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Miscellaneous Good News, April, 2003
[Commentary] ©2003 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

4/24/2003   headlines from heaven - alias glimmers of random intelligence/hope -

• [a bad subject, Gingrich & Rumsfeld - double yeccch - but good that a 'conservative' is raking them & good that it's in the nation's so-called 'conservative' rag -]
  A loose cannon, op ed by Albert Hunt, WSJ, A17.
  Newt Gingrich, a historian by training, has always been a revisionist.
  • Family values were a staple of his successful Republican revolution, even though he gave his first wife her walking papers [ie: he served divorce papers on her] the day after she got out of cancer surgery [ie: while she was in the hospital for cancer].
  • He launched the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about sex, while the remarried speaker was carrying on a [sexual] affair with a staffer.
  • He made his initial splash with devastating attacks on the ethics of top Democrats and then became himself an ethical leper.
  [Ya know, this is all so outrageous, it's like, the Democrats really need to get more insane and even hypocritical for the sake of real progress. The Republicans developed an entire cadre of "loose cannons" - starting with Fex (plural Feces) Reed, 'The Gipper' Reagan and Ollie North, and moving on to Gingrich, "HasDirt Will Travel" and Henry Jeckyll-Hyde et al. in the House, the two old farts in the Senate whose names we're blocking, and now the total suicidal but mesmerizingly nasty and jingo moronity of Dubya, Ashc(an)roft, Cheney, Rummy, Toxicandy Condy, and now it's clearly infected the gray matter of Colon Bowell. You could not invent these committers-of-self-snuff-on-behalf-of-the-entire-world unless maybe you were writing the script of the Batman movie with the Joker, the Penguin, the Cat Woman, and all the other totally laughable and unbelievable slimeballs that ever crowded the pages of herospoof. These real-life charactures have clearly gripped the imagination of the ratings-raking talkshow hosts, for that's the way they talk and that's all they talk about. Who knows, maybe Boy Wonder Kucinich will morph into the talkshow Robin. Now all we need is Batman.]
  This is important context when considering the savage attack that Mr. Gingrich - a confidant of Defense Secy Donald Rumsfeld - mounted against Colin Powell and the State Dept. this week.
  • The former speaker assailed "six months of diplomatic failures" by Secy Powell,
  • blasted his planned trip to Syria as "ludicrous,"
  • and said America cannot lead the world with "a broken instrument of diplomacy," namely the State Dept. under pResident Bush.
  It was vintage Gingrich;
  1. bold,
  2. provocative,
  3. dishonest
  4. and politically dumb...because Geo.W.Bush is riding high as a respected commander-in-chief [thanks to the fact that Americans have stopped reading newspapers or even thinking!] with a top-rank national security and foreign-policy team [we told you this guy was a 'conservative']....
     
  A favorite Beltway speculation today is whether Rummy put his pal up this broadside. Ifso, he's even more arrogant than critics suspect. One certainty, people familiar with both men say: The defense secy knew about the Gingrich blast in advance.... Back in the early '90s, when Don Rumsfeld was in political exile - incensed that lessers like [Poppy] Bush were where he should be - [then] Rep. Gingrich reached out, bringing [Rumsfeld] in as a consultant. Several years later [Gingrich] tapped [him] to lead an outside commission on ballistic missiles which provided the framework for candidate [Dubya] Bush's national security agenda in the 2000 campaign.
  Newt left office in 1999 in disgrace. When the Bush administration came to power, he was untouchable. But his pal Rummy repaid [his] favor, putting Mr. Gingrich on the Defense Policy Board and chatting with him periodically - even, some associates say, heeding his advice.... He's a voracious reader of military histories and lectures at the War College [we expose our young people to this lunatic?!]. He fancies himself an expert [but] has never claimed [to be an] expert...in diplomatic and foreign-policy matters; [yet] that's precisely what he paraded as in this week's attacks. As is his custom, he distorted facts and history [notice: a "historian" distorting "history" could be a mere revisionist, but distorting facts makes him a liar - yet he teaches at the War College of the most weapon-stuffed nation??]. For example,
  • he accused the State Dept of bungling reconstruction in Afghanistan. Yet it was his patron, Mr. Rumsfeld, who, after toppling the Taliban, adamantly opposed increasing the size of the International Security Assistance Force and expanding it beyond Kabul. The predictable result: Pres. Hamid Karzai rules Kabul and warlords control the rest of the country.
  • (Mr. Gingrich also was horrified that during reconstruction "not one mile of road had been paved in Afghanistan." The State Dept pointed out you can't put down asphalt during the Afghan winter and road buildilng is now proceeding on schedule.)
  • One of Mr. Powell's great diplomatic blunders, according to the Gingrich Doctrine, was failure to win Turkey's approval as a staging base for the Iraqi invasion [at least Albert "Bertie" Hunt is calling this an invasion instead of a "liberation"]. [Gingrich] ignores again that it was [Rumsfeld's] Deputy Defense Secy Paul Wolfowitz who conducted much of the negotiations with the Turks and it was the Pentagon that kept insisting at the end a deal was still possible.
    [Then we get into some of Bertie's serious brain damage -]
    This was a regrettable action by an inexperienced Turkish government [oh yeah], but it was the vote of [a] democratically elected parliament, reflecting public sentiment. Democracy, Mr. Gingrich, can be untidy; [then a swing back to sanity -] watch what unfolds in Iraq.
    
