26T17:50:00.000-06:00

By Thomas Friedman
Last week, I wrote a column suggesting that while some overheated Chinese markets, like real estate, may offer shorting opportunities, I’d be wary of the argument that China’s economy today is just one big short-inviting bubble, à la Dubai. Your honor, I’d like to now revise and amend my remarks.

There is one short position, one big short, that does intrigue me in China. I am not sure who makes a market in this area, but here goes: If China forces out Google, I’d like to short the Chinese Communist Party.

Here is why: Chinese companies today are both more backward and more advanced than most Americans realize. There are actually two Chinese economies today. There is the Communist Party and its affiliates; let’s call them Command China. These are the very traditional state-owned enterprises.

Alongside them, there is a second China, largely concentrated in coastal cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong. This is a highly entrepreneurial sector that has developed sophisticated techniques to generate and participate in diverse, high-value flows of business knowledge. I call that Network China.

What is so important about knowledge flows? This, for me, is the key to understanding the Google story and why one might decide to short the Chinese Communist Party.

John Hagel, the noted business writer and management consultant argues in his recently released “Shift Index” that we’re in the midst of “The Big Shift.” We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks — the sum total of what we know at any point in time, which is now depreciating at an accelerating pace — into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows, which are constantly being renewed.

“Finding ways to connect with people and institutions possessing new knowledge becomes increasingly important,” says Hagel. “Since there are far more smart people outside any one organization than inside.” And in today’s flat world, you can now access them all. Therefore, the more your company or country can connect with relevant and diverse sources to create new knowledge, the more it will thrive. And if you don’t, others will.

I would argue that Command China, in its efforts to suppress, curtail and channel knowledge flows into politically acceptable domains that will indefinitely sustain the control of the Communist Party — i.e., censoring Google — is increasingly at odds with Network China, which is thriving by participating in global knowledge flows. That is what the war over Google is really all about: It is a proxy and a symbol for whether the Chinese will be able to freely search and connect wherever their imaginations and creative impulses take them, which is critical for the future of Network China.

Have no doubt, China has some world-class networked companies that are “in the flow” already, such as Li & Fung, a $14 billion apparel company with a network of 10,000 specialized business partners, and Dachangjiang, the motorcycle maker. The flows occurring on a daily basis in the networks of these Chinese companies to do design, product innovation and supply-chain management and to pool the best global expertise “are unlike anything that U.S. companies have figured out,” said Hagel.

The orchestrators of these networks, he added, “encourage participants to gather among themselves in an ad hoc fashion to address unexpected performance challenges, learn from each other and pull in outsiders as they need them. More traditional companies driven by a desire to protect and exploit knowledge stocks carefully limit the partners they deal with.”

Command China has thrived up to now largely by perfecting the 20th-century model for low-cost manufacturing based on mining knowledge stocks and limiting flows. But China will only thrive in the 21st century — and the Communist Party survive in power — if it can get more of its firms to shift to the 21st-century model of Network China. That means enabling more and more Chinese people, universities and companies to participate in the world’s great knowledge flows, especially ones that connect well beyond the established industry and market boundaries.

Alas, though, China seems to be betting that it can straddle three impulses — control flows for political reasons, maintain 20th-century Command Chinese factories for employment reasons and expand 21st-century Network China for growth reasons. But the contradictions within this straddle could undermine all three. The 20th-century Command model will be under pressure. The future belongs to those who promote richer and ever more diverse knowledge flows and develop the institutions and practices required to harness them.

So there you have it: Command China, which wants to censor Google, is working against Network China, which thrives on Google. For now, it looks as if Command China will have its way. If that turns out to be the case, then I’d like to short the Communist Party.

Drug Legalization

2010-01-24T14:09:00.001-06:00

Drug Legalization

People have opinions on topics that involve every part of daily life. Many individuals in society think differently about what is right and what is wrong. Whether it is the topic of abortion, gay marriage, or drug legalization, every person has his or her own thoughts on what is acceptable. That is what makes up some of the most interesting topics people talk about today. Drug legalization is one of the hottest arguments currently talked about all over the United States, to legalize or not to legalize?

There are many pros and cons about this touchy subject. Some say that if drugs were legalized then it would lead to economic benefits. People would no longer have to secretly sell drugs and the drugs could then be taxed. Some offer that legalizing drugs would also be beneficial because then the money could be used for people's health and education. Another pro is the fact that legalizing drugs would reduce the crime rate since people would no longer have to steal or kill for drugs. The people in jail for selling drugs might get a new chance to start over and then jail cells would be less crowded. If drugs were regulated then it might decrease the amount of deaths because clean needles would be used, and HIV and AIDS cases would therefore decline.

Although crime would decline in some areas it may increase in others. Legalizing drugs might increase the risk of people committing a crime while intoxicated. Drug markets probably wouldn't disappear because there would still be people wanted to buy the drugs at a cheaper price. Many people also think that if they legalize marijuana it will just lead to legalizing too many other drugs. It is a well know fact that some kids already drink alcohol and smoke illegally, so will harder drugs just become a normal everyday thing if legalized?

