FBI Raids Special Counsel Office, Seizes Records

It is about freaking time that our checks and balances actually worked...sheesh! FBI agents on Tuesday raid the Office of the Special Counsel, the agency that investigates whistleblower and discrimination complaints by federal employees. The FBI is examining allegations of political misconduct by agency employees.



All Things Considered, May 6, 2008

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistle-blowers. The agents seized computers and shut down e-mail service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, as first reported by NPR News.

A grand jury in Washington issued subpoenas for several OSC employees, including Bloch, according to NPR sources who spoke on condition their names not be used. Bloch's home was also searched.

Those developments came about on a Tuesday morning that had seemed no different from any other weekday in the Washington headquarters of the Office of Special Counsel. But at 10 a.m., the OSC's national e-mail system went down, and the FBI arrived.

A half-dozen FBI agents swarmed into the OSC's Washington offices, grabbing documents and seizing computers. By 1 p.m., more than 20 agents had arrived in the agency's D.C. bureau.

One official close to the investigation said that today's action was "significant" and that other field offices would also be included in the investigation.

The focus of the probe appears to be Special Counsel Bloch, who was appointed by President Bush in 2004. Bloch has been a controversial figure ever since taking over the Office of Special Counsel, which, among other things, ensures that federal whistle-blowers get the protection they need.

One of Bloch's first official actions was to refuse to investigate any claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. When the news of his refusal was leaked to the press, career employees in his office say, Bloch blamed them for the leak. He retaliated, the employees said, by creating a new field office in Detroit and forcing them either to accept assignments there or resign.

This morning, FBI agents in Washington took Bloch into a separate room at OSC to interview him, while additional investigators searched his office. They also arrived at his home in Alexandria, Va., with a search warrant.

The Office of Personnel Management's inspector general has been looking into allegations that Bloch retaliated against career employees and obstructed an investigation. Sources close to the probe said the FBI's raid this morning was related to work the inspector general had already done.

In addition to concerns about obstruction of justice, investigators are also looking into whether Bloch violated the Hatch Act, a congressional mandate that prohibits employees from using their offices for partisan political purposes.

Bloch has admitted to hiring Geeks on Call — a computer servicing company — to purge his computer and two of his deputies' computers, sources said. But he said the computers contained a virus, which necessitated a purge. Investigators are looking into whether the purge was meant to destroy evidence related to the current investigation.

OSC employees for months have called on President Bush to ask for Bloch's resignation. The White House today declined to comment on the developments, as did Bloch's lawyers and the FBI.


by Ari Shapiro

Copyright 2008 NPR

Fuzzy math on the campaign trail

The candidates say they will pay for their proposals by raising revenue and cutting spending. Here are just a few of the accounting flaws in their platforms.



NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It's a good thing they're not running for accountant in chief.

When it comes to selling their economic proposals as fiscally responsible, all three presidential candidates have managed to do some funny math.

"Everybody says, let's make the numbers work by not counting certain things," said Howard Gleickman, editor of Tax Vox, a blog by think-tank Tax Policy Center.

Of course,a campaign is more about proposing new ideas than it is crafting the federal balance sheet with an X-Acto Knife. Nevertheless, none of the candidates are immune from double-counting money they say could pay for one or another of their proposals, or proposing cost-saving measures that are tough to quantify.

And they're happy to call each other out on it.

Speaking Sundayon "Meet the Press," Democrat Barack Obama criticized rival Hillary Clinton's plan to pay for her gas tax holiday proposal. "Sen. Clinton says that she's going to use the windfall profits tax. [S]he's already said that she's going to use the windfall profits tax for something else, as I have, and that is to invest in clean energy and other important measures. So that money, she's already spending twice."

The reality: It's not clear how much revenue either candidate's windfall profits tax would raise.

"It depends on how it is structured and what future oil prices are," said Gilbert Metcalf, an economics professor at Tufts University who specializes in taxation, energy and environmental economics. "For what it's worth, the previous windfall profits tax consistently raised less revenue than was predicted," he added.

The Clinton campaign gives as good as it gets. For example, Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling, in a conversation with CNNMoney.com earlier this year, took the Obama campaign to task for proposing that money saved by drawing down troops in Iraq could be used to pay for some of Obama's proposals. That's money that should be considered emergency spending, Sperling said.

"When Iraq spending goes away, it goes away. You don't use it as a pay-for," he said. "We're assuming that will bring the budget down."

Spread the wealth

Both Democratic candidates, meanwhile, frequently cite their plans to let the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 expire for high-income taxpayers as a way to pay for their initiatives.

The tax cuts are set to expire for everyone by 2011. By letting them expire for only high-income taxpayers would over 10 years capture $1.2 trillion in federal revenue, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Such revenue certainly could go a long way toward paying for Clinton's health care reform - estimated to cost $110 billion a year - or to Obama's health care proposals - estimated to cost $50 billion to $65 billion.

Or it could pay for several of the new income, payroll, savings, education or housing tax credits that both Obama and Clinton have proposed.

Or it could help pay for a permanent fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a move that would reduce revenue by at least $620 billion over 10 years.

But it can't do it all.

Cut spending, save billions

Clinton and Obama don't rely exclusively on high-income taxpayers to pay for their new ideas. But some of their other cost-saving measures, such as modernizing the health system and reducing wasteful health spending, are not easily quantifiable.

