Timothy Geithner, pictured at right in an AP photo, is Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary.

Mr. Geithner will, among many other duties, oversee the Internal Revenue Service.

How odd, to say the least, that Mr. Geithner has had persistent tax filing and payment problems going back over 15 years involving self-employment taxes for both himself and his paid help, as well as with the employment of someone who for a time did not have proper legal status to remain in the country.

You would think that such things might place a cabinet nominee, especially to head Treasury, in jeopardy, and to cause the president who nominated him to have second thoughts. After all, in 2001, Linda Chavez’s nomination as Labor Secretary went down in flames over matters relating to an illegal immigrant whom Chavez had sheltered in her home a decade earlier. Also, in 1993, Zoe Baird withdrew as Bill Clinton’s nominee for Attorney General over the employment of illegal-immigrant domestic help and her failure to pay the related employment taxes on a timely basis.

But Geithner’s nomination is apparently getting the all clear, with pliant Republicans giving the okey-dokey, and press outlets like the Associated Press giving his problems the relatively no-big-deal treatment.

Here are some excerpts from tonight’s AP story by Brett J. Blackledge (stored here for future reference when there are subsequent updates; 5 AM Update: The link did indeed change; an alternate link that seems to match what AP had up at its own site at the time of this post’s appearance is here):

Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to run the Treasury Department and lead the nation’s economic rescue failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, but the last-minute disclosure didn’t stop Senate Democrats from moving forward with his nomination.

Timothy Geithner had paid some of the back taxes in 2006 after the IRS sent him a bill. When the Obama transition team discovered he owed even more back taxes, Geithner paid those additional taxes days before Obama announced his choice in November, according to materials released by the Senate Finance Committee considering his nomination.

….. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he still hoped Geithner could be confirmed on Inauguration Day, asking senators for unanimous consent to skirt rules and schedule a hearing as early as Friday.

….. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, another committee member, said he continues to support the nominee.

….. After senators met with Geithner, the panel released 30 pages of documents detailing his tax errors – and also how he came to employ a housekeeper whose legal immigrant work status had briefly lapsed in 2005.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the events as “a few little hiccups,” and said he was “not concerned at all” about the impact.

….. Geithner also said he didn’t realize a housekeeper he paid in 2004 and 2005 did not have current employment documentation as an immigrant for the final three months she worked for him, the documents indicated.

One of his housekeepers’ legal authorization to work in the United States expired on July 15, 2005, and the person continued to work for Geithner until October of that year, the committee’s report states.

….. The committee’s materials said Geithner “has experience with Social Security tax issues.” He filed the taxes late for his household employees in 1996 for years 1993 to 1995; he incorrectly calculated Medicare taxes for his household employees in 1998 and received an IRS notice; and he received notices from the Social Security Administration and the IRS after not filing 2003 and 2004 forms for his household employees, the report states.

Would it be impolite to suggest that had Geithner not been nominated, the odds that he would have caught up on all of his tax obligations when he did are very, very low?

Giethner’s personal self-employment “mistakes” have to do with his obligation to pay Social Security taxes on his income when he worked at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is exempt from paying the employer’s share, and apparently doesn’t withhold any amounts for Social Security on employees’ behalf. It’s easy to see how non-financial administrative employees might get tripped up here, but the idea that Giethner wasn’t aware of his obligations makes him either evasive, negligent, or incompetent. The same possible adjectives apply to the fact that he took as long as he did to catch up on his assessments. These are usually not qualities one looks for in a Treasury Secretary.

While the problem with the legal status of his housekeeper might seem minor, it should not be forgotten and Chavez and Baird withdrew their nominations in somewhat related circumstances. The AP’s Blackledge should have at least noted the past problems of other nominees and their results.

So why does Geithner deserve a Senatorial and journalistic pass, let alone an assumed instant, rule-skirting nomination on Inauguration Day? No one has even begun to explore the issue of how aware he should have been of some of the serious troubles at the Wall Street money center banks that just so happen to be headquartered in the Fed district he has overseen, and what he could have or should have done to prevent some of the implosions that occured there.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

This was going to be an “I told you so” post.