If drugs were legalized, the economy might lose more money due to building rehabilitation centers and hospitals for people who are addicted to drugs and get sick because of their bad side effects. There are many unknown health effects caused from doing drugs. Drugs may change people's mental state and may lead to bigger problems such as people robbing, raping, and doing harm to others in society. Drugs often affect how people act and make decisions. These affects may cause a person to do things that he would not normally do because of being under the influence of drugs. Drugs might impair a driver's vision and cause that individual not to see clearly while driving. Drugs could also change a person's physical appearance. Skin color might turn a dark or yellow color and wrinkles might occur. Drugs could also cause body sores, change the appearance of an individual's nails and thin a person's hair.

Drugs do harm too many people in society. If drugs were not legalized society could stay away from many problems. Although there are many good reasons why drugs should be legalized there are also many reasons they shouldn't. This matter is still being debated and if there is one thing to agree on, then it's the fact that this subject will not go away for a long time.

Works Cited.
"The Pros and Cons of Drug Legalization." Freelance Writing - Internet Article Marketing - Publish Articles Online - EduBook. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. <http://www.edubook.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-drug-legalization/6657/>.
"BalancedPolitics.org - Legalization of Marijuana (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Against)." BalancedPolitics.org - Free Balanced, Non-Partisan Discussion of Political & Social Issues for Debate (Pros and Cons - Decision Making Politics). Web. 23 Jan. 2010. <http://www.balancedpolitics.org/marijuana_legalization.htm>.

Can Google Beat China?

2010-01-16T10:24:00.002-06:00

BEIJING — At the elite Tsinghua University here, some students were joking Friday that they had better download all the Internet information they wanted now in case Google left the country.

But to many of the young, well-educated Chinese who are Google’s loyal users here, the company’s threat to leave is in fact no laughing matter. Interviews in Beijing’s downtown and university district indicated that many viewed the possible loss of Google’s maps, translation service, sketching software, access to scholarly papers and search function with real distress.

“How am I going to live without Google?” asked Wang Yuanyuan, a 29-year-old businessman, as he left a convenience store in Beijing’s business district.

China’s Communist rulers have long tried to balance their desire for a thriving Internet and the economic growth it promotes with their demands for political control. The alarm over Google among Beijing’s younger, better educated and more Internet savvy citizens — China’s future elite — shows how wobbly that balancing act can be.

By publicly challenging China’s censorship, Google has stirred up the debate over the government’s claim that constraints on free speech are crucial to political stability and the prosperity that has accompanied it. Even if it is unlikely to pose any immediate threat to the Communist Party, Google’s move has clearly discomfited the government, Chinese analysts say.

“The average age of Chinese netizens is still very young,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. “This is a matter of the future and whether the government’s Internet policy wants to fight with the future.

“If this process goes on, more and more people are going to realize that their freedom of information is being infringed upon, and this could bring changes down the line,” he said.

Google may rank a distant second to the Baidu search engine, but its estimated 80 million users are comparatively better educated and wealthier. Surveys show that roughly two-thirds are college educated. A Beijing technology consultant, Kaiser Kuo, describes them as “a potentially very noisy constituency.”

An Internet expert who insisted on anonymity for fear of repercussions from the government said: “They have bought into the bargain of get rich, have a good job, life gets better, just don’t mess with the Communist Party.”

If Google leaves, he said, “they may start asking, ‘What’s wrong with my country that it doesn’t let me do this?’ ”

“It is not like they are going to take to the streets,” he added. “But it further erodes the legitimacy of what the Communist Party is doing. This is a group the party doesn’t want to lose any more than it already has.”

On the other hand, the Chinese government managed to cut off nearly all Internet access to an entire region of 19 million people for half a year without encountering any significant political resistance. The blackout, imposed in the western Xinjiang region after deadly riots in July, is only now being gingerly lifted.

Other Internet users argue that Google must respect the Chinese government’s policies if it wants to do business here.

“I think government control of this is quite reasonable,” said Liu Qiang, 29, a Tsinghua University mechanical engineer graduate student. “Our party needs to stabilize its governance.”

Some predict that any inconvenience caused by Google’s exit will be short-lived. “The Internet is really big,” said Wang Quiya, a 27-year-old worker in Beijing’s financial district. “Something will take its place, right?”

The government’s recent efforts to tighten Internet controls have already cost some Chinese some pleasures. In the name of rooting out pornography and piracy, Chinese authorities have shut down hundreds of Web sites offering films, music downloads, video games and other forms of entertainment since November.

Li An, a Tsinghua University senior with wide eyes and thick black braids, said she used to download episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy” from sites run by BT China that are now closed. “I love American television series!” she said with frustration during a pause from studying Japanese at a university fast-food restaurant on Friday.

The loss of Google would hit her much harder, she said, because she relies on Google Scholar to download academic papers for her classes in polymer science. “For me, this is terrible,” Ms. Li said. Some students contend that even after Google pulls out, Internet space will continue to shrink. Until now, Google has shielded Baidu by manning the front line in the censorship battle, said one 20-year-old computer science major at Tsinghua.

“Without Google, Baidu will be very easy to manipulate,” he said. “I don’t want to see this trend.”

A 21-year old civil engineering student predicted a strong reaction against the government. “If Google really leaves, people will feel the government has gone too far,” he insisted over lunch in the university cafe.

But asked whether that reaction would influence the government to soften its policies, he concentrated on his French fries. “I really don’t know,” he said.

Xiyun Yang, Li Bibo and Nancy Zhao contributed research.