On the Republican side of the ledger, John McCain wants to make permanent all of President Bush's tax cuts and eliminate the AMT altogether. The Tax Policy Center estimates both measures combined could reduce federal tax revenue by nearly $4 trillion over 10 years.

McCain's economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, disputes how the center calculates its estimates.

Here's his beef: The Tax Policy Center estimates make two key assumptions - the tax cuts will expire by 2011 and the AMT will hit an increasing number of taxpayers. While that reflects current law, Holtz-Eakin asserts such estimates should be based on the policies in effect now.

"[T]he AMT gets patched [to protect taxpayers] every year - regardless of which party holds power in Congress - but a current law baseline assumes that it will revert to its full-blown form in the future," Holtz-Eakin wrote in a rebuttal to the Tax Policy Center's estimates.

If we did that, Gleickman said, the baseline would also have to reflect other current and expensive policies like the war in Iraq, where McCain has called for an increase of troops.

McCain's critics say his proposals are too costly .

His campaign asserts that his call to extend the tax cuts for everyone and reduce corporate tax rates will stimulate economic growth and maintain a healthy level of tax revenue. But studies - including one by Holtz-Eakin in his capacity as Congressional Budget Office director in 2005 - suggest that tax cuts don't pay for themselves over time.

McCain is also relying on spending cuts to address long-term budgetary concerns. Specifically, he's called for the elimination of earmarks and discretionary programs that don't meet their objectives. And when it comes to shoring up funding for Social Security, he has expressed a preference to reduce growth in benefits.

Those ventures may save a lot of money or not much at all. Everything depends on what McCain could get through Congress. And so far, no presidential candidate has spent a lot of stump time proposing how to do that.

By Jeanne Sahadi

CNNMoney.com senior writer

First Published: May 6, 2008: 12:35 PM EDT

Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/06/news/economy/pay_for_plans/index.htm?cnn=yes

© 2008 Cable News Network LP, LLP.

If reason and common sense do not influence her, then what kind of president would Senator Clinton be?!

'Unbelievable' sportsmanship in softball game

Wow! This is one of the most classy acts of sportsmanship that I have ever heard of. The coaches and the parents of these ladies should be swelling with pride!


(click image for YouTube story)

PORTLAND, Ore. - With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky’s legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, ‘OK, we’re going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,’ and I said ‘OK, thank you very much.”’

“She said, ‘You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,’ and we all kind of just laughed.”

“We started laughing when we touched second base,” Holtman said. “I said, ’I wonder what this must look like to other people.”’

“We didn’t know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run,” Wallace said Wednesday. “That makes the story more touching than it was. We just wanted to help her.”

Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.

As for Tucholsky, the 5-foot-2 right fielder was focused on her pain.

“I really didn’t say too much. I was trying to breathe,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“I didn’t realize what was going on until I had time to sit down and let the pain relax a little bit,” she said. “Then I realized the extent of what I actually did.”

“I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation,” Tucholsky added.

As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.

Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”

For Western Oregon coach Pam Knox, the gesture resolved the dilemma Tucholsky’s injury presented.

“She was going to kill me if we sub and take (the home run) away. But at the same time I was concerned for her. I didn’t know what to do,” Knox said.

Tucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season, and she plans to graduate in the spring with a degree in business. Her home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.

“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run.”

The Associated Press
updated 3:42 p.m. CT, Wed., April. 30, 2008

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Story URL: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24392612/

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZfUvdKDG1E

© 2008 NBCSports.com

Denomination Wrestles With Pastor’s Statements

Article Published May 3, 2008 by The New York Times

By NEELA BANERJEE

Just as Senator Barack Obama has spent this week trying to stem the damage to his campaign from statements by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., the small, theologically liberal Protestant denomination both men belong to, the United Church of Christ, has been grappling with the impact of the controversy upon its members.

On Thursday, the Rev. John H. Thomas, the denomination’s president, posted an open letter on the United Church of Christ’s Web site acknowledging that members have been dealing with “the same broad set of emotions and frustrations that have been expressed nationwide in recent days and weeks.”

Mr. Thomas said he had heard concern from members about the well-being of the church and its congregations.

“While there is high regard for Reverend Wright’s ministry and leadership at Trinity U.C.C. in Chicago during the past 36 years, and for his prophetic, scriptural preaching,” Mr. Thomas wrote, “many of us today are troubled by some of his controversial comments and the substance and manner in which they have been communicated, both by him and as characterized by the media.”

The letter responds, in part, to e-mail and calls to the denomination’s main office in Cleveland about Mr. Wright’s comments, a flow that has picked up since his talk at the National Press Club on Monday, said the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, a spokesman for the denomination.

Other United Church of Christ ministers said Mr. Thomas, who is in South America, had no choice but to issue a statement, given how the continuing controversy has thrust the denomination of 1.4 million members into the spotlight.

“His statement indicates there is a high level of anxiety,” said the Rev. Madison Shockley, pastor of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, Calif., “and it’s important for the body of the church to know that the leadership hears them.”

In comments on the United Church of Christ’s Web site, people have called for the expulsion from the denomination of Mr. Wright and the church he led until he retired in February, a move that experts said was highly unlikely. More often, visitors to the site have debated whether Mr. Wright’s comments were laudable or lamentable.

