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In all these countries, our military aid is combined with civilian development assistance. This is the global war on terrorism as preventive rather than as proscriptive. It doesn't cost much. You could spread Green Beret teams across Africa for the price of one F-22 jet. If there is another model out there that will keep the U.S. military engaged without overextending it, and will help move along inter-agency cooperation, I have not seen it.

An interesting commentary.

Unheralded military successes - Los Angeles Times

David Rubenstein (a founder of the Carlyle Group) described that time to a convention of pension managers in Los Angeles last year, recalling that Republican fund raiser, Fred Malek approached him and said, "There is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. . . . Needs some board positions." Though Rubenstein didn't think George W. Bush, then in his mid-40's, "added much value," he put him on the Caterair board. "Came to all the meetings," Rubenstein told the conventioneers. "Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years: You know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company." He said: "Well, I think I'm getting out of this business anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board." And I said "thanks". Didn't think I'd ever see him again.' - New York Times, Ron Suskind, Without A Doubt, 17 October 2004.

...

Caterair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I should pay more tax, says US billionaire Warren Buffett

Andrew Clark in New York
Wednesday October 31, 2007
The Guardian

Warren Buffett counts the money from his wallet after an employee asked how much money he had in it, during a meeting with workers of TaeguTec, in Daegu, South Korea.
Warren Buffett counts the money from his wallet after an employee asked how much money he had in it, during a meeting with workers of TaeguTec, in Daegu, South Korea. Photograph: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters

The United States' second-richest man has delivered a blunt message to the Bush administration: he wants to pay more tax.

Warren Buffett, the famous investor known as the "Sage of Omaha", has complained that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of his staff - including his receptionist. Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52bn (�25bn), said: "The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It's dramatic; I don't think it's appreciated and I think it should be addressed."

Article continues
During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.

I should pay more tax, says US billionaire Warren Buffett | | Guardian Unlimited Business

WASHINGTON — Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

We knew it was a useless circus, but did any of us imagine it was this bad?

Dismantle the TSA.

Most fake bombs missed by screeners

Among military members and their immediate families who responded to a national New York Times/CBS News poll in May, two-thirds said things were going badly, compared with just over half, about 53 percent, a year ago. Fewer than half of the families and military members said the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq. A year ago more than half held that view, according to the a similar poll taken last July. The May poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 7 percentage points.

As Loved Ones Fight On, War Doubts Arise - New York Times

Americans who think that all Muslims hate the United States may be surprised to hear that many Muslims believe they have it precisely backward. Our questionnaires showed that Muslims worldwide viewed Islamophobia in the West as the No. 1 threat they faced. Many Muslims told us that the Western media depict them as terrorists or likens them to Nazis. Such widespread perceptions let literalist clerics argue that Islam must defend itself against a rapacious West -- something the mystics and modernists were incapable of doing.

Bush Still Doesn't Get It - washingtonpost.com

While pirates were certainly cruel and violent criminals, pirate ships were hardly the floating tyrannies of popular imagination. As a fascinating new paper (pdf) by Peter Leeson, an economist at George Mason University, and “The Republic of Pirates,” a new book by Colin Woodard, make clear, pirate ships limited the power of captains and guaranteed crew members a say in the ship’s affairs. The surprising thing is that, even with this untraditional power structure, pirates were, in Leeson’s words, among “the most sophisticated and successful criminal organizations in history.”

The Pirates’ Code: Online Only: The New Yorker

The documents, to be publicly released next week, also include accounts of break-ins and theft, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, wiretaps and surveillance of journalists, and a series of "unwitting" tests on U.S. civilians, including the use of drugs.

CIA to reveal 'skeletons' / Agency to declassify records of abuses, from domestic spying to assassination attempts

What this has amounted to is what is being termed, "the rise of U.S. nuclear primacy."

If this phrase rings a bell, it's because of the small firestorm created last year when two American academics, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, published "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. The authors argued that the United States is consciously refining its nuclear forces so as to be able to knock out Russia's rump arsenal and command and control system, thereby achieving first-strike capability, or "primacy," for the first time since the early 1960s. They do not argue or imply that such an attack is in the offing, but merely state that the looming fact of U.S. nuclear primacy is potentially destabilizing and is essential to keep in mind when framing flashpoints in the U.S.-Russian security dialogue - flashpoints like missile defense. Since this larger context has gone missing lately, with U.S. officials and editorialists haughtily dismissing Russian concerns as "ridiculous" and "anachronistic," it seems like a good time to revisit their article.

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