Redneck's Revenge

Wall Street Journal – Pentagon war planners have concluded that their largest conventional bomb isn’t yet capable of destroying Iran’s most heavily fortified underground facilities, and are stepping up efforts to make it more powerful, according to U.S. officials briefed on the plan.

The 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.

But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, wouldn’t be capable of destroying some of Iran’s facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them.

Doubts about the MOP’s effectiveness prompted the Pentagon this month to secretly submit a request to Congress for funding to enhance the bomb’s ability to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding, the officials said.

The push to boost the power of the MOP is part of stepped-up contingency planning for a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear program, say U.S. officials.

The Defense Department has spent about $330 million so far to develop about 20 of the bombs, which are built by Boeing Co. The Pentagon is seeking about $82 million more to make the bomb more effective, according to government officials briefed on the plan.

Some experts question if any kind of conventional explosives are capable of reaching facilities such as those built deep underground in Iran. But U.S. defense officials say they believe the MOP could already do damage sufficient to set back the program.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday, acknowledged the bomb’s shortcomings against some of Iran’s deepest bunkers. He said more development work would be done and that he expected the bomb to be ready to take on the deepest bunkers soon.

“We’re still trying to develop them,” Mr. Panetta said.

Continue reading ‘Can I Get That Supersized?’ »

FRONTPAGEMAG – The Venezuelan Missile Crisis – Iran initiated a close relationship with Venezuela when Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, hosted the 2000 OPEC meeting in Caracas. (Shireen T. Hunter, Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order [Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010], p. 233, not available on line, quoted here.) Since then, Iran and Venezuela have consorted with Cuba and Colombia to create terrorist havens and missile bases with missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads in South America that have the southern half of the USA in their range. Thousands of Arab and Iranian terrorists have infiltrated our southern border for a decade and reside among us, undetected, as sleeper agents.

How have decades of American Presidents allowed this to happen? — not for lack of knowledge.

In July 2003, A Report Prepared under an Interagency Agreement by the Federal Research Division: Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America (Library of Congress, July 2003, now published in e-book form, and summarized here) alerted us to the threat of Arab and Iranian terrorist camps in South America where, since the early 1980s, Arab terrorists have been sending thousands of their cohorts to the almost inaccessible jungle and mountain region between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (known as the TBA, Tri-Border Area or La Triple Frontera).

Terror training camps and arsenals have been established, virtually out of the reach of local law enforcement or defense forces; and elements from Hezbollah, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Lebanese drug mafia operate in partnership, freely and openly in conjunction with local organized crime and corrupt government officials.

The TBA has become a virtual haven for Islamic terror groups and a base for terror operations against South American targets. The large and growing Arab population of these states (in excess of 750,000 by local estimates) provides a community highly conducive to the establishment of Islamic terrorist sleeper cells throughout the area.

On October 6, 2003, U.S. News and World Report alerted the world to a rising new star in the galaxy of anti-American terror-supporting nations: Venezuela. Unlike the TBA where Iranian and Arab terror organizations operate despite efforts of the host nations, Middle Eastern terrorists in Venezuela have the full support and collaboration of Hugo Chavez.

Thousands of terrorists now occupy an unknown number of camps in (northwestern Venezuela), and move about with the support and collaboration of the Venezuelan government. President Hugo Chavez plays host to a growing horde of Middle Eastern terrorists from some of the USA’s most notorious enemies, including Libya, Saddam’s Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Pakistan…These terror groups are known to work in conjunction with the Colombian anti-government insurgency group, FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia = Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces). They offer FARC terrorists safe haven in mountainous and unpatrolled regions of Northeastern Venezuela.

Chavez by then was America’s newest nemesis, with close ties with Cuba’s Castro and alliances with some of America’s most notorious enemies in the Middle East.