  [And back again to nationwide Kevork -]
  The most significant Powell achievement that Mr. Gingrich brushes aside is UN Resolution 1441 last fall, a brilliant piece of statecraft that paved the way for the Iraqi invasion. Without it, Tony Blair and the Brits would have been on the sidelines....
  [What a disaster the cooption of those classy British accents was for this juggernaut to chaos! Has any goodguy served a worse cause since Robert E. Lee led the fight for slavery?]
  Newt Gingrich is really only an incidental irrelevancy in the battle between Secs Rumsfeld and Powell [an 'irrelevancy' that Bertie has spent 14 out of 17 paragraphs on??], perhaps the most intense and high-stakes intra-administration power struggle since World War II.... But...the policy differences -
  • does America[n] hegemony require delicate diplomacy to build alliances and burden-sharing
  • or are we so powerful that our leadership should not be debased by compromising with others on postwar Iraq, the Middle East, North Korea, and elsewhere[?]
  - are profound. Rumsfeld disciples have contempt for Colin Powell. One of Mr. Gingrich's colleagues on the advisory board, Richard Perle, only days after Sept. 11, openly proclaimed that the secy of state should be sacked.
  [We wish he would bloodywell quit and expose this administration for the bunch of naked morons it is. Here's another proximate example -]
  Mr. Perle was recently embroiled in controversy himself over allegations his chairmanship of the defense advisory board furthered his business interests. He resigned as chairman but stayed on the board and was praised by the defense secy.
  [Then the final poniard thrust -]
  If Newt Gingrich stays on this board, it will tell us a lot about Don Rumsfeld.
  [Or confirm a lot that we already know. Let it be said that the WS Journal today also finally publishes a few antiwar letters - at laaaast. Here's Bob Lucas's pithy entry -]
  The war: Examining liberal unhappiness [or just sane conservatives' unhappiness!], ...letter to editor by Robert Lucas of Marion IN, WSJ, A17.
  I believe you misstate the basis for opposition, whether liberal or not, to the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq. I believe opposition was based on principles of law and civlized behavior in the world, which require that in the absence of immediate, identifiable and observable threat, no nation should act pre-emptively and unilaterally (or virtually so) against another.
  [Hear, hear! And we just caught sight of a Vietnam vet's anti-salvo -]
  ..\..letter to editor by John Greeley of Silver Spring MD, WSJ, A17.
  As a Marine veteran of the Vietname War, my response to your editorial is simple: War can never be our first choice when dealing with international problems. You ask, "Why are they [liberals] so afraid of freedom's expansion now?" Well, because it comes out of the barrels of M-16s carried by invading Americans.
  You further state that liberals "detest his [Bush's] certitude, which is rooted in religious faith," and that they can't bear to admit he was "right all along." Wow. The nations of the world must rest easy at night knowing our president confers with God to figure out which of them will receive the benefits of American Liberation.
  [Double Touché. Beeeeautiful rebuttal, John!]

