The Flashlight, January 19-25, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT, January 19 – 25, 2008
No Pacific without Justice, no Justice without the Facts

The United States
Economy

NYTimes 1-21. While the Americans were observing the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, a huge sell-off of stocks in Asia and Europe alerted brokers and traders to the imminence of a similar crash in New York.
1-22. The crash hit the US. Only gold was up; oil and bonds declined along with industrial stocks. Even banks were hit, especially Bank of America and Citibank.

Just before the market opened the Federal Reserve announced a .75% interest rate, the largest one-day increase on record. This prompted stocks to recover.
1-23. Stocks again dropped sharply, and then recovered. Technical stocks were in worse trouble: the Nasdaq has dropped
12% since January 1. Commentators on CNBC (Ch. 58) said that stocks have not yet hit bottom.
Asian and European markets were no less disturbed than those of the US.
PBS 1-25. The Dow Jones closed at 12,207. Asian markets rallied; European markets did not.

Presidential Primaries

1-20. Romney wins Republican race in Nevada. McCain ahead in South Carolina. Among Democrats, Hilary Clinton won the most votes in Nevada, but on account of complex rules, Obama won the most delegates to the Democratic Convention, 13-12.

1-21 CNN. Surging black support for Obama put him significantly ahead of Hilary Clinton in South Carolina. Bill Clinton went on the attack for his wife. McCain and Guiliani battled in Florida.
1-25. The New York Times announced its support for Hilary Clinton by Democrats and John McCain by Republicans.

Minnesota Bridge Collapse

1-18. Star Tribune. Minneapolis and St. Paul. The case of the collapse of the bridge on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis last August 1 is still debated. Many have called the National Traffic Safety Board report, which said that the failure of the gusset plates could not have been detected in a “routine inspection,” a cover-up. Inspections of the bridge were very thorough, and they reported that the gusset plates were corroded and thinning and needed repair, as well as other faults. Instead of repairing them the authorities ordered that the surface of the bridge be repaved – a cosmetic response. Repaving with heavy equipment and materials was going on at the time of collapse, at rush hour. People are asking why the bridge wasn’t fixed.
Minnesota has a Republican state government, headed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He is said to be under consideration as candidate for Vice-President. The Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held in Minneapolis next summer.

Health Care

1-19 NYTimes Editorial. Emergency Room delays are now affecting even people with good health insurance. Even heart attack patients may have to wait 50 minutes or more.

Stanford is the Third Richest US University

SF Chronicle 1-24. The endowment of Stanford has reached $17.1 billion, following Harvard with $34.6 billion and Yale with 22.5 billion. The ten campuses of the Univ. of California have an endowment of only $8 billion. Stanford’s endowment quadrupled in the last ten years with an average annualized return of 13.9%.

World: Biofuels vs. Food

NYTimes 1-19. As world production of biofuels increased, food production declined. Food prices rose. In November, in Chongqung, China, a Carrefour store made a limited time promotion for cooking oil. This caused a stampede in which three died and 31 were injured.
Israel/Palestine

Haaretz 1-19. In response to 130 rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip in the last three days, Israel closed its borders with Gaza, cutting off UN humanitarian supplies of food, fuel, and medicines. The European Union criticized Israel.
`London Times 1-21. Running out of fuel, the only Gaza power plant shut down. It served to pump water, dispose of rubbish, and treat sewage.
President Abbas said that Israel has not fulfilled its promise to end settlement expansion and loosen restriction on West Bank economy.
There were only 3 rocket attacks on Israel this week.

Guardian 1-23. Masked gunmen carrying explosives destroyed most of the seven-mile wall on the Gaza-Egyptian border. Haaretz estimated that 200,000 Palestinians from Gaza crossed over into Egyptian to buy food, fuel, cigarettes, cokes, medicines et al. The Egyptian border guards, on orders from Cairo, stood by passively. 1-24. The Palestinians poured backed into Egypt again, despite some resistance by border guards.
Reuters 1-23. This has been a public relations debacle for Israel.

Israel/Turkey

Haaretz 1-24. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan claimed that there was no evidence of any Israeli deaths from Qassem rockets in southern Israel, whereas Israeli attacks on Gaza had caused the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.
The Turks are angry because the Anti-Defamation League in the US has recognized the Armenian Genocide of 1915 -23 at the hands of the Turks.

The Flashlight, January 12-18, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT, January 12-18, 2008

No Peace without Justice, no Justice, without the Facts

US News: The Economy

NYTimes 1-18. Stocks fell on Thursday by 3.7% for the day and 9.2% since the beginning of the year. The housing debacle is worse now and pulling down the whole economy. President Bush promised a stimulus package of one-time tax rebates of about $800 for low and middle income families who are likely to spend them rather than save them.
Paul Krugman said that the must fundamental cause of the crisis was the failure of the government to update banking regulations. He blamed Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman. He predicted that the next year or two might be very unpleasant.

NY Times 1-14. Worries about the economy are now at the top of American voter concerns.

2008 Primaries

PBS, W Post 1-15. Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary with a plurality of 39%. McCain was second with 31%.

Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

Washington Post 1-18. A design flaw caused the collapse of the forty-year-old bridge in Minneapolis last summer, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The gusset plates, which hold together the diagonal beams of the bridge frame, were not thick enough. There was no redundant element in the structure to replace the failed gusset plates. The critical moment probably came when heavy reconstruction vehicles and materials were joined by rush hour traffic pressing on the structure. The structural fault could not have been detected by routine inspections.

Iraq

NYT 1-13. After months of American pressure, the Iraq Government announced that former Baathist officials might apply for government jobs.