In July 2004 a small local Arizona weekly newspaper, the Tombstone Tumbleweed, reported that two groups of Middle Eastern infiltrators were caught by the Border Patrol (originally here. Now no longer available on line, but reproduced here and here). The Tumbleweed verified that a flood of Middle Eastern males were caught entering Arizona illegally from Mexico. A Border Patrol officer reported that since October 1, 2003, agents in the Tucson sector apprehended 5,510 illegals from countries other than Mexico, Central or South America, including large groups of non-Spanish speaking males. About two-thirds of these were of Middle Eastern origin and spoke Farsi or Arabic. A large number of these, and other groups of similar ethnicity, escaped capture and disappeared into the United States.

Legal entry into the USA is very easy for citizens of Saudi Arabia, and normal legal channels are open for citizens of most Arab countries. So why sneak in illegally via Mexico if you are in the USA on legitimate business? It seems more than likely that some are terrorists who, once they have eluded the Border Patrol, can connect with established contacts in the American Muslim community and become sleeper agents preparing for future terror attacks within this country.

In December 2004, US concerns about security south of the border were heightened when a Libyan-flagged cargo ship with an Egyptian captain and Sudanese first officer was seized in Honduras, carrying 900 tons of unreported explosives. The ship was bound for Venezuela.

Concerns were ratcheted even higher when an al-Qaeda agent, captured in 2004, revealed an al-Qaeda plot to move nuclear materials into cooperative South American countries for future nuclear attacks on the USA. In chilling corroboration of this report was the theft, just a month earlier, of a crop-duster in Mexico, which disappeared into the United States. The suspected thief, Adnan ash-Shukrijumah, is one of the world’s most wanted terrorists and a high-ranking official in al-Qaeda. He trained as a pilot in flight schools in Florida and Oklahoma, and shortly after 9/11 he trained as a nuclear technician, along with three other al-Qaeda sleeper agents, at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). While there he stole 180 pounds of nuclear waste from McMaster’s nuclear reactor. Nuclear waste can be used to create nuclear “dirty bombs.” Later he was singled out by bin Laden to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil, a nuclear attack code-named “the American Hiroshima.” Attempts by American law enforcement agencies to access information on him from McMaster University have been rebuffed on the basis of student confidentiality. The latest “FBI Most Wanted” reports (1/19/2012) indicate that he is still at large, with his crop-duster.

Continue reading ‘Texas is between me and them.’ »

New York Times – When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.

To thrive, companies argue they need to move work where it can generate enough profits to keep paying for innovation. Doing otherwise risks losing even more American jobs over time, as evidenced by the legions of once-proud domestic manufacturers — including G.M. and others — that have shrunk as nimble competitors have emerged.

Apple was provided with extensive summaries of The New York Times’s reporting for this article, but the company, which has a reputation for secrecy, declined to comment.

This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former Apple employees and contractors — many of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs — as well as economists, manufacturing experts, international trade specialists, technology analysts, academic researchers, employees at Apple’s suppliers, competitors and corporate partners, and government officials.

Privately, Apple executives say the world is now such a changed place that it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees — though they note that Apple employs more workers in the United States than ever before.

They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

Continue reading ‘Why They Don’t Build i-Phones In Detroit’ »

My Way News – Hundreds of angry Libyans on Saturday stormed the transitional government’s headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, carting off computers, chairs, and desks while the country’s interim leader was still holed up in the building.

Libyans have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace and direction of reforms in the country more than three months after the end of the civil war that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Those concerns spurred residents in Benghazi, where the uprising against longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi broke out in February, to begin protests nearly two weeks ago to demand transparency and justice from the country’s new leaders.

The melee at the National Transitional Council’s headquarters began after protesters broke through the gates using hand grenades and streamed into the grounds of the headquarters. They banged on the building’s doors and demanded officials meet with them.

In a bid to calm tensions, NTC chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil tried to address the crowd from a second-floor window, but protesters began throwing bottles at him.

Protesters then torched Abdul-Jalil’s armored Land Cruiser and broke into the headquarters itself, smashing windows to get inside and cart off furniture and electronics.

A security official in the building said a team of some 50 guards dressed as civilians were trying to calm the protesters.

The official, who served as a revolutionary commander during the civil war, said Abdul-Jalil was still in the building and was refusing to leave. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Some of the protesters pitched tents weeks ago outside the NTC’s headquarters to protest a set of election laws they say were drafted by the interim leaders without consulting the public.

