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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171677)	10/1/2005 4:39:38 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

AIPAC case reaches plea bargain By NATHAN GUTTMAN Washington [Print this Article] [EMail this Article] [Subscribe] [SMS Alerts] [JPost Toolbar] [JPost ePaper] Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, charged with providing officials in the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC) with classified defense information, has struck a plea bargain with the prosecution and is expected to testify against the former AIPAC employees in the case. Franklin will enter his guilty plea next Wednesday at the US District court in Alexandria, Virginia. This latest development in the AIPAC case makes it clear that the main target of the federal investigation are now the two former lobby staffers – Steve Rosen, who was the policy director, and Keith Weissman, the senior Iran analyst. Both were fired from AIPAC last April and were indicted in August by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to receive and transfer classified information. Reaching a plea bargain with Franklin will enable the federal prosecutors to strengthen their case against Rosen and Weissman by calling Franklin to the stand and having him testify that he had informed the AIPAC staffers that the information he was giving them is classified. This could weaken the AIPAC staffers defense, which is based on the claim they were not aware of the fact that the information they got was classified and that their contacts with Franklin should be seen as common practice for lobbyists in the US capital. The indictment also mentions the fact that the AIPAC officials were in touch with Israeli diplomats and that they have transferred information they got from Franklin to the Israelis. Edward Adams, spokesperson for the clerk's office at the US District court in Virginia, said that Franklin is expected to enter his plea on Wednesday, but it is not yet known to which charges it will relate. "The court's records do not indicate what charge or charges Mr. Franklin will plead guilty to. A statement of facts and any plea agreement Mr. Franklin has struck with prosecutors will be filed during his October 5 hearing", said Adams in a statement put out Thursday. Franklin's lawyer, Plato Cacheris was not available for comment. An indictment handed down in May against Larry Franklin details his contacts with the AIPAC staffers and with Israeli officials and charges him on five counts regarding the transfer of classified defense information. If convicted, he might have gotten a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. Now it is assumed the plea bargain will get Franklin a much lighter sentence. Franklin is also charged in a separate case of illegally storing classified documents at his home in West Virginia. US attorney Paul McNulty, who is heading the probe, said in August that AIPAC, as an organization, is not the target of the investigation. He commended the lobby for taking action after learning of the conduct of its staffers and said that Rosen, Weissman and Franklin were motivated by their desire to advance their own foreign policy agenda. Rosen, according to court filings and to sources close to the case, has been under FBI surveillance for the past five years. He headed AIPAC's executive lobbying branch and was known for his Middle East expertise and for his impressive connections with senior officials in the administration. It is still not known whether Rosen was the initial target of the investigation, but the latest developments suggest that the main goal of the prosecution now is to reach a conviction against Rosen. The jury trial in the AIPAC case is scheduled to begin on January 3rd. During preliminary discussions in court this month, Rosen's lawyers claimed they are not receiving the access they need to classified documents used by the prosecution. jersusalem post, 9/29/05

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171677)	10/1/2005 4:45:52 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Shouldn't superiority be reflected in the population? What's with this intermarriage stuff? There's also a demographic problem in Israel which requires a two state solution since Israelis with their average 2-3 children per woman will easily be swamped by Palestinians with their average 5-6 children per woman. Why is this? On a broader issue, why does this happen to those populations with educated women? What kind of idiotic darwinism is this? The more educated and richer populations have fewer children while the less educated and poorer populations have more children. Explain that. ----------"...Today, of the approximately 6 million Jews in the United States, about 2 out of 3, either do not identify themselves Jewishly or maintain an affiliation with a synagogue. This staggering portrait of American Jewish life is perpetuated by a host of disturbing national trends, including a quickly growing rate of Jewish intermarriage, an extraordinary low birth rate, and a sharp increase in the number of children being raised as non-Jews...." lilithgallery.com

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171677)	10/1/2005 7:57:46 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The superiority of Ashkenazi Jews could also be simply that they are much more intelligent, as shown by tests. It fascinates me that people are so determined that all people are just fungible clones and anyone can do anything when it's obviously untrue. Generally speaking, inbreeding is not good for IQ. I'd hazard that their culture is far more likely to be a root cause for higher IQ as a result of early development. If black kids from the 'hood thought it was cool to hang playing chess, and sissy to be caught round the hoop, while Ashkenazi Jews started shooting hoop at 1 year old, you'd see blacks kicking butt in chess, and Jews romping round the NBA courts. IMO, the most exciting field of biology today is evo-devo, where we are finally beginning to understand that the age old tussle between genetics vs environment is WAY more complex than we used to think. BTW, you touched on this yourself in a prior post. If you a born with very poor hearing, and make it to adulthood, fixing the hearing at that point does not cure everything. Development is oh so important, and it is directed by both genetics and environment. So it becomes very difficult to tease apart the "root" cause of such things as adult intelligence.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171677)	10/1/2005 8:03:54 PM
From: arun gera	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, The spelling bee winners are the children of knowledge workers (better at math rather than English) who immigrated from India. The kids are more "american" than indian. The parents themselves were not great spellers. I run into both the generations at Indian gatherings every month. >The superiority of Ashkenazi Jews could also be simply that they are much more intelligent> Could it be that Ashkenazi Jews committed to knowledge-oriented activities decades or centuries ago, and because of their cultural orientation (and tight-knit communities), they continue to produce on average successful people in "intelligent" activities and at the extremes, Einsteins. If knowledge workers from India, can culturally attune their next generation to succeed in "intelligence" sports (spelling bee, Ivy League admissions, Intel/Westinghouse awards, Nobel prizes), it is perhaps easier for Ashkenazi Jews , who have probably survived in lands away from their original homeland by sticking to core competencies that can survive testing times. >When I read Indian english, it has a distinct pedantry about it along with a somewhat stilted correctness. It's olde englische before the idea arrived that "words can mean anything, speling dusint mattir and self-expression is most important"> Oral Indian english has adjusted very well and TV programs actually use Hinglish, a language that use the grammar of English with Hindi words and vice versa. It has a nice flow and is understood very well among the Indian middle class. However, when it comes to written English, Indians are lost. Because if they write as they speak, no one will tolerate it as English. So they go back to their grade school teacher who herself learnt English as a second language under another grade school teacher who learnt it as a second language. You have to realize that when the 100,000 or so British were in India, very few people in India actually had contact with them. The British socialized among themselves and the Indian elite. This was unfortunate. The elite tried to send their kids to missionary schools where the european nuns inculcated western standards and values, and better education. As a result - the people who got better education also were better in English. Somehow the two became equivalent - a person who spoke good english was considered more intelligent. A theory you and most Indians also believe. In India, a person who speaks better English can easily command about 50 percent more in the job market, assuming other skills are equal. >It fascinates me that people are so determined that all people are just fungible clones and anyone can do anything when it's obviously untrue.> I am too much of a scientist to believe that people are just fungible clones. However, the example of Ashkenazi Jews does not convince me yet. My view is that the apparent skewed data such as - Ashkenazi Jews are oriented towards succeeding in intelligence activities, or african-americans are oriented towards failing - are the products of historical events and the internalized priorities and perceptions of those communities. Here are other counter examples - people of Indian origin settled in Malaysia are the poorest and least successful. The Parsi community in India (about 40,000 of them) which used to be super-succesful for a small community (think world famous Zubin Mehta, Freddy Mercury Balsara, and the industrialists like Tatas, and others who are better known in India). -Arun