2010-01-09T07:46:00.001-06:00

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Substitute to Stem Cell research

2009-12-14T07:19:00.002-06:00

Stem cells are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Stem cells are found in most multi-cellular organisms. With this in mind, scientists over the last couple of years have made progress toward creating cells that would end the controversial studies of human stem cells. The ability to consistently replicate human stem cells would enable scientists to avoid the religious and ethical concerns about destroying human stem cells to further scientific studies and cures.

Hundreds of scientists are working on some form of research about the replicas, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The University of Nebraska Medical Center researcher, Dr. Angie Rizzino, was among 22 scientists selected to receive federal funds from the recently passed stimulus package to resume his work. Researchers are using mouse, rat, and human cells to find which ones are most effective to manipulate into embryonic stem cells. Scientists predict that they are only a few years from understanding induced pluripotent stem cells well enough so that they could successfully replace embryonic stem cells consistently, and they predict they're only 10 years away from applying the cells to aid in human treatments.

Rizzino believes that the understanding of the cells needs to deepen to understand how to efficiently and safely reproduce the cells. Scientists still don't know how different the induced cells are from embryonic cells. Rizzino said that the time may come where this new cell will replace human cells, but for now, he said, research should continue to further improve our technology and understanding of cells and disease start.

There are many pros and cons involving stem cell research. Obviously the biggest impact would be that we would, theoretically, help treat a range of medical problems including Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, Heart Diseases, Stroke, Diabetes (Type 1), birth defects, spinal cord injuries, replace or repair damaged organs, and maybe even get a copy of your own heart in a heart transplant in the future. Opponents of research often use moral reasons to back them up saying "We should not mess with human life" and "Humans should not be trying to play God." So also believe that this will lead to cloning of human life and previous attempts have been futile. I personally do not believe in stem cell research but I think that if scientists would be able to make this substitute it would be a huge leap for science as well as for the better of all of mankind for future generations.

Sites Used: http://www.omaha.com/article/20091115/NEWS01/711159894

-Stega

Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. Get it now.

The Debt Limit: Made Simple

2009-12-12T05:28:00.001-06:00

Illegal Immigration

2009-12-11T21:31:00.002-06:00

Illegal immigration is a huge problem in the United States that needs to be fixed. Over the last few decades illegal immigration has had a huge impact on American society, and most if not all of it has been a bad impact. Illegal immigration has kept jobs from being given to people living legally in the United States, all the way to violence, and drug trafficking in the United States from the Mexican border. Nearly one in three immigrants is illegal, and immigrants count for 1 in 8 residents for the United States.

Most illegal immigrants come, but not solely, from Mexico or South America and Central America. They get into the United States by illegally crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. Many Illegal immigrants pay people to sneak them across the border, and others try to sneak themselves across with no help. A problem is that many of the people that sneak the illegal immigrants across the border are Americans, or legal immigrants in the United States. Crossing into the United States Illegally is not the only way to become an illegal immigrant. Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants become illegal immigrants by overstaying the authorized amount of time, or by violating terms of being legal in America, and also by falsifying a visa to get into the country. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal entries in the United States a year.

A Pew Hispanic Center statistic says that in October 2008 there were 11.9 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. This should not be happening. Illegal immigrants are taking up jobs that are hard enough to find as it is in the hard economic times, and are bringing the violence rate up in the United States. California has the largest population of illegal immigrants living in the United States, with about 2.9 million living there. Texas is second with 1.7 million living there.

NumbersUSA states that illegal aliens are taking up more than 7.7 million jobs in the United States. We need to start cracking down on illegal immigrants now, in order to give millions of jobs to people who live in America legally. Not only are millions of Americans losing jobs to illegal immigrants, but wages have also dropped for employees. Wages have dropped because illegal immigrants are willing to work for the cheapest wages out there. Wages were reduced 4% from 2000 to 2004 because of illegal immigration. Also from 2000 to 2004 2.3 million more Americans lost their jobs to illegal immigrants that were willing to work harder for cheaper wages.

Large and small companies alike want the government to make immigration laws very loose, so that the companies can hire illegal immigrants for cheaper wages, and illegal immigrants don't mind near as much as Americans how they are treated while working. If companies were to speak out against illegal immigration, then a lot more work and laws would be set up against illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants are living in our country for free, so therefore their cost of living is cheap and they don't have to have the higher wages. They do not pay for any taxes, and so they basically use Americans money without losing any of their own to help out America. These illegal immigrants are hurting our economy more than the American public really realize.

The United States Government needs to start making laws against illegal immigration stricter, and not only on the borders. The United States government really needs to crack down hard on the large and small corporations and companies that are hiring these illegal immigrants. The only way to really bring down illegal immigration is taking away the reason why most illegal immigrants are there, which is the companies that are willing to hire them. If the United States government does that, then the illegal immigrants will have no reason to come into to America because no one would be able to hire them. The punishments for illegal immigration also need to be harsher, because thousands of illegal immigrants find their way across the border multiple times. The United States Government should do more than just deport the immigrants back to their original countries.