“The election laws have not been approved by thousands of Libyans and do not honor those who died for our freedom,” said Tamer al-Jahani, a lawyer taking part in the protest. “We don’t want to replace one tyrant with another.”

The NTC is expected to soon pass the packet of laws, which specify how elections for a transitional parliament will be held. The council only took into account public suggestions through an online survey.
The NTC’s handling of the draft laws has sparked criticism that the council is not living up to its democratic ideals.

Last week, NTC official Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga was assaulted in Benghazi by protesters angry at what they said is the NTC’s lack of transparency.

Some demonstrators were demanding more rights for fighters wounded during the civil war.
Protester Ahmed Boras accused the NTC of sidelining anti-Gadhafi fighters.

“It seems to us that these people are no different than Gadhafi and they only speak the language of force,” he said.

Reuters – A U.S. aircraft carrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf without incident on Sunday, a day after Iran backed away from an earlier threat to take action if an American carrier returned to the strategic waterway.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln completed a “regular and routine” passage through the strait, a critical gateway for the region’s oil exports, “as previously scheduled and without incident,” said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

The Lincoln, accompanied by strike group of warships, was the first U.S. aircraft carrier to enter the Gulf since late December and was on a routine rotation to replace the outgoing USS John C. Stennis.

The departure of the Stennis prompted Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi to threaten action if the carrier passed back into the Gulf.

“I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf. … We are not in the habit of warning more than once,” he said.

The threat led to a round of escalating rhetoric between the two sides that spooked oil markets and raised the specter of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.

Iran threatened to close the strait, the world’s most important oil shipping gateway, while the United States warned such a move would require a response by Washington, which routinely patrols international sea lanes to ensure they remain open.

Iran appeared to ease away from its earlier warnings on Saturday, with Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Hossein Salami telling the official IRNA news agency that the return of U.S. warships to the Gulf was routine and not an increase in its permanent presence in the region.

“U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” Salami said.

Pentagon officials declined to comment directly on Salami’s remarks, but reiterated that continued U.S. presence in the region reflected the seriousness with which Washington takes its security commitments to partner nations in the region and to ensuring free flow of international commerce.

The Lincoln’s arrival in the Gulf was unrelated to Iran’s statement on Saturday.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have been escalating in recent weeks as President Barack Obama prepares to implement new U.S. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, which Tehran says is for energy production but the West believes is aimed at producing atomic weapons.

The EU is preparing to intensify sanctions against Tehran with an embargo on Iran’s oil exports and possibly freezing the assets of Iran’s central bank. Obama is preparing new U.S. sanctions that target foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank.

Both sides tried to scale down the rhetoric last week. The White House emphasized the United States was still open to international talks on Iran’s nuclear program, even as it denied Iranian assertions that discussions were under way about resuming a dialogue.

The White House would not confirm or deny Iranian reports that Obama had sent a letter to Iranian leaders, but spokesman Jay Carney said any communications with Tehran would have reinforced the statements Washington has made publicly.

The United States supports talks between Iran and the so-called P5 + 1, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Russia, China, France, England and the United States – plus Germany.

Carney urged Iran to respond to the letter sent in October on behalf of the P5 +1 by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

“If the Iranians are serious about restarting talks, then they need to respond to that letter,” Carney told a White House briefing. “That is the channel by which … the restarting of those talks would take place.”

Column: Why we should kill senior discounts

One of the mixed blessings of living through your 50s and 60s is having “senior citizen” status bestowed upon you, whether you want it or not. And the best part of that is observing how some people react to the experience.

Survey: From 1984 to 2009, the median net worth for people 65 and older increased 42%.

Senior status is a marketplace phenomenon. Federal law determines the age at which you can get certain government benefits; the marketplace does as it pleases. For most people, it starts when they are 49 and are bombarded with solicitations from AARP, the nanny-conglomerate lobbying group committed to running your life once you turn 50. Never mind that this is 15 to 20 years before most motivated people expect to retire.