“The U.C.C. has got to come out against Wright. This is embarrassing. Even Obama is denouncing him,” Matthew Thompson, who said he had a master’s degree in theology, wrote on the Web site. “It is clear that Wright is soap-boxing for his own promotion and is making a joke of progressive Christianity.”

The United Church of Christ, made up in part of churches descended from the Puritan congregations, takes pride in its liberalism, and it has been among the first Protestant denominations to ordain women and gay men and has been a leader on civil rights issues. The denomination is overwhelmingly white, although Mr. Wright’s former church, Trinity United Church of Christ, which is mostly African-American, is its largest congregation.

The denomination emphasizes “the freedom of the congregation and the freedom of the pulpit,” said the Rev. Randi Walker, a United Church of Christ minister and an assistant professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

Ministers said they heard in Mr. Wright’s language “the same kind of passion and hyperbole as the Hebrew prophets,” said the Rev. Richard Wagoner of Union Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ church in St. Louis Park, Minn. Clergy members have cited the prophet Amos, who cursed all the nations, saving his harshest words for his own.

But many congregants heard something different, Mr. Wagoner said, and were angry about Mr. Wright’s sermons. After his speech at the National Press Club, more frustration surfaced.

“Many in our congregation are resonating with Obama’s talk of raising the discourse and that sort of idealism, and Jeremiah Wright’s comments have pulled the level of discourse down,” Mr. Wagoner said. “People are angry at the effect it is having on Obama’s campaign. And they are angry at having to revisit the race issue.”

Clergy members say some good may come out of the controversy, including a deeper conversation on race.

“When you have diversity, you’re going to have conflict — that is the price of diversity,” said the Rev. Joseph C. Hough Jr., president of Union Theological Seminary in New York. “The challenge is to recognize conflict and open windows of reconciliation.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Poll: More disapprove of Bush than any other president

Well duh?!



* President Bush's disapproval rating hits all-time high in polling
* More than 70 percent disapprove in CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll
* Survey indicates support for Iraq war has never been lower
* Low approval numbers come five years after "Mission Accomplished" moment

WASHINGTON DC (CNN) -- A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.

"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.

"Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland said. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952."

While Gallup polling goes back to the 1930s, it wasn't until the Truman years that they began surveying monthly approval ratings.

CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974."

President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent

The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.

"Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war," Holland said. "In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent."

The numbers on the Iraq war come on the five-year anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when he proclaimed that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

The record-low support for the war in a CNN poll could be one reason behind the president's unpopularity, but it probably is not the only one.

"Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same -- bad," Schneider said.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted by telephone from Monday through Wednesday among 1,008 adult Americans.

The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

By Paul Steinhauser

CNN Deputy Political Director

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/01/bush.poll/index.html

© 2008 Cable News Network

City powers down in energy crisis

I wish it were not a crisis that prompted their conservation, but the results are nonetheless positive. Perhaps these high fuel prices will produce a similar reduction in consumption with a commensurate movement towards greater efficiency all across our nation?! The last three paragraphs provide the greatest hope.



JUNEAU, Alaska - First, there was a run on energy-efficient light bulbs. When those ran out, people began asking for lamp oil. But when they started demanding clothespins in this land of mist and rain, it was clear Alaska's capital city was caught in a serious energy crunch.

"We sold all our clothespins the first day," said Doug White, general manager at Don Abel Building Supplies. "I don't think kids even knew what they were for, but they're learning now."

Avalanches earlier this month knocked down transmission lines and cut off Juneau's source of low-cost hydroelectric power. Threatened with a five-fold increase in utility bills, Juneau quickly powered down.

Stores, though open, went partially dark. Neon signs were switched off and vending machines unplugged. At home, residents of this former Gold Rush town began living a little bit like pioneers, dusting the snow off the grill, stringing clotheslines in the backyard and flicking off their TV sets. Within a week, electrical usage across town was down as much as 30 percent.

Conservation can be a tough sell

Energy conservation is a hard sell in much of the U.S., but Juneau has proved that people will change their ways if the financial incentives are big enough.

"Turn off, turn down, unplug," said Sarah Lewis, chairwoman of the Juneau Commission on Sustainability. "That's what everyone is doing and being vigilant about and commenting when others are not."

The April 16 snow slides that roared out of the mountains some 25 miles southeast of town uprooted transmission towers and plowed through 1.5 miles of high-voltage lines that link this largely isolated community of 30,000 to the Snettisham hydroelectric dam. (The Legislature had already ended its session, and most lawmakers had gone home.)

As back-up diesel generators shouldered the load, the electric company began warning customers that life in Juneau — already expensive — was about to get a lot more so.

With oil prices reaching a record $120 a barrel, Alaska Electric Light and Power said customers might have to pay for an extra $25 million in diesel over the three months it would take to repair the lines. The utility warned that rates would probably leap from an average of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour to more than 50 cents, or about five times the national average of 10.3 cents.

Conversations all over town turned from the governor's new baby and the legislative session to kilowatt hours, tariff rates and saving energy.

Heidi Graves said her 16-year-old son, Levi — the one who never would turn off his Nintendo — was the first to get on board. He was worried that the family of six would have to cancel its vacation next August.

Levi multiplied the electric bill by five and came up with $950. "It's more than our house payment," said his mother.

Eating dinner by candlelight

Now members of the Graves family eat dinner by candlelight, do dishes by hand, plan to dry their clothes on a rack by the wood stove, and limit their time on the computer.

