Free Republic

I know where I’ve seen her... she’s Stifler’s Mom!

http://www.google.com/search?q=stifler’s+mom&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1832&bih=919&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=8a-4TvjkPKPUiAKm37HVBA&ved=0CCwQsAQ

Unfortunately, the media will help explain away these emails, but the real damning evidence is in the programmers’ code comments and the code itself.

The world needs to see this!

If you are unfamiliar with software programming best practices, we tend to leave “notes” behind describing what each subroutine accomplishes. Because it may be months before we revisit a program for enhancements, the “notes” or comments are our guide to make quick modifications and roll out updates. I tend to overdo my comments in our company’s software, but it saves hours of debugging and testing down the road.

At any rate, I have all of the available “hacked” CRU files. I have been searching their research/data reconstruction algorithms for programmer comments.

Below are some comments (in red for emphasis) written by CRU programmer(s). I have quoted a few new comments beyond the original two from the story. Please note: These comments are not an exhaustive investigation of all of the code from the downloaded CRU data, just a sample of the first hour’s worth of work. There is much much more.

This is about as damning as it gets... the programmer’s comments back up the version of the email that suggests CRU is manipulating tree ring proxy data to achieve a desired result. (Tree ring proxy data being the one of the foundations of the infamous MBH98 Hockey Stick graph, IPCC policy and Al Gore’s fictional movie.) While they may be able to argue that their emails were “taken out of context”, the programmer’s code comments gives those emails an entirely different context.

comments from files
maps12.pro
maps15.pro
maps24.pro

calibrate_mxd.pro

calibrate_correctmxd.pro
pl_decline.pro

Here is the story for some context:

---

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/#more-13065

CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story
When the CRU emails first made it into news stories, there was immediate reaction from the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones over this passage in an email:

From a yahoo.com news story:

In one leaked e-mail, the research center’s director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to “hide the decline” in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.

Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had “just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.

Dr. Jones responded.

However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. “The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward,” he said in a statement Saturday.

Ok fine, but how Dr. Jones, do you explain this?

There’s a file of code also in the collection of emails and documents from CRU. A commenter named Neal on climate audit writes:

People are talking about the emails being smoking guns but I find the remarks in the code and the code more of a smoking gun. The code is so hacked around to give predetermined results that it shows the bias of the coder. In other words make the code ignore inconvenient data to show what I want it to show. The code after a quick scan is quite a mess. Anyone with any pride would be to ashamed of to let it out public viewing. As examples [of] bias take a look at the following remarks from the MANN code files:

Here’s the code with the comments left by the programmer:

function mkp2correlation,indts,depts,remts,t,filter=filter,refperiod=refperiod,$
datathresh=datathresh
;
; THIS WORKS WITH REMTS BEING A 2D ARRAY (nseries,ntime) OF MULTIPLE TIMESERIES
; WHOSE INFLUENCE IS TO BE REMOVED. UNFORTUNATELY THE IDL5.4 p_correlate
; FAILS WITH >1 SERIES TO HOLD CONSTANT, SO I HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR INFLUENCE
; FROM BOTH INDTS AND DEPTS USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND THEN USE THE
; USUAL correlate FUNCTION ON THE RESIDUALS.
;
pro maps12,yrstart,doinfill=doinfill
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

and later the same programming comment again in another routine:

;
; Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD
; reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

You can claim an email you wrote years ago isn’t accurate saying it was “taken out of context”, but a programmer making notes in the code does so that he/she can document what the code is actually doing at that stage, so that anyone who looks at it later can figure out why this function doesn’t plot past 1960. In this case, it is not allowing all of the temperature data to be plotted. Growing season data (summer months when the new tree rings are formed) past 1960 is thrown out because “these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures”, which implies some post processing routine.

Spin that, spin it to the moon if you want. I’ll believe programmer notes over the word of somebody who stands to gain from suggesting there’s nothing “untowards” about it.

