Year: 2010

ACORN – THOSE UNDERCOVER TAPES WERE DOCTORED

Here, belatedly, is the story of how ACORN got Swiftboated. One weeps for democracy reading it.

This is not to say ACORN is perfect – anymore than, say, the Republican Party is perfect.

But it is a measure of the right’s effectiveness that so many people actually think ACORN stole the last election. Fifty-two percent of Republicans think this, according to one poll, which is as completely false as the notion that Iraq attacked us on 9/11. (Seventy percent of Bush re-elect voters believed that.)

And it is a measure of the right’s effectiveness that ACORN’s 40 years of good work on behalf of the least among us could be blown up this way – just like John Kerry’s courageous military service.

Now comes news that the last straw in what had been an eight-year campaign against ACORN – those ‘pimp/prostitute’ sting tapes made by the fellow later arrested for wiretapping a senator’s office – was not quite what it appeared:

Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money.

While the video by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.

“They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” said the source . . .

☞ Again, this is not to say that every ACORN worker does his or her job well. But as Fox News, et al, relentlessly failed to acknowledge, when it came to cases of bogus voter registrations, it was ACORN itself that found and reported the lapses – and in real time, before any damage was done.

If only that were true of over-zealous Republican operatives, like Allen Raymond, author of How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative (2008): ‘If you could find two of us Republican operatives who could still tell the difference between politics and crime, you could probably have rubbed us together for fire as well.’

Or like the estimable David Brock, long-since reformed and doing terrific work, but who began his Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (2003): ‘This is a terrible book. It is about lies told and reputations ruined. It is about what the conservative movement did, and what I did, as we plotted in the shadows, disregarded the law, and abused power to win even greater power.’

The difference is that the ACORN employees who may have given faux prostitutes inappropriate tax advice were at the bottom of the organizational pyramid, or (in the case of the paid registration gatherers), not even employees; whereas those Republican operatives were near, or (in the case of Karl Rove) at, the top.

To my mind, it’s an important difference. Please share it with your friends.

BOYCOTT VIRGINIA

Last month, the newly elected Republican governor went out of his way to rescind Virginia’s nondiscrimination policy against gays and lesbians. Last week, his newly appointed attorney general asked Virginia colleges to do likewise. Read it here.

DEPO

OK, so with the stock closing Friday at $3.16, we have our 27% – well, 33%, actually. That part was the ‘chip shot’ suggested here. And earning a low-risk 33% in two weeks is the best this column can do. DEPO now comes off the ‘chip shot’ list (sorry: I have nothing else on that list) and goes back into the ‘speculative basket.’ Loving few things more than an attractive speculation, I’m holding most of mine.

#

PS – For those who thought I took Friday off, it turns out that Ferris – realizing he was no longer in high school – posted a column after all.

But first . . .

GOP LAWMAKER DEMANDS RECALL OF CAR THAT DROVE HIM TO GAY CLUB

Andy Borowitz is a riot.

GIVE THE PRESIDENT 5 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME

This video was made specifically for OFA supporters. But even if you’re not yet one of them, watch it anyway? Health insurance reform is so close to being done – and so worth doing. (Not least those four Republican-inspired additions to the mix, like “sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud and waste.” Bravo.)

And now . . .

ASK/TELL

The New York Times yesterday published an op-ed by former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak favoring the current Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell policy. For my money, his argument is demolished in this response by the Palm Center’s Aaron Belkin. In part:

Gen. McPeak claims that “advocates for gays in the service have by and large avoided a discussion of unit cohesion” which ought to be the main focus of the debate. This is simply false. There are at least twenty studies from the last fifty years, many written by the military’s own researchers, which find that gay and lesbian troops do not harm cohesion. As an article published by the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concludes, “there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.”

Gen. McPeak also claims there is no evidence that troops will fight more effectively when the gay ban is repealed. In fact, research shows that the ban itself undermines cohesion and readiness. A bipartisan study group of Flag and General Officers which took a year to assess all of the evidence on “don’t ask, don’t tell” found that commanders in Iraq are ignoring the policy and choosing to keep their teams together rather than firing loyal gay troops. A recent Military Times poll confirms that many commanders know of gays and lesbians serving in their units, but choose not to discharge them, suggesting that these leaders believe that known gays help rather than hurt the force.