"My husband has bruised himself and tripped over the dog just to keep the lights off," Graves said.

Graves also ordered a history of past electrical use so that the family could ferret out which appliances were the real power hogs, and they learned how to read their own electric meter, which they are now doing several times a day.

Though the Graves heat solely with wood, perhaps one in five houses in Juneau is wired for electric heat because hydroelectric power is relatively cheap and natural gas is unavailable.

In part because Juneau is so far removed from the Lower 48 and is inaccessible by road, its cost of living is 34.5 percent higher than that of the average U.S. city, and its housing costs are 50 percent higher, according to a survey of 300 American cities. Even an oil change is $60, twice what it costs in many places down south.

Residents will see the sobering new rates on paper — and the early results of their conservation efforts — when the first electric bills begin arriving in mailboxes Friday.

Energy expert Allen Meier of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is visiting Juneau this week to offer advice on the crisis. He said the closest comparison may be Brazil in 2001, when severe drought gripped the hydropower-dependent country. Brazilians were told to reduce their electricity usage by 20 percent or be disconnected.

"In two months, the whole country cut their demand by 20 percent and they never really returned to the same level of consumption after that," Meier said.

Eighth-grader Matthew Staley is hoping the people of Juneau will likewise develop new habits over the course of three months, and "realize that — wow — we have to keep this up. Like switching to fluorescent lights, they'll just keep on with them."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24373676/

© 2008 MSNBC.com

White House slows EPA tests, inquiry finds

Now ask yourself...do the following words describe the actions of the Bush administration:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Do they? Is this government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Is it?



WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger — often secret — say, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The administration’s decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program’s credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.

At issue is the EPA’s screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.

A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.

Cancer risk assessments for nearly a dozen major chemicals are now years overdue, the GAO said, blaming the new multiagency reviews for some of the delay. The EPA, for example, had promised to prepare assessments on 10 major toxic chemicals for external peer review by the end of 2007, but only two reached that stage.

GAO investigators said extensive involvement by EPA managers, White House budget officials and other agencies has eroded the independence of EPA scientists charged with determining the health risks posed by chemicals.

The Pentagon, the Energy Department, NASA and other agencies — all of which could be severely affected by EPA risk findings — are being allowed to participate “at almost every step in the assessment process,” said the GAO.

Those agencies, their private contractors and manufacturers of the chemicals face restrictions and major cleanup requirements, depending on the EPA’s scientific determinations.

“By law the EPA must protect our families from dangerous chemicals,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the Senate committee’s chairman. “Instead, they’re protecting the chemical companies.”

The EPA’s risk assessment process “never was perfect,” Boxer said in an interview Monday. “But at least it put the scientists up front. Now the scientists are being shunted aside.”

'Black box of secrecy' criticized

The GAO said many of the deliberations over risks posed by specific chemicals “occur in what amounts to a black box” of secrecy because the White House claims they are private executive branch deliberations.

Such secrecy “reduces the credibility of the ... assessments and hinders the EPA’s ability to manage them,” the GAO report said.

The White House said the GAO is wrong in suggesting that the EPA has lost control in assessing the health risks posed by toxic chemicals.

“Only EPA has the authority to finalize an EPA assessment,” Kevin F. Neyland, deputy administrator of the White House budget office’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote in response to the GAO. He called the interagency process “a dialogue that helps to ensure the quality” of the reviews.

One EPA scientist with extensive knowledge of the changes in the agency’s risk assessment policies ridiculed the claim that the EPA still has the final say.

“Unless there is concurrence by other agencies, ... things don’t go forward. It means we stop what we are doing,” said the scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of endangering his career.

“The (EPA) scientists feel as if they have lost complete control of the process, that it’s been taken over by the White House and that they’re calling the shots,” the scientist said.

The GAO investigation focused on the EPA’s computerized database, known as IRIS — the Integrated Risk Information System. It contains data on the human health effects of exposure to some 540 toxic chemicals in the environment. New chemicals are being proposed constantly for inclusion under a complicated assessment process that can take five years or more.

After years of stops and starts, the GAO said, the EPA has yet to determine carcinogen risks for a number of major chemicals such as:

• Naphthalene, a chemical used in rocket fuel and manufacturing a wide range of commercial products, including mothballs, dyes and insecticides. It is a major source of contamination at many military bases. The EPA wants to determine if it should be reclassified from a “possible” to “likely” human carcinogen. A long-standing dispute with the Pentagon over the chemical prompted the White House in 2004 to initiate a new EPA policy requiring more interagency involvement in assessing the health risks of a chemical. “Six years after the naphthalene assessment began, it is now back at the drafting stage,” said the GAO.

• Trichloroethylene, or TCE, a widely used industrial degreasing agent and a common contaminant in air, soil and both surface and ground water. The EPA in 2001 issued a draft assessment that TCE is “highly likely to produce cancer in humans.” Interagency reviews have concluded more outside studies are needed. “Ten years after EPA started ... the TCE assessment is back at the draft development stage,” the GAO said.

• Perchloroethylene, or “perc,” a chemical widely used in dry cleaning fabrics, degreasing metal and making chemical products. The EPA began its risk review of perc a decade ago and an interagency review was completed two years ago. Since then the assessment has been in limbo because of a dispute among senior EPA officials over what the cancer risk assessment should be. The dispute has prevented the proposed assessment from being forwarded to the National Academy of Science for peer review.