Thus begins a series of blandishments in which retail stores, restaurants and services compete for your dollars with discounts of 5% to 25% that apply if you’re 50, or 55, or 60, or 62 or 65 (and sometimes only on certain days of the week). You need a scorecard to keep all this straight, and you can find those on the Internet, but the question is, why should someone who is 50 or 55 and likely to live to 85 or 90 be considered a “senior citizen” worthy of special treatment?

Another wedge

I’ve now passed all the age benchmarks for senior status, and I’m committed unequivocally to a free market, but I think that such discounts are absurd, illogical, and helping fuel the growing economic divide between struggling younger generations and a self-obsessed, mostly well-to-do, older generation. To me, these “deals” add insult to injury to the very people who are being saddled with trillions of dollars in debt to support entitlement programs for the elderly, such as Medicare and Social Security.

I also find them to be a delightful source of amusement when they pit vanity against financial self-interest as cashiers try to guess your age and customers ponder admitting in public that they’re a certain age in order to save a few nickels.

I was in line behind a woman at a grocery checkout in Atlanta a couple of years ago on a Wednesday, the day the store gives people age 60 and over a 5% discount. When the cashier said to the woman, “And are you taking our senior discount today?” the woman exploded: “Don’t insult me like that! I’ll have you know I’m 54 years old!” (She looked closer to 64 than 54, if you ask me.)

More recently, I was in one of those trendy organic food stores when the checkout clerk said to me with a big smile: “May we offer you our military or wise-man discount?” I had no idea what defined “wise man,” so I just smiled back and said, “Ma’am, I am wise beyond my years.” (I later found out you became “wise” at 60.)

The issue hit close to home over the holidays when my wife and I decided to catch a matinée one afternoon in the Palm Springs area. My wife had just turned 55 — she looks much younger, I hasten to add — and it was the first time she had been confronted with a movie theater’s senior discount option. When I announced with a snicker that she just saved $3 on a $9.50 ticket, she rolled her eyes contemptuously.

But then I felt guilty — well, almost — when I noticed a family behind us with teenagers who were getting no break at all as they laid out upwards of $50 before they even got to the popcorn stand.

It’s all about marketing, of course, but consider the context: The economic collapse of the past few years has played havoc with most income groups, including senior citizens. Retirement accounts have shrunk, home values have tumbled. No doubt, there are seniors living in poverty and stories to be found of elderly couples eating dog food.

But the data are indisputable that seniors have continued to fare better financially than younger generations. A recent Pew Research Center survey, for example, found that from 1984 to 2009, the median net worth for people 65 and older had increased 42%, while the median net worth for those younger than 35 had dropped an astounding 68%.

A Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances that compared family net worth in 2009 with that in 2007 found that net worth had dropped across the board, but had dropped least for those heads of households ages 65 to 74. The same study showed that the median net worth of the 55-64 age bracket in 2009 was $222,000, while the median net worth for families in the 35-44 bracket was only $69,000.

No handouts needed

Understandably, senior citizens are more likely to have a mortgage-free home, a retirement nest egg, Social Security income and perhaps a job-related pension.

But across-the-board senior discounts beginning as early as age 50 are counterintuitive for another reason: The top income-earning years for most professional and skilled workers are from about age 50 to about age 62. Which means that people who are making the most money and have the highest net worth are in effect being subsidized in the marketplace by a generation 20 and 30 years younger that often is struggling to pay off student loans, establish a career, start a family and buy a first home.

There are all kinds of ways to save money if you take the time and effort to clip coupons or troll the Internet. What I wonder about is why thirty- and fortysomethings aren’t livid that senior citizens — the most pampered, patronized and pandered-to group in America — get to save money simply by maintaining a pulse.

New York Times – To head off medical conflicts of interest, the Obama administration is poised to require drug companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment.

Many researchers have found evidence that such payments can influence doctors’ treatment decisions and contribute to higher costs by encouraging the use of more expensive drugs and medical devices.

Consumer advocates and members of Congress say patients may benefit from the new standards, being issued by the government under the new health care law. Officials said the disclosures increased the likelihood that doctors would make decisions in the best interests of patients, without regard to the doctors’ financial interests.