After all, in my December 28 reaction to Ted Strickland’s wish list for himself and his fellow governors, I said that:

By the time they’re done spending us into oblivion in Washington, don’t be surprised if the grand total (of the stimulus) is more like $2 trillion.

When I saw James Pethokoukis’s latest post at US News’s Capital Commerce Blog, I was ready with the “told ya”:

Liberals: We Need $2 Trillion in Stimulus Spending

Economic analyst Robert Kuttner voices the liberal dream of using the recession to justify spending  trillions of dollars on loads of liberal policy wishes, all to the tune of $2 trillion over the next two years.

Kuttner’s list, per Pethokoukis:

1) Aid to state and local governments [so they can avoid layoffs or cuts in services]. Cost: $200 billion.

2) Emergency revenue sharing to states and cities by picking up half of the state share of Medicaid. Cost: $100 billion.

3) Have government temporarily pay most of the cost of COBRA coverage for laid off people who lose their health insurance, and allow people over age 55 to buy into Medicare. Cost: $100 billion.

4) Expand Unemployment Insurance to cover part time workers, extend eligibility period, and increase benefit levels. Cost: $50 billion.

5) Roll back tuitions at state universities and community colleges, and increase Pell Grants–contingent on universities not increasing costs to students. Cost: $100 billion.

6) Declare a temporary holiday on the worker share of the Social Security tax, and have government make up the loss to the trust fund, contingent on employers not cutting wages. Cost: $450 billion.

7) Continue many of the [previously mentioned] relief programs into a second year, as economic conditions warrant. Cost: $500 billion.

8) Use direct federal lending to refinance distressed mortgages, and as necessary reduce the outstanding principal amount. This can begin by mid-2009. Cost: $200 billion of subsidy; most additional debt is eventually repaid.

9) Begin planning immediately for a broad range of infrastructure programs, from traditional outlay on roads, bridges and mass transit to spending on 21st century infrastructure such as retrofitting homes, green energy, universal broadband, and smart-grid electricity systems. Spend money on worker training as necessary. Cost: $300 billion.

There’s only one “tiny” problem: Kuttner’s list isn’t the only one out there. There are at least the lists of Ted Strickland’s gubernatorial grabbers and Barack Obama’s current list to contend with. There are also others, but merely comparing Kuttner and Strickland moves me from a proud “told ya” posture to a penitent “I was wrong, I am sorry.”

Combining Kuttner with Strickland clearly moves the number way past $2 trillion, because Strickland covets quite a few additional items:

First, he (Strickland) is angling for a $250 billion increase in federal payments for food stamps and Medicaid, the government health program for impoverished Americans and, increasingly, the working poor. Second, he favors a $250 billion national investment in infrastructure projects. Ohio has a list of “shovel-ready” projects, including roads, water and sewer improvements and “green economy” investments.

Third, in search of a palatable pitch to a Congress and nation numbed by the parade of rescue packages, Strickland is teaming with a handful of other Democratic governors to seek a $250 billion infusion for education.

Comparing the two, Kuttner doesn’t mention food stamps at all. Strickland’s infrastructure list appears to contain items (at least “water and sewer improvements”) not in Kuttner’s. Finally, Strickland’s education number is a whopping $150 billion more than Kuttner’s ($250 bil vs. $100 bil).

In sum, there’s easily $200 billion, and possibly $300 billion, in what Strickland wants that isn’t in what Kuttner wants.

More than likely, there are items in Barack Obama’s $775 billion agenda that are over and above what either Kuttner or Strickland envision. Beyond all of that, there are surely additional items in municipal wish lists from places like the City of Detroit ($10 billion), Cleveland ($730 million), and others.

You can start with Kuttner’s $2 trillion and raise to at least $2.5 trillion with other items on others’ lists without breaking much of a sweat. And they certainly aren’t done dreaming.

As I said, I was wrong, and I am sorry. Because of that, I’m not going to speculate on what the upper limit of all this nonsense could possibly be by the time it’s all done.