• Formaldehyde, a colorless, flammable gas used to make plywood and other building materials, which the EPA has been reviewing since 1997 to determine if should be upgraded from a “probable” to a “known” carcinogen. The EPA does not expect to complete that review for another two years.

• Royal Demolition Explosive, or RDX, a chemical explosive used in munitions and classified as a possible human carcinogen. The chemical is known to leach from soil to groundwater. The EPA began a risk assessment of the chemical in 2000 but has made minimal progress, the GAO said.

Environmentalists say these chemicals have been widely found at military bases and Superfund sites and in soil, lakes, streams and groundwater.

The findings, after an 18-month investigation by the congressional watchdog agency, come at a time of growing criticism from members of Congress and health and environmental advocates over alleged political interference in the government’s science activities.

Last week, a confidential survey by an advocacy group of EPA scientists showed more than half of the 1,600 respondents worried about political pressure in their work.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24358037/

Earth's Climate Relief Regulator Is Being Overwhelmed

This is a very intriguing article on climate change. The findings could actually bring opposing sides together. The earth has a regulation system built into itself. My analogy may not be a good one, but it seems to work similarly to the voltage regulator on my antique car. It can handle the loads that it was created for long ago, but it surely cannot handle the loads that would be placed on it today. Over the past 200 years humans have simply overloaded the atmosphere with too much carbon. I wonder if we should not only be focused on reduction of carbon emissions, but also finding ways to remove existing atmospheric carbon in a way complementary to the Earth's own system?



WASHINGTON - Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between carbon dioxide emissions and Earth's ability to absorb them, but now the planet can't keep up, scientists said on Sunday.

The finding, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, relies on ice cores taken from Antarctica's Lake Vostok that contain air samples going back 610,000 years.

Climate scientists for the last 25 years or so have suggested that some kind of natural feedback mechanism regulates our planet's temperature and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those skeptical about human influence on global warming point to this, not fossil fuel emissions, as the cause for recent climate change.

"We have provided the first observational evidence for the operation and efficacy of this feedback, which reveals its essential role for stabilizing the Earth’s long-term climate," the study authors wrote.

This feedback mechanism has been thrown out of whack by a steep rise in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal and petroleum for the last 200 years or so, said Richard Zeebe, a co-author of the report.

'Entirely out of equilibrium'

"These feedbacks operate so slowly that they will not help us in terms of climate change ... that we're going to see in the next several hundred years," Zeebe said by telephone from the University of Hawaii. "Right now we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium."

In the ancient past, excess carbon dioxide came mostly from volcanoes, which spewed very little of the chemical compared to what humans activities do now, but it still had to be addressed.

This ancient excess carbon dioxide — a powerful greenhouse gas — was removed from the atmosphere through the weathering of mountains, which take in the chemical. In the end, it was washed downhill into oceans and buried in deep sea sediments, Zeebe said.

Zeebe analyzed carbon dioxide that had been captured in Antarctic ice, and by figuring out how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere at various points in time, he and his co-author Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, determined that it waxed and waned along with the world's temperature.

"When the carbon dioxide was low, the temperature was low, and we had an ice age," he said. And while Earth's temperature fell during ice ages and rose during so-called interglacial periods between them, the planet's mean temperature has been going slowly down for about 600,000 years.

Lots more molecules in air

The average change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 600,000 years has been just 22 parts per million by volume, Zeebe said, which means that 22 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to, or removed from, every million molecules of air.

Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, ushering in the widespread human use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 100 parts per million.

That means human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 14,000 times as fast as natural processes do, Zeebe said.

And it appears to be speeding up: the U.S. government reported last week that in 2007 alone, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 2.4 parts per million.

The natural mechanism will eventually absorb the excess carbon dioxide, Zeebe said, but not for hundreds of thousands of years.

"This is a time period that we can hardly imagine," he said. "They are way too slow to help us to restore the balance that we have now basically distorted in a very short period of time."

updated 5:25 p.m. CT, Sun., April. 27, 2008

Copyright 2008 Reuters.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24339280/

© 2008 MSNBC.com

Oops, That Is Not Funny!

Bill Moyers interviews the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in his first broadcast interview with a journalist since he became embroiled in a controversy for his remarks and his relationship with Barack Obama. Wright, who retired in early 2008 as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Senator Obama is a member, has been at the center of controversy for comments he made during sermons, which surfaced in the press in March.

More than 3,000 news stories have been penned since early April about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. But behind the five second loop is a man who has preached three different sermons nearly every Sunday since 1972. In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, Reverend Wright discusses what drew him to the pulpit and the recent controversy surrounding him.

About Reverend Jeremiah Wright

Jeremiah Wright was raised in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, his father was a prominent Baptist minister and his mother a respected educator. In the early 1960s, Wright left college at Virginia Union University and signed up for the United States Marine Corps. After his required duty ended, Wright transferred to the Navy and served three more years as a medical technician.

After leaving the Navy, Wright transferred to Howard University in Washington, D.C. to complete his undergraduate degree. He went on to take degrees from Chicago Divinity School and United Theological Seminary. After spending some time teaching religious history, Jeremiah Wright elected to instead pursue "public ministry". Public ministry, as his friend and mentor Martin E. Marty explains, means focusing on: "conventional pastoral roles and carrying the message and work of the church to the public arena."