Finally, Gen. McPeak has acknowledged publicly that when there is a tradeoff between pursuing moral values and military effectiveness, he prefers the former, even at the expense of the latter. He opposed women in combat in the 1990s, saying he had “personal prejudices” against expanding combat roles for women, “even though logic tells us” that women can conduct combat operations just as well as men. He actually told Congress that he would choose an inferior male flight instructor over a superior female one even if it made for a “militarily less effective situation.” “I admit it doesn’t make much sense,” he said, “but that’s the way I feel about it.” Elsewhere he repeated that his position did not meet “strict evidence standards for logic,” but that that did not change his position, a direct contradiction to his claim that he seeks to engage in an enlightened debate.

Under the guise of protecting unit cohesion, defenders of the gay exclusion rule would have us believe that they are simply looking out for the nation’s defense. What they are actually doing is using government policy to express moral animus. The reason to be disappointed by Gen. Merrill McPeak and others sharing his strategy is that their views have little to do with unit cohesion, and everything to do with an effort to encode prejudice into law and make the public believe that there is a national security rationale for doing so. That is a dangerous precedent.

The Palm Center is a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 1998, the Center has been a leader in commissioning and disseminating research in the areas of gender, sexuality, and the military. For more information visit www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu.

☞ Have a great weekend. Ferris decided not to take the day off, after all.

CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION

We need a real Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Putting it inside the Fed, as some senators now propose, would be “a joke.” Or so say both Barney Frank and George Soros. (The Republicans would prefer to kill it altogether, just as they would kill health insurance reform, embryonic stem cell research, the bipartisan deficit reduction commission, any restrictions on assault weapons sold at gun shows – and on and on and on and on.)

NO REPUBLICANS? NOT ONE?

Eleven senators introduced legislation yesterday to repeal “Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell.” One Independent, ten Democrats.

The Secretary of Defense, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Joint Chiefs Chairs Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili all have now called for repeal.

But not one Republican senator so far.

“‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is an unjust and discriminatory measure that hampers our national security and violates the civil rights of some of the bravest, most heroic Americans,” said Senator Gillibrand.

“The bottom line is that we have a volunteer military,” said Senator Lieberman. “If Americans want to serve, they ought to have the right to be considered for that service regardless of characteristics such as race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Repealing the current policy will allow more patriotic Americans to defend our national security and live up to our nation’s founding values of freedom and opportunity.”

“I did not find the arguments used to justify ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ convincing when it took effect in 1993, and they are less so now,” said Senator Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “This legislation will do what other armies have already done – without having an adverse effect on good order and discipline or unit cohesion. Gays are serving successfully in our military right now – this legislation would allow them to serve with integrity.”

“‘You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.’ Those were the words of Barry Goldwater, a combat veteran and unflinching advocate for national defense. And you certainly don’t have to be straight to recognize who the enemy is,” said Senator Udall. “This is an issue of military effectiveness. I have soldiers and airmen in my home state of Colorado who are being asked to serve five tours of duty or more. We need all the qualified service members we have to fight – we shouldn’t be dismissing them just because they’re gay.”

“For too long, gay and lesbian service members have been forced to conceal their sexual orientation in order to dutifully serve their country,” said Senator Burris. “With this bill, we will end this discriminatory policy that grossly undermines the strength of our fighting men and women at home and abroad. This legislation will ensure that all gay and lesbian soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines can serve their country openly and proudly without the threat of prejudice or discharge.”

“The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy never made sense. In the nearly two decades since it was begun, our military has lost the valuable services of too many patriotic Americans. The time has come to end this broken policy,” said Senator Bingaman.

“I look forward to ending the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy as soon as possible,” said Senator Boxer. “We cannot afford to lose the service of dedicated and honorable military personnel, which is happening right now.”