Even more troubling, if that’s possible, Kuttner’s list includes items that would be advertised as temporary, but if enacted, will more than likely remain permanent. Does anyone believe that lowering Medicare eligibility to age 55 could be stopped once it started? Does anyone think that socializing COBRA could be undone? Would Uncle Sam’s increased share of Medicaid costs ever be cut back?

Thus, Kuttner is advocating “stimulus” items that are really major and permanent structural increases in the size and scope of Washington’s control over the economy, and our lives.

Given the quantity and quality of the opposition in Washington, we are in a world of hurt.

Do I hear $3 trillion? $4 trillion?

The New York Times wouldn’t be in serious financial trouble if, instead of inventing stories to hurt people it didn’t like, it had employed more on-the-scene reporting like this (HT Taranto at Best of the Web) over the past seven years (bolds are mine):

A car arrived (at Shifa Hospital in Gaza) with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

____________________________________________________

John Dendahl at Family Security Matters has a portrayal of Bill Richardson that makes you wonder how Barack Obama could have nominated New Mexico’s governor as Commerce Secretary:

Richardson’s combination of pay-to-play and ruthless retaliation have dragged too many citizens who should be principled civic leaders to the level of prostitute or whipped dog.

…..  That Barack Obama selected Richardson for a Cabinet position is clear evidence that either 1) pay-to-play is fine so long as you don’t get busted, or 2) his vetting operation, having missed something so obvious in Richardson’s M.O., is utterly incompetent.

….. Organized Labor represents practically no one in the private sector in New Mexico, and lost its legal right to represent public employees when the relevant statute “sunsetted” during the term of Richardson’s predecessor, Gary Johnson. The Legislature didn’t have the votes to override Johnson’s veto of its bill to extend. With direct contributions and indirect expenditures, Labor lavishly supported Richardson’s 2002 campaign for governor. One of its most aggressive bosses, Brian Condit, was soon the Richardson transition organization’s apparent gatekeeper for appointive positions.

Labor got its big reward by immediate restoration of its collective bargaining statute without a sunset, then card-check recognition (that is, no secret ballot elections) of two unions for bargaining units spread around the state …..

In addition to the corruption problems, it appears that promoting commerce would not have been high on Richardson’s agenda.

________________________________________________________

IBDeditorials.com lays down a marker. Come back to this 20 years from now:

Leadership: George W. Bush was pegged as a hate figure even before being sworn in. Yet he resisted bitterness, stuck to principle and became what history will judge to be one of our better presidents.

….. when the establishments of both parties in Washington insisted on throwing in the towel in Iraq, rather than accepting the status quo because the party might end up not doing well in the elections, Bush “decided to do something about it — and sent 30,000 troops in as opposed to withdrawing.”

Asked about alleged damage to America’s international image, the president offered a challenge: “Ask Africans about America’s generosity and compassion; go to India . . . go to China and ask . . .. No question parts of Europe have said that we shouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq without a mandate, but those are a few countries.”

On Hurricane Katrina, he asked: “When I hear people say, ‘The federal response was slow,’ then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?”

Fair enough, though I’m not clear on the China part. That said, there is no doubt that Michelle Malkin is right that the spending side of Bush’s legacy is in tatters, and that Bush’s version of “compassionate conservatism” (a term which, when applied properly, is redundant) ended up being a formula for state expansion that will haunt the nation for years, if not forever. Malkin also clearly deserves credit for being among the very few to predict Bush’s fiscal problems (read the linked post for plenty of her 2000 columns).

I gave Bush a pass on spending for the first couple of years after 9/11 because it was clear that if it seemed like domestic “needs” were being compromised, the opposition to a coherent War on Terror would have gained the upper hand, leaving us unconscionably vulnerable. Thus, overspending was a deliberate political calculation sadly necessary to our survival.

But, except for the single year preceding the Democratic takeover of the House, the spending restraint never arrived, gave the Pelosi-Reid Congress the political cover to ramp spending up much further, and made formerly unthinkable ideas like the Treasury Secretary’s SUCKUP (Seemingly Unlimited Cash Kitty Under Paulson) feasible.