About Trinity Church

Jeremiah Wright became the pastor of Trinity Church in 1972. At the time, it was a struggling congregation with only 87 members. In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, Wright explains that his predecessor, Reverend Dr. Reuben Sheares, coined the phra se "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian" to answer a two-fold problem that he felt black Christians faced as African-Americans and Christians: "Blacks coming out of the '60s were no longer ashamed of being black people, nor did they have to apologize for being Christians. Because many persons in the African-American community were t eased enough, Christians, of being a white man's religion. And no, we're not ashamed of Christianity. And we don't have to apologize for who we are as African-Americans." Some aspects of Trinity's philosophy falls within tradition of Black Liberation Theology. James Cone in first laid out in BLACK POWER AND BLACK THEOLOGY in 1969.

Trinity Church has grown in size and scope under Wright's leadership. He and his congregation have made pilgrimages to Africa, welcomed women leaders and gay members and made Trinity a social force with over 70 ministries addressing community needs ranging from youth groups to day care. The Church today boasts a congregation of 8500 members — making it the largest in the otherwise predominately white United Church of Christ denomination.

Published on April 25, 2008.

Guest photo by Robin Holland

© Public Affairs Television 2007

Bill Moyers Interview -- Part 1

Bill Moyers Interview -- Part 2

Bill Moyers Interview -- Part 3

Bill Moyers Interview -- Part 4

VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show

How very, very sad. Not only are our emotionally wounded and scared soldiers facing such depression, anxiety, doubt, and fear...the agency charged with the task of caring for them has been hiding the truth about the scope of the problem. Lip service about patriotism and valor...is that all we can provide to our soldiers? The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is proposing that we honor our soldiers in both word and deed. Check out their proposal for a New G.I. Bill.



April 21, 2008 (CBS)

CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports...

The Department of Veterans Affairs came under fire again Monday, this time in California federal court where it's facing a national lawsuit by veterans rights groups accusing the agency of not doing enough to stem a looming mental health crisis among veterans. As part of the lawsuit, internal e-mails raise questions as to whether top officials deliberately deceived the American public about the number of veterans attempting and committing suicide.

In San Francisco federal court Monday, attorneys for veterans' rights groups accused the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs of nothing less than a cover-up - deliberately concealing the real risk of suicide among veterans.

"The system is in crisis and unfortunately the VA is in denial," said veterans rights attorney Gordon Erspamer.

The charges were backed by internal e-mails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head of Mental Health.

In the past, Katz has repeatedly insisted while the risk of suicide among veterans is serious, it's not outside the norm.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told Keteyian in November.

But in this e-mail to his top media adviser, written two months ago, Katz appears to be saying something very different, stating: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."

Katz's e-mail was written shortly after the VA provided CBS News data showing there were only 790 attempted suicides in all 2007 - a fraction of Katz's estimate.

"This 12,000 attempted suicides per year shows clearly, without a doubt, that there is an epidemic of suicide among veterans," said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense.

And it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers.

First, he titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request."

He opened it with "Shh!" - as in keep it quiet - before ending with
"Is this something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?"

On Monday, CBS News showed the e-mail to Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

"This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's veterans," Filner told CBS News. "They do not want to come to grips with the reality, with the truth."

And that's not all.

Last November when CBS News exposed an epidemic of more than 6,200 suicides in 2005 among those who had served in the military, Katz attacked our report.

"Their number is not, in fact, an accurate reflection of the rate," he said last November.

But it turns out they were, as Katz admitted in this e-mail, just three days later.

He wrote: there "are about 18 suicides per day among America's 25 million veterans."

That works out to about 6,570 per year, which Katz admits in the same e-mail, "is supported by the CBS numbers."

In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz wrote that the reason the numbers were not released was due to questions about the consistency and reliability of the findings - and that there was no public cover up involved.

© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

McCain Asks N.C. GOP Not to Run Ad

I am not sure if I agree with all of his policies, but I like his politics. Senator McCain is, once again, demonstrating his character and integrity by being willing to speak truth to his own power base.



INEZ, Ky. - Republican John McCain asked the North Carolina GOP not to run a television ad that brings up the controversial former pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

North Carolina Republican party officials insisted the ad will run as planned despite McCain's request.

The ad opens with a photo of Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright together and a clip of Wright, whose incendiary comments about race have bedeviled Obama.

"He's just too extreme for North Carolina," the narrator says in the 30-second spot.

Dividing the American people

"We asked them not to run it," McCain told reporters on his campaign bus in Kentucky Wednesday. "I'm sending them an e-mail as we speak asking them to take it down.

"I don't know why they do it. Obviously, I don't control them, but I'm making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it," McCain said.

McCain said the ad was described to him: "I didn't see it, and I hope that I don't see it."

Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan, campaigning Wednesday with McCain, said he had left a voice mail message for state party chairwoman Linda Daves asking her to pull the ad.

McCain, in an e-mail to Daves, said he will draw sharp contrasts with Democrats. "But we need not engage in political tactics that only seek to divide the American people."

North Carolina GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox said the ad will begin running statewide on Monday, a week before the state's crucial May 6 primary.

'It is entirely appropriate'

The ad actually targets gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Bev Perdue, Democrats who have endorsed Obama.

"We have a great relation with the RNC and we fully support John McCain for president," Woodcox said. "But this is an ad about two North Carolina candidates for governor. The ad is going to run."

