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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (41324)	4/4/2004 2:43:18 PM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

"I've got a lot of hate inside me, but I try to put that aside," said Sgt. Eric Nordwig, 29, of Riverside, Calif. The time has come to "clean up the town," he said Friday evening. ------------- Someone posted excerpts from a book by Steinbeck ("The Moon Is Down") recently, here's the link to the cited article: commondreams.org Anyway in the book one of the problems with an occupation is when the occupying force realizes that the people they have come to liberate hate them, and the occupying forces start to hate them back. Looks like that is happening in Iraq.

To: lurqer who wrote (41324)	4/4/2004 2:46:03 PM
From: Harvey Allen	Respond to of 89467

re: Troops prepare I don't see a time stamp but I think everything is defense now. I'm wondering if today is Bush's Tet. Harvey

To: lurqer who wrote (41324)	4/4/2004 2:52:37 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

Blair told US was targeting Saddam 'just days after 9/11' White House faces fresh pressure over flawed intelligence, Saddam's arsenal, and the threat from al-Qa'ida By Raymond Whitaker 04 April 2004 George Bush asked for Tony Blair's backing to remove Saddam Hussein from power just nine days after the 11 September attacks, over a private dinner at the White House, a US magazine reported last night. Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, was at the dinner table as Mr Blair replied that he would rather concentrate on ousting the Taliban and restoring peace in Afghanistan. In a 25,000-word article in this month's American edition of Vanity Fair, Sir Christopher recounts Mr Bush as responding: "I agree with you Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq." Mr Blair, Sir Christopher writes, "said nothing to demur" at the prospect. Sir Christopher's account presents a new challenge to Mr Blair's assertion that no decision was taken on the invasion of Iraq until just days before operations began, in March 2003. It implies regime change in Iraq was US policy immediately after 11 September. Sir Christopher's article comes as the new head of British and American arms inspectors in Iraq is under fire for refusing to acknowledge that the programme has all but ground to a halt. After his first progress report to the US Congress last week, Charles Duelfer, the head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), was accused of stalling until the presidential election in November is out of the way. "One ISG member told me that, since last year, the inspectors have been kept in Iraq to save political face rather than to find weapons," said Dr Glen Rangwala, a Cambridge University expert on the WMD issue. Mr Blair and Mr Bush have all but admitted that the WMD claims which were used to justify war in Iraq were exaggerated or wrong, and have launched inquiries to determine whether there were failures by their intelligence services. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, admitted last week that the "most dramatic" claim in his speech to the UN Security Council weeks before the war that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories appeared to have been based on faulty information. One of the main reasons the US and Britain have been forced to climb down was the stark announcement by Mr Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who quit in December, that there were no illicit weapons to be found. But in his little-noticed progress report, Mr Duelfer ignored the views of Mr Kay, stating that "the ISG continues to look for weapons of mass destruction". He stressed that the WMD search was difficult and time-consuming. "We regularly receive reports, some quite intriguing and credible, about concealed caches [of weapons]," Mr Duelfer insisted. Dr Rangwala, who has visited Iraq to study the ISG's work, called the report misleading. "Shortly before he quit, Mr Kay cut back site visits," he said. "The inspectors have virtually given up looking for WMD." 4 April 2004 11:38 news.independent.co.uk

