OBAMA REALLY GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT EDUCATION

Solicitation Number:
EDOOIG-10-000004
Notice Type:
Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
Synopsis:
Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.

Interested sources must submit detailed technical capabilities and any other information that demonstrates their ability to meet the requirements above, no later than March 12, 2010 at 12 PM, E.S.T. Any quotes must be submitted electronically to the attention of Holly.Le@ed.gov, Contract Specialist (Contract Operations Group), with a concurrent copy to Sherese.Lewis@ed.gov, Contracting Officer (Contract Operations Group).

GREAT MOMENTS AT THE IRS

SACRAMENTO BEE, CA - Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was . . . 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical. . .

Now he's trying to figure out how penalties and interest could climb so high on such a small debt. He says he's never been told he owes any taxes or that he's ever incurred any late-payment penalties in the four years he's owned Harv's.

In fact, he provided us with an Oct. 22, 2009, letter from the IRS that states Harv's "has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due."

IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn't commenting "due to privacy and disclosure laws."

Zeff says he's as offended as much as anything else by what he considers rude behavior by the IRS guys. While at Harv's, he sniffs, "they didn't even get a car wash."

MORE THAN 100 FBI CASES CALLED INTO QUESTION BY US ATTORNEY

WASH POST - The U.S. attorney's office in the District has found more than 100 cases since the mid-1970s that need to be reviewed because of potentially falsified and inaccurate tests by FBI analysts.

The report, filed in D.C. Superior Court late Friday, stems from an internal investigation by prosecutors after the exoneration in December of Donald E. Gates, who was falsely imprisoned for 28 years for the 1981 rape and slaying of a Georgetown University student.

The review was launched to examine 20 cases in which Justice Department officials questioned the validity of statements made by six FBI forensic analysts who were identified in a 1997 report by the department's office of inspector general.

After weeks of reviewing FBI lab reports, court transcripts, criminal history databases and police records, Patricia A. Riley, a special counsel to newly appointed U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., concluded that only the Gates case resulted in a wrongful conviction.

During the review, Justice identified an additional 100 cases since the 1970s involving the suspect FBI experts. Riley wrote that since December, her office performed a "preliminary review" of 78 of the cases and found "no misconduct." Prosecutors have presented no findings so far on the remaining 22 cases.

CHIEF CATHOLIC EXORCIST SAYS DEVIL IS IN VATICAN

TELEGRAPH, UK - The Devil is lurking in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican's chief exorcist claimed. Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron.

He added that the assault on Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas Eve by a mentally unstable woman and the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the Anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See.

"The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences," said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See's chief exorcist for 25 years.

"He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, or even appear to be sympathetic. At times he makes fun of me. But I'm a man who is happy in his work."

While there was "resistance and mistrust" towards the concept of exorcism among some Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI has no such doubts, Father Amorth said. "His Holiness believes wholeheartedly in the practice of exorcism. He has encouraged and praised our work," he added.

The evil influence of Satan was evident in the highest ranks of the Catholic hierarchy, with "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon," Father Amorth said.

In a rare insight into the world of exorcism, the Italian priest told La Repubblica newspaper that the 1973 film The Exorcist gave a "substantially exact" impression of what it was like to be possessed by the Devil.

People possessed by evil sometimes had to be physically restrained by half a dozen people while they were exorcised. They would scream, utter blasphemies and spit out sharp objects, he said.

"From their mouths, anything can come out – pieces of iron as long as a finger, but also rose petals," said Father Amorth, who claims to have performed 70,000 exorcisms. "When the possessed dribble and slobber, and need cleaning up, I do that too. Seeing people vomit doesn't bother me. The exorcist has one principal duty - to free human beings from the fear of the Devil."

The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman in 1981 and recent revelations of "violence and pedophilia" committed by Catholic priests against children in their care was also the work of the Devil, said Father Amorth, who has written a book about his vocation, Memoirs of an Exorcist, which was published recently. . .

He also condemned the Harry Potter books, saying they were dangerous because they dabbled in the occult and failed to draw a clear distinction between "the Satanic art" of black magic and benevolent white magic.

SMALLER SCHOOLS, BETTER PERFORMANCE

HERBERT J. WALBERG, NY TIMES -A huge amount of research,  including my own, in more than 25 states shows that other things being equal, smaller schools produce higher academic achievement than larger schools.

 

Bigger schools tend to be impersonal, departmentalized and bureaucratic.

 

The "small school effect" was discovered in the 1960s, and the "Canadian effect" refers to small schools in less crowded states near the Northern border that tend to do well even discounting the effects of socioeconomic status and other demographic factors.

 

Why did American schools become ever larger? James Conant, a president of Harvard University in the 1930s and 1940s, argued that large schools allow more diversity of courses such as Latin, Greek, and vocational preparation. In supporting large schools, economists argued that consolidation of schools would avoid duplication of principals and other school leaders. These arguments led to the large-scale consolidation of both small schools and small school districts.

 

What education leaders failed to recognize is that large institutions tend to be impersonal, departmentalized and bureaucratic. They tend to treat their staff and those they serve as numbers rather than distinctive individuals with unique needs.

 

High schools, which tend to be larger, face these problems most acutely. But the rise of middle schools took on some of these problems since they became departmentalized by subject matter, and students may have as many as six teachers, none of whom know them well. Schools, particularly elementary schools, begin the transition from the family to larger adult institutions such as colleges and businesses that serve people from larger geographic areas.

 

In elementary school, children are more likely to be with other children they know from their neighborhoods. They have the same teacher for much of the day and who is likely to know the child's parents, siblings, and neighbors.

 

But elementary schools have grown in size, and families are more mobile than in the past. Thus, elementary schools have become increasingly impersonal despite younger children's need to be treated as individuals rather than members of categories.

GREECE ROCKED BY RIOTS

DAILY MAIL, UK - Street clashes broke out between rioting youths and police in central Athens as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government.

Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.

The Greek government] has announced a raft of savings through public sector salary cuts, hiring and pension freezes and consumer tax hikes to deal with its ballooning deficit, but the measures have led to a new wave of labor discontent.

The government says the tough cuts are its only way to dig Greece out of a crisis that has hammered the common European currency and alarmed international markets -- inflating the loan-dependent country's borrowing costs.

But unions say ordinary Greeks are being asked to pay a disproportionate price for past fiscal mismanagement.

'They are trying to make workers pay the price for a crisis [management caused,' said Yiannis Panagopoulos, leader of Greece's largest union, the GSEE.

All news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country's debt crisis.

Strikers and protesters banged drums and chanted slogans such as 'no sacrifice for plutocracy,' and 'real jobs, higher pay.'

Riot police made heavy use of tear gas during the start-and-stop clashes throughout the demonstration, including outside Parliament.

WATER SHORTAGES MAY HIT NORTHERN ROCKIES

USA TODAY - Much of the nation may be snow-weary, but farmers and ranchers who rely on winter snowpack in the northern Rockies for irrigation during the dry months of the growing season could face water shortages this summer unless more snow arrives soon.

Wet spring and summer conditions in 2008 and 2009 helped pull the region out of a decade-long drought, but now hydrologists are once again reporting below-average mountain snowpack throughout much of the northern Rockies.

As of early March, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, snowpack was at or near record-low levels in many locations from northeastern Utah northward along and near the Idaho border with Montana and Wyoming.

In Spokane, Wash., the winter of 2009-10 has been the least snowy on record, with a mere 13.7 inches of snowfall recorded so far, according to the National Weather Service. The city usually gets more than 46 inches of snow each winter. Experts are concerned that it could be a long summer for irrigators unless the region experiences the kinds of snowfalls that have buried other parts of the country in recent weeks.

"There's not much time to make it up," said hydrologist Phil Morrisey of the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Idaho. "Even an abundant snowfall in March would be unlikely to make much of a difference this late in the season."

IT'S NOT JUST TEXAS THAT TEACHES SCIENCE POORLY

BBC - One in 10 children thinks the Queen invented the telephone, a survey of children's science knowledge suggests.

Others gave credit for the invention to Charles Darwin and Noel Edmonds.

One in 20 of the 1,000 pupils polled thought Star Wars character Luke Skywalker or Richard Branson had been the first to set foot on the Moon.

Some 60% of nine- and 10-year-olds thought Sir Isaac Newton discovered fire, the survey for science campaign Birmingham Science City found.

Despite these misconceptions, more children want to win a Nobel prize for science than the X Factor.

Just under a half of boys (49%) correctly pinned down gravity as Newton's ground-breaking discovery, compared with 76% of girls.