Daves defended the ad, saying it "presents a question of patriotism and judgment."

"It is entirely appropriate for voters to evaluate candidates based on their past associations," Daves said.

North Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jerry Meek said the ad is an attempt to distract attention from real issues.

"It's one thing to criticize somebody for associating with somebody else," Meek said. "But to criticize somebody for associating with somebody who associates with somebody else is ludicrous. Where does it end?"

Obama has denounced the most inflammatory of Wright's comments, but says the pastor shouldn't be judged solely on a handful of remarks. Obama has expressed admiration for the pastor, who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and inspired the title of his best-selling book, "The Audacity of Hope."

North Carolina's primary will divide 115 delegates among the Democratic presidential candidates and decide the party's nominee for governor. Polls indicate that Obama holds a comfortable lead over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in the state.

updated 12:51 p.m. CT, Wed., April. 23, 2008
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24276517/

© 2008 MSNBC.com

Was Your LendingTree File hacked?

There are several key issues in this blog entry that I found at the Red Tape Chronicles that caught my attention. I placed them in bold font below. By the way, I found a picture of the LendingTree CEO upon being notified of the fraud...



LendingTree has told its customers that former employees helped unauthorized mortgage lenders hack into its systems and steal customer information from 2006 to 2008.

The incident reveals just how aggressive the mortgage loan business was during the height of the housing boom, and also raises fears for consumers who share their information with companies that help them shop around for the best deal. And it highlights what experts say is an often overlooked source of data theft -- the inside job.

According to a letter sent to customers recently, former LendingTree LLC employees shared "confidential passwords" with lenders, who in turn used the login information to "access LendingTree's customer loan request forms."

The forms contained critical personal data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, income and employment information. The company said the lenders did not use the information to commit identity theft or fraud, but simply to "market their own mortgage loans to ... customers."

In connection with the incident, LendingTree, based in Charlotte, N.C., has filed lawsuits against three small California-based home loan companies.

A LendingTree spokeswoman said the company was not granting interviews to discuss the data theft. She would not say how many customers were affected nor how much data was stolen, but instead supplied a copy of the customer letter sent by the firm.

While LendingTree says in the letter it has no reason to suspect its consumers are at heightened risk for identity theft, it did suggest consumers obtain a free credit report and file a fraud alert with the nation's credit bureaus.

Upon learning of the security breach, LendingTree says, it "promptly enhanced the security of our system."

Given that data was accessed from 2006 to early 2008, it can be inferred that passwords used by former employees remained operational for months or even years after their employment was terminated, generally considered poor security practice, said identity theft expert Rob Douglas, editor of InsideIDTheft.info.

"This plays into everybody's fear that this happens all the time," Douglas said. "When consumers share their information with companies, they assume it ends up in other companies' hands."

One victim who received the LendingTree letter -- but who requested anonymity -- was annoyed that LendingTree offered no compensation for the trouble.

"Rather than offer a free credit report they suggest that I use my annual free credit report," the consumer said, referring to the once-per-year free peek that consumers get at their report by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.

In its letter, LendingTree includes a pamphlet called "Guide to Protecting Your Credit and Identity." Consumers who obtain their credit report and see anything suspicious are told to "contact the credit bureau."

Consumers who visit LendingTree expect their personal information to be shared with other companies. They are hoping LendingTree will help them find a mortgage firm with the best rate, and expect several companies to "bid" for the right to supply their home loan.

But in this incident, loan applications were viewed by unauthorized lenders, who used the information to market their own loan products, LendingTree said.

"We suggest that you remain vigilant by reviewing account statements and monitoring your credit reports for the next 24 months," the letter says.

The Red Tape Chronicles
Posted: Tuesday, April 22 at 03:30 pm CT by Bob Sullivan

U.N.: 100,000 More Dead in Darfur Than Reported

(a heavy sigh) This is wrong. This is someone's child. This is an innocent one. This is what we ignore. We have now be made aware. We are no longer innocent. This is my child. End the wrong!



* In March, death toll in Darfur given as 200,000; 2.5 million people displaced
* U.N. official now says that figure is closer to 300,000 dead since 2006
* Official reports that sexual violence has increased, food rations hurt in region
* Darfur conflict began five years ago when ethnic African tribesmen took up arms

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The number of deaths in Sudan's Darfur region since 2006 may have been underestimated by as much as 50 percent, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said Tuesday.

In March, international figures, including U.N. data, put the death toll in Darfur at 200,000, with another 2.5 million people displaced.

But 300,000 are believed to have died in the tribal conflict in the past two years, said John Holmes, who also is the United Nations emergency relief coordinator.

Holmes said that sexual violence has increased and that food allotments for civilians affected by the civil war will be halved in a few days.

Holmes gave the U.N. Security Council an update on conditions in the western Sudan region, revisiting a report he gave a year ago.

"I am sad to say that the humanitarian situation remains as grim today as it was then, if not more so," he said.

In 2008, 100,000 civilians have fled their homes, many not for the first time.

The Darfur conflict began five years ago, when ethnic African tribesmen took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese government.

Sudan's Arab-dominated government is accused of responding by unleashing tribal militias known as Janjaweed, which are said to have committed the worst atrocities against Darfur's local communities.

There also have been intra-rebel and tribal clashes, Holmes added.