Large numbers of doctors receive payments from drug and device companies every year — sometimes into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars — in exchange for providing advice and giving lectures. Analyses by The New York Times and others have found that about a quarter of doctors take cash payments from drug or device makers and that nearly two-thirds accept routine gifts of food, including lunch for staff members and dinner for themselves.

The Times has found that doctors who take money from drug makers often practice medicine differently from those who do not and that they are more willing to prescribe drugs in risky and unapproved ways, such as prescribing powerful antipsychotic medicines for children.

Under the new standards, if a company has just one product covered by Medicare or Medicaid, it will have to disclose all its payments to doctors other than its own employees. The federal government will post the payment data on a Web site where it will be available to the public.

Manufacturers of prescription drugs and devices will have to report if they pay a doctor to help develop, assess and promote new products — or if, for example, a pharmaceutical sales agent delivers $25 worth of bagels and coffee to a doctor’s office for a meeting. Royalty payments to doctors, for inventions or discoveries, and payments to teaching hospitals for research or other activities will also have to be reported.

The Obama administration estimates that more than 1,100 drug, device and medical supply companies will have to file reports, generating “large amounts of new data.” Federal officials said they would inspect and audit drug company records to make sure the reports were accurate and complete.

Companies will be subject to a penalty up to $10,000 for each payment they fail to report. A company that knowingly fails to report payments will be subject to a penalty up to $100,000 for each violation, up to a total of $1 million a year.

Top executives are potentially liable because a senior official of each company — the chief executive, chief financial officer or chief compliance officer — must attest to the accuracy of each report.

The new requirements, or something very similar, will take effect soon; in fact, they are overdue. Under the new health care law, the administration was supposed to establish payment-reporting procedures by Oct. 1, 2011. The public will have until Feb. 17 to comment on the proposals, which are broadly consistent with the expectations of industry and consumer groups. After considering the comments, Medicare officials will issue final rules with the force of law.

Consumer advocates have long demanded details of the financial ties between doctors and drug and device companies.

Allan J. Coukell, a pharmacist and consumer advocate at the Pew Charitable Trusts, said: “Patients want to know they are getting treatment based on medical evidence, not a lunch or a financial relationship. They want to know if their doctor has a financial relationship with a pharmaceutical company, but they are often uncomfortable asking the doctor directly.”

In an introduction to the proposed rules, the Obama administration says that patients can benefit when doctors and the industry work together to develop life-saving drugs and devices. But, it said, these relationships can also “lead to conflicts of interests that may affect clinical decision-making” and “threaten the underlying integrity of the health care system.”

The administration does not try to define the difference between proper and improper payments. It says simply that public reporting of the financial ties between doctors and drug and device companies “will permit patients to make better-informed decisions when choosing health care professionals and making treatment decisions.”

The new standards carry out legislation championed by Senators Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin. The legislation was included in the 2010 health care overhaul.

“The goal is to let the sun shine in and make information available to foster accountability,” Mr. Grassley said.

Christopher L. White, executive vice president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, which represents makers of medical devices, said the payment data could be used by federal law enforcement agencies, plaintiffs’ lawyers and whistleblowers.

“Some companies fear that doctors may no longer want to engage in consulting arrangements, and such reluctance could chill innovation,” Mr. White said.

Matthew D. Bennett, a senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the industry “supported transparency of physician payment information.” However, he said, it is important that payment data be presented in a proper context, emphasizing that interactions between doctors and drug companies played a critical role in improving care, educating doctors and fostering appropriate use of medicines.

Medicare and Medicaid, the programs for older Americans, the disabled and the poor, spend more than $100 billion a year on drugs and devices.

Although the Congressional Budget Office does not predict immediate savings, it has said that, “over time, disclosure has the potential to reduce spending,” by reducing instances of overprescribing.

The law also requires drug and device companies to report the amount of “any ownership or investment interest” held by doctors or their immediate family members, other than holdings of publicly traded stocks.

The administration intends to apply the same disclosure requirements to doctor-owned companies that distribute medical devices. Such companies allow doctors to benefit financially from sales of devices they use in surgery.