The point is that illegal immigration needs to stop. Its cons way outweigh the pros. In fact there really are not any pros about illegal immigrants living in the United States that I can find. These illegal immigrants are taking away jobs, lowering wages, raising violence and drug trade. If the United States government takes the opportunity away from

illegal immigrants to get money by making background checks mandatory, and by making laws a lot stricter against illegal immigrates working in companies, then illegal immigrants will have a much harder time surviving in the United States

Works Cited

How to reverse illegal immigration. Americans for illegal immigration, 9 Sept. 2009. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. <http://www.alipac.us/article1111-thread-1-0.html>.

Illegal immigration crimes. 1 May 2008. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

<http;//www.rasmusen.org/x/2007/06/29/illegal-immigrants-cause-21-of-crime>.

Illegal immigration facts. 22 July 2008. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

<http://www.endillegalimmigration.com/illegal_immigration_Facts_&_Statistics/index.shtml>.

Illegal immigration. Steven A. Camarota, 5 May 2005. Web. 115 Sept. 2009.

<http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/sactestimony050405.html>.

Urban America

2009-12-11T13:29:00.003-06:00

Urban America

On a Sunday morning, I wake up around ten in the morning and I begin to get ready for work. I climb the stairs to the kitchen and pour myself a bowl of cereal that my mother has purchased at the store. After breakfast, I put on my uniform which was bought at a JC Penny. I grab my keys to our fully paid off 2001 Ford F-150 and make my way towards my job. As I head down 84th Street, I see the Midlands Hospital on my right. I pass the new Shadow Lake shopping center, which consistently gets customers of every age and demographic. I turn onto 36th Street and head for Omaha. About the time I hit Q Street, the streets and sidewalks look significantly dingy and broken apart in comparison to their Papillion counterparts. Conditions don't improve as I push on towards L Street and turn into the parking lot of the Stockyards Plaza Hy-Vee.

What is it that makes these two communities so different? The answer to that question is very complex, for it has many contributing factors. The average person in South Omaha's salary is much less than that of the Papillion area is. The percent of families below the poverty level is much higher than the state's average. Businesses in the area make less money than those of other parts of the state as well.

Crime problems in the urban South Omaha community are undoubtedly linked to poor education. According to CityData.com, school enrollment by grade level takes a drop in the 5th to 8th grade range and again in the 9th to 12th grade range. This essentially means that middle and high school dropouts are common within this community. The educational attainment is also much less than that of the Papillion community; in Papillion, the number of people earning some sort of college degree is much higher than the Nebraska state average. Not only is the number of people achieving collegiately in Omaha much less than the state average, but its number of people with less than a high school education is far, far above the state average.

Another factor contributing to crime in Omaha is the heightened number of broken homes in comparison to rural communities. Approximately 17.3 percent of people of parental age (30 years to 55 years old) are divorced. This number is staggering in comparison to Papillion, in which, 7.3 percent of parental aged people are divorced. Broken homes contribute to crime because the children of divorce are more likely to drop out of school, join gangs, or embark on a drug addiction. Parents DO have to set a good example, and that clearly seems to be a problem within the Omaha community. All of these problems are clearly linked together and affect one another. Fixing some of them but not all of them would not result in the improvement of the community, but would take it back down to what it was before. This is true because the problems I have listed above that are left unfixed would rub off on the ones that are fixed and make them a problem again. For this reason, any community reform plan should cover all of these problems rather than just simply covering one of them at a time.

The most important part of any reform plan put into place would undoubtedly be education reform. Students with a more satisfying academic experience would be less likely to drop out of school, and therefore, less vulnerable to joining a gang. Less gang members means fewer gangs, and fewer gangs means less crime.

In order to hire more adequate teachers, government funding should be increased in these problem areas to increase teacher salaries so that better teachers are more inclined to get a job in these schools. Along with acquitting better educators, the added government funding would provide improvements to the schools themselves. It would buy them better books, better computers, and would help to improve facilities to make the students more proud of their school. Pride in the schools would also increase pride in the students' education. Included in this reform program, I would use funding to create a program similar to the health program in Papillion's middle schools. I feel that this program would teach the students more about how to deal with problems, and how to avoid early pregnancy. The reason for this program is not just to create more aware people, but to create more able parents. With a stronger health program, there would be fewer divorces in the future.Overall, education reform would eventually improve the area's average family income, because a educated worker is going to make more money than an uneducated worker.

One problem not addressed by education is unemployment due to less jobs being available in the city. The city government should take advantage of the unemployed and help them at the same time by creating jobs for them. These jobs could benefit both the unemployed and the community. These jobs would include rebuilding the city's roads, rebuilding the schools, and other construction projects to improve the city.

The problems that I have discussed are not just true for Omaha, but for most of the urban areas across the country. The majority of these problems could be solved by using increased government funding to improve education, create jobs, and build a better community. An expensive solution? Yes. Is it worth it? I believe it is, because reform in cities across America will increase the output of a great nation.

Taliban pay vs. Afghan forces pay

2009-12-10T17:31:00.002-06:00

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/taliban-pay-vs-afghan-forces-pay/

PRO'S: Remember September 11, 2001. Afghanistan under the Taliban provided the al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Today, the al-Qaeda and its associates have found room for manoeuvre in the tribal areas of Pakistan. For Nato to withdraw from Afghanistan would expose the West to further acts of mass murder.

If the Taliban seized power again, a newly liberal society would once again have to obey their values. Women would have a lower quality of life.

Barack Obama has made Afghanistan a priority and promises a better approach than his predecessor, notably in treating Pakistan as an integral part of the problem.