Just over a third of boys said Newton discovered fire, while the remaining 16% either said he invented the internet, or discovered the solar system or America.

Eight out of 10 boys correctly identified Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, compared with 69% of girls.

Dr Pam Waddell from Birmingham Science City said: "While some of these findings will raise a smile, it suggests that school children aren't tuned into our scientific heroes in the same way that they might be to sporting or music legends."

OBAMA CONSIDERING UNCONSTITUTIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW

Denying someone internet access is the same as denying someone other forms of free speech for, say, being caught speeding. - TPR

Hollywood lobbyists are trying to launch an assault on Internet providers and fast track tougher anti-piracy legislation in the United States. Ari Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, says the industry has been discussing these plans with President Obama outside of the public’s eye.

ariFor years the entertainment industry has been lobbying for tougher measures against online piracy. In France this has resulted in the implementation of a ‘three strikes and you’re offline’ regime and many other countries are considering similar measures.

Thus far the United States Government has kept relatively quiet on this issue, but that doesn’t mean that such plans are not being discussed behind close doors.

According to Ari Emanuel, a famous Hollywood talent agent and the model for the character Ari Gold in the hit series Entourage, Hollywood lobbyists are working hard to convince President Obama and others to ram through similar legislation in the United States.

“We are in the midst of talking to the president and some attorney generals and [we are] trying to implement a three strikes and you’re out rule,” Emanuel said, while adding that this issue would most likely result in a “fight with ISPs”.

At this point it is impossible to assess the exact nature of these talks, but since Ari Emanuel is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, there is no doubt that these talks are taken seriously. President Obama, who vouched to decrease the power of lobbyists in Washington, is not turning a deaf ear to this one for now.

Before even considering the implementation of a three-strikes model, United States lawmakers might want to take a good look at what’s happening in France. Unlike earlier projections that up to 95% of the file-sharers could stop downloading copyrighted content, the piracy rate has actually increased in the face of the new law.

The entertainment industry, nevertheless, continues to push legislation as the solution to online piracy, while ignoring their own role in the creation of the problem.

WHY CIA DRONE ATTACKS ARE A VIOLAION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

WORD

Perhaps Toyota should borrow a slogan from McDonald's: "You deserve a brake today.- Paul Krassner

WORD

There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people" - Diane Ravitch

CANADA HAS WARMEST WINTER

CALGARY HERALD, CA - Environment Canada scientists report that winter 2009/10 was 4 C above normal, making it the warmest since nationwide records were first kept in 1948. It was also the driest winter on the 63-year record, with precipitation 22 per cent below normal nationally, and down 60 per cent in parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

"It's beyond shocking," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Tuesday. Records have been shattered from "coast to coast to coast."

"It is truly a remarkable situation," says Phillips, noting that he's seen nothing like it in his 40 years of weather watching. He also warns that "the winter than wasn't" may have set the stage for potentially "horrific" water shortages, insect infestations and wildfires this summer.

As much of Asia, Europe and the U.S. shivered through and shoveled out of freak winter storms, Phillips says Canada was left on the sidelines.

"It's like winter was cancelled in this country," he says.

Phillips says the extraordinary winter appears to be tied to several factors, chief among them El Nino, a shift in the winds and ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean, and the shrinking Arctic ice, which has thinned and retreated markedly in recent years.

The department's report on this winter says the long-term record shows Canada's climate has changed, most markedly in the winter, which has warmed 2.5 C over the last 63 years.

The warm, dry winter could spell big trouble this summer. "One of the greatest things about our winter is it kills bugs and diseases and resets the clock for us," says Phillips. Or, it used to. He says many pests are sure to be thriving after this year's warm winter.

"Everything weird, wild and wacky that happens this summer people will trace back to the year without winter," says Phillips, noting that soil moisture in the western Prairies is very low.

HOW TO GET GOD OUT OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

SAM SMITH - Now that a federal appeals court has ruled that the words "under God" are fine for the pledge of allegiance, we once more find ourselves without the support of any of the three branches of the federal government.

What to do? Baltimore Orioles fans figured this out long ago. When they sing the national anthem, it suddenly turns into a team fight song as the words, "O say does that. . ." are modified by a stadium full of fans yelling "O" in honor of their team. We can do something similar with the pledge. When it comes to the words "under God," just cry out, "under the Constitution" or "under law." It might just catch on.

OBAMA THINKING ABOUT A NEW INVASION OF YOUR PRIVACY

REUTERS - National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make "black boxes" mandatory for all new vehicles.

The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.

BERNIE SANDERS TO INTRODUCE PUBLIC OPTION FOR A VOTE

DANIELA PERDOMO, ALTERNET - My man Bernie Sanders has committed himself to doing what no other senator on the Hill will do.

Sanders confirmed that he will introduce a public option amendment during the health care bill reconciliation debate.

Greg Sargent at the Plum Line blog, who spoke directly to the senator, explains why this could be so important:

"As far fetched as this seems, if this amendment is introduced, a vote on it would be very hard for the Senate Dem leadership to block. The only thing that could stop it from happening, according to Senate expert Robert Dove, is for the parliamentarian to rule that it's not germane to the Senate bill somehow - something that seems unlikely."

THE DIRTY BEGINNINGS OF FACE BOOK

SIX DEMOCRATIC SENSTORS BLOCKING STUDENT LOAN REFORM

FACING SOUTH - Reforming the for-profit student loan system, which allows finance giants like Virginia-based Sallie Mae to make virtually risk-free returns thanks to government subsidies, was a top priority of President Obama. His idea, supported by most Democrats, was to take out the middle-man: Instead of subsidizing private lenders, the feds would completely take over origination of student loans.

The result: The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which the Office of Management and Budget estimated would save over $80 billion over 10 years . . . Savings would be plowed back into Pell Grants -- much easier on students on the long-term -- and other higher education initiatives.

But as The New York Times writes, this week six senate Democrats have threatened to derail the Act, writing in a letter to senate majority leader Harry Reid that "provisions of contemplated student lending reform that could put jobs at risk."

The letter was signed by Democratic Senators Thomas R. Carper (DE), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), Mark Warner (VA) and Jim Webb (VA).

The senators' back-stepping, which likely scuttles the possibility of passing the act with the filibuster-proof appropriations bill, comes after over a year of aggressive lobbying by heavyweights in the corporate loan industry. Sallie Mae alone spent $3.48 million on lobbying last year leading an all-out assault by industry reps claiming up to 35,000 jobs would be lost.

WHITE HOUSE SABOTAGED STATES' RIGHT TO PROVIDE HEALTHCARE

DAVID SWANSON, OP ED NEWS - Several states' legislatures are close to enacting single-payer healthcare bills. This is a complete healthcare solution that eliminates the for-profit insurance industry, lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, reduces bureaucracy, and provides universal coverage.

We're not creating such a system in Washington. We're creating something far more limited and compromised, expensive and wasteful. The healthcare bill now in play in Congress may constitute a tremendous step forward, or a tiny one, or a public bailout of the sickness industry that will do more harm than good. The bill includes some good measures but empowers profiteers who are crafting most of the details and whose stocks rise every time passage appears possible.

What if there were something far less controversial than the public option that could bring healthcare to far more people? And what if this something had already passed in committee and been unceremoniously stripped out of the bill without a fight? Would it be worth a winnable fight right now to put this measure back in?

When the first state passes single-payer healthcare, none of the other 49 states will lose anything they've gained through Congress. But the lucky state whose legislature tries to do something more won't see any immediate benefit, because the insurance companies will sue. And there are federal laws that may allow such suits to prevail and deny states the right to provide their residents with healthcare.

Last July the House Committee on Education and Labor voted 25 to 19, with bipartisan support, to pass an amendment proposed by Congressman Dennis Kucinich to waive federal restrictions and allow states to provide healthcare if they choose. Nothing in any other versions of the healthcare bill from other committees conflicted with this language, but it was quietly removed nonetheless. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the White House told her to remove it.) And the Senate bill added language forbidding state healthcare solutions through 2017. . .

THE DIRTY STORY BEHIND LEHMAN'S COLLAPSE

GUARDIAN, UK - A court-appointed US bankruptcy examiner has concluded that there are grounds for legal claims against top Lehman Brothers bosses and auditor Ernst & Young for signing off misleading accounting statements in the run-up to the collapse of the Wall Street bank in 2008 which sparked the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

A judge unsealed a 2,200-page forensic report by expert Anton Valukis into Lehman's collapse which includes scathing criticism of accounting "gimmicks" used by the failing bank to buy itself time. These included a contentious technique known as "repo 105" which temporarily boosted the bank's balance sheet by as much as $50bn.