So I’m not down with the “one of our better presidents” claim by IBD. Just in terms of post-WWII — Better than Nixon, Ford, Carter, LBJ, Kennedy, and DRIFT-POTUS (Demonstrated Rapist and Impeached Former Terror-enabling President Of The United States) Bill Clinton? Of course. Not as good as Truman, Ike, Reagan, and Bush 41? Definitely (but in Truman’s case, barely).

__________________________________________________________

Carol Marin at the Chicago Sun-Times (HT Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters), on the Obama-pliant press (bold is mine):

As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance.

The Obama news conferences tell that story, making one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The press corps, most of us, don’t even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who’ve been advised they will be called upon that day.

Uh ….. where’s the outrage?

It makes you wonder if Obama has also told them what questions he’ll answer.

Prediction: Criticism from the so-called guardians of journalistic integrity will be non-existent.

I recommend one last vote for the following (links are to ballot pages):

• (Prime Directives) SOBer Thurber’s Thoughts as Best Political Coverage Blog; SOBer Justin Higgins’s joint venture with Tommy Jardon, Shots on the House, for Best Blog Design.
• (Others) Hot Air, Best Blog; The Anchoress, Best Individual Blogger; Day by Day, Best Comic Strip; American Thinker, Best Conservative Blog; Michael Yon, Best Military Blog; Volokh Conspiracy, Best Law Blog; Pundit Review Radio, Best Podcast; Ms. Underestimated, Best Video Blog; Instapundit, Best Major Blog.

From Athol, Mississippi:

January 10, 2009 3:22 p.m. EST

A nine-year-old girl, who went missing as she was allegedly abducted by her grandmother, was tracked down by police using Google’s Street View on the internet and a mobile phone signal.

Natalie Maltais went missing on Saturday after her grandmother Rose M. Maltais, 52, did not return with her following a weekend away, the officials based in Athol, Massachusetts said.

A local police officer and a deputy chief in the town’s fire department found Rose with the use of GPS satellite technology in the girl’s mobile phone.

The GPS coordinates, which provide a rough location within 300 yards, were used by deputy fire chief Thomas Lozier, who then used Google Street View to spot a hotel where they were staying.

Google Street View application provides 360 degree panorama image of roads at eye-level.

Rose was arrested by Virginia State Police at the Budget Inn in Natural Bridge, Virginia, at around 4:15 p.m local time on Tuesday, the local reports said. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

….. is retiring in 2010 after his term ends. It is official.

Ted Strickland recently called Rahm Emanuel and said, “I need $5 billion.”

Assuming that he really was asking on behalf of the State of Ohio and not himself, here’s an idea for raising $5 billion that doesn’t involve gambling, or begging. An adjacent state raised $3.8 billion this way just three years ago. Proportionally, Ohio’s asset is more than 50% bigger, so raising $5 billion, or even more, by selling it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Three words, Ted: Sell the Turnpike.

This post originally appeared in August 2006.

I have no reason to believe that the financial and other corrupt arrangements described here aren’t still in full force. If anyone has contrary info, e-mail me.

Why in the world should Israel feel any obligation to accommodate news organizations that have been so thoroughly compromised by their Arab-state paymasters?

**********

Pervasive and Systematic Bias in Middle East News Coverage: Now We Know Why
August 12, 2006

It is hard to overstate the importance of what Little Green Footballs’ site operator Charles Johnson learned from a clearly knowledgeable person in the news business, and revealed in a post yesterday morning. Anyone who attempts to understand events in the Middle East but is unaware of what Johnson has exposed is being shortchanged, and very likely misled.

It was only a week ago that Johnson originally caught the photoshopped “Beirut Burning” picture that sparked a blogswarm of investigations into additional photo doctoring, event staging (Jan. 2009 Note: The original vid was taken down by YouTube for “terms of use violations”; this link to the same vid has somehow survived YouTube’s censors), and other photojournalistic abuses, all of which added a new word, fauxtography, to the vocabularies of those who follow the news.