Improvements in military technology, from communications satellites to pilot-less drones, have made the targeting of an enemy easier.

The increasing size and effectiveness of the Afghan army is encouraging.

CON'S: The continued military mission is costing billions at a time when Western economies are suffering. We simply can't afford to remain fighting in Afghanistan. Pakistan's northern border has become a launching-pad for terrorism.President Hamid Karzai has proved a weak ruler far too tolerant of corruption in his country

House BCS Bill Gets Subcommittee Approval

2009-12-09T21:22:00.002-06:00

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer Frederic J. Frommer, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 9, 4:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Dismissing complaints from some members that Congress had more pressing matters, a House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion.

"We can walk across the street and chew gum at the same time," said the subcommittee chairman, Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "We can do a number of things at the same time."

The legislation, which still faces steep odds, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff. The measure passed by voice vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee, with one audible "no," from Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga.

"With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on," Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn't like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.

The BCS selections announced last weekend pit two unbeaten teams, No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas, in the Jan. 7 national title game. Three other undefeated teams — TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State — will play in a BCS bowl game, but not for the championship.

"What can we say — it's December and the BCS is in chaos again," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He said the BCS system is unfair and won't change unless prompted by Congress.

The legislation, which goes to the full committee, would make it illegal to promote a national championship game "or make a similar representation," unless it results from a playoff.

There is no Senate version, although Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has pressed for a Justice Department antitrust investigation into the BCS.

Shortly after his election last year, Barack Obama said there should be a playoff system.

In a statement before the vote, BCS executive director Bill Hancock said, "With all the serious matters facing our country, surely Congress has more important issues than spending taxpayer money to dictate how college football is played."

Yet Barrow wasn't alone in criticizing his colleagues' priorities; Reps. Zach Space, D-Ohio, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., made similar arguments. Space said that with people facing tough times, the decision to focus on college football sends the "wrong message."

The legislation has a tough road ahead, given the wide geographic representation and political clout of schools in the six conferences that have automatic BCS bowl bids — the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC.

The current college bowl system features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer rankings. Eight other schools play in the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowls.

Under the BCS, the champions of those six big conference have automatic bids, while other conferences don't. Those six conferences also receive far more money than the other conferences.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, H.R. 390, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

Bowl Championship Series: http://www.bcsfootball.org

House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov

'Hannity' With Cheney

2009-12-09T14:31:00.000-06:00

'Hannity' Exclusive

U.S. history is littered with war blunders

2009-12-09T14:21:00.001-06:00

President Obama would be wise to note that bad advice often precedes momentous wartime decisions.

By Robert Dallek

As President Obama moves ahead with his expansion of the war in Afghanistan, history suggests that he has a better chance of being wrong than right.

Judging from the experience of Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, miscalculations about war and peace are all too common. Despite receiving counsel from the best and the brightest in each of their generations, these presidents received poor advice that each should have resisted.

Wilson's Fourteen Points of January 1918, which were an amalgam of high-minded progressive thinking, described a postwar world that was beyond reach: a peace without victors, disarmament, self-determination for nationalities, a world safe for democracy, and an end to war through collective security provided by a league of nations. It was a mirage that did nothing to prevent the rise of Nazism and the onset of another world war.

A costly mistake in Korea

Truman's miscalculation followed a series of wise steps between 1945 and 1950 in the emerging Cold War. The fact that realistic good sense — containment as played out in the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan — characterized his initial Cold War decisions was no assurance that he would get things right in the Korean conflict. His decision to beat back North Korea's attack on South Korea in June 1950 now enjoys almost universal approval as a sensible extension of the containment response to communist aggression.

Yet the decision to cross the 38th parallel in order to unify Korea under a representative government was a blunder that cost the United States, Koreans and Chinese considerable blood and treasure. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's advice that the Chinese would not enter the fighting if we crossed the parallel and that they would suffer a great defeat if they did, with American troops returning home in a matter of weeks, was the greatest miscalculation of his military career. Moreover, it destroyed Truman's presidency: Unable to end the war or put across the domestic reforms promised in his 1948 election campaign, his approval rating fell to 23%.

Kennedy's decision to accept the judgment of CIA and military advisers that Cuban exiles could topple Fidel Castro's Cuban government was a failure he could never forget. "How could I have been so stupid?" Kennedy repeatedly asked himself later.

No president stands out more for poor judgment in fighting a war than Johnson. His beliefs that he could defeat a communist insurgency in South Vietnam, that this could be done quickly and that it was vital to the national security in the larger Cold War struggle all proved to be wrong. Two of the principal architects of the war — Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy later acknowledged how unwise they had been in pressing the case for a war they retrospectively saw as unwinnable. Their views reinforced Johnson's mistaken assumptions and made it easier for him to push ahead on a policy that was a disaster, costing more than 50,000 American lives and even greater Vietnamese losses.

Nixon, who was burdened with ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam, mistakenly drew out American withdrawal over four years on the conviction that Vietnamization — the training of South Vietnamese forces to replace U.S. troops — was a viable option suggested by his military chiefs that would produce "peace with honor." Nixon would have done well to recall the Herculean efforts to supply and train Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist armies, who never performed effectively against either the Japanese or the communists during and after World War II. Vietnamization was another miscalculation in the miserable history of American involvement in Vietnam.