Either the data tells the story of nature or it does not. Data that has been “artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures” is false data, yielding a false result.

For more details, see Mike’s Nature Trick http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/

_________________________________________________________________________________________

(I added these from the programmers’ code):

;
; Calibrates the gridded and infilled MXD data against instrumental
; summer temperatures (land&sea). On a grid-box basis first, using the
; period 1911-1990 for calibration and the period 1856-1910 for verification,
; where data is available.
;
; Due to the decline, all time series are first high-pass filter with a
; 40-yr filter, although the calibration equation is then applied to raw
; data.

; fdcltmerr is the mean over the calibration period of the MXD data that has
; had the high-frequency calibration applied to it. It will therefore be
; in error, because the high-frequency calibration says nothing about the
; long-term mean.

; Anomalise the reconstructed against the full calibration period
; (excluding missing MXD values, but not excluding missing temperature
; values), then compute the mean of the anomalised reconstruction
; over the actual calibration subset. Use this to work out what
; offset should be applied to the calibrated values to give the
; correct mean level.

; But the calibrated series had the high-pass calibration applied to
; the raw MXD, which would have left the reconstruction having a
; near zero mean over 1881-1960, while we would prefer to match the
; observed temperature mean over the calibration period. So let’s
; impose that.

; We have previously (calibrate_mxd.pro) calibrated the high-pass filtered
; MXD over 1911-1990, applied the calibration to unfiltered MXD data (which
; gives a zero mean over 1881-1960) after extending the calibration to boxes
; without temperature data (pl_calibmxd1.pro). We have identified and
; artificially removed (i.e. corrected) the decline in this calibrated
; data set. We now recalibrate this corrected calibrated dataset against
; the unfiltered 1911-1990 temperature data, and apply the same calibration
; to the corrected and uncorrected calibrated MXD data.

; Now verify on a grid-box basis
; No need to verify the correct and uncorrected versions, since these
; should be identical prior to 1920 or 1930 or whenever the decline
; was corrected onwards from.

; Plots density ‘decline’ as a time series of the difference between
; temperature and density averaged over the region north of 50N,
; and an associated pattern in the difference field.
; The difference data set is computed using only boxes and years with
; both temperature and density in them - i.e., the grid changes in time.
; The pattern is computed by correlating and regressing the *filtered*
; time series against the unfiltered (or filtered) difference data set.
;
;*** MUST ALTER FUNCT_DECLINE.PRO TO MATCH THE COORDINATES OF THE
; START OF THE DECLINE *** ALTER THIS EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE ANYTHING ***

printf,1,’Osborn et al. (2004) gridded reconstruction of warm-season’
printf,1,’(April-September) temperature anomalies (from the 1961-1990 mean).’
printf,1,’Reconstruction is based on tree-ring density records.’
printf,1
printf,1,’NOTE: recent decline in tree-ring density has been ARTIFICIALLY’
printf,1,’REMOVED to facilitate calibration. THEREFORE, post-1960 values’
printf,1,’will be much closer to observed temperatures then they should be,’
printf,1,’which will incorrectly imply the reconstruction is more skilful’
printf,1,’than it actually is. See Osborn et al. (2004).’
printf,1
printf,1,’Osborn TJ, Briffa KR, Schweingruber FH and Jones PD (2004)’
printf,1,’Annually resolved patterns of summer temperature over the Northern’
printf,1,’Hemisphere since AD 1400 from a tree-ring-density network.’
printf,1,’Submitted to Global and Planetary Change.’
printf,1
printf,1,’Osborn TJ, Briffa KR, Schweingruber FH and Jones PD (2004)’
printf,1,’Annually resolved patterns of summer temperature over the Northern’
printf,1,’Hemisphere since AD 1400 from a tree-ring-density network.’
printf,1,’Submitted to Global and Planetary Change.’