Now Johnson has expanded what began as a “narrow” photojournalism controversy into an expose of how, for decades, the news we receive from the most volatile region in the world has, in exchange for what looks an awful lot like bribery, been twisted and controlled to meet a pro-Arab, pro-terorist, anti-Israel agenda.

Johnson’s reader provided him with an explanation of where the worldwide pictures and stories you ultimately see come from, and how they are “processed.” Read the whole thing.

For the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that Arab states have for decades paid substantial sums for control over content and other news-management privileges that I daresay would be refused at any price (with the mere request being treated as an earth-shaking scandal) if asked for by representatives of any Western country. So-called journalists who supposedly worship at the altar of “objectivity” not only appear not to have had a problem with this, but they clearly haven’t cared to tell us, their readers and viewers, how money has twisted and continues to twist the vast majority of news coverage originating from the Middle East.

Here are key excerpts from Johnson’s post (but you MUST read it all to get the full distasteful flavor; the entity covered is AP Television News, or APTN):

A Separate Service for Arab States

However, there is another significant part of their business model that affects the rest of the business. While most of the world takes news pictures with minimal interpretation beyond editing, the Arab Gulf States have asked for and receive a different and far more expensive service. These states pay for a complete news report service including full editing and voice overs from known journalists. The news organizations in the Arab countries don’t do anything (beyond verify that they are appropriate for local tastes) before broadcast.

What this means is that while there are around 50 people producing news pictures for the whole world working in Camden (UK) at any time, there are a further 50 Arabic speaking staff producing finished stories exclusively for the Arab states of the gulf. This has a tremendous effect on the whole feel of the building as these two teams feed pictures and people back and forth and sit in adjacent work areas. The slant of the stories required by the Gulf States has a definite effect on which footage is used and discarded. This affects both the Gulf newsroom and the main global newsroom.

This full service feed is much more expensive for the customers than the usual service, but it is also much higher margin for APTN (Associated Press Television News, “the largest television news gathering player” in the field, whose only “true competitor” is Reuters — Ed.). This is partly because there is great commonality in what they can send to most of the Gulf States taking this service: stories are made once and used in a number of countries.

Disproportionately Negative Coverage of Israel

Anything involving Israel is a favorite with Gulf Arab states for showing to their viewers.

….. A significant twist to what is seen, concerns what is not seen. Footage such as the Palestinian mob joyfully lynching two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 2000 is held by APTN’s library: any attempt to license this film for reshow is carefully vetted. Requests for the use of “sensitive clips” are referred directly to the Library director. This is not the case with clips that paint Israel in a bad light. Likewise, the re-showing of Palestinian celebrations on 9/11 is considered “sensitive.”

….. You will never see what the editors at APTN see before they compile your evening news. What do you think is cut out?

The Wrap-Up

….. Without question APTN’s interesting business model represents a concrete example of an ongoing financial “contribution” to an important communication agency promoting a pro-Arab bias.

There you have it. It is the equivalent of former CNN exec Eason’s Jordan’s sellout of journalistic integrity in Iraq for over a decade (in the process he “systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities”) “to keep CNN’s Baghdad bureau open” (Jordan’s words), this time writ large over his entire “profession” in the most volatile region in the entire world.

Guys and gals in the media — How DARE you not inform us that you’ve been filtering and twisting Middle East news coverage all these years because the price has been right?

….. it has become painfully obvious that you simply cannot take any news that comes out of Lebanon or “Palestine” at face value.

Make that the entire Middle East — and now you know why.

From Washington:

Jan. 8, 2009; 8:01 p.m.

On April 11, 2005, I entered St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with my friend Father Richard John Neuhaus to pay our respects to the recently deceased Pope John Paul II.  After kneeling before the pontiff’s body, as we left the basilica, I remarked at how small the pope appeared.  “That wasn’t him.  He isn’t there,” I said.  “No,” Father Richard said pinching fresh tears from his eyes.  “He is there.  These are the remains, what is left behind of a life such as we are not likely to see again, waiting with all of us for the resurrection of the dead, the final vindication of the hope he proclaimed.”