Recent missteps in Iraq

Bush's misadventures in Iraq are a familiar tale that is so fresh in American minds, it hardly needs repeating. Nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, more than 4,300 U.S. dead as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis, and a Middle East no more stable or inclined to embrace democracy are not the legacies that Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld intended.

By promising an early exit from Afghanistan, President Obama might be trying to avoid the catalogue of blunders that beset these predecessors. If pressure mounts to extend his withdrawal deadline, he would do well to remember JFK's refusal to take the advice of his military during the Cuban missile crisis, when Pentagon officials urged him to bomb Soviet missile installations on the island and some of them favored a follow-up invasion that would oust Castro.

Kennedy told his aide, Kenneth O'Donnell, "These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we listen to them ... none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong."

President Obama could rue the day he listened to his military chiefs instead of the many Americans who doubt that an expanded war in Afghanistan is worth the cost in lives and dollars. As in past wars, should guns and butter prove to be incompatible, playing havoc with commitments to national health insurance, rigorous financial regulations and environmental protections, it could wreck his administration.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek's new book, The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, will be published next year.

(1963: President Johnson confers with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on Vietnam./AP file photo.)

Should the Drinking Age be Lowered?

2009-12-09T12:37:00.001-06:00

The debate between lowering the drinking age to 18 or keeping it at 21 is a very hot topic for high school and college students nation wide. I'm in favor with lowering the drinking age but not by any means because I want to be able to drink sooner. At the age of 18 you are considered a legal adult in most states and you are finally able to vote, sign up for the military, sign legal contracts on your own, and even adopt a child. To me those seem to be very mature decisions, so whats making drinking alcohol a more mature responsibility then let's say, adopting a child?

The United States is one of the countries with the highest drinking age besides New Zealand where you have to be 21 to drink on your own but are still allowed to drink at the age of 18 with an adult. Mexico, France, Canada, and Australia are all countries with drinking ages of 18. In Germany you can start drinking at the age of 5 if its at dinner time, at 16 you can buy your own alcohol for meals, and once you hit 18 you are able to drink for what ever reason (shea). One of the biggest arguments of lowering the drinking age is that there will be more traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers. But according to ProCon.org, even with the United States increasing the minimum legal drinking age to 21, its rate of traffic fatalities in the 1980s decreased less than that of European countries whose legal drinking ages are lower than 21. Regardless the drinking age, there are still going to be people out there that will choose to make stupid decisions and drive while intoxicated. Just because you are 21 doesn't mean that your brain won't be affected any differently then that of an 18 year old who is just as drunk.

Because drinking is prohibited to anyone below the age of 21, it provides more a of thrill to minors to drink. If The drinking age was lowered, people wouldn't see it as another rule that they can try and break. Usually when a teenager is told no, they have more of a desire to break that rule because it's off limits to them. Along with the drinking age being at 21, it causes a barrier when someone has over-drank and is in a serious health condition and could possibly die. They are afraid to seek help because they might get in trouble with either their parents or even the law because they have been participating in underage drinking.

Enforcing the law of underage drinking takes a lot of time and money. Instead of wasting the money on trying to reinforce the law that is just going to continually get broken, the money should be spent on educational programs that teach children and young adults about the dangers of drinking and how to drink responsibly. If children are taught how to drink responsibly and its not something that they are forbidden to do, they are more then likely to take it more seriously and drink more responsible. Also, alcohol has been proven to be good for your health, but only in moderate amounts. So if the drinking age is at 21, 21-year-olds and higher are the only ones that can use that type of medical treatment so to say.

Just because the drinking age should be lowered, doesn't mean that people are just going to be able to get drunk at an earlier age. It could potentially reduce binge drinking and deaths caused by alcohol poisoning if people aren't afraid to get help and money is spent on the education of alcohol and it isn't just another law that young adults are trying to sneak behind. Also, what makes having the choice to drink alcohol any different from selecting the next president, having a child, or joining the military?

-Germ-x

Sites used:

http://drinkingage.procon.org/

Lisa Shea -> http://www.wineintro.com/wineries/drinkingages.html

Schools strive to stay on key

2009-12-06T17:30:00.001-06:00

By Joe Dejka

The majestic strains of Handel's “Hallelujah” chorus trumpeting from a slide projector seemed out of place.

Amid the legions of public school board members and superintendents — 1,000 from throughout Nebraska — the religious masterwork sounded a discordant note — somewhat like the aroma of beef stew wafting through a PETA convention.

Bent over the projector was Lincoln attorney Neal Stenberg, preparing to deliver some timely advice: Allowing religious music at school programs is OK, as long as you abide by simple rules to keep from running afoul of the U.S. Constitution.

“I think there's a need to remind people it's lawful,” he said.

Every winter, America's educators wrestle with how to deal with the First Amendment's Establishment Clause — commonly interpreted as requiring the separation of church and state — while recognizing the traditions on which the holidays are based.

Although most districts have found a way to balance those interests, fear of lawsuits and confusion about the law have driven some school boards and teachers to cut religious songs unnecessarily from school settings.

Last year, school officials in North Carolina pulled the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” from an elementary school winter concert after a parent complained the song contained the words “Santa” and “Christmas.” Widely ridiculed for their decision, school officials then reversed themselves.