The exhaustive account reveals that Barclays, which bought Lehman's US businesses out of bankruptcy, got certain equipment and assets it was not entitled to. And it reveals that during Lehman's final few hours, chief executive Dick Fuld tried to get Gordon Brown involved to overrule Britain's Financial Services Authority when it refused to fast-track a rescue by Barclays.

With Wall Street shaken by the demise of Bear Stearns in March 2008, Valukis said confidence in Lehman eroded: "To buy itself more time, to maintain that critical confidence, Lehman painted a misleading picture of its financial condition.". . .

A senior Lehman vice-president, Matthew Lee, tried to blow the whistle by alerting top management and Ernst & Young. But the auditing firm "took virtually no action to investigate". . .

In a "brainstorming" session, Fuld suggested getting the president's brother, Jeb Bush, who was a Lehman adviser, to get the White House to lean on Downing Street.

Barclays eventually bought the remnants of Lehman's Wall Street operation from receivership for $1.75bn - a sum that has enraged certain bankruptcy creditors who believe it was a windfall for the British bank.

ANTI-EMPIRE MOVEMENT UPDATE

Among those present at the recent conference on building a cross-ideological anti-war movement was Jeff Taylor. Taylor is a useful sort to have involved in such a project since he has been active within the Democratic, Republican and Green parties at variouis times and has written for everything from the Green Horizon Quarterly to Counterpunch to the American Conservative. He describes his present philosophy as a mix of 'moralism, libertarianism, and populism." Here's an article by Tayor that not only describes the conference but provides a lot of important historical background to Americans' attitude towards war.

And here's an another interesting article on the conference by conservative economist David Henderson.

Your editor's take on the conference is here.

KEY SAN FRAN POL SWITCHES FROM GREENS TO DEMOCRATS

INDEPENDENT POLITICAL REPORT - One of the most successful Green Party politicians in California and the nation, Ross Mirkarimi, has switched his party affiliation from Green to Democratic. He is a San Francisco City Supervisor and member of the appointed California Coastal Commission. He was the party's only elected official in San Francisco, and holds the same seat that Matt Gonzalez previously held as a Green.

Mirkarimi is considered a potential candidate for mayor of San Francisco and it has been said that if he ever sought higher office he might abandon the Greens. In January, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported:

"Sup. Ross Mirkarimi - a founding member of the Green Party of California and its last elected official in San Francisco - has also been openly struggling with whether to remain with an organization that doesn't have much to offer him anymore, particularly as he contemplates a bid for higher office."

BROADCAST CEO BANS 119 WORDS

VOCALO - Sure, you'd think the chief executive officer of a company struggling to emerge from bankruptcy and desperate to salvage an $8 billion buyout-gone-bad would have better things to do than pester his underlings with crazy proclamations. But in the case of Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels, you'd be wrong.

The man at the top of the troubled media empire took time out of his real job this week to issue a list of words and phrases - 119 of them, to be exact - that must never, ever be uttered by anchors or reporters on WGN-AM, the news/talk radio station located five floors below his office in Tribune Tower.

WGN news director Charlie Meyerson, good soldier that he is, passed on what he identified as Michaels' "list of forbidden 'newsspeak' words and phrases" in a memo to his staff Monday, with the explicit warning: "Don't say them on WGN."

Meyerson, a veteran Chicago newsman, has long championed the idea of delivering the news in a down-to-earth, conversational manner. That's all well and good. As Meyerson explained in his memo:

"The real goal here is to avoid using words that make you sound like you're reading, instead of talking - that shatter the image you're speaking knowledgeably to one person. By not using 'newsspeak,' you enhance your reputation as a communicator."

But Meyerson takes it a step further, directing his staff to keep tabs on each other's compliance: They're to report any on-air infractions by their co-workers, making sure to note the precise time and date on "bingo cards" he provided that contain a random assortment of Michaels' forbidden words. If you ask me, that's just plain creepy.

Banned word list:

"Flee" meaning "run away" . . . . "Good" or "bad" news . . . . "Laud" meaning "praise" . . . . "Seek" meaning "look for" . . . . "Some" meaning "about" . . . . "Two to one margin" . . . "Two to one" is a ratio, not a margin. A margin is measured in points. It's not a ratio. . . . . "Yesterday" in a lead sentence . . . . "Youth" meaning "child" . . . . 5 a.m. in the morning . . . . After the break . . . . After these commercial messages . . . . Aftermath . . . . All of you . . . . Allegations . . . . Alleged . . . . Area residents . . . . As expected . . . . At risk . . . . At this point in time . . . . Authorities . . . . Auto accident . . . . Bare naked . . . . Behind bars . . . . Behind closed doors . . . . Behind the podium (you mean lecturn) [sic] . . . . Best kept secret . . . . Campaign trail . . . . Clash with police . . . . Close proximity . . . . Complete surprise . . . . Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use . . . . Death toll . . . . Definitely possible . . . . Diva . . . . Down in (location) . . . . Down there . . . . Dubbaya when you mean double you . . . . Everybody (when referring to the audience) . . . . Eye Rack or Eye Ran . . . . False pretenses . . . . Famed . . . . Fatal death . . . . Fled on foot . . . . Folks . . . . Giving 110% . . . . Going forward . . . . Gunman, especially lone gunman . . . . Guys . . . . Hunnert when you mean hundred . . . . Icon . . . . In a surprise move . . . . In harm's way . . . . In other news . . . . In the wake of (unless it's a boating story) . . . . Incarcerated . . . . Informed sources say . . . . . . . Killing spree . . . . Legendary . . . . Lend a helping hand . . . . Literally . . . . Lucky to be alive . . . . Manhunt . . . . Marred . . . . Medical hospital . . . . Mother of all (anything) . . . . Motorist . . . . Mute point. (It's moot point, but don't say that either) . . . . Near miss . . . . No brainer . . . . Officials . . . . Our top story tonight . . . . Out in (location) . . . . Out there . . . . Over in . . . . Pedestrian . . . . Perfect storm . . . . Perished . . . . Perpetrator . . . . Plagued . . . . Really . . . . Reeling . . . . Reportedly . . . . Seek . . . . Senseless murder . . . . Shots rang out . . . . Shower activity . . . . Sketchy details . . . . Some (meaning about) . . . . Some of you . . . . Sources say . . . . . . . Speaking out . . . . Stay tuned . . . . The fact of the matter . . . . Those of you . . . . Thus . . . . Time for a break . . . . To be fair . . . . Torrential rain . . . . Touch base . . . . Under fire . . . . Under siege . . . . Underwent surgery . . . . Undisclosed . . . . Undocumented alien . . . . Unrest . . . . Untimely death . . . . Up in (location) . . . . Up there . . . . Utilize (you mean use) . . . . Vehicle . . . . We'll be right back . . . . Welcome back . . . . Welcome back everybody . . . . We'll be back . . . . Went terribly wrong . . . . We're back . . . . White stuff . . . . World class . . . . You folks

NYC COPS EVEN ABUSE THE DEAD

IRISH CENTRAL - The body of a dearly departed nearly departed completely after a police truck towed a funeral van - with the corpse inside - from a New York Irish funeral home.

The police tow truck hooked up the van outside Redden's funeral home on West 14th Street without noticing the large, body-shaped box inside.

Funeral director Paul DeNigris said he hotfooted it down to the pound after realizing what happened.

"I tried not to be too loud," he recounted. "I didn't want to scream, 'I'm the guy from the funeral home with the car with the person in the back.'

"We try to be discreet."

DeNigris said he nearly died himself after realized that the body and the van were missing.

"I was just a wreck," DeNigris told the Daily News. "I was frantic. When something like that happens, you go into panic mode."

DeNigris had parked his Dodge in a "No Parking Anytime" zone outside Redden's while he stepped inside to collect the paperwork for the corpse which was being flown from Newark to Miami.

Redden's - which was founded in 1919 to serve the Irish community - say they will start putting bigger signs on their vehicles to try and prevent a repeat.

The tow pound waived the $185 fee and DeNigris says he will fight the parking fine.

BREVITAS

Who got it right about Obama? John Halle compiles a list and, yes, your editor made it

WORLD WATCH - Nearly 200 billion liters of bottled water were consumed worldwide in 2008. Although the figure was up more than 5 percent over 2007, it marks a decline in the growth rate over previous years, which saw annual gains of 6-10 percent. The rise in per capita consumption also tapered off to a rate near 4 percent, reaching 30 liters per person. Most of the bottles sold contain non-sparkling water, which accounts for 90 percent of the total volume. The United States continues to lead the world in bottled water use, accounting for more than 16 percent of the global total. However, consumption there contracted by 1 percent.