As was his wont, Father Richard John Neuhaus was capable of delivering impromptu corrections with an eloquence and precision that would elude the best of us.  When I learned of his passing today at the age of 72, his words echoed in my memory.  He too lived a life we shall not likely see again.  He was not only a renowned intellectual and an exemplary man of letters, but as his remark to me illustrates, he put his mind and his art at the service of Mother Church and the truths she protects.  He was firstly and lastly a man animated by his faith.  May God welcome him as he makes his final journey homeward.  Godspeed my friend.  RJN rest in peace.

Raymond Arroyo is the host of EWTN’s news program The World Over and has broadcast shows with Fr. Neuhaus on a number of occasions.

First Things’ announcement, with a list of obituaries from others, is here.

When historians look back in wonder at how a long-established publication like the New York Times could have declined from its virtual king-of-the-world status in mid-2002 to its Bush-deranged, 85%-devalued shadow of its former self, they will surely make a few stops at Maureen Dowd’s twice-weekly, lost-in-another-world columns (the Dowd picture is from the Times’s web site).

Today’s offering from Dowd (HT Hot Air Headlines) is intended to be a final figurative kick in the shins at George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, something she admits to fantasizing about having done to the Vice President this week when she had opportunities.

But the Dowd diatribe really ends up as a self-portrayal of someone who deeply imbibed the kool-aid her paper dished out over the past seven years and is beyond ever letting go, and serves as a microcosm of what the Old Gray Lady has done to itself in that same timeframe:

An Extremist Makeover?

In the past week, I’ve twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins.

I didn’t. It’s probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize. I did, however, assume the Stay-away-from-me-you’ve-got-cooties stance that Jimmy Carter used when posing with Bill Clinton at the presidents’ powwow in the Oval.

The first time was Tuesday, when Cheney left the ceremony where he gave the oath of office to senators. The senators seemed thrilled, especially Joe Biden, who was getting sworn in for just two weeks and was excitedly showing off a family Bible the size of a Buick. But I thought it gave the ceremony a satirical edge to have the lawless Vice presiding over lawmakers swearing to support and defend the Constitution that he soiled and defiled — right in the heart of the legislative branch he worked to diminish.

The second time I crossed paths was Thursday night, at a glitzy party at Cafe Milano for Brit Hume, stepping down as a Fox anchor. It required extreme defensive maneuvers — much zigging and zagging — to avoid Cheney, Wolfie and Rummy, all three holding court and blissfully unrepentant about the chaos they’ve unleashed on the world.

….. After he leaves office, W. wants to go on more bike rides, because biking through Katrina was not enough.

….. The vamoosing Vice has no apologies about turning America into a country that tortured; indeed, he denies it ever happened. “Torture,” he told Barnes, “that word gets thrown around with great abandon.”

….. Cheney’s theory of executive “unitary” power and pre-emptive war and frightening the world was a theory of Constitutional thuggishness.

The fact is that the contentions Dowd’s column are little different from the supposedly “objective” reports that have emanated from the Times’s newsroom since early 2002:

• Dogged insistence, forever memorialized as “fake but accurate,” that the long-debunked Rathergate story, complete with phony documents and substantive refutations (here and here, for starters) is somehow still true.
• The belief that Bush and Cheney soiled defiled the Constitution with, among other things, the FISA law. How inconvenient it is that no less than Barack Obama voted to keep FISA in place at crunch time.
• The military “chaos” unleashed on the world. All you need to know on this topic is that the word “Iraq” doesn’t appear in Dowd’s column. And how about this: The president-elect, faced with ugly reality, is even getting cold feet about closing Gitmo. I guess doing that would be a little too chaotic compared to our current circumstances. Next thing you know, Obama, again realizing the dangers we face, will have a very, very quiet (and more than likely unreported) change of heart about certain interrogation methods.
• Katrina? Oh stop it, Mo. The weak Katrina response was a failure of city and state officials first and foremost. Start by asking ex-Governor Kathleen Blanco why George Bush is to blame for these underwater buses.