In a backlash against such bans, a Redding, Calif., substitute teacher is gathering signatures on a petition that would require the state's public schools to let students listen to or perform Christmas music.

Despite confusion about the use of religious music in schools, Stenberg said, courts have upheld its constitutionality.

When schools use religious music, however, the objectives must be secular, he said.

“It's important to understand the distinction between teaching religious music for a secular purpose and trying to inculcate some religious value through the use of music. The former is lawful, the latter is not,” he said.

Stenberg's credentials lie in music and school law.

He is a former legal counsel for the Nebraska Association of School Boards and currently advises several school boards and Southeast Community College. His brother, Don, is the former Nebraska attorney general.

Neal Stenberg, 59, took voice lessons at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and professes the ability to sing a tenor aria in four languages. He sings in the St. Paul United Methodist Church choir in Lincoln and, in his younger days, ran with a rock band called Sour Mash.

Schools, he said, should select music for its educational value, such as its historic value or the skills it demands of musicians, not to advance a particular religious belief.

In 2002, an atheistic couple sued the Woodbine Community School District, northeast of Council Bluffs in Iowa's Harrison County, to prevent the choir from singing “The Lord's Prayer” at high school graduation. The school board had overruled the decision of the principal and choir director not to use the song. A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the school's intent in singing “The Lord's Prayer” was to promote Christianity.

“The court said, ‘There is no secular purpose here.' The whole purpose by the board is to actually add a prayer into the graduation,” Stenberg said.

Choosing a diverse selection from different faiths “just makes good sense,” to show people their traditions are being respected, he said.

In 2008, three-quarters of Nebraskans and Iowans identified themselves as Christian, the same percentage as the country overall, according to Trinity College's American Religious Identification Survey.

Three percent of Nebraskans and 4 percent of Iowans identified themselves as non-Christian, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.

Fifteen percent of Iowans and 17 percent of Nebraskans said they had no religion. The rest didn't know or declined to take the survey.

Stenberg said that although offering musical diversity is desirable, it isn't necessarily enough to stay within the law.

“If the purpose of using ‘Silent Night' as a song is to try to persuade someone to become a Christian, then the fact that you add in a Hanukkah song isn't going to save you,” he said.

On the other hand, he said, a public school choir singing a repertoire of all religious songs at a local church would be constitutional if the performance could be defended on educational grounds. For example, a church setting might offer unique acoustics or accompanists that make it a can't-miss opportunity for students, he said.

Alan Potash, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the main hope with winter concerts or programs is that students feel included by the music selections.

“The music teacher should know who the audience is. ... And to alienate one religion or alienate students is not an appropriate educational experience,” Potash said.

He said he fields calls each year from parents concerned about programs that put too much emphasis on one faith over another.

The Anti-Defamation League says in position statements that school choirs should not sing religious music only and should not focus on a particular holiday or denomination, and that officials should excuse public school children from singing religious music without fear of embarrassment or peer pressure.

The National Association for Music Education contends that the study and performance of religious music within an educational context “is a vital and appropriate part of a comprehensive music education.”

The chorales of J.S. Bach, the “Hallelujah” chorus, spirituals and Ernest Bloch's Sacred Service all have an important role in developing a student's musical understanding and knowledge, the association says.

By some estimates, Stenberg said, 60 percent to 75 percent of serious choral music is based on sacred themes or text. Serious music from some historic periods is almost exclusively religious, he said.

In the Omaha Public Schools, elementary school teachers choose music based on the community and culture in which they teach, said Linda Hulsey, the district's vocal music supervisor.

They can “absolutely” use religious music, but the program should be diverse and include many genres, she said.

She said she reviews the selections and asks the teachers to have their principals review them as well.

As a result, programs vary widely from school to school.

For example, this year's program at Columbian Elementary School in west Omaha was decidedly secular. Under the theme “Sing a Song of Seasons,” the children sang about hot chocolate, snowmen and presents, but also about springtime, summer days, the beach and Halloween skeletons. None of the lyrics spoke of Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, the seven-day celebration based on African festivals.

Columbian music director Linda Schoening said the music was selected with regard to a substantial Jewish population in the community around the school. Next year, she said, she might include a variety of religious songs from different traditions.

Stenberg said districts can legally cut out all religious music, but by doing so they could face a backlash from those who want their traditions included. And they must beware to avoid using government to squelch religious freedom, he said.

When school officials in Frenchtown, N.J., refused to let 8-year-old Olivia Turton sing “Awesome God” in a talent show, a federal judge ruled the district had trammeled her freedom of speech.

“Even the ACLU entered this case on Olivia's side,” Stenberg said. “And that's saying something.”