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4221

http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/RuthetalJClimate05.pdf

If you are unfamiliar with software programming best practices, we tend to leave “notes” behind describing what each subroutine accomplishes. Because it may be months before we revisit a program for enhancements, the “notes” or comments are our guide to make quick modifications and roll out updates. I tend to overdo my comments in our company’s software, but it saves hours of debugging and testing down the road.

At any rate, I have all of the available “hacked” CRU files. I have been searching their research/data reconstruction algorithms for programmer comments.

Below are some comments (in red for emphasis) written by CRU programmer(s). I have quoted a few new comments beyond the original two from the story. Please note: These comments are not an exhaustive investigation of all of the code from the downloaded CRU data, just a sample of the first hour’s worth of work. There is much much more.

This is about as damning as it gets... the programmer’s comments back up the version of the email that suggests CRU is manipulating tree ring proxy data to achieve a desired result. (Tree ring proxy data being the one of the foundations of the infamous MBH98 Hockey Stick graph, IPCC policy and Al Gore’s fictional movie.) While they may be able to argue that their emails were “taken out of context”, the programmer’s code comments gives those emails an entirely different context.

comments from files
maps12.pro
maps15.pro
maps24.pro

calibrate_mxd.pro

calibrate_correctmxd.pro
pl_decline.pro

Here is the story for some context:

---

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/#more-13065

CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story
When the CRU emails first made it into news stories, there was immediate reaction from the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones over this passage in an email:

From a yahoo.com news story:

In one leaked e-mail, the research center’s director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to “hide the decline” in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.

Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had “just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.

Dr. Jones responded.

However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. “The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward,” he said in a statement Saturday.

Ok fine, but how Dr. Jones, do you explain this?

There’s a file of code also in the collection of emails and documents from CRU. A commenter named Neal on climate audit writes:

People are talking about the emails being smoking guns but I find the remarks in the code and the code more of a smoking gun. The code is so hacked around to give predetermined results that it shows the bias of the coder. In other words make the code ignore inconvenient data to show what I want it to show. The code after a quick scan is quite a mess. Anyone with any pride would be to ashamed of to let it out public viewing. As examples [of] bias take a look at the following remarks from the MANN code files:

Here’s the code with the comments left by the programmer:

function mkp2correlation,indts,depts,remts,t,filter=filter,refperiod=refperiod,$
datathresh=datathresh
;
; THIS WORKS WITH REMTS BEING A 2D ARRAY (nseries,ntime) OF MULTIPLE TIMESERIES
; WHOSE INFLUENCE IS TO BE REMOVED. UNFORTUNATELY THE IDL5.4 p_correlate
; FAILS WITH >1 SERIES TO HOLD CONSTANT, SO I HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR INFLUENCE
; FROM BOTH INDTS AND DEPTS USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND THEN USE THE
; USUAL correlate FUNCTION ON THE RESIDUALS.
;
pro maps12,yrstart,doinfill=doinfill
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

and later the same programming comment again in another routine:

;
; Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD
; reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

You can claim an email you wrote years ago isn’t accurate saying it was “taken out of context”, but a programmer making notes in the code does so that he/she can document what the code is actually doing at that stage, so that anyone who looks at it later can figure out why this function doesn’t plot past 1960. In this case, it is not allowing all of the temperature data to be plotted. Growing season data (summer months when the new tree rings are formed) past 1960 is thrown out because “these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures”, which implies some post processing routine.

Spin that, spin it to the moon if you want. I’ll believe programmer notes over the word of somebody who stands to gain from suggesting there’s nothing “untowards” about it.

Either the data tells the story of nature or it does not. Data that has been “artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures” is false data, yielding a false result.

For more details, see Mike’s Nature Trick http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/

_________________________________________________________________________________________

(I added these from the programmers’ code):

;
; Calibrates the gridded and infilled MXD data against instrumental
; summer temperatures (land&sea). On a grid-box basis first, using the
; period 1911-1990 for calibration and the period 1856-1910 for verification,
; where data is available.
;
; Due to the decline, all time series are first high-pass filter with a
; 40-yr filter, although the calibration equation is then applied to raw
; data.