Sky News – Wikipedia will black out its English-language site for 24 hours in protest at proposed US anti-piracy legislation.

If passed the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) would give content owners and the US government the power to request court orders to shut down websites associated with piracy.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said the act threatens the future of the internet and has said the online encyclopedia site will be shut down from 5am GMT on Wednesday.

Visitors to the site will only be able to see information about Sopa and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

The information will urge Wikipedia readers to contact their local congressman to vote against the bills.

Other sites leading the campaign include Reddit.com and Cheezeburger.

“This is a quite clumsily drafted legislation which is dangerous for an open Internet,” Wales said in an interview.

The move to black out the site was decided by voting within the Wikipedia community of writers and editors who manage the free service, Wales said.

The English language Wikipedia receives more than 25 million average daily visitors from around the world.

The Sopa legislation, under consideration in the House of Representatives, aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music or other goods by forcing internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates US copyright laws.

Supporters argue the bill is unlikely to have an impact on US-based websites.

US advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads, and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.

Google has repeatedly said the bill goes too far and could hurt investment.

Along with other Internet companies such as Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, it has run advertisements in major newspapers urging Washington lawmakers to rethink their approach.

White House officials raised concerns on Saturday about Sopa saying they believe it could make businesses on the internet vulnerable to litigation and harm legal activity and free speech.

In response, Sopa supporter News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, said on Twitter: “So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery.”

praag.co.uk – In South Africa the cliché, “truth is stranger than fiction”, is heard almost every day. More recently, the country has become so bizarre in its zealous pursuit of multiculturalism and affirmative action that some days one feels as if this must be another planet where normal terrestrial principles no longer apply.

As everyone knows, South Africa is the most Western and European country in Africa. The other day I was walking through the military museum in Johannesburg where tanks, cannons and aeroplanes are lovingly preserved, even German ones belonging to our former enemy in two world wars. South African military aircraft from the First World War onwards used to have the old Dutch “Prince flag” on the tail, the orange white and blue banner brought here by the father of our nation, the Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck who arrived on 6 April 1652.

We Afrikaners have therefore been living in this country as long as the Americans have in America. Like Americans, albeit on a smaller scale, we have been involved in European affairs and wars for hundreds of years. Until 1994, as the famous Harvard political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington, also observed, we imagined ourselves being “part of the West”.

Next to the war museum is an imposing sandstone memorial built by the British for their dead during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, causing a young man in our company to remark: “This could have been in Europe! It reminds me of the Brandenburg Gate.”

However, the coming to power of the ANC in our country has changed all that. We have one of the most anti-Western governments in the world, consistently voting with China, Africa and the Arab countries at the UN. Not only that, but people of European descent like Afrikaners or the English South Africans have been legally and otherwise defined as foreigners in their own country.

Whereas non-Western minorities in Europe or North America enjoy special privileges, protection and subsidies from taxpayers, exactly the converse applies in South Africa. We, the Western minority in our formerly Western country with its European architecture, laws and system of government, are being punished for not being truly African, really black. In the Orwellian terminology of the new government, we are the “non-designated group”. Designated people are blacks, coloureds (of mixed race) and Indians.

The myriad laws that place restrictions on whites represent the culmination of American affirmative action, which is also being applied in some European countries such as Britain and France. The difference is that whites are still the majority in most of the Western world. So the injustice of these affirmative-action laws – or “positive discrimination” as the French call it – only affect a minority of whites, unlike here where all whites have to bear it.

Many people in the world today wonder what it will be like for Europeans to become minorities in their own countries, given present demographic patterns. Recently in Japan more nappies were sold for the elderly than for babies and that day surely cannot be far off in Germany, Italy and many other European societies where the indigenous populations are set to age and decline.

South Africa today represents a laboratory for a future world, predicted by UN demographers, in which whites will find themselves in the minority in most countries. That future planet in which Africans will number two billion and Europeans less than 500 000 will come soon, in about 30 to 40 years.