Stem Cell Research

2009-12-06T14:26:00.002-06:00

Stem cell research is one of the most controversial disputes that our national government is trying to settle. There are many arguments against stem cell research, but the main argument is that embryonic stem cell research is morally wrong. I disagree. So many successful stories have come from embryonic stem cell research that it's ridiculous we are still fighting over this issue.
Everyone gets touchy when it comes to embryonic cell research. Embryonic cells are taken from an egg after it is fertilized. The first source of embryonic cells was from a 5 to 9 week old fetus, taken from a pregnant female having an abortion. Now there is a new method that is called in vitro fertilization. This process is all done in a lab and does not require an abortion. The problem with embryonic research for many people is that they consider it murder. I do not consider this murder because the in vitro method does not require an abortion. Many cases there are surpluses of embryos left after this procedure, and the extra cells can be given to other couples or frozen to be used for future research.
While our country is fighting an endless fight, Britain has made a huge difference with stem cell research. British researchers at Sheffield University have managed to grow tiny hair cells found in the ear, which one day could help repair hearing in deaf patients. Professors Martin Birchall and Anthony Hollander from the University of Bristol teamed up with doctors to form one of the first organs made from stem cells. They created a windpipe that was transplanted into 30 year old Claudia Castillo. Professor Hollander also invented "cellular bandages" from bone marrow that can be used to repair torn knee cartilage.
Stem cell research has amazing potential to save human lives someday. Look at all the good Britain has done! Embryonic research can lead us closer to finding the cure of Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, birth defects, spinal cord injuries, etc. America could be doing the same if we would just stop fighting over this issue.
--Left Sock

Obama Touts Dip in Unemployment on Jobs Tour

2009-12-04T12:56:00.002-06:00

President Obama seized on the report Friday showing a slight dip in the jobless rate to put an upbeat face on the economy to an audience in a Pennsylvania region where 41,000 are out of work.
Speaking to a crowd in Allentown, Pa. -- the first stop on Obama's multi-city jobs tour -- the president touted Friday's government report showing the nation's unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent in November.
"Overall, this is the best jobs report that we've seen since 2007," Obama said, adding that U.S. employers cut 11,000 jobs in November, the lowest monthly job loss in nearly two years and 115,000 fewer than economists predicted.
"This is good news just in time for the season of hope," he said, "but we've got a lot more work to do before we can celebrate."
Too many Americans have "felt the gut punch of a pink slip" and "good trends don't pay the rent," he said.
The Labor Department's Friday report marked an improvement over October's 111,000 jobs lost. But the respite may be temporary, as many economists expect the jobless rate to keep climbing into next year as the economy struggles to generate enough jobs for the 15.4 million people out of work.
The unemployment rate fell to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October, where economists expected it to remain.
If part-time workers who want full time jobs and laid off workers who have given up looking for work are included, the so-called underemployment rate also fell, to 17.2 percent from 17.5 percent in October.
There was other positive news in the report. The average work week rose to 33.2 hours, from a record low of 33 hours. Economists expect employers will increase hours for their current workers before hiring new ones.
The department also increased its job estimate for September, to a loss of 139,000 from 219,000, and for last month, to 111,000 from 190,000.
Swing voters in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley helped Obama win the pivotal, populous state. But the region's jobless rate inched up another half percentage point in October to 9.8 percent. About 41,000 people are currently unemployed, the highest number since 1984.
Small businesses that power the economy in the region are starved for credit and laying people off. Stimulus dollars for roads, bridges, schools and social services are mired in Washington and state bureaucracy.
"In the last two or three months people are getting disillusioned," Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, a Democrat, told the Wall Street Journal in advance of Obama's speech. "If he's kicking off this tour and nothing of substance comes out of it, it's gonna kill him," he said.
Obama told Pennsylvanians Friday that he's optimistic that banks will ease lending next year and that should help businesses that want to expand and hire new workers.
When asked what his administration could do to loosen tight credit, especially for struggling small businesses, Obama said that banks were "way too easy in terms of giving credit" -- which he said contributed to the near financial collapse. Obama said banks now "have swung in the opposite direction" and that the administration will push them to lend to credit-worthy customers. The president said "they were used to saying yes to everybody and now they're saying no to everybody."
In a speech from Washington next Tuesday, Obama plans to unveil a proposal to "jump-start" business hiring across the country.
The president plans to send Congress a list of ideas he supports for a new jobs bill. He will endorse sending the biggest chunk of fresh money to cash-strapped state and local governments to stem their layoffs and on expanding a program that gives people cash incentives to fix up their homes with energy-saving materials. Obama will also endorse new tax breaks for small businesses that hire workers.
The nation's unemployment rate fell in November because the number of jobless Americans dropped by 325,000 to 15.4 million. The jobless rate is calculated from a survey of households, while the number of jobs lost or gain is calculated from a separate survey of business and government establishments. The two surveys can sometimes vary.
The rate also dropped because fewer people are looking for work. The size of the labor force, which includes the employed and those actively searching for jobs, fell by nearly 100,000, the third straight decline. That indicates more of the unemployed are giving up on looking for work.
The participation rate, or the percentage of the population employed or looking for work, fell to 65 percent, the lowest since the recession began. Once laid-off people stop hunting for jobs, they are no longer counted in the unemployment rate.
The economy has now lost jobs for 23 straight months, but the small decline in November indicates the nation could begin generating jobs soon.
Yet even as layoffs are easing, the slow pace of hiring is causing headaches for political leaders. The employment report comes a day after Obama hosted a "jobs summit" at the White House, where he told economists, business executives and union leaders that he is "open to every demonstrably good idea" to create jobs.

This ties in well with American Government. Jobs is one of the presidents many duties that he has to oversee along with the economy. If he was to ignore the economy and not worry about jobs the United States would be a failure in the eyes of the rest of the world. As Chief of the economy the job growth is very important to the president and our government, because Congress has passed new laws concerning the economy and jobs.
Pinkbandit