To: lurqer who wrote (41324)	4/4/2004 3:44:22 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Coming back from a stroll with the better half and parrot, I noted this guy was on CNN. Study finds senators profit from privileged information STEVE CHIO A new study conducted by a Robinson College of Business professor and colleagues concluded some U.S. senators profit from the use of information exclusively available to them when making personal financial investments. Dr. Alan Ziobrowski, Associate Professor of Real Estate at Robinson College of Business, is a co-author, along with Ping Cheng, assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University; James W. Boyd, associate professor at Kent State University; and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski, professor at Augusta State University, of the forthcoming article in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis titled, “Abnormal Returns from the Common Stock Investments of the United States Senate.” The study suggests senators have an advantage over other investors because of information made available to them due to their position in the U.S. Senate. Presently, there is no law restricting these government officials from participating in common stock transactions. According to the U.S. Senate Ethics Manual, “The strong presumption would be that the member was working for legislation because of the public interest and the needs of his constituents and that his own financial interest was only incidentally related.…” When asked if there is any difference between a senator’s actions and insider trading, Dr. Ziobrowski stated there is not. “Technically speaking, all of them deny they did anything,” stated Dr. Ziobrowski. “None of them would want to acknowledge they are personally profiting from their positions.” Looking at data gathered from Financial Disclosure Reports, which was passed by Congress in the 1970s to create a more ethical government, from 1993 to 1998, Dr. Ziobrowski and colleagues, determined the stocks bought by sixty-two senators who invested during this time period, yielded unusually high return rates compared to the overall market. Implying the senators knew what stocks to buy, when to buy and sell. Dr. Ziobrowski mimicked the senators’ activities by completing similar buy and sell transactions with the same stocks as the senators’. With these stocks, Dr. Ziobrowski created a “senate portfolio,” and tracked the behavior of that portfolio against the market. “We concluded that on average the senate portfolio beat the market by 85 basis points (or 12% annually),” said Dr. Ziobrowski. “From the studies we’ve done in the past, it’s virtually impossible to beat the stock market by a statistically significant margin,” said Dr. Ziobrowski, “…similar to going to Las Vegas and winning on a long term basis, the chances of them (senators) being that lucky are very small.” Based on the data, the researchers were able to determine that the stocks the senators invested in performed very well after its purchase. When the stocks were sold, their profitability returned to normal. How the senators got the abnormal returns is debatable.“That’s the conundrum, we don’t know how,” stated Dr. Ziobrowski, “I can envision a hundred different ways. Senator gets a phone call from a friend at the FDA, Pentagon; there’s a wide variety of vehicles that could be used here.” Although, the research looked at both Democrat and Republican senators, the study did not find any significant data to suggest one party had greater returns. But the researchers found seniority to play an important role. Meanwhile, the research showed senators with least seniority, those who are serving in their first term, had greater returns than senators who had served more than two terms. “We don’t know why,” stated Dr. Ziobrowski. He suggested maybe “The new guys may have more need for funds…than the old guys who’ve been there for twenty years.” Even though, the current public disclosure law requires the senate to report their assets and stock transactions, Dr. Ziobrowski stressed the need for the public to understand that the current system is only a cosmetic issue. “Theory was you could look at what they own and you could make a decision as to whether they were acting ethically or not, but that’s not true,” Dr. Ziobrowski said. “It tells me what they bought…I may know they own the XYZ company, but how will I ever know if they were doing anything to help out XYZ.” Dr. Ziobrowski stated he would like to see tighter government restrictions on the actions of U.S. Senators.“You put out these studies and hopefully get their attention and hopefully stir up something.” gsusignal.com lurqer

To: lurqer who wrote (41324)	4/6/2004 9:55:10 AM
From: Harvey Allen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Marines Battle Enemy Fighters in Fallujah By Pamela Constable Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 7, 2004; 8:30 AM EMBEDDED WITH THE MARINES IN FALLUJAH, April 6--U.S. Marines are inside the flashpoint city of Fallujah in force. They have met significant pockets of resistance but have overpowered it, killing an undetermined number of enemy fighters and taking some prisoners. They fought their way into the stronghold of anti-occupation resistance starting Monday morning, encountering small arms and mortar fire from rooftops, windows and doorways across the city. Fighting has continued off and on through Monday night and Tuesday morning. Marine units have set up bases of operation in the north and south of the city. From these bases, they have been sending rifle squads on foot through the streets of the city. While they have met resistance, the Marines appear to be well in control of the situation. At least four Marines have been killed. Officers in command of the Marine units did not have a count of the number of Iraqis killed. They said a number have been taken prisoner. So far, there have been no reports of identifying Iraqis responsible for the killing and mutilation of four civilian contractors last week. washingtonpost.com Guess I got that one wrong.