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was bad for our country and our national security when I voted against it 17 years ago, and I’m glad to be part of the team working to repeal it today,” said Senator Wyden. “Under this bill, the military can stop discharging qualified servicemembers because of who they love and instead focus its energy where it belongs – on the nation’s defense.”

“This will help ensure that we have a defense force that reflects our commitment to the fundamental principles upon which the country was founded,” said Senator Leahy. “We ask our troops to protect freedom in places around the globe. It is time to protect their basic freedoms and equal rights here at home.”

“I am pleased to join my colleagues, the Commander-in-Chief and Pentagon leadership in working to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’“ said Senator Specter. “We must end discrimination against those who choose to proudly serve our country.”

“The men and women who honor our nation by serving in the armed forces deserve our utmost respect and support,” said Senator Merkley. “The very strongest fighting force demands that we recruit and retain those who have the skills and knowledge to fulfill their missions. Their private lives should have no bearing on their willingness or ability to serve.”

“The time has come to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation,” said Senator Feinstein. “The criteria for serving one’s country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.”

“I’ve been on seven USO tours – four to Iraq and Afghanistan – and I recently returned from a trip to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as Senator,” said Senator Franken. “Over the years I’ve seen tremendous movement on this issue within the military. They’re ready for it and we’re ready for it. We need to end a policy that forces patriotic Americans to lie in order to defend their country.”

Republican co-sponsors welcome!

DNDN PUTS

DNDN is up from a low of $2.55 this year to $33.62 last night.

The whole world seems to think Dendreon will soon get FDA approval for its prostate cancer drug. My guru thinks it won’t.

So – with money I can truly afford to lose – I’ve bought puts.

He’s either going to be wrong or right. If wrong, I lose my whole $1,000 (or whatever I bet*). If right, I make perhaps $4,000.

I own some of the August 22 puts (for example), which last sold for $285 each (a put on 100 shares, , giving me the right to ‘put’ them to someone at $22 each).

If the stock stays above 22, say good-bye to my $285. If it falls to $5, each one is worth $1,700 (22 minus 5 times 100).

If one figures my guru is as likely to be wrong as right – even though he’s usually right – that’s “heads I win $1,700, tails I lose $285.”

But I really, really, really may lose that $285, so don’t tell Charles. And don’t, don’t, don’t, make this speculation with money you can’t truly afford to lose. Because, being human, my guru is sometimes wrong.

*Actually, I have so many of these puts, at various strike prices and expiration dates, I could open a put store.

HEALTH REFORM IS GOING TO PASS

I yield the balance of my time to Rachel Maddow, in this clip – on “the people [she thought] we were supposed to take seriously,” like Chuck Grassley, Lamar Alexander, and John McCain. “I don’t get it,” she says. “Do they think they’re so respected, so mainstream, that no one’s going to fact check them?” She cites an Orrin Hatch op-ed in the Washington Post “that has so many blatant outright laugh-out-loud falsehoods in it, that it made me wonder if maybe there’s a deal or something, where if you’re a United States senator, or you’re a United States senator who’s been in office for 33 years like Orrin Hatch has, you just don’t get fact checked anymore in the Washington Post.”

The good news: It looks as though we’re going to get meaningful health insurance reform, with lots of good stuff in it (as noted here and here a couple of months ago).

WITH TORT REFORM?

The Associated Press reports that the President is open to adding four ideas that Republicans put forward at last week’s summit: “sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud and waste; expanding medical malpractice reform pilot programs; increasing payments to Medicaid providers; and expanding the use of health savings accounts.”

I like them all.

But really: watch Rachel. Eight minutes.

It is just a bit frustrating when a single legislator (Republican Jim Bunning, in this case, for 17 years a major league pitcher) can grind the Senate to a halt (in this case, causing thousands of workers to be furloughed and jeopardizing unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of others).

We need to fix that.

And we need to do a ton of other things.

For starters, we need to act on 290 bills that have passed the House but sit stalled in the Senate.

(Like the bill that would reform our financial system – but that the Republicans are hellbent on scuttling, not least because it includes a much-needed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Paul Krugman explains.)