DAILY MAIL, UK - Amnesty International says 334 people in the US died between 2001 and 2008 after the stun guns were used on them. Taser International, the Arizona-based manufacturer, dismisses these findings. . . Nonetheless, Taser International issued guidelines last October warning police to avoid shooting a suspect in the chest 'where possible', and acknowledging the heart-attack risk from stun guns, although they still claim the danger is 'extremely low'.

137 YEARS OF POPULAR SCIENCE NOW ONLINE

Change - For the first time in history, the majority of the world population will soon live in urban areas. In the developing world, the rate of urban growth far exceeds cities' abilities to produce employment, adequate housing, infrastructure, or basic services for its new residents. Meanwhile, food security is becoming an even greater concern. The best agricultural land in many countries is being reserved for the production of overseas-bound cash crops like coffee and soy beans (or in some cases, sold to foreigners outright). Increasing numbers of subsistence farmers are moving off their land and into squalid urban slums. Traditional diets are being replaced with corn and Coca-Cola. In places like Nairobi, Kenya, small community-based organizations like the Kibera Youth Reform Group are bringing healthy food, employment and opportunity to one of the worst slums in Africa. With the help of Green Dreams (the first locally certified organic farm in Kenya), the 70-member youth group has turned a 3-meter deep garbage dump in Kibera into a working organic farm.

CNN - Eighty-six percent of people questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll say that our system of government is broken. . . . Of that 86 percent, 81 percent say that the government can be fixed, with 5 percent saying it's beyond repair.

INTERNET SIGHTINGS: Waiting for wife at The Body Shop. Sampled some Hemp Scrub. Had a bit more. Now trying to keep from eating the Strawberry Body Butter.

KANSAS CITY STAR - Terry Hoskins says he has struggled with the River Hills Bank over his home in Moscow for years and had problems with the Internal Revenue Service. He says the IRS placed liens on his carpet store and commercial property and the bank claimed his house as collateral. Hoskins says he owes $160,000 on the house. He says he spent a lot of money on attorneys and finally had enough. About two weeks ago he bulldozed the home 25 miles southeast of Cincinnati. Messages were left for the bank and its attorney. IRS spokeswoman Jodie Reynolds said individual taxpayer information is private and federal law prevents her from commenting. SLIDESHOW

CNET - The average social-networking user around the world spent more than five and a half hours on sites like Facebook and Twitter in December, according to data released by Nielsen. That marked an 82 percent jump from December 2008 when Tweeters and Facebookers surfed their favorite sites for around three hours the entire month. . . Facebook was the top social-networking site in December, says Nielsen, grabbing 67 percent of social networking users throughout the world.

PRESS WATCH - Afternoon naps boost brain power and memory, study finds An hour's nap in the afternoon can boost a person's brain power and improve their memory, according to a study showing that short periods of sleep during the day can make it easier to function mentally. Scientists found that a Spanish-style siesta after lunch does more than just refresh the body and mind, it also makes it easier for the brain to store and retrieve items of short-term information needed for working or studying. The Sleep Foundation found people with insomnia are 10 times more likely to develop depression than those who sleep well.

NY TIMES - In a ruling that freed Bank of America from some of its legal problems, a federal judge on "reluctantly" approved a $150 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But even as the judge, Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, approved the settlement, he delivered harsh words for the S.E.C., saying that the agreement was "half-baked justice at best." In a written opinion released Monday morning, Judge Rakoff declared that the evidence showed that the bank failed to adequately disclose the bonuses and the losses, but he said it was unclear if the lack of disclosure resulted from negligence or ill-intent. The judge, known for his maverick ways, said the settlement amount was "paltry," but he said the deal - the second one the S.E.C. proposed - had met his minimum threshold for approval. "This court, while shaking its head, grants the S.E.C.'s motion and approves the proposed consent judgment," the judge wrote.

BOOKSHELF: We Shall Overcome: A Song That Changed the World

43% OF WORKERS HAVE LESS THAN $10K IN RETIREMENT FUNDS

CNN - The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey. That excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans.

Confidence in ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement hovered at 16% of respondents, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey.

The percentage of workers who said they have saved for retirement fell to 69%, from 75% in 2009.

According to the survey, 24% of workers said they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year, up from 14% in 2008.

THE O BOMB: WHY IS OBAMA DOING SO BADLY?

Sam Smith
 

- His supporters didn't read the small type above the box marked "I accept." If they had they would have learned during the campaign that Obama was pro-military, anti-civil liberties and conservative on economics. They got what they paid for, just not what they thought they had paid for.

- Obama got where he is by repeatedly pleasing the establishment. He still is.

- Everyone from his mother to his law professors to the Democratic Leadership Council kept telling him how great he was. He came to believe them. Wisdom and judgment in life requires losses as well as victories.

- He understands how to created transparent data but not how to create visible programs.  No one knows why we're in Afghanistan, what's really in the healthcare bill, or what's being stimulated in their communities. It's hard to argue for things people can't see and it makes it easy for your opponents to claim that they're something awful. The best politics is the sort you can see and feel.

- Obama's a lawyer surrounded by too many lawyers. The legalocracy has been taking over Washington for years, but with Obama it's reached a new peak. Lawyers do somethings well, like write contracts, sue people and draft your will. In other matters - like actually doing whatever it is they're providing legal support for - they are not particularly qualified. Harry Markopolos, the Bernie Madoff whistleblower, recently described how it works at the SEC:"The five commissioners of the SEC are securities lawyers. Securities lawyers never understand finance. They don't have the math background. If you can't do math and if you can't take apart the investment products of the 21st century backward and forward and put them together in your sleep you'll never find the frauds on Wall Street."

- Further, lawyers think truth lies in documents and not out on the street. Which is one reason FDR did better with his stimulus package: he put a social worker, and not a lawyer, in charge.

- Rahm Emmanuel. Hope and change don't go over so well when they are accompanied by threats.  

- As soon as Obama got elected he dumped his liberal supporters, thereby ignoring the advice of a wiser Chicago politician, Richard Daley the elder: "Dance with the one that brung you."

- He has too many economists. Multi-factor crises are not handled well by one-factor thinkers.

- Obama thinks bipartisanship is great. A better politician, Harry Truman, said that when anyone told him they were bipartisan, he knew they were going to vote against him. My Coast Guard navigation instructor told us that if you take a navigational fix and it puts you on one side of a rock and then you take another fix and it puts you on the other side of the rock, "Don't split the difference." Obama doesn't seem to grasp this principle.

- There's nothing intrinsically wrong with compromise, but wise  compromises are made by those who know where they want to go. Using a compromise as the starting point is a premeditated act of random, like you know, whatever.

- Looking deeply pensive when someone else is speaking or doing a little jog up to the podium is cute the first few times; after that it becomes corny.

- Obama's problem is not that he uses a teleprompter but that he seems totally dependent on it, such as using one when speaking to a group of school children. Joe Biden should give him lessons in human conversation.

- Academic intelligence takes you only so far. At some point, you have to apply it and that requires other skills such as social wisdom, empathy and judgment.

- Obama, who has a hard time running those governmental functions covered by the Constitution, can't keep his hands off things that are none of his business like local education or how health records are maintained. The wisest leaders know how to share power with others and to respect the 10th Amendment.

- People don't want more laws and regulations; they want more money, help and happiness. Obama doesn't seem to understand this.

- Everyone talks about Obama and race, but it's really class that's causing the problem. People feel they're being talked down to, scolded, and told what to do by people who come across as intellectual snobs. This didn't used to be a problem, because liberals were the ones who helped the workers and the less fortunate in society. Now they don't seem to care all that much. If liberals, beginning with Obama, had a people-friendly economic policy, the right wouldn't be able to get away with their hypocritical blarney and the Democrats would have some weapons to combat it.

- With Obama as with the rest of his party, there is no interest, concern or respect for the local - where people really live. Getting through life doesn't happen at a White House summit but in the 'hood.

- After you've had all your summits and your speeches and special meetings with special people, it helps to make a decision or two that everyone can understand and a lot of people can get excited about.

AMAZON TRIBES GET INTERNET & SOLAR POWER

TREE HUGGER - For the first time, indigenous Amazonian tribesmen, long isolated by their location deep within the rainforest, will have access to the internet and telephone. The system, which includes a VSAT satellite dish, was installed by the System of Protection of the Amazon to enable a closer monitoring of illegal logging operations. Up until now, indigenous tribes were aware of deforestation taking place on protected land but had little recourse to combat the problem--now they can twitter about it instantaneously. . .

included in the installation is a large solar panel, which will bring electricity to the remote village for the first time as well. The site is located about 100 miles from the nearest city.