For one thing, it will be world of racial quotas, as in South Africa. Sports teams will only be allowed to have a small percentage of whites. Places at university will be limited for whites and there will be “racial verification” to make sure that people do not lie about their race when applying for university or for jobs in both the government and the corporate sector.

I predict this because a few weeks ago a student who had gained admission to the medical school of Stellenbosch University lost her place after it was ascertained that she was white and had mistakenly crossed the box for “coloured”. The Stellenbosch medical school reserves only 30% of all places for whites; the rest must go to the “designated groups”. The town of Stellenbosch was founded by our forebears in the seventeenth century and the university dates from the nineteenth. The university there was built, developed and funded by Afrikaners through their taxes and private donations. And yet today the children and grandchildren of Afrikaners are not allowed to study there or study there in large numbers, simply because they are of European descent.

Does that not seem like the ultimate irony? Or the grossest form of injustice, far grosser than, say, segregation as it existed in the American South or in many parts of British-colonial Africa including, of course, South Africa? After all, to study at a segregated university, as many blacks had to do in apartheid South Africa, was something of an insult, a kind of psychological wounding. On the other hand, to this day many American blacks prefer to study on their own at so-called “black colleges”.

At least the segregated student is still allowed to study. But under a system of affirmative action or racial preferences, such as exists in South Africa, many members of the white minority are excluded from education because the black majority must dominate in all fields, regardless of its talent, its performance or its merits.

South Africa is also the most violent peace-time country on earth. Seventy percent of all women are raped in their lifetimes. The murder rate is about 50 times that of Germany. In some parts of the country, such as downtown Johannesburg, the murder rate is 500 times that of Germany! It is routine to encounter people who have been attacked or have relatives who have been murdered, often in the cruellest manner possible. Children, even babies or toddlers are not spared, such as the two-year old Willemien Potgieter who was picked up by her hair, almost like a doll, and shot point-blank in the head by a black man. Her parents too were massacred in the town of Lindley, in the Free State.

Sometimes the media carry stories about such incidents, but generally they are likened to natural disasters that “simply happen”. And then life goes on.

South Africa is also extremely corrupt. According to a recent international survey, 56% of people who encountered state officials last year had to pay a bribe. The effects of corruption and government profligacy can be seen in clubs and bars, in luxury shops and on the streets of Johannesburg where tens of thousands of South African blacks parade their large, expensive German cars, supplied by Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Normally these cars are black too, as if there is some secret quota for car paint, as there exists elsewhere in society.

The burden of all this falls mainly on the white middle-class who strain under the costs of their security, education and high taxes meant to finance the ostentatious lifestyle of the ruling class.

Growing accustomed to the “new South Africa” is hard. If ever our system had to be extended world-wide, as seems likely to happen, we would have to talk about “a new earth”, a radically new planet where Europeans would have become a dwindling minority suffering discrimination and calumny, as well as random violent attacks.

via gates of vienna

DALLAS (AP) — With the worst recent financial record in the industry and poisonous labor relations, American Airlines wasn’t a very attractive target for buyers.

That view is changing now that American and parent AMR Corp. are reorganizing under the bankruptcy process at the same time that most other airlines have returned to profitability. Mergers have reduced competition and helped drive up fares.

Suddenly, American Airlines is in play. US Airways Group Inc. has hired advisers to study AMR, according to a source familiar with the situation, and reports say that Delta Air Lines Inc. and buyout firm TPG Capital are also weighing bids. None of the companies would comment.

Industry insiders expect every major U.S. airline to take a look at AMR. Despite losing money every year since 2008 and missing out on the airline merger mania of the past few years, American is still the world’s third-biggest carrier by passenger traffic. In bankruptcy, AMR could shed billions in debt, reduce its costs and still afford new planes — a trifecta that has caught the eye of rivals.

“Everybody has to be thinking about how to deal with AMR in two years,” said Darryl Jenkins, a consultant who has worked for airlines on previous mergers. “They will be the most efficient carrier with a new fleet. They’re going to be very desirable.”

AMR’s CEO has said the best course for American is to remain independent. But if another airline makes an offer that sounds good to creditors and the bankruptcy judge, then it could make more sense for AMR to simply sell itself.