With luck, we are on the cusp of health insurance reform, the cusp of financial reform, and more.

But all that said, Politifact.com lists 79 campaign promises Obama has thus far kept. (Politifact is the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg Times.)

In commenting on that list, J.E. Robertson writes:

Most of these items are complex campaign pledges that Pres. Obama has been able to follow through on. Some just show he’s a man who follows through on his word, something the media should take more note of. But PolitiFact’s research shows a long list of serious political accomplishments, many of historic import, yet the mainstream media continues to report on the delays seen in enacting the most complex and comprehensive reforms undertaken in a generation, many of which —like healthcare reform, energy policy reform, terror prosecutions and financial regulatory reform— are actually moving forward at a historically meaningful pace, and will likely be achieved in the first half of 2010.

There are a further 226 campaign promises officially listed, after extensive fact-checking, as “in the works”, as of this morning. Many of these will be accomplished in 2010, giving Pres. Obama the most extensive record of success in fulfilling specific campaign promises in US history. We can expect this fact will not be widely reported, as the mainstream news media appear determined to posture “objectivity” by refusing to report successes Obama’s opponents refuse to acknowledge.

☞ Here are the 79 promises kept. Politifact fleshes each out with an explanation:

No. 6: Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes

No. 15: Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners

No. 16: Increase minority access to capital

No. 33: Establish a credit card bill of rights

No. 36: Expand loan programs for small businesses

No. 40: Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch

No. 50: Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program

No. 58: Expand eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)

No. 76: Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners

No. 77: Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs

No. 88: Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

No. 110: Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as ‘must-pass’ legislation

No. 119: Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women

No. 125: Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq

No. 132: No permanent bases in Iraq

No. 134: Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan

No. 154: Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries

No. 167: Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts

No. 174: Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration

No. 182: Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk

No. 184: Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan

No. 200: Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security

No. 208: Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds

No. 212: Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)

No. 215: Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies

No. 222: Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba

No. 224: Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program

No. 225: Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas

No. 239: Release presidential records

No. 241: Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.

No. 247: Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession

No. 266: Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West

No. 269: Increase funding for national parks and forests

No. 270: Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund

No. 272: Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient

No. 277: Pursue a wildfire prevention and management plan

No. 278: Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires

No. 284: Expand access to places to hunt and fish

No. 290: Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors

No. 300: Reform mandatory minimum sentences

No. 307: Create a White House Office on Urban Policy

No. 325: Create an artist corps for schools

No. 326: Champion the importance of arts education

No. 327: Support increased funding for the NEA

No. 332: Add another Space Shuttle flight

No. 334: Use the private sector to improve spaceflight

No. 336: Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station

No. 337: Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research

No. 338: Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016

No. 342: Work toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring system

No. 345: Enhance earth mapping

No. 346: Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy

No. 356: Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area

No. 359: Rebuild schools in New Orleans

No. 371: Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps

No. 380: Bolster the military’s ability to speak different languages

No. 391: Appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer

No. 394: Provide grants to early-career researchers

No. 411: Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear

No. 420: Create a national declassification center

No. 421: Appoint an American Indian policy adviser

No. 427: Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees

No. 435: Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud

No. 452: Weatherize 1 million homes per year

No. 458: Invest in all types of alternative energy

No. 459: Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars

No. 460: Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity

No. 475: Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption

No. 480: Unprecedented expansion of funding for regional high-speed rail

No. 483: Invest in public transportation

No. 484: Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit

No. 494: Share environmental technology with other countries

No. 498: Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes

No. 500: Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency

No. 502: Get his daughters a puppy

No. 503: Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet

No. 506: Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009

No. 507: Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits

No. 513: Reverse restrictions on stem cell research

CHUCK GRASSLEY v. CHUCK GRASSLEY

It’s still a cliff-hanger, but I think we’re finally going to get health insurance reform. Here’s the latest from Rachel Maddow.

If you don’t watch her every night, the only reason can be that you lack TiVo.

And if you lack TiVo (or your cable company equivalent), you have taken the concept of healthy self-sacrifice one order of magnitude too far.