The region is thought to be home to some of Brazil's few remaining uncontacted tribesmen, whose livelihoods have long been threatened by illegal logging and development on their protected lands. Now, with the help of their new internet connection, combating these illegal operations has never been easier--nor has setting up a Facebook account.

A LAND FILL FULL OF ENERGY

SOLUTIONS JOURNAL - It used to be that the only exports of the Mamak Landfill in Ankara, Turkey were the powerful stench of rotting garbage and the foul liquid runoff that seeped into underground waters. But today, the landfill has cleaned up its act and is cranking out approximately 340 GWh of electricity per year that can be plugged into Turkey's national grid. . .

The ultimate goal is a "zero waste" landfill that has virtually no negative environmental effects - lofty aspirations for trash. For the twenty million tons of waste already stored at the site, a land fill gas extraction and utilization system is now used to harness and compress the methane gas released by decomposing waste and convert it into electricity. And as for the 3,500 tons of 'fresh' garbage entering the landfill each day, a biodigester will use the anaerobic digestion of bacteria to convert organic waste into compost and much-needed green power. . . .

WHY YOU WANT TO BE CAREFUL BEFORE ASKING A TEXAN FOR DIRECTIONS OR ADVICE . . . ESPECIALLY A TEXAN REPUBLICAN

TEXAS TRIBUNE - Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago."

Most of the Texans in the survey - 51 percent - disagree with the statement, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." Thirty-five percent agreed with that statement, and 15 percent said they don't know.

Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don't know.

Democrats (28 percent) are less likely than Republicans (47 percent) to think that humans have always existed in their present form and more likely (21 percent to 7 percent) to think humans have developed over millions of years without God's guidance.

Has life on earth always existed in its present form? Republicans are more likely to agree (29 percent) than Democrats (16 percent). They're less likely to believe that life evolved over time with no guidance from God (8 percent to 24 percent).

Republicans are less likely to believe that humans developed from earlier species of animals; 26 percent agree, while 60 percent disagree. Among Democrats in the survey, 46 percent agree that humans evolved from earlier species; 42 percent disagree.

About the same numbers of Democrats and Republicans - 43 percent - disagree with the idea that dinosaurs and humans lived on the planet at the same time. Republicans were slightly more likely to agree with the idea (31 percent to 27 percent).

Prindle says the results recall a line from comedian Lewis Black. "He did a standup routine a few years back in which he said that a significant proportion of the American people think that the 'The Flintstones' is a documentary," Prindle says. "Turns out he was right."

DO KINDER PEOPLE HAVE AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE?

ALTERNET- Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it "survival of the kindest."

"Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others," said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. "Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct."

Keltner's team is looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into particular regions of the brain and nervous system. One recent study found compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be empathetic. . .

According to UC Berkeley social psychologist and sociologist Robb Willer, that the more generous we are, the more respect and influence we wield. . .

"The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated," Willer said. "But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status."

"Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish," he added. . .

HOW LONG WILL THE PAST REMAIN ON THE INTERNET?

Miller-Mcune Magazine - In a recent survey of 110 news organizations, the Toronto Star found that increasingly, publishers are fielding regular requests from anxious and embarrassed readers to "unpublish" information, sometimes months or years after it first appeared online.

Some readers don't want their marital status or the price of their home known, or they were quoted saying something they now regret. They may be angry because the news of their arrest was reported, but not the news that they were acquitted or that charges were dropped, and their names keep popping up on Internet searches in connection with the crimes, usually misdemeanors.

Pre-Internet, of course, the reports remained on paper, intact and inviolable - but also inaccessible to the casual viewer and probably unknown. The Internet has opened up the past and made it fungible with a few keystrokes. The offended know it's physically easy to change a story online.

"Most often, these individuals don't understand a newspaper's greater responsibility to its readers and the public record," said Kathy English, the Star's public editor, the author of the report, and the person who handles reader requests to "unpublish," in consultation with the Star's lawyers and senior editors. . .

"Nearly 80 percent of the editors who participated in the survey said the circumstances sometimes do warrant changing the record. Some said they would remove information if there were a legal reason to do so. Others were more open to adding information than subtracting it. Overall, though, they were strongly resistant to altering published stories, even as they said they want to be fair to those named in the news. . .

On a much broader scale, "unpublishing" is the wholesale loss of content that can occur when an online journal or Web archive is sold or goes bankrupt, or the software needed to read it becomes obsolete. It's expensive to transfer records from an old server to a newer, faster version that operates with different formats and programs. A floppy disk has a half-life of about five years.

"It's not clear who's responsible to archive digital material," said Stanley Katz, director of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. "Some of the stuff's going to go away altogether. We are likely to lose whole subsets of it. If we keep renewing everything, we can keep it going. But the question is whether there is money and commitment enough to keep it going. The odds are that money will be applied selectively. …"

"If the New York Times goes out of business, whose responsibility is it to preserve their digital archive? This kind of thing is happening as we watch. It's not speculation.". . .

At Columbia University, a team of seven people, including two full-time librarians, has recently founded the Human Rights Web Archive to preserve Web sites that are providing valuable information on struggles for democracy in other countries. Many of these sites are being hacked, suspended or shut down by repressive regimes. . .

Preservation is not cheap. Columbia's effort is funded by a three-year, $716,000 grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Print collections in libraries can weather a few years of budget austerity, scholars say, but a few lean years could cause large portions of the electronic record to disappear.

Twenty-one complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible are still in existence today after more than 500 years. The Dead Sea Scrolls (which are going online) survived more than two millennia. How long will electronic books survive?

SPITZER'S MADAM RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR

GREAT HEADLINES OF THE RECENT PAST

From Drudge Report


July 28: Healthcare endgame on Capitol Hill (Reuters)

August 21: Analysis: Health care endgame near but uncertain (AP)

October 14: Senate, administration begin healthcare endgame as Dem leaders express unity (Hill)

October 25: Senators say health care bill endgame is in sight (Politico)

October 27: End Game: So When Will Health Care Really Happen? (TPM)

October 30: Health reform inches closer to endgame (WaPo)

November 23: The Health Care Endgame (NPR)

TODAY: Obama pushing on health care end game (AP)

AIRLINES MAY CANCEL FLIGHTS TO AVOID PENALTIES FOR DELAYS

NBC DENVER - Passengers may soon be seeing more cancellations on airport departure boards.

Several airlines, including Fort Worth-based American and Houston-based Continental, say they will cancel flights rather than risk paying stiff penalties for delaying passengers on the runway.

Continental's CEO told investors Tuesday that the airline will opt to cancel flights rather than chance being fined.

Aviation consultant Denny Kelly expects other airlines to follow suit.

"I think all of them will cancel flights," he said. "They'll do it partially because they think they are going to punish passengers, and if they punish them, someone will get this legislation removed."

Under new federal guidelines that take effect next month, airlines can be fined up to $27,500 per passenger if a plane is stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours.

"How can they say there is nothing wrong with having someone sit on a seat and run out of water and everything and sit on there for three, four, five hours? That's ridiculous," Kelly said.

With the new fines, a delayed MD-80 could cost American Airlines close to $4 million, and a fine for a full 757 could cost more than $5 million.

A spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Department said airlines can avoid fines by doing a better job of scheduling flights and crews.

THINGS WE HADN'T STARTED WORRYING ABOUT YET

WTOP, DC - So you're sitting in your home on a quiet Sunday afternoon, when all of a sudden a thunderous roar erupts. You get up to find that two deer have smashed through your front door. One is stuck in the door and the other is now in a tornadic tantrum in your living room.

This was the reality for WTOP staffer Pat Puglisi at his home in Damascus Sunday.

"Suddenly, there was a noise that sounded like the roof came off the house," recalls Puglisi.

"Debris was flying, chairs were coming apart, pots and pans were crashing. It was clear that these two deer had hit my front door like a SWAT team."

Scrambling to make sense of the situation, Puglisi was finally able to usher one deer out another door. The other deer stuck in the glass of the front door was seriously hurt and eventually put down by police.

Traumatic experience? You bet. Costly, too. But as it turns out, this sort of thing is not all that uncommon, especially considering what the deer population looks like in Maryland right now.

"Generally, if you have 20 to 30 deer per square mile, most people can live with that," says Brian Eyler, deer project leader for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources.

"However, right now, in some urban and suburban areas there are 80 to 100 deer per square mile."