; fdcltmerr is the mean over the calibration period of the MXD data that has
; had the high-frequency calibration applied to it. It will therefore be
; in error, because the high-frequency calibration says nothing about the
; long-term mean.

; Anomalise the reconstructed against the full calibration period
; (excluding missing MXD values, but not excluding missing temperature
; values), then compute the mean of the anomalised reconstruction
; over the actual calibration subset. Use this to work out what
; offset should be applied to the calibrated values to give the
; correct mean level.

; But the calibrated series had the high-pass calibration applied to
; the raw MXD, which would have left the reconstruction having a
; near zero mean over 1881-1960, while we would prefer to match the
; observed temperature mean over the calibration period. So let’s
; impose that.

; We have previously (calibrate_mxd.pro) calibrated the high-pass filtered
; MXD over 1911-1990, applied the calibration to unfiltered MXD data (which
; gives a zero mean over 1881-1960) after extending the calibration to boxes
; without temperature data (pl_calibmxd1.pro). We have identified and
; artificially removed (i.e. corrected) the decline in this calibrated
; data set. We now recalibrate this corrected calibrated dataset against
; the unfiltered 1911-1990 temperature data, and apply the same calibration
; to the corrected and uncorrected calibrated MXD data.

; Now verify on a grid-box basis
; No need to verify the correct and uncorrected versions, since these
; should be identical prior to 1920 or 1930 or whenever the decline
; was corrected onwards from.

; Plots density ‘decline’ as a time series of the difference between
; temperature and density averaged over the region north of 50N,
; and an associated pattern in the difference field.
; The difference data set is computed using only boxes and years with
; both temperature and density in them - i.e., the grid changes in time.
; The pattern is computed by correlating and regressing the *filtered*
; time series against the unfiltered (or filtered) difference data set.
;
;*** MUST ALTER FUNCT_DECLINE.PRO TO MATCH THE COORDINATES OF THE
; START OF THE DECLINE *** ALTER THIS EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE ANYTHING ***

printf,1,’Osborn et al. (2004) gridded reconstruction of warm-season’
printf,1,’(April-September) temperature anomalies (from the 1961-1990 mean).’
printf,1,’Reconstruction is based on tree-ring density records.’
printf,1
printf,1,’NOTE: recent decline in tree-ring density has been ARTIFICIALLY’
printf,1,’REMOVED to facilitate calibration. THEREFORE, post-1960 values’
printf,1,’will be much closer to observed temperatures then they should be,’
printf,1,’which will incorrectly imply the reconstruction is more skilful’
printf,1,’than it actually is. See Osborn et al. (2004).’
printf,1
printf,1,’Osborn TJ, Briffa KR, Schweingruber FH and Jones PD (2004)’
printf,1,’Annually resolved patterns of summer temperature over the Northern’
printf,1,’Hemisphere since AD 1400 from a tree-ring-density network.’
printf,1,’Submitted to Global and Planetary Change.’
printf,1
printf,1,’Osborn TJ, Briffa KR, Schweingruber FH and Jones PD (2004)’
printf,1,’Annually resolved patterns of summer temperature over the Northern’
printf,1,’Hemisphere since AD 1400 from a tree-ring-density network.’
printf,1,’Submitted to Global and Planetary Change.’