The Times has lost much of its audience, almost all of its credibility, and perhaps its financial viability, during its seven-year infection with Bush Derangement Syndrome. You would think that with the inauguration of Barack Obama just 10 days away, there might be a bit of, well, hope in the hearts of folks like Dowd and others at the newspaper. But it appears that even a change in administrations won’t bring an end to their all-consuming bitter-ender attacks, perhaps accompanied by the more bitter end of the newspaper itself.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Update, Jan. 12: Debunked, per Anatreptic, which leaves questions as to the motivation of Alex Wissner-Gross.

(begin original post)

Are we witnessing the beginning of the demonization of Google?

The Internet search and service behemoth’s reputation has largely survived co-operating with censorship in mainland China and inconsistent YouTube censorship that seems to lean towards protecting terrorists’ feelings (background here and here).

But will it survive being labeled a major source of CO2 “pollution”?

We may soon find out. As reported in the UK Times Online, a Harvard scientist claims to have estimated the so-called carbon footprint of Google searches — and it’s not small. During the course of their article, reporters Jonathan Leake and Richard Woods use language the press usually reserves for conservatives and “evil” businesspersons:

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines – about 2% of global CO2 emissions.

….. Though Google says it is in the forefront of green computing, its search engine generates high levels of CO2 because of the way it operates. When you type in a Google search for, say, “energy saving tips”, your request doesn’t go to just one server. It goes to several competing against each other.It may even be sent to servers thousands of miles apart. Google’s infrastructure sends you data from whichever produces the answer fastest. The system minimises delays but raises energy consumption. Google has servers in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

Wissner-Gross has submitted his research for publication by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and has also set up a website www.CO2stats.com. “Google are very efficient but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy,” he said.

Well, how dare Google serve their users by making searches faster? Don’t they realize they’re killing the planet?

Enough of this, and you might see the fastest U-turn from political climate correctness in corporate history.

Oh, and all you Twitterers and Second Lifers out there, don’t get complacent. You’re not off the hook either. In fact, the reporters would appear to be sympathetic, if given enough power, to restricting how new tools such as these are used:

(Expert on data centres at the British Computer Society Liam) Newcombe cites Second Life and Twitter, a rapidly growing website whose 3m users post millions of messages a month. Last week Stephen Fry, the TV presenter, was posting “tweets” from New Zealand, imparting such vital information as “Arrived in Queenstown. Hurrah. Full of bungy jumping and ‘activewear’ shops”, and “Honestly. NZ weather makes UK look stable and clement”.

….. Such internet phenomena are not simply fun and hot air, Newcombe warns: the boom in such services has a carbon cost.

So I guess we must restrict them. Zheesh.

One frustrated article commenter, a “John Scott” claiming to be from Atlanta, summed things up nicely:

I call for a moratorium on publishing articles like this one. The amount of CO2 generated when my head starts to steam is much higher than a Google search. Multiply that by the millions of sane people who agree with me that GW (global warming) is a crock and GW might actually come true.

(“Evil” image was obtained from Velleities.net, which says it obtained the image from a Swedish blog.)

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Mexico City:

Jan 8, 2009; 07:16 pm

Bishop Florencio Olvera Ochoa of Cuernavaca in Mexico announced this week that despite the threats he has received, he will again publish his “Decalogue of electoral sins” for the 2009 election season, which will be decisive for the state of Morelos.

The bishop published a similar Decalogue in 2006, inspired in the principles of the Church’s Social Doctrine, earning him a lawsuit, which was later dismissed.  “My duty is to take care that love of country is made a priority, especially in Morelos where there will be decisive elections and in which the people must choose life, family, dignity and peace,” the bishop said.

Bishop Olvera Ochoa said his “10 commandments” of the voting booth would be “proclaimed from the pulpit,” and he reiterated that the main message would again be voting for “candidates who support life.”

“The Decalogue I issued only contains principles that stem from natural law and the Social Doctrine of the Church,” he added. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.