• Facilities for new wave of chips to be built for $1.67 billion, Dow Jones via WSJ, D5.
  Sony Corp...will spend 200B yen ($1.67B) over 3 years on facilities for making a new type of microchip....
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  Slump in plane travel grounds Wichita, world's 'air capital', by Peter Kilborn, NYT, front page.
  WICHITA, Kan. -...The aircraft business in Wichita has always been turbulent, sinking deeper than the economy in recessions, as in the early 1990's, then rebounding. This time around, too, some jobs will come back. Cessna plans a 500-employee aircraft servicing plant....

• [1 UPsizing, or averted DOWNsizing -]
  Delta's new airline begins flying today, by Joe Sharkey, NYT, C6.
  Delta's low-cost airline, Song [hooboy, is that a Chinese dynasty or was that Sung?], is scheduled to begin operations today on a route between Kennedy International Airport in New York and Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach FL. Through the spring and summer, Song will roll out additional service at all 3 NYC airports, Atlanta, Hartford, Boston, Las Vegas, and in Florida, at Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Fort Myers....
  [Unspecified new or saved jobs.]

1. Why the get-rich-quick days may be over - Corporate boards are taking a fresh look at virtually every aspect of CEO pay - CEOs may not like the result, by Joann Lublin, WSJ, R1.
   [and]
   Mad about money - Shareholders in Europe are catching up to their U.S. counterparts in their outrage over CEO pay, by Dan Bilefsky, WSJ, R3.
   [and]
   Bottom up - The bonus plan at Planar Systems rewards lower-level workers before their bosses - Its creator explains how it works, by Joann Lublin, WSJ, R4.
   BEAVERTON, Ore. - When the bonus gravy train arrives at Planar Systems Inc., the company's leader occupies the caboose. Balaji Krishnamurthy...crafted an unusual inverted bonus plan soon after he took command of the company, a maker of flat-panel displays.
   • In fall 1999, Planar must exceed tough operating-income goals that benefit shareholders before rank-and-file workers receive quarterly or annual bonuses.
   • Middle managers don't get a dime until those junior employees pocket their full target.
   • Executives stand in line behind managers.
   • Dr. Krishnamurthy, the chairman, president and CEO, becomes the ultimate shock absorber during downturns....
   [Within the company, this strategy is a corollary of Lincoln Electric's standard operating policy = "everyone sacrifices together, starting at the top." But questions arise. Should stockholders really come before employees? - because in terms of strengthening the consumer base in terms of reversing the general unspendable concentration of the spending power, holders of most stock are part of the problematic concentration, not part of the centrifugation. Who or what determines the amount that has to be exceeded at each level? Is there not a considerable opportunity for unfairness in the determination process which a simultaneous set of percentages would manage just as well, and with possibly less distracting stage business?]

2. Mocking the White House at war - Ignoring criticism, a British playwright satirizes the invasion of Iraq, by Alan Cowell, NYT, E1.
   Justin Butcher's satirical review, "The Madness of George Dubya," [an echo of "The Madness of King George"] is at a West End theatre in London, although Mr. Butcher wants to take it to American theaters. [photo caption]
   [We'd go!]
   Nicholas Burns as Tony Blear...and Thomas Arnold as George Dubya. [photo caption]
   [Benedict Arnold would be more fitting.]

• Broadcom Corp. will have 2nd-quarter expense, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
  The maker of cable modem chips will have a Q2 expense of as much as $238m for letting employees exchange stock ops that are currently worthless.... The swap is aimed at retaining key employees, said Broadcom, which traditionally caps salaries at $110,000....
  [Now there is a futuristic corporation! - though when we get employment-balancing established to save our consumer base, we'll move on to balance income, not with arbitrary caps but with caps that vary inversely with, say, corporate debt in the private sector and then, the poverty rate in the later public-sector standardization of the practice; in short, Timesizing's five phases mapped from employment per person onto income per person. Legend has it that Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream has a similar arbitrary cap, but slightly more flexible = the highest corporate salary can only be seven? times as much as the lowest employee pay.]