(Note to hotel chains: Can’t you finally furnish your rooms with TVs that at least have PAUSE, REWIND, and FAST FORWARD? Surely, Hilton – with an order for its 545,000 rooms – could get an idiot-proof hard-drive-equipped TV? At which point: why would anyone stay anywhere else?)

TAX NONSENSE

Mike W. forwards this “LETTER FROM THE BOSS” that’s been circling the Internet:

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%. But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead. This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn’t know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lots and found sixty ‘Obama’ bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change, I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

☞ This is such nonsense.

In the first place, taxes have not gone up.

In the second, if they do, why lay anyone off? Taxes don’t keep an enterprise from making a profit; they take a slice OF the profit.

If this CEO’s company is making a taxable profit, why would he fire people he needs? And if he doesn’t need them, wouldn’t he fire them anyway?

More could be said about how dumb (and short-sighted) this is, but I like to think Mike and the others forwarding it are just enjoying a little wry humor (I chuckled, too), not taking it seriously.

AL GORE’S OP-ED

If you think concern over global climate change is exaggerated (or know people who do), read this (or send it to them). It’s only the habitability of our planet that’s at stake, so it’s worth a few minutes.

One of the best things about this column is that, for the most part, you write it for me. I toss out something – as yesterday, on Haiti, etc. – and you take it from there. I should be paying you.

George Mokray: “I’ve been participating in some of the discussions at MIT around Haiti and spent last Saturday night at a Pecha-Kucha, a series of short presentations on the problems and solutions consisting of 20 slides for 20 seconds each, as part of a world-wide effort by the design and tech community to address the situation. There is a real feeling that the recovery is going to have to be different this time, that Haiti can be a model for disaster response for the long-term, and that people are not going to forget. I hope it is true. One thing that gives me hope is that such groups as Architecture for Humanity, which was a co-sponsor of the Saturday night event that occurred at 150 places around the world, has climbed the learning curve, applying what it learned in New Orleans and during the 2004 tsunami to Haiti. They have timelines of participation that go out for years because it is going to take years. . . . The Berkeley-Darfur stove you cited is one useful tool, although it might need some modification in order to work with the materials and cooking customs of Haiti. Solar cookers are another, also being distributed in Darfuri refugee camps by such organizations as German CARE and Jewish World Watch. Here’s a short video of a construction workshop on the solar cookers. . . . I think you’ve also covered LightHaiti.org, which is sending solar LED lights to Haiti. . . . and here’s a Kirk Franklin gospel song about Haiti. . . . PS: My efforts start from survival solar, refugee camp solar and work on up from there. It is part of my sarvodaya orientation, a term from Gandhian economics which means plan for the poorest first. It can be expressed as Solar IS Civil Defense in the developed world and that same access to technology – flashlight, radio, cell phone, extra set of batteries – becomes a significant rise in the standard of living for the 2 billion at the bottom of the human pyramid.”

Philip Lopez: “The New Yorker recently published a fascinating article (‘Hearth Surgery’) about the possibilities – and the difficulties – of producing stoves for people in poor countries. They’ve gotta be really cheap, like $8 per stove, but they’d pay for themselves many times over by reducing or nearly eliminating chronic respiratory illnesses. Saving trees is an obvious advantage, and I vaguely remember that a few grams of carbon black (you and I would call it ‘soot’) which is produced in large quantities by inefficient stoves is as bad for the environment as a couple of months of driving a HumVee. ‘Cleaning up these emissions,’ the article says, ‘may be the fastest, cheapest way to cool the planet.’”

Mark Bent (founder of LightHaiti.org): “We got an order yesterday for a case of BoGo lights from St. Joachim / St. John the Evangelist, in Beacon, New York, on-line, for $2000 – Father Nolan ordered direct. He was surprised, and pleased, when we called to tell him that for his $2000, we can provide two cases – 50% off for non-profits.”

☞ Perhaps you belong to a nonprofit, or your kids go to a school, that would like to follow Father Nolan’s lead?