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4221

http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/RuthetalJClimate05.pdf

From: ovass...@midway.uchicago.edu
Date: 1996/02/23
Subject: Town Meeting on Economic Insecurity on the South Side
The Democratic Socialists of America Present
The First Chicago Town Meeting on Economic Insecurity

EMPLOYMENT AND SURVIVAL IN URBAN AMERICA
a discussion of policy, problems, and possibilities

with

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON,
Director, Center for the Study of Urban Inequality at the University
of Chicago

MICHAEL DAWSON,
Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

BARACK OBAMA,
Candidate, State Senate, 13th Legislative District

TONI PRECKWINKLE,
4th Ward Alderman

JOSEPH SCHWARTZ,
Professor of Political Science, Temple University

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH
7:00pm
Ida Noyes Hall, Cloyster Club
1313 E. 59th Street, Chicago

Sponsored by:
*University of Chicago Democrats
*Chicago Democratic Socialists of America
*University of Chicago Democratic Socialists of America

For more information call:

University of Chicago Democratic Socialists, 312-955-6371

__________________________________________

THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WAY
November 1996 — Volume 2, Number 11
___________________________________________________________

EDITORIAL:
The next campaign

Being of the Irish persuasion, I naturally am attracted to lost causes,
like the idea of democracy. Still my response to the recent election was:
What were we thinking?
The only reasonable answer that I could come up with was that the
American voter opted for entertainment value in pitting the Republican
105th Congress against repentant Democrat Bill Clinton.
Either that, or they¹re hoping to advance the career of Vice President
Al Gore after Clinton¹s impeachment.
Progressives can be pleased with the re-election of senators Tom
Harkin, Paul Wellstone, Max Baucus, Carl Levin, John Kerry and Jay
Rockefeller and the promotion to the Senate of Tim Johnson in South
Dakota, Dick Durbin in Illinois, Jack Reed in Rhode Island, Bob Torricelli
in New Jersey, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana and Max Cleland in Georgia, but
with Republicans posting a net gain of two the Senate likely will be even
more hostile to progressive causes.
Progressive forces, led by the AFL-CIO, managed to sidetrack Newt
Gingrich¹s revolution and forced Republicans to back off plans to cut
Medicare and Social Security to pay for tax breaks for the rich. Congress
even approved a modest increase in the minimum wage.
While battered-but-unbowed Republicans are now considering ways to
further restrict labor unions from engaging in political activity, the $35
million the AFL-CIO spent was a small fraction of the contributions by
corporate executives and their PACs that went overwhelmingly to
Republicans and conservative Democrats. ³There¹s no way that corporate
America can be outspent by any other entity. That will never be overcome,²
said Ira Arlook, national director of Citizen Action.
He sees the answer as public financing. An initiative approved by
voters in Maine could become a model: It limits campaign contributions
from individuals, corporations and PACs to $500 for gubernatorial
candidates and $250 for state House and Senate candidates. It also
provides public funding for candidates who agree to limit their spending,
refuse private contributions and shorten their campaign seasons.
The money is expected to come from cutting the operating budgets of the
legislative and executive branches and doubling lobbyists¹ registration
fees (to $400).
³We¹re never going to be in a position where the individual and the
corporations are not in a position to express their position,² Arlook
said. ³But public funding would make sure that good candidates who are not
wealthy can be viable candidates.²