The main reason for the population explosion? A lack of predators.

"Humans are pretty much the only predator left when it comes to deer," says Eyler.

"Suburban developments are very good deer habitats -- but a lot of times, hunting is out of the picture. So if you take hunting out of the equation, there's nothing left to control the population."

State Farm Insurance estimates that every year, about 25,000 accidents on Maryland roads are caused by deer.

PASSINGS: GRANNY D

BBC - Doris Haddock, who walked across the US at the age of 89 to press for changes in election campaign funding, has died at her home in New Hampshire.

Granny D, as she was widely known, trekked 3,200 miles (1,650km) in 1999 and 2000 to draw attention to the high cost of running for office in the US.

A candidate had "to sell his soul" or be a multi-millionaire, she told the BBC during her journey.

In 2004, she ran for the US Senate for the Democrats, losing 66% to 34%.

Granny D's aim was to press Congress to plug loopholes in campaign laws that allowed what was known as "soft money" from corporations, trade unions, and interest groups to influence political campaigns.

Granny D died at her home in Dublin, New Hampshire, on Tuesday just two months after celebrating her 100th birthday.

The subtitle of her autobiography was: "You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell."

BOOKSHELF: THE MYTH OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

USA TODAY - Education historian Diane Ravitch can pinpoint the day when she realized public schools in the USA were racing down a perilous road, one that promised long-sought reforms but would never deliver - and probably make things worse.

It was Nov. 30, 2006.

That's the day, nearly five years after Congress passed the No Child Left Behind education reform law, when Ravitch found herself in the downtown Washington, D.C., conference room of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, listening to a series of presenters weigh in on the measure's "remedies" for low-performing schools. Many of the presenters that Thursday were ideological allies of President George W. Bush, who had pushed for more standardized testing and free-market competition among public schools.

A well-known contrarian and a life-long Democrat, Ravitch had long derided the national infatuation with education "fads, movements and reforms," which she says distract Americans from "the steadiness of purpose needed to improve our schools."

So it was significant that she supported No Child Left Behind, the sweeping reform law at the center of Bush's domestic agenda. But each of the scholars said essentially the same thing: None of the prescribed remedies was making a difference.

Thus began a "wrenching transformation" for Ravitch, a New York University scholar who has long been a fixture in Washington education circles. She advised the first President Bush as an assistant secretary and served both Bill Clinton and the younger Bush on the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees annual testing.

In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch blasts No Child Left Behind, which she says promotes "a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education" - as well as virtually every other recent reform effort that has sought to inject more free-market competition and accountability into education. She finds much to dislike: charter schools, high-stakes tests, corporate-style school management teams and the rising influence of foundation-funded reforms.

Over several decades, Ravitch says, American schools have essentially lost their way, forgetting to focus on giving students a solid curriculum and strong teachers. Instead, she says, we've bumbled through a series of crises that have left us with "vague and meaningless standards," an odd, antagonistic public-private competition and an "obsession" with test scores.

"If the goal of schooling is to produce educated people, we've lost sight of that goal," she says in an interview.

Ravitch says charter schools, privately run but publicly funded, cherry-pick a neighborhood's best students and kick out under-performers, forcing surrounding public schools to teach a depleted talent pool.

It's a far cry from the vision of Albert Shanker, the late American Federation of Teachers leader who championed charter schools in the late 1980s. Shanker, she says, envisioned charters as small "laboratories of innovation" within existing public schools. What they've become, she says, is a privatized sector that competes with the public school and in some cases wants to "kill" it.

As charters expand - and President Obama is rewarding states that lift their charter school caps - neighborhood schools will be left with larger shares of new immigrants, unmotivated students and those with disabilities, Ravitch says. . .

Looking ahead, Ravitch says, Obama hasn't learned from the mistakes of the younger Bush, the first president to explicitly tie school ratings to test scores. If anything, he has accelerated that effort: Obama's major education initiative rewards states that tie teacher evaluations to student test scores.

YOO'S EMAIL MESSAGES ABOUT TORTURE MYSTERIOUSLY DESTROYED

MOTHER JONES - The Justice Department report released last month on the crafting of the so-called torture memos contained a number of eyebrow-raising revelations-but none perhaps as intriguing as the disclosure that many of John Yoo's emails had been irretrievably destroyed. Given that the former Justice Department political appointee played a key role in composing the legal rationale for the Bush administration's use of brutal interrogation tactics, this seemed suspicious, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and others have pressed the agency to investigate. But Yoo has brushed aside concerns about his emails, and he has criticized those raising questions about the lost messages-including Leahy and Justice Department investigators-for their weak grasp on the "basics of intelligence." Yoo's own explanation for the missing emails, though, doesn't add up, and experts on government archiving and recordkeeping practices say his comments are misleading, if not "nonsensical.". . .

The destruction of the messages, at minimum, appears to breach the Federal Records Act, which requires the preservation of a variety of government documents, including emails. But if the messages were intentionally destroyed, there could be criminal implications, too. Leahy and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have asked the Justice Department to determine whether a crime was committed.

OBAMA BACKS ANOTHER INVASION OF PRIVACY

POLITICO - President Barack Obama's embrace of a national database to store the DNA of people arrested but not necessarily convicted of a crime is heartening to backers of the policy but disappointing to criminal-justice reformers, who view it as an invasion of privacy.

Others also worry the practice would adversely affect minorities.

In an interview aired Saturday on "America's Most Wanted," Obama expressed strong agreement as host John Walsh extolled the virtues of collecting DNA at the time of an arrest and putting it into a single, national database.

"We have 18 states who are taking DNA upon arrest," Walsh said. "It's no different than fingerprinting or a booking photo. ... Since those states have been doing it, it has cleared 200 people that are innocent from jail."

"It's the right thing to do," Obama replied. "This is where the national registry becomes so important, because what you have is individual states - they may have a database, but if they're not sharing it with the state next door, you've got a guy from Illinois driving over into Indiana, and they're not talking to each other.". . .

"I'm actually surprised he would give an answer like that," said Deborah Peterson Small of Break the Chains, which studies the impact of drug laws on minority groups. "I'd think he and people around him would know that collecting DNA samples from arrestees is more controversial than collecting it from people who've been convicted."

"It's a horrible idea - tremendously invasive," said Bill Quigley of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who also disputed Walsh's claim that DNA is no different from fingerprints.

"It's like a hair sample, looking at your health care records and everything else," Quigley said. "It's like giving a blank check to the government - a blank check they can cash anytime they feel like it."

THINGS WE HADN'T STARTED WORRYING ABOUT YET

SF CHRONICLE - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to push the off button on the trend of text messaging during meetings of the Board of Supervisors and various city commissions.

The tech-savvy mayor, himself an avid texter on his beloved iPhone, has asked the city attorney's office to draft legislation curbing electronic communication during public meetings for fear of city officials being unfairly influenced by lobbyists' texts.
"There's no transparency," Newsom said Tuesday of officials getting text messages from those trying to sway their votes. "No one's walking to the microphone to say, 'Here's what I think' and identifying themselves."

Ideas being discussed include banning text messages from lobbyists during meetings, though it would be virtually impossible to enforce; prohibiting the use of all cell phones during meetings, while acknowledging receiving messages from family members and staff may be crucial; and even banning the use of laptops, which allow for instant messaging and e-mails during meetings.

Barbara O'Connor, a political science professor at California State University Sacramento, said lobbyists have found ways to influence lawmakers during meetings for decades - including stepping into the hallway for a hush-hush chat.

"This is a gadgety solution to a long-standing problem," she said, while adding that technology advances so quickly it may be impossible for politicians to halt its influence.

"The question is, 'Can you put the genie back in the bottle?' " she said. "I don't know that you can."

City officials receiving text messages during meetings have become increasingly common, perhaps most notably during last week's Police Commission vote on allowing Chief George Gascon to draft guidelines on Taser use.

Supervisor David Campos, a former police commissioner and Taser opponent, confirmed Tuesday that he text messaged Police Commissioner Jim Hammer during the meeting to "express concern about the process."

The commission voted 4-3 against the chief, with Hammer in the majority despite appearing with Gascon to support adopting Tasers at an earlier press conference.

Of Newsom's legislation, Campos said, "If the mayor wants to have a discussion about when we should be texting, when we should be e-mailing, when we should be Facebooking, I'd be happy to have that discussion, but it should be applied uniformly."

Campos and board President David Chiu said they frequently get text messages during meetings from the mayor's own staff. Chiu said the communication isn't distracting, but rather moves the debate forward.