“Providing trained medical care,” Mark writes, “is a 24 hour necessity that does not fade away with the sunset. Every medical professional in Haiti should have access to solar-powered lighting devices so well suited to this sun-drenched country. . . . Partners in Health, which has been operating in Haiti for over twenty years, has long championed the concept of traveling medics, with over 2,000 of these traveling community health workers, locally known as ‘accompagnateurs’ visiting patients wherever they are living. These mobile individuals walk, take local transport and carry everything they need in their backpacks – including lighting. In the darkness of a Haitian night, having a scene illuminated at accident injury or lighting a patient during an operation that cannot wait until daybreak, or by assisting in the birth of a child or treating the victim of sexual violence, rape or other trauma, lighting is an essential direct support tool. PIH estimates that 50,000 of these $10 lights would significantly improve their ability to reach 1.7 million Haitians. And the lights are designed to operate for well over a decade – every night, making this both an immediate and a long-term impact.”

☞ Enjoy your weekend – and the music video linked to above.

PS – I added a highly speculative little drug company, symbol NBIX, to our evolving three-stock (was DEPO, DYAX, INCY; profit taken on INCY and replaced with DCTH) – now four-stock – basket. Closing at $2.60 yesterday, guru thinks a year from now it could be significantly higher. To be bought (have I ever thought to mention this before?) only with money you can truly afford to lose.

Haiti is so “last month.”

But of course, it is anything but.

WE ARE THE WORLD – NON-CELEB EDITION

This music will make you feel connected and hopeful for the future. If you don’t have time to watch, just listen in the background.

THE CHARCOAL PROJECT

Haiti is 98% deforested. It’s sort of like what happened on Easter Island, whose population (not having C-130 transport planes to fly in supplies) went extinct. The estimable James Musters draws our attention to two inspiring links, each with an approach to cooking that would seem to go a long way to solving Third World problems.

First, consider this remarkable 2006 TED Conference presentation by Amy Smith, and visit her Charcoal Project to see where things stand now.

Next, check out the Darfur Stoves Project, which could presumably work just as well in Haiti.

(“The Berkeley-Darfur Stove® is an innovative appropriate technology that requires only one quarter the amount of firewood needed to cook using traditional three-stone fires. Because of its fuel efficiency, use of the Berkeley-Darfur Stove® limits the amount of time women in Darfur need to spend outside the safety of the displaced persons camps to gather fuel for cooking. This decreases exposures to violence for Darfuri women while also limiting deforestation and the release of toxic indoor smoke.”)

VANCOUVER

Steve Jewett: “Philip Steenkamp is the president and CEO of The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat, a B.C. Government agency, within the Ministry of Healthy Living, responsible for overseeing the government’s financial commitment to the 2010 Olympics, and as such has no direct input in the actual running of the 2010 Olympics here in British Columbia.”

☞ Oops. I misunderstood his title. Sorry.

NOT A BIG DEAL BUT . . .

Turns out the President and CEO of the 2010 Olympics is gay. (We’re good at running things – hotels, weddings, cities, Olympics.) And he threw us a party.

Asked later why he felt it was important to hold a party specially for the LGBT community, he replied:

“We’re wanting to showcase Vancouver and British Columbia and Canada, and the LGBT community’s a vibrant part of our society here. Really we want to celebrate our diversity and the tolerance of our culture and also showcase ourselves to the world. There’s also kind of a business imperative here. Gay tourism is worth 60 billion dollars in the U.S., so there’s some good business networking that can occur. But aside from that, it’s just a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate those Canadian values of tolerance and diversity and what creates such strength in our culture here.”

☞ Our good neighbors to the North. What must they think of the new Governor of Virginia, who last month specifically rescinded his predecessor’s anti-discrimination order? It’s now okay again in Virginia to fire a government employee – however good his or her job performance, however long he or she has been on the job – simply because of his or her sexual orientation. And they use, as their slogan, Virginia Is For Lovers? I prefer this slogan: Boycott Virginia.

And while I have your attention . . .