For all the talk about two-thirds of the American people wanting an
alternative party, they must have been among the 51% of eligible voters
who stayed home. Ross Perot got 7.8 million votes, or 8.5% of the total,
to earn the Reform Party a place on the ballot and public funding in the
next election. Ralph Nader got 580,627, 0.6% of the total, followed by
Libertarian Harry Browne¹s 470,818, Taxpayer Party¹s Howard Phillips¹
178,779, Natural Law Party¹s John Hagelin¹s 110,194 and more than a dozen
other declared candidates.
After the election, Nader said, ³The Greens have much to be proud of
this fall. They themselves have broadened the deepened their roots in
communities throughout this country. ... The Green Party numbers, while
much smaller than those received by the Democratic, Republican and Reform
Party, are good first national steps by the emerging young party toward
strengthening our democracy and will form a substantial foundation for
future Green campaigns.²
The Greens had some successes in local races, gaining the majority on
the City Council of Arcata, in northern California. Michael Feinstein won
a City Council seat in Santa Monica, and two Greens won City Council seats
in Berkeley. Overall, Greens won 6 out of 7 local races in California.
Nationwide, Green Party members hold local office in 12 states, including
school board, city council, and county commission seats.
New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races,
including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat
on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince
George¹s County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to
Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85%
victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate
seat from Chicago.
The New Party also helped Carolyn McCarthy knock off freshman
Republican Dan Frisa in a closely watched U.S. House seat in Long Island.
Tom DiNapoli, the most progressive State Assemblyman on Long Island,
handily won re-election as a Democratic Party/New Party fusion candidate.
Progressive Milwaukee members affiliated with the New Party won a seat in
the state Assembly and two seats in the state Senate.
San Francisco voters by 56-44 percent rejected a preference voting
initiative as a competing initiative to resume single-member,
winner-take-all district elections for the Board of Supervisors was
approved by 57%. But advocates of proportional representation were
heartened by the re-election of Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a black
congresswoman who was targeted for defeat by Republicans in a redrawn
suburban Atlanta district. She won a second term with 58% of the vote. She
views proportional representation as a way to allow minorities to be
represented and maintain the spirit of the Voting Rights Act without
gerrymandering districts.

Bruce Colburn, secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Labor Council, member
of the New Party-affiliated Progressive Milwaukee and president of
Wisconsin Citizen Action, and Joel Rogers, chairman of the New Party,
wrote of the possibility of building a new progressive populist coalition
in ³What¹s Next: Beyond the Election² in the Nov. 18 issue of The Nation.
The core Democratic idea of using public power to build a genuinely
democratic society has all but vanished as a practical political ideal, in
their analysis. In addition to the deep changes in the structure of the
economy, organizational rivalries within progressive ranks, tactical
mistakes and failures of leadership, they write, ³the most important
reason is also the most obvious: As a movement, we are not serious players
in the electoral game.²
Progressives have allowed themselves to be defined at the left wing of
the liberal/conservative axis, they write. But ³the liberal/conservative
axis itself misses the real conflict in politics today ‹ which is not so
much a battle between left and right as between bottom and top ‹ between
those favoring stronger democracy and corporate accountability (the
majority) and those opposed to both (the tiny rich minority and their
apologists). This fight is the one we should declare as our own. Taking
sides with the majority, we should wage the Œdemocrat versus
anti-democrat¹ and Œworker-consumer-citizen versus irresponsible corporate
power¹ struggle. It will be an exceptionally nasty fight, but this is one
we can win.²
Colburn and Rogers propose this progressive program:
œ Reform tax and industrial policy to close off the Œlow road¹ on
industrial restructuring and promote high-wage/low-waste domestic
investment and business organization.
œ Revitalize metropolitan economies as model regions of advanced production.
œ Build high-speed trains ‹ ³capital and labor intensive, they¹re good
for the earth and people like them.²
œ Make equal opportunity real by declaring a ³Bill of Rights for
America¹s Children,² providing everybody with a ³starting even² package of
day care, health insurance, parental income allowances, recreation and
advanced, high-quality education.
œ Declare America a ³lifelong learning society,² fundamentally
reforming public education, replacing local property taxes with more
general revenues, imposing high standards on teachers and students and
provide links to work for those who don¹t go on to college. Also ensure
lifelong learning opportunities for adults.
œ Restore government accountability, beginning with public funding of
campaigns.
œ Strengthen the organizing rights of workers, consumers and
communities, while explicitly assigning them a greater role in devising
and administering ³public² programs for economic upgrading and community
renewal.
œ Provide single-payer health insurance.
œ Simplify and integrate our tax system to tax both private and social
income on a progressive basis.
œ Declare the budgetary ³peace dividend.²
œ Declare an ³environmental dividend² in energy and other savings that
application of current technologies would permit.
œ Forge a new internationalism centered on ³leveling up² international
worker rights and wages, rather than the leveling down associated with
GATT.
We like most of that program but would also strengthen anti-trust
legislation to help small businesses compete with corporate chain stores.
We also would gear agricultural policy to promote small, family-based
farms and sustainable economic development in rural areas. And we would
require accountability from the media conglomerates that use public
airwaves.
A progressive electoral alliance could include the AFL-CIO and its
member unions, citizen advocacy groups such as ACORN, Citizen Action,
Public Citizen and the Public Interest Research Groups, political parties
such as the Green Party, Labor Party and New Party, civil rights
organizations such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, the NAACP and NOW and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club
and the League of Conservation Voters.
If progressives want to build a populist movement for the 1998
election, when 16 GOP and 18 Democratic seats will be up for grabs in the
Senate, they had better start working now to build a national network that
can recruit progressive candidates and raise funds and organize people to
elect them.
The populist Alliance, holding its organizational convention the
weekend of November 21 near Kerrville, Texas, hopes to develop into a
forum for progressive populist movement. For information on the Alliance,
call 617-491-4221. For the New Party call 1-800-200-1294. For the Labor
Party call 202-234-5190. For the Green Party call 607-756-4211. For
Democrats 2000, which promotes progressive populists in the Democratic
Party, call 202-626-5620.
Progressives should consider whether to take back the Democratic Party
or take over the Reform Party. Since the Reformers are on the ballot in
every state and have a guarantee of public funding in the next
presidential race, somebody is bound to take it over. And if you can¹t
take the Reform Party away from Ross Perot, you surely can¹t take the
Democratic Party away from the Fortune 500.
‹ Jim Cullen
________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS, November 1996:

EDITORIALS:
The next campaign
JIM HIGHTOWER:
XXX-ported Jobs;
The Pentagon’s MOB Boondoggle;
Phone Company Scams;
GE Wants You in Debt;
Foreign Favors;
Clinton/Dole Trade Advisors;
Recycling Works
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thanks to our friends
RURAL ROUTES: Agribusiness’s Happy Thanksgiving Meal, by A.V. Krebs.
REPORT: ‘Greed, Simple Greed’: Supermarket to the world pleads guilty to
price fixing, by A.V. Krebs.
FEATURE: Striking Back: Teamsters enlist consumers in their protracted
fight, by Hank Kalet. Also Teamsters battle over trusteeships.
LABOR TALK/Harry Kelber: German Workers and Us
FEATURE: A River Comes Clean, by William Bole.
OBSERVATIONS: Suiting up: The silly furor over school uniforms, by Joan
Zwagerman.
REPORT: Perot takes the low road, reaches 8.5%, by Mark Spencer. Also, Who
owns the Reform Party?
WORK IN PROGRESS/AFL-CIO: Sweet victory.
WASHINGTON REPORT/UAW: Unions warn Wall Street.
TED RALL: Radical Surgery: A Case for Socialized Medicine.
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas: Thresholds of Pain.
FEATURE: Michael Moore: Working class clown, by Bill Leuders.
KEVIN CLARKE: Where have all the burgers gone?
DONELLA MEADOWS: What the American people really want.
COVER STORY: Progressives: Quit whining, start organizing, by Jim Cullen.
JIM WALLIS: A Great National Sin
FREE LANCE: NAFTA loses support
RANDOLPH HOLHUT: Michael Tomasky’s Remedies for Reviving the Left.
JESSE JACKSON: The Arc of History.
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST/Ralph Nader: Corporate Hypocrisy.
EULOGY/James Flansburg: Harold Hughes had a true faith in democracy.
MADE IN THE USA/Joel D. Joseph: Stuffed Shirt: A Justice’s Misplaced Loyalties
MEDIA BEAT/Norman Solomon: Big win for ‘Centrists’
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW/Sam Smith: Global Scorecard.
BUSINESS ETHICS/Marjorie Kelly: Employees surrender all rights at the
company door.
FEATURE: Burgeoning home health care industry, small worker-owned firms
show the way, by Linda R. Prout. Also, Home health company helps women
move from welfare to work.
DAVID MORRIS: Who Controls the Air Waves?
FEATURE: Public apathy toward elections mounting, by Christine Stavem.
PETER MONTAGUE: The invisible government.
BOOK REVIEW/David Hoelscher: Sounds like a good theory, review of ‘They
Only Look Dead,” by E.J. Dionne Jr.
LATINO SPECTRUM / Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales: Putting a Hole
in the Constitution.
HAL CROWTHER: Legend of Maiden Rock.
CHARLES LEVENDOSKY: Immigration Politics Deports the Heart of America.
J PAUL LEIGH: The Balkanization of America.
MOLLY IVINS:
Suggestions for the bipartisans;
If only we had more John Bryants;
A few questions we might ask ourselves.
EUGENE J. McCARTHY: Musings on post-modern politics.
_____________________________________________________________
To subscribe to the PROGRESSIVE POPULIST, send a check for $18 for one
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Austin, TX 78715-0517. Free samples are available. United States residents
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The PROGRESSIVE POPULIST, entire contents copyrighted 1996, is published
monthly by Ampersand Publishing Company, 220 W. Railroad St., Storm Lake,
Iowa, 50588. Permission is granted to republish or retransmit the above
information as long as the Progressive Populist is credited.