Wolfe Trahan & Co. analyst Hunter Keay put the chances of AMR emerging from bankruptcy as a stand-alone airline at no better than 20 percent. He thinks that with Delta’s access to borrowing and US Airway’s connections to deep-pocketed TPG, there could even be a bidding war for AMR.

Several other airlines or other suitors could pursue AMR. Each combination would carry its own pros and cons:

— US Airways would get needed size. In the last few years, it failed in bids to buy or merge with Delta and United and now finds itself the nation’s fifth-largest airline.

“The combination that makes the most sense is US Airways with American because they both need a bigger presence to appeal to business travelers,” said Saranthi Syth, an analyst for Raymond James Financial Inc.

The US Airways hub in Philadelphia could help American expand service from the eastern U.S. to Europe and take pressure off American’s trans-Atlantic bottleneck at New York’s Kennedy Airport, said Bob McAdoo, an airline analyst for Avondale Partners.

Other analysts, however, said US Airways wouldn’t offer much help in key markets such as Asia, where American is weaker than United and Delta. Its hubs, including Charlotte, N.C., and Phoenix, are in the kind of secondary cities from which American has been retreating. And such a deal would merge two airlines with already poor labor relations and pilots represented by different unions.

US Airways has not yet discussed a merger directly with American, but has hired investment adviser Jim Millstein and Barclays Capital to study how a deal might look, a source with knowledge of the situation said. This person requested anonymity because the status of the airline’s examination of American has not been publicly disclosed.

— Delta would love to get American’s routes in Latin America, but analysts think a combination of these two would be too big to win regulatory approval without major divestitures — both are already big in New York, for example. That has some experts thinking that Delta is only interested in cherry-picking parts of AMR if it is broken up.

— United Continental Holdings Inc., the world’s biggest airline, would benefit by adding American’s operations at London’s Heathrow Airport. But a United bid would face the same — or even tougher — regulatory scrutiny than a Delta offer, and the company is still busy absorbing Continental. But few would be surprised if United is intrigued.

“If Delta is going to take a look at AMR, United will take a look at AMR,” said Sterne Agee analyst Jeff Kauffman.

— TPG Capital would have one advantage: not being an airline, it would presumably face fewer regulatory hurdles. It has worked amicably with AMR and its new CEO. But it’s not clear how a buyer that’s not an airline will help boost AMR revenue and some analysts don’t believe TPG will be a serious bidder in the end.

American’s labor unions, despite a history of poor relations with management, are wary of a takeover. James C. Little, president of the Transport Workers Union, which represents American’s mechanics and other ground workers, said he fears that a buyer would send aircraft-overhaul work overseas. American employees do most of that work in the U.S., while rival airlines have outsourced it.

For now, at least publicly, American Airlines is taking the position that it would prefer to remain independent.

New CEO Thomas Horton, in a letter to employees two weeks after the bankruptcy filing, said “opportunists” might try to buy the company while it’s down but that “the best path for American is the one that leads us back to the top.”

McAdoo, the Avondale analyst, thinks American will most likely remain independent because its labor unions and new CEO might prefer that to being bought by another airline that has its own unions and CEO.

“Here’s a guy (Horton) who just got promoted to CEO,” McAdoo said. “Is he going to want to give up that title, and pair up with a company where he isn’t the CEO?”

Gordon Bethune, a former Continental Airlines CEO who evaluated offers for Delta during that airline’s bankruptcy, said AMR greatly helped its chances of remaining independent by filing for Chapter 11 when it still had $4 billion in cash — enough to buy time.

“They don’t need financing,” Bethune said. “They don’t need to go begging and get involved with somebody they don’t want to get involved with.”

I know first hand what those poisonous labor relations entail. I’ve got several machinists who come into my store. It doesn’t matter to them if AMR goes belly up or not. They better get theirs. One of the retired pilots who comes in, says Lufthansa(sp) has got the inside track on buying the maintenance facility in Tulsa, if AMR goes piecemeal.
On a separate note, i bet that $4 billion dollars in cash sounds mighty nice to hussein.