Az-Zaman, Baghdad. 1-10. This Iraqi journal disputed the claim that security is still improving in Baghdad. Three Christian churches, in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, were bombed almost simultaneously. Also attacked have been US supported Arab Sunni militias, government targets, and the US Marines. The journal denounced the lower casualty figures of the Iraqi Government as lies.

NYT 1-17 Editorial. The Iraqi Government announced that it will not extend the UN mandate for US presence in Iraq beyond the end of 2008. The Bush Administration is now negotiating with the Government to extend the American presence possibly up to 2018. The Times called for Congress to intervene so that the hands of the next president will not be tied.

Israel/Palestine

CNN 1-10. President Bush stated that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in the 1967 War must cease by the end of this year. He also said that the Palestinian Authority must put an end to “terrorist infrastructures.”

Newsweek 1-21. Bush said that a Palestinian state is “long over-due.”

Haaretz (Israel) 1-18. The UK Zionist Federation is campaigning to improve negative British public opinion and the British media with regard to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, made a speech on Wednesday at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London, a “bastion of anti-Israel criticism.” He was greeted by kaffiyeh-wearing protestors. Attenders had to pass a meticulous security check before entering the auditorium. No limit was placed on the harshness of the questions directed to the Ambassador. The Ambassador argued that Israel is like David fighting Goliath.

Science

W Post 1-17. A California company announced that it had cloned human stem cells and converted them to human embryos. This was a big step forward to replacing tissues in critical organs, thereby treating spinal injuries, Alzheimer’s disease, et al.


Book Review

David W. Anthony. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton University Press, 2007. As a result of meticulous research of archaeological findings, linguistics, horses’ teeth, et al. The author has concluded that the original home of the Indo-Europeans, ancestors of peoples from India to the western edges of Europe, and from the Arctic to the southern edges of Europe and Iran, was the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the southeastern part of the Ukraine. He says that Proto-Indo-European, a reconstructed dead language, was spoken here from c. 4500 to 2500 BC (BCE, or before the common era).

In this original homeland the Indo-Europeans tamed horses enough to ride and drive them, making possible the herding of large numbers of cattle, sheep, and other horses. It also made possible the raiding of agricultural settlements and the abodes of rival tribes. The Indo-Europeans used wagons pulled by cattle to transport their tents, food, and water, and thus penetrate deeply into the grasslands of the steppe. They also invented the chariot toward the end of the third millennium BCE. (They borrowed the wheel from the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia, who invented it.) Armies on horseback did not appear until the time of the Assyrians, about the eighth or seventh centuries BCE.

The importance of this book is that it serves to refute that long established theory of Colin Renfrew, who argued that Anatolia (now Turkey) was the original home of the Indo-Europeans. The new findings of David W. Anthony tend to support the long held counter-theory of J. Mallory and Marija Gimbutas.
Indo-European culture was patriarchal and patrilocal. Its religion was mainly focused on male sky gods. The peoples of Europe preceding the Indo-Europeans mainly worshipped goddesses. The Indo-Europeans conquered them, using their horse-based forces. To this day, all the upper classes of Europe and the Near East have ridden on horseback.

The Flashlight, Jan. 1-11, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT, January 1-11, 2008
No Peace without Justice, no Justice without the Facts

US News: Presidential Primaries

NYTimes 1-1. David Brooks: Romney has made himself unelectable in the fall because:
1. He has made himself unpopular with young voters by presenting himself as an old-fashioned orthodox Reagan
Republican.
2. He is unpopular with people earning less than $75,000 a year.
3. He is unpopular with independents, Hispanics, and the media.
However he may get the Republican nomination because many conservative Republicans would rather remain in charge of a party that loses, than lose control of a party that wins.

The Iowa Caucuses

NYT 1-4. Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses of Democrats, drawing 57% of his vote from young people. He ran strong among Independents and attracted many women. Edwards came in second, Clinton, third. Huckabee won the Republican vote, Romney was second. Obama’s victory speech on You Tube impressed many.
Comments by time columnists:
Maureen Dowd: Obama is “cool, smart, elegant, reasonable, literary, witty, and decent.”
Obama: “I am not telling you what you want to hear; I am telling you what you need to know.”

Frank Rich: Obama offers hope and fresh start. The Iraq fiasco is not forgotten, which will prevent the election of Clinton and McCain.
1-6. Mark Mellman and Michael Bloomfield: word of mouth has become more important in shaping opinion, and expensive TV advertising is less important.

New Hampshire Primary
CNN 1-7. Hilary fights back tears. Obama draws large crowds.
1-8. Polls were wrong: Clinton wins by two percentage points over Obama.
McCain beats Romney.
CNN, PBS, NYT. 1-9. Registered Democrats (as opposed to Independents) and women preferred Clinton.
The better educated and better off favored Obama, the less educated and poor favored Clinton.
Suggested explanations for Clinton win: Independent voters were drained from Obama to McCain. Big sympathy vote of women for Clinton. College turnout disappointed Obama.

NYT 1-10. Kerry endorsed Obama.

The CIA Tapes

NYTimes 1-2. The co-chairs of the 9-11 Commission, Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, claim that government officials refused to inform the Commission of the destruction of the CIA tapes of “ harsh interrogation,” and that this was an obstruction of justice.
NYTimes 1-3. Both the Justice Department and Congress have started investigations of the case. 1-4 The FBI will be in charge of the Justice Dept. investigation.


Health
PBS 1-4. Exercise tends to increase production of new neurons in the brain. The learning process tends to create new synapses between neurons.

Sex Education
NYT 1-6. Teen pregnancy, after a long decline, has started to rise. Fifteen states rejected federal funds for abstinence only sex education.

Environment
NYT 1-3. The state of California sues the EPA for blocking new rules limiting carbon emissions in new cars and trucks driven in the state. Other states are expected to join the suit.