SOME GOOD NEWS OUT OF CPAC (NO – SERIOUSLY!)

True conservatives favor government that doesn’t intrude on the rights and freedom of the individual. (Barry Goldwater famously only cared whether a soldier shot straight, not whether he was straight.) Here a young conservative makes that point in two-minutes at CPAC. (Most of the booing comes from one guy near a microphone.) There follow two minutes by a “natural law” advocate. (Most of the booing comes from . . . everybody.)

And if I still have your attention . . .

“GLARRIAGE”

Roberto: “I believe strongly in equal rights for all. I do not like the use of the word marriage as it relates to a same-sex wedding. The word marriage means the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. Couldn’t we have the same exact thing for people of the same sex but just use another word to describe it?”

☞ Yes! Just pass a Constitutional Amendment requiring that – for the purposes of the tens of thousands of federal, state, and local laws and hundreds of millions of private contracts that refer to “marriage” – the word you choose will be deemed equivalent.

But Constitutional Amendments are hard to pass. (The last one, in 1992, though completely trivial, took 202 years.)

Also, “separate but equal” is un-American – in contrast to “the separation of church and state,” which many consider bedrock American.

So I prefer this solution: Let’s set in stone that the government will NEVER tell a religious institution whom it must or may not marry. But that government will also never discriminate in issuing civil marriage licenses (or driver’s licenses, hunting licenses, liquor licenses) based on race, religion, disability, fertility, sexual orientation, intent to have children, inability to have children, prior divorce, prior multiple divorce, near-certain incompatibility, or pretty much anything else.

If there is an age requirement, it should apply to everyone, equally. If a sobriety test is required – likewise.

The good news: more and more people are deciding, What’s it to us if we allow gays equal rights? Here, indeed, is last Friday’s Salt Lake Tribune – no less – advocating much the same approach: “Religion should be kept out of what is essentially a government-sanctioned legal partnership. And government should not be involved in religious marriage rites.”

Amen.

GLDD

The stock dropped as low as $4.36 yesterday on disappointing quarterly earnings. Here’s the press release. I still like it for the long haul and bought more.

NOT ANNOYING LINKS

John Seiffer is the reader who pointed out that a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of feathers. (Because precious metals are traditionally measured in Troy ounces, of which there are only 12 to the pound.) Well, just for the record, I weigh MY gold on the same bathroom scale I weigh my feathers, and a pound is a pound is a pound. Except that the feathers tend to fall off the scale – it’s hard to keep them all on there at once – but that doesn’t mean a pound of them doesn’t weigh a pound.

So John, I noted, was just being annoying.

“To redeem myself,” he now writes, “I offer a couple of links you might enjoy. One serious – about a breakthrough in lighting. (The video is more understandable than the text.) One not – did you see the Old Spice SuperBowl ad? ‘I’m on a horse!’ This shows how it was made.”

☞ Now I’m annoyed that I just spent 19 minutes watching the making of an Old Spice ad! Well, not really. As the son of a 1950s/1960s-era Mad Man* . . . how could I not love it?

*You know “Man, Oh, Manischewitz”? – my dad wrote that . . . “Man, oh, Manischewitz, what a wine!” . . . and an astronaut actually spoke it, spontaneously, on the moon – “Man, oh, Manischewitz – will you get a load of that crater!”**

**Or words to that effect. Can you imagine Mr. Manischewitz, whose real name I forget, an old man home in Brooklyn with his wife, watching the moon walk live, with two billion other people, and suddenly he hears his slogan, free, from the moon?***

***I actually know people – personally – who are certain no one ever did walk on the moon; that the whole thing was faked in a TV studio. Perhaps Manischewitz was one of the sponsors, and this was the original “product placement.” But if so, Dad never let on.

DEBT CLOCK

Sites like this one just get more and more comprehensive – and nerve-wracking. The average savings per U.S. citizen is only $1,042? It’s the lone number on this array that’s small.

MYM-DOS MAC

Dan Critchett: “Did you know you can run MYM-DOS on a Mac? All you have to do, as I did, is load DOS Box and off you go.”