"I think increased communication between all parties is a good thing," Chiu said. "I haven't heard of it being an issue."

Several states' legislatures have restrictions on electronic communication during meetings, ranging from self-policed no-texting rules to making inoperable any device used to transmit data, including cell phones and computers.

The San Jose City Council last week approved what is believed to be one of the country's most far-reaching policies on the matter, requiring that council members disclose text messages or e-mails received during meetings from lobbyists or others with a financial stake in whatever is being debated. The rule would apply to both publicly owned and privately owned devices and e-mail accounts.

Also, the council members would be mandated to turn over any e-mails or text messages - including on private accounts and phones - related to government business if public disclosure was requested.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a San Rafael nonprofit that pushes for open and accountable government, said. . .

"If you really did want to curb the influence of special interests, what you would do is not ban any communications but simply require disclosure of them," he said, while noting San Franciscans shouldn't hold their breath for Newsom to propose a public disclosure requirement.

"The reason the mayor won't support that, I suspect, is because he likes using his own texting device and he knows what might come next," Scheer said.

Indeed, Newsom has long refused to turn over his iPhone text messages sought by reporters and others through public records requests, saying it is a private phone and the messages, too, are private.

DEPARTMENT OF GOOD NEWS

WASHINGTON POST - Yoga instructors will not have to bend to state regulators after all, thanks to a measure that two Northern Virginia lawmakers have guided through the General Assembly.

The bill -- HB703, sponsored by Del. David L. Bulova (D-Fairfax) -- would protect yoga training programs from being regulated as "higher education" by the Virginia State Council for Higher Education. Bulova's bill was merged with a similar measure, SB598, sponsored by Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun).

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell signed the bill Tuesday night.

The legislation came about after SCHEV, which regulates vocational training of bartenders, dog-groomers and ballroom-dancing instructors, decided that existing law required them to regulate the training of yogis, as yoga instructors are known. Officials believed that regulating the training of yoga teachers would protect students who sometimes invest serious money in the programs.

But opponents argued that the regulations would add too much cost and interference in a recreational activity that is already governed by consumer protection laws. So the Northern Virginia Democrats crafted language that changes the definition of "vocation," which will also make sure that the SCHEV will not regulate Pilates, karate and other such activities.

PBS IN FINAL TALKS WITH CRUMMY CONSERVATIVE JOURNALIST TO REPLACE BILL MOYERS

FAIR - PBS is reportedly in final talks with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to be co-host of its forthcoming Need to Know program. Meacham's consideration for a show that would replace hard-hitting independent programs Now and the Bill Moyers Journal sends a clear and troubling message about PBS's priorities.

Meacham is a fixture on commercial pundit shows in addition to his Newsweek duties. In these venues, he is a consummate purveyor of middle-of-the-road conventional wisdom with a conservative slant. After the 2008 election, Meacham authored an article on America as a "center-right nation"--a conclusion based on dubious historical analogies (Sarah Palin is a kind of Thomas Jefferson) and cherry-picking national election results, casting aside evidence that would undermine the conclusion.

He recently cheered on a Dick Cheney presidential run as "good for the Republicans and good for the country." Meacham had just months earlier argued that any critical investigations into the Bush/Cheney record on torture would be pointless ("the rough equivalent of pornography," as he put it).

Meacham's approach to journalism seems to be antithetical to the hard-hitting approach of Moyers and Now; he's called on journalists to "cover other institutions as you would want to be covered," with "charity and dignity and respect". This Golden Rule approach to news was illustrated when he intervened in a Newsweek online story about Joe Scarborough, a personal friend who often invites Meacham on his cable show, to remove from the lead the fact that Scarborough had served as the defense attorney for the murderer of an abortion provider.

Of course, some sources get more than their share "charity, dignity and respect," as when Meacham remarked about interviewing Rev. Billy Graham: "It was amazing. I went in and I realized this is what God probably was going to look like. The white hair, the blue eyes, he'll have a Southern accent, that's the way it should be, I think."

HEALTH CARE FIASCO: WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?

SAM SMITH - I believe that the best healthcare strategy is to pass as good a bill as we can now and then immediately start a campaign to reform and correct it. My reasons are twofold:

- For all its terrible faults, more people will be helped than hurt. For example, as the White House notes, eight people every minute are denied coverage, charged a higher rate or otherwise discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition. We are not talking just about opposing strategies here, but about life and death. A physician would not deny a patient first aid because proper treatment at a hospital was not available. Similarly, we should not let people be harmed on the grounds that many more won't be helped at all. Remember that we might well have a negative income tax for the poor today if liberals hadn't objected to the fact that Nixon's proposal for one was too weak.

- It will be easier to fight for a decent healthcare program - i.e. single payer - once the faults of the Obamized disaster are clearer. Right now, everyone on both sides is projecting and hypothesizing. If no bill is passed, the debate will continue to be theoretical. The right will claim it saved the country from socialism and the Democratic extremist center will blame progressives for the lack of healthcare reform.

In fact, it's already happening. That smug advocate of upscale post-liberalism, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, told MSNBC, "I’m going to hold people like Dennis Kucinich responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of health care." While I don't agree with Kucinich on this issue, he is, in fact, one of the last real liberals in national elected office. This is precisely the stunt the post-liberals pulled in 2000, blaming Nader for the clear campaign failures of their presidential candidate, Al Gore. In fact, Moulitsas said the other day, " Ralph Nader paved the way for eight years of George Bush." Of course, it was Clinton and Gore who did that, but post-liberals prefer to blame others.

In any case, that's what's going to happen if the healthcare bill goes down. Real progressives will by blamed by phony liberals. My political sense is to let them have their squalid victory and then build again from there. Given enough time, even Moulitsas might support a decent plan.

GAY MEN 44 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET HIV

GMHC - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released new statistics showing that men who have engaged sexually with another man within the last five years are over 44 times more likely than other men to contract HIV, and over 40 times more likely than women to contract HIV. Further, these men were over 46 times more likely to contract syphilis than other men, and over 71 times more likely than women to contract syphilis.

Men who have sex with men comprised 57% of people newly infected with HIV in 2006, according to the CDC, even though MSM are only 2% of the adult population. However, research shows that most gay men practice safer sex, and gay male couples are twice as likely as heterosexual couples to practice safer sex.

TOWN FINALLY MAKES AMENDS FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING

NY TIMES - Even though more than 50 years have passed since Sallie Sanders was a confused little girl wondering why her family was kicked out of their house for being on the wrong side of the color line here, the pain seems fresh.

"Just abruptly, we had to end up staying with relatives and friends," said Ms. Sanders, a retired state worker who is black and who, at age 60, still has trouble recounting the ordeal without breaking into tears. "It was kind of devastating. My parents tried to protect us quite a bit, but I knew something was wrong."

And something was. In 1971, a federal judge found that this old manufacturing town, five miles from downtown Detroit, had purposefully used urban renewal projects throughout the 1950s and '60s to obliterate black areas from its two square miles, forcing the displacement of hundreds of families.

Although the judge, Damon J. Keith, ordered a remedy, and Hamtramck agreed to build new housing, it did not. For decades.

Now, though, in a time of deep recession and a housing slump in one of the most economically depressed states in the country, Hamtramck is at last fulfilling its legal - and what officials now call moral - obligation to provide affordable housing to the mostly poor families who were dislodged generations ago. And if the plaintiffs in the original class-action lawsuit are no longer living, as in Ms. Sanders's case, children and grandchildren are eligible.

About 100 houses have been completed for rent or sale, and another 100 are on the way, paid for by a mix of local and state money.

In the last five years, the town, population 23,000, began building the new houses, but the project stalled because of the recession. It is only now approaching the final stages of construction, thanks to a recent increase in federal stimulus money. The homes cost $140,000 to $160,000, and subsidies can drive the price down to $100,000; most rentals are in the $400-a-month range, after government assistance.

But beyond the building, Hamtramck has changed in another way, too. It is now Michigan's most international and diverse city, having evolved from a town that was 90 percent Polish just 40 years ago. . .

The home building is also what experts call a bittersweet finale to one of the longest-running housing discrimination suits to weave its way through court, having begun in the civil rights era. Beyond its age, the case is also distinctive in that it happened at all. While Hamtramck may be an extreme example, experts said housing discrimination against blacks in the mid-1900s was common, but class-action lawsuits were rare because of their expense and complexity.

Some contend that urban renewal projects were routinely used to demolish black areas, and that most of the housing was never replaced.

Michael Barnhart, an expert on fair-housing law and the lead lawyer in the Hamtramck case, agreed. "This kind of discrimination happened all over the country," Mr. Barnhart said, citing Chicago, Detroit and other cities.

