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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (2867)	2/15/2002 8:50:49 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Colin Powell forgot to check his brain at the door and pick up a crayon when he joined the Bush League, now he's under fire for advocating condoms to prevent AIDS/HIV/pregnancy/disease. What is the matter with him!!?!! that's just so NOT Republican... Powell under heavy fire for condom comments AFP [ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2002 9:39:00 PM ] ASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Colin Powell came under intense fire Friday from conservatives and the religious right for advocating condom use among the world's youth to prevent diseases including HIV/AIDS. At least two former Republican presidential candidates and several conservative pro-family organizations lined up to attack Powell and called for President George W. Bush to repudiate them. But both the White House and State Department maintained there was no difference between Powell's stance and that of the Bush administration which has focused its efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases on abstinence. Those comments, however, held little sway with conservatives. "Secretary Powell's remarks are reckless and irresponsible," said Family Research Council President Ken Connor. "President Bush should repudiate Secretary Powell's comments and publicly exhort him for his irresponsible remarks," he said in a statement. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, denounced Powell's comments which were made Thursday to a global youth forum that MTV is broadcasting to hundreds of millions of households internationally. "Colin Powell is the secretary of state, not the secretary of health," Dobson said. "He is talking about a subject he doesn't understand. He clearly doesn't understand the science regarding condom efficacy." In the program, Powell said the international community had to "forget about conservative ideas" regarding sex and sex education and urged sexually active youths to use condoms to prevent the transmission of disease. "Colin Powell is a career soldier," Dobson said. "He knows what it means to follow the commander-in-chief. We have to assume he wouldn't contradict his boss without prior approval. If that is not the case, the president needs to publicly repudiate these statements immediately." Both Dobson and Connor noted studies showing that condom use is not 100-per cent effective in preventing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS. Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes, now a television commentator, said Powell was advocating "condom roulette" and another one-time GOP candidate, Gary Bauer, told the Washington Post that Powell "should follow the lead of the Bush administration, which he serves." The staunchly conservative Bush administration has not specifically come out against condom use but has been a vocal proponent of abstinence as the way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases especially in young people. White House and State Department officials said Powell, considered the most moderate member of the administration, had not strayed from Bush's message, noting that he was not advising youngsters to engage in sexual activity but only to use condoms if they did. "The secretary and the president are doing and saying the same thing," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, noting that the administration supported both abstinence and sex education that includes condom distribution. "So what you hear is the same," he said. However, nowhere in his comments, which came in response to a question from a young Roman Catholic woman in Milan, did Powell use the word "abstinence," which is also pushed heavily by the Vatican and Pope John Paul II. "It's important that the whole international community come together, speak candidly about it, forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas with respect to what you shouldn't tell young people about," Powell said. "It's the lives of young people who are put at risk by unsafe sex -- and, therefore, protect yourself," he said. Powell said he respected the opinion of the church but did not agree with it. "I certainly respect the views of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church," he said, adding, however, that "in my own judgment, condoms are a way to prevent infection and, therefore, I support their use." "I encourage their use among people who are sexually active and need to protect themselves," Powell said

To: Mephisto who wrote (2867)	2/17/2002 3:14:56 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Ersatz Climate Policy " The administration says that it will reduce this ratio by 18 percent over the next decade. But since most forecasts call for G.D.P. to expand 30 percent or more over the same period, this is actually a proposal to allow a substantial increase in emissions. " The New York Times February 15, 2002 By PAUL KRUGMAN Alert shoppers know that an extra word in a product's description can make a big difference, and rarely for the better. Apologies to connoisseurs of Velveeta, but most of us don't regard "cheese food" as a good substitute for plain ordinary cheese. To the unwary, yesterday's pledge by the Bush administration to reduce "greenhouse gas intensity" by 18 percent may have sounded like a pledge to reduce greenhouse gases, the emissions (mainly carbon dioxide, released by burning fossil fuels) that cause global warming. In fact, that's the way it was reported in some news articles. But the extra word makes all the difference. In fact, the administration proposed to achieve almost nothing; consistent with that goal, it also announced specific policies that are trivial in scope and will have virtually no effect. What is this thing called greenhouse gas intensity? It is the volume of greenhouse gas emissions divided by gross domestic product. The administration says that it will reduce this ratio by 18 percent over the next decade. But since most forecasts call for G.D.P. to expand 30 percent or more over the same period, this is actually a proposal to allow a substantial increase in emissions. Still, doesn't holding the growth of emissions to less than the growth of the economy show at least some effort to face up to climate change? No, because that would happen anyway. In fact, the administration's target for reduction in greenhouse gas intensity might well be achieved without any policy actions - which is good news, because the administration hasn't really proposed any. The reasons greenhouse gas intensity tends to fall over time are complex, but the basic logic is simple: We are gradually becoming a post-industrial society, in which knowledge and service industries grow faster than the old smokestack sector. Because pushing bits around doesn't take as much energy as pushing around large pieces of sheet metal, a dollar of new-economy G.D.P. generally doesn't require burning as much carbon as a dollar of old-economy G.D.P. But the old economy is still there, and the new economy still uses significant amounts of energy - especially if office workers drive S.U.V.'s long distances on their way from house to mouse and back. So as the economy grows, greenhouse gas intensity may fall, but greenhouse gas emissions - which are what damages the planet - continue to rise. So what does the Bush administration propose to do? Nothing much. The main actual policy described yesterday was an array of tax credits for planet-friendly activities, such as installing solar power or capturing methane from landfill. It's not worth trying to analyze the specifics of this proposal, such as why tax credits should be the tool of choice. (Oh, I forgot - tax cuts are the answer to all problems.) The key point is that it's just too small to do the job. It offers $4.6 billion over the next five years. That's less than a penny a day per American. Do you really think that's enough to produce a major change in the way we use energy, or that it is an appropriate level of response to a major threat to the planet? And that's the substantive part of the proposal. The other part is creation of a "registry": companies can, if they choose, report their emissions of greenhouse gases. If they show reductions in emissions, they will receive - well, nothing. But future administrations might be pleased. The real question is why an administration that clearly doesn't want to do anything about climate change feels obliged to put on this show. The answer, of course, is that on environmental issues the administration is clearly out of step with the public. Its indifference to the fate of the planet would be quite unpopular if it were generally appreciated. To deal with this potential political threat, the Bush administration exaggerates the economic costs of environmental regulations. Last spring Dick Cheney implied, disingenuously, that environmental rules had caused a shortage of refining capacity; now George W. Bush tells us, implausibly, that the Kyoto Protocol will destroy millions of jobs. Meanwhile the administration offers the illusion of environmentalism, by announcing policies that sound impressive but are nearly content-free. So buyers beware. What the administration offered yesterday was processed climate-change policy food, bearing very little resemblance to the real thing. nytimes.com