ping

This IS it.

Read this earlier on the American Thinker... mark my words this will snowball!

Correct! Here is the deal:
It is my supposition the anthrax terrorist is literate in one of the few languages written Right to Left... and nearly illiterate in English. Thus it was natural for the terrorist to copy the addresses from Right to Left on the envelope, but in order for the Left margin to align, the envelope must be addressed upside down. TRY IT! It will look just like a young child addressed the envelope... and a lot like the actual anthrax letters.

The following may be a new take on who may have written the 2001 anthrax letters... or at least how they were written.

A handful of years ago, I was back east checking into a hotel. The desk clerk spoke very broken English. He looked of Arab descent and he pushed his pencil from right to left. He did something that I considered highly unusual... he flipped both my ID and hotel registration card upside down and copied my ID info from right to left across the hotel card.

As he was writing, I asked him why he turned everything upside down before he copied the info... he responded something to the effect of ..."so it lines up."

Now go find an old envelope, turn it upside down, then turn the following address upside down and copy from right to left (beginning with the NJ address as the return and editor as the send to address):

4TH GRADE
GREENDALE SCHOOL
FRANKLIN PARK NJ 08852

EDITOR
NEW YORK POST
1211 AVE. OF THE AMERICAS
NEW YORK, NY 10036

now go here anthrax letters at fbi.gov

Does the GIA target Americans?
The GIA has not targeted Americans in Algeria. But some Algerian terrorists who have tried to attack the United States may be linked to the GIA. In December 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian living in Montreal, was arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border with a carload of explosives; he was later convicted of plotting a millennium-eve attack on Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam has since led authorities to alleged co-conspirators in Canada and the United States.

read more at:
http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/gia.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ressam

ping

"The Algerian Connection
Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria?"



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1456433/posts

please excuse the thread interuption...

THIS IS HUGE!

WE don't seek vengence usually, even when we wish it. We rely on the law.

In Pakistan, they simply "honor rape" your sister.

...but what's pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the touch don't always intersect.I'll bet she'd be pretty good between the sheets.

I would commend any wingman who would jump on that grenade in the line of "duty"!! Sir, your honor would not be lost, but your dignity may suffer.

Florida has a "no-fault" divorce law like many other states. The only grounds for divorce are:

1. The marriage is irretrievably broken; or
2. The mental incapacity of one of the parties.

Was he going for 1, 2 or both?

presumably, she's dancing on the stage/bar at Carlos & Charlie's

Post #1249

CC, Tell me what you think...