He blamed the military arm of the Justice and Equality Movement faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement for the most recent round of violence, and he accused the government of using "disproportionate force" and failing to differentiate between civilians and rebels in their response.

"Darfur today is still characterized by insecurity, lawlessness and impunity," he said. "A particularly worrying feature is evidence of high levels of sexual violence and exploitation in the northern corridor of west Darfur over the past two months."

This is shown by the increased number of women and girls seeking treatment after sexual brutality, Holmes said.

The World Food Programme announced last week that it will have to cut back its food distributions in May, partly because of attacks on convoys that reduced the amount of supplies they can get through, Holmes said.

Six aid workers have been killed this year, and 42 humanitarian posts have been attacked.

The supply line also is hurt by soaring food prices: The price of staples such as millet has doubled since April 2007, Holmes said.

While expressing gratitude to the Sudanese government for improved cooperation under various agreements, Holmes said there still is no physical access to internally displaced persons and some other groups.

He said he was "saddened and angry" that after five years, there has been no lasting solution to the suffering.

He made several recommendations to the government, including disbanding the Janjaweed, providing security for citizens, ending impunity for criminals and shouldering more of the financial burden for humanitarian aid.

Holmes also said rebels must stop their attacks against people and humanitarian convoys.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/04/22/darfur.holmes/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

© 2008 Cable News Network

No Words Necessary...

Army, Marines Enlisting More Felons

Redemption and restoration are central to my identity. If I were to speak to myself from the other side, I would say how proud I was to live in a country that does not throw people away, even convicted felons. Nonetheless, I do not see that noble goal as the primary motivator of the United States Army Recruiting Command. (Wow, be careful when you click this!!!)

Bush and Cheney have both presented themselves as friends of
the military. With friends like these...Sheesh!?!



WASHINGTON - Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.

Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.

Those numbers represent a fraction of the more than 180,000 recruits brought in by the active duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines during fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007. But they highlight a trend that has raised concerns both within the military and on Capitol Hill.

The bulk of the crimes involved were burglaries, other thefts, and drug offenses, but nine involved sex crimes and six involved manslaughter or vehicular homicide convictions. Several dozen Army and Marine recruits had aggravated assault or robbery convictions, including incidents involving weapons.

Struggling to find recruits

Both the Army and Marine Corps have been struggling to increase their numbers as part of a broader effort to meet the combat needs of a military fighting wars on two fronts. As a result, the number of recruits needing waivers for crimes or other bad conduct has grown in recent years, as well as those needing medical or aptitude waivers.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, who released the data, noted that there may be valid reasons for granting the waivers and giving individuals a second chance.

But he added, "Concerns have been raised that the significant increase in the recruitment of persons with criminal records is a result of the strain put on the military by the Iraq war and may be undermining military readiness."

The services use a waiver process to let in recruits with felony convictions, and many of the crimes were committed when the service members were juveniles.

"Waivers are used judiciously and granted only after a thorough review," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said.

He added that "low unemployment, a protracted war on terror, a decline in propensity to serve," and the growing reluctance of parents, teachers and other adults to recommend young people go into the military, has made recruiting a challenge.

According to the Army, 18 percent of the recruits needed conduct waivers in fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007, compared to 15 percent in the 12-month period ending in Sept. 30, 2006.

"We are growing the Army fast and there are some waivers; we know that," said Army Lt. Gen. James D. Thurman, deputy chief of staff for operations. "It hasn't alarmed us yet."

He added that "the better part of making soldiers is about leadership. Somebody invested in me, you know. That's the beauty of the United States Army. It's about leadership ... You've got to give people an opportunity to serve."

Easing waiver requirements

Late last fall, the Pentagon quietly began looking for ways to make it easier for people with minor criminal records to join the military. The goal of that review is to make cumbersome waiver requirements consistent across the services — the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force — and reduce the number of petty crimes that now trigger the process.

According to the data released Monday, a bit more than half of the Army's 511 convictions in 2007 were for various types of thefts, ranging from burglaries to bad checks and stolen cars. Another 130 were for drug offenses.

The remainder, however, included two in 2007 for manslaughter, compared to one in 2006; five for sexual crimes (which can include rape, incest or sexual assaults) compared to two in 2006; and three for negligent or vehicular homicide, compared to two in 2006. Two received waivers for terrorist threats including bomb threats in 2007, compared to one in 2006.

At least 235 of the Marine Corps' 350 waivers were for various types of thefts in 2007, and another 63 were for assaults or robberies that may also have included use of a weapon. The remainder included one for manslaughter in 2007, compared to none in 2006; four for sex crimes, compared to one in 2006; and five for terror threats, including bomb threats, compared to two in 2006.

The total number of sailors who received felony waivers dipped from 48 in 2006 to 42 in 2007. Most were for a variety of thefts or drug and drunk driving convictions. Two in 2007 were for terror or bomb threats compared to three in 2006.

There were no Air Force recruits with waivers for felony convictions in 2007.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said that offering waivers for those who are otherwise qualified "is the right thing to do for those Americans who want to answer the call to duty." He said the burden remains on them to prove they should be admitted to the service.

Waivers must be approved by an officer who is ranked as a brigadier general or above, and recruits must have written recommendations and endorsements from community leaders showing they would be a good bet for the military.

The Associated Press

updated 3:34 p.m. CT, Mon., April. 21, 2008

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24243460/

© 2008 MSNBC.com