SAM SMITH, MULTITUDES - I was sent [by my editor] to interview a woman who was refusing to move out of her house in the Southwest urban renewal area. Hundreds of acres had been leveled around her [in the 1950s] and still she clung on like a survivor of the Dresden carpet bombing.

The project, the largest in the nation, had begun in April 1954 and five years later some 550 acres had been cleared. Only 300 families remained to be relocated. More than 20,000 people and 800 businesses had been kicked out to make way for the plan. Some 80% of the latter never went back into operation.

The design was hailed by planners and liberals; a 1955 report for the District was titled No Slums in Ten Years. Not everyone was so sanguine, however. In a 1959 report of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, the Rt. Rev. Msg. John O'Grady said, "It is sad. It is not urban renewal; it is a means of making a few people rich. Instead of improving housing conditions, it is shifting people around from one slum to another."

The Supreme Court disagreed. In 1954 it had upheld the underlying law and in a decision written by none other than William O. Douglas, declared:

"It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled . . . The experts concluded that if the community were to be healthy, if it were not to revert again to a blighted or slum area, as though possessed by a congenital disease, the area must be planned as a whole."

THE KILLER VIRUS IN THE HEALTH CARE BILL

SAM SMITH - Obama, along with other Democratic supporters, claim the individual healthcare mandate is simply another version of required automobile insurance. This is a dishonest metaphor since you don't have to drive on a public road, but you do have to live. If the government can order this, it can determine your entire insurance bill, make you send your kids to private charter schools, and buy cable television to insure that you are properly informed - on the grounds that it, too, would be in "the general welfare."

The mandatory requirement is also a leading cause of the opposition to healthcare reform. To many, it reeks of intolerable government interference in citizens' lives and causes them to ignore the good aspects of the healthcare legislation. It is the killer virus in the legislation.

Should the bill pass, it would make sense for progressives to join with conservatives against the extremist center in a case on the issue before the Supreme Court.

And what if the Supreme Court declares it acceptable? The best solution would be to create insurance cooperatives - perhaps established by states. It will be one more case where politics has failed us and we'll have to look elsewhere.

REALITY CHECK: CLIMATE CHANGE

AL GORE, NY TIMES - Even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere - thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. . .

Here is what scientists have found is happening to our climate: man-made global-warming pollution traps heat from the sun and increases atmospheric temperatures. These pollutants - especially carbon dioxide - have been increasing rapidly with the growth in the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and forests, and temperatures have increased over the same period. Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting - and seas are rising. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and more destructive, though their number is expected to decrease. Droughts are getting longer and deeper in many mid-continent regions, even as the severity of flooding increases. The seasonal predictability of rainfall and temperatures is being disrupted, posing serious threats to agriculture. The rate of species extinction is accelerating to dangerous levels.

TOWARDS A STEADY STATE ECONOMY

HERMAN DALEY, SOLUTIONS JOURNAL - Let us ask two questions that all students should put to their economics professors.

First, there is a deep theorem in mathematics that says that when something grows, it gets bigger. How big can the economy get, Professor? How big is it now? How big should it be? And most pointedly, what makes economists think that growth (i.e., physical expansion of the economic subsystem into the finite, containing biosphere) is not already increasing environmental and social costs faster than production benefits, thereby becoming uneconomic growth, making us poorer, not richer? After all, real GDP, the measure of so-called economic growth, does not separate costs from benefits, but rather conflates them as "economic activity." How would we know when growth became uneconomic? Remedial and defensive activity becomes ever greater as we grow from an "empty-world" to a "full-world" economy, characterized by congestion, interference, displacement, depletion, and pollution. The defensive expenditures induced by these negatives are all added to GDP, not subtracted. Be prepared, students, for some hand waving, throat clearing, and subject changing.

Second question: do you then, Professor, see growth as a continuing process, desirable in itself, or as a temporary process required to reach a sufficient level of wealth that would thereafter be maintained more or less in a steady state? At least 99% of modern neoclassical economists hold the growth-forever view. We have to go back to John Stuart Mill and the earlier classical economists to find serious treatment of the idea of a non-growing economy, the stationary state. What makes modern economists so sure that the classical economists were wrong? Just dropping History of Economic Thought from the curriculum is not a refutation. . .

Without growth, the only way to cure poverty is through sharing. But redistribution is anathema. Without growth to push the hoped-for demographic transition, the only way to cure overpopulation is by population control. A second anathema. And without growth, the only way to increase funds to invest in environmental repair is by reducing current consumption. Anathema number three. Three anathemas and you're out. . .

Without growth, we must find a different god to worship. The communist growth god has failed, but surely the capitalist growth god will not fail. Let's jumpstart the GDP and the Dow Jones. Let's build another tower of Babel with obfuscating technical terms like sub-prime mortgage, derivative, securitized investment vehicle, collateralized debt obligation, credit default swap, toxic assets, and insider slang like the "dead cat bounce.". . .

Or, let us not do that. Let us ignore the anathemas and instead think about what policies would be required to move to a steady-state economy. They are a bit radical by present standards, but not nearly as unrealistic as any of the three alternatives given above for validating continuous growth.

TEN STEPS TOWARD A STEADY STATE ECONOMY

BOOKSHELF: THE SPIRIT LEVEL

ONLINE NEWS MORE POPULAR THAN PRINT PAPERS

BBC - Online news has become more popular than reading newspapers in the US, according to a survey.

It is the third most popular form of news, behind local and national TV stations, the Pew Research Center said.. . .

Sixty-one per cent of readers surveyed said they got their news online on a typical day, compared with 78% from local news channels and 71% from a national TV network such as NBC or cable channels such as CNN or Fox News.

Fifty-four per cent said they listened to radio news programs at home or in the car.

More than 90% use more than one method to get news, and 57% consult between two and five websites as part of their newsgathering, the survey found. Seattle Post-Intelligencer on sale The last print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was sold in March

"Americans have become news grazers both on and offline - but within limits," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"They generally don't have one favorite website but also don't search aimlessly. Most online news consumers regularly draw on just a handful of different sites."

WAR ON SOCIAL SECURITY UPDATE

SHAMUS COOKE, INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE - In Washington each new day brings a fresh call to "reform entitlement programs" - Social Security, Medicare, etc., (in Congress, the word "reform" now means to eliminate, or drastically reduce). Tackling Social Security has been on the to-do list of the corporate elite for years, and they're not waiting any longer. After years of promoting this cause, conservative think tanks have now garnered solid support from the political establishment as a whole, which includes the Republican and Democratic parties.

The newest liberal recruit to the destruction of Social Security is Thomas Friedman, the influential columnist for The New York Times, who wrote recently:

"The president needs to persuade the country to invest in the future and pay for the past... We have to pay for more new schools and infrastructure than ever, while accepting more entitlement cuts than ever [Social Security, Medicare, etc.] when public trust in government is lower than ever."

The nonchalance which Friedman calls for cutting Social Security is indicative of the climate in Washington, where the last remnants of liberalism have been suffocated under the heavy demands of profit-hungry corporations, especially financial institutions and big banks. For political hacks like Friedman - and there are thousands of them - the only solution to curing the U.S. deficit is cutting social services in general, while specifically targeting Social Security and Medicare. . .

Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is a bi-partisan group that is set to attack Social Security in a way where, in the end, both political parties will be blamed, so that neither party is overburdened with guilt. The Republicans - having made their contempt for Obama more than known - are salivating at the chance to cooperate. . .

Since the foregone conclusions of Obama's panel will be so unpopular, the Washington Post explains that they will be announced after the fall elections, in December 2010.. . .

What will the "reformed" Social Security look like? Again, the conservative think tanks have an idea waiting in the wings: personal savings accounts. In the same way that 401(k)s killed the pension, Social Security is set to be privatized for the mighty benefit of Wall Street.

Just last week, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin announced a privatization plan that just happened to coincide with the creation of Obama's commission. Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angles Times called Ryan's plan "a roadmap for killing Social Security." He writes:

"His [Ryan's] privatization scheme would allow workers under 55 to place more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, with the ultimate goal of shifting most of that money into the stock market."

By creating individual accounts, Wall Street is bolstered while the public nature of Social Security is undermined, since Social Security is a "pay as you go" program: if workers under 55 decide to invest in Wall Street, and not to pay into the Social Security fund, older workers don't receive benefits. Social Security is thus dismantled.

Only workers who have money to save - and are gullible enough to trust their money to Wall Street - will put money in their new Social Security accounts.