• An antiwar chief (and proud of it) - One of the few executives taking a stand on the war, by Amy Cortese, NYT, 3:2.
  Alan Kligerman, chief of AkPharma, contends that the war in Iraq is tarnishing America's image worldwide. [photo caption]
  [In other words, he reads the papers.]
  "I am for this country," he said in an interview last week.... In that assessment, he hardly stands out among...corporate executives. But he has distinguished himself [by being] a vocal and unrelenting critic of pResident Bush and the war in Iraq.
  [In other words, he has common sense and courage.]
  Fred Talbott, a professor of leadership communication at Vanderbilt University's MBA program, says CEOs in particular often have perspectives that can be valuable in a national debate. [But they] "seem to be reluctant to speak out at all" [because of] a fear of offending their company's shareholders and customers, and of being publicly labeled unpatriotic.
  [And hopefully because this bunch of extremists in the White House have gone so far out of line that they're scaring the bejeezuz out of CEOs and making them acutely embarrassed that they backed them in the election.]
  As the founder and CEO of his company, AkPharma Inc. in Egg Harbor Township, NJ, Mr. Kligerman shrugs off such concerns. He built a small empire creating digestive aids like Lactaid [and] Beano.... "The U.S. is a land of unbelievable, unparalleled upward economic mobility for the entrepreneur," Mr. Kligerman said.... But while praising the U.S., Mr. Kligerman does not hesitate to speak out against the Bush administration. He contends that its policies, particularly involving the war in Iraq, are tarnishing the worldwide image of the United States as "a haven for the oppressed, a place of free speech, free thought and free yet governed economic growth."
  Mr. Kligerman...protested the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He supports the Anti-Defamation League and the National Assoc. for the Advancement of Colored People.
  He supports Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, a nonpartisan group of business executives and former military officers who contend that the government's spending priorities, particularly involving the military, do not address the nation's most pressing needs. Mr. Kligerman's name has appeared in antiwar advertisements that the group has run in newspapers and magazines to warn that war in Iraq will not only take a terrible toll in human life but will also hurt the economy and breed terrorism.
  In addition, he has given speeches and written op-ed essays criticizing government positions on the war, energy policy and civil rights. Most of all, he laments what he calls the hubris that characterizes the Bush administration.
  In debates about the war in Iraq and the country's domestic and foreign agendas, such views are not uncommon. What is unusual is for a business executive to express them as publicly - and as often - as Mr. Kligerman does. He acknowledges that it is easier for him to speak his mind because his company is small and privately owned.
  Leaders of large, publicly traded companies, on the other hand, generally find it too risky to take a stand on the war - for or against.... The few who have made their [antiwar] feelings known have been harshly rebuked
  • Richard Abdoo, the chairman and CEO of the Wisconsin Energy Corp. in Milwaukee, for example, was pilloried as unAmerican by talk-radio hosts
    [the intelligence level of most of them is so low, that's a recommendation in itself!]
  • and criticized in an editorial in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [apparently no brighter than talkshow hosts] after he made a private $250 donation last November to the Not In Our Name Project, a group opposed to the war. Mr. Abdoo's name appeared on the group's website, as did the name of his company.
    [So Richard Abdoo is another guy with common sense, courage, and true patriotism.]
  • ...[Another] notable example is R. Warren Langley, one of dozens of antiwar protesters arrested in mid-March trying to disrupt the Pacific Stock Exchange [never heard about that protest! - news slant?]. Mr. Langley, a former Air Force lieut. colonel, was president of the Exchange from 1996 to 1999.
  Mr. Kligerman said he had...no second thoughts about making..\..his public comments.... "The Bush administration does not embody America," he said. "America to me is not a country that suddenly suspends constitutional rights, imprisons without charge, without access to legal counsel or family."
  [Amen, amen, amen. And as a certain Hebrew prophet said 1,970-73 years ago (Matt.5): "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."]

1. [a corporate design problem = the root problem of political democracies? -]
   Will SEC allow shareholder democracy? by Floyd Norris, NYT, C1.
   What would you call an election in which voters are presented with only on slate of candidates and informed that votes against that slate will not matter?
   How about "shareholder democracy"?...
   [never mind employee democracy!]
   Consider...the Verizon annual meeting that will be held on April 23. Shareholders will be asked to vote for directors chosen by the board's nominating committee, which wants all the incumbents to be re-elected. There is a place on the proxy card [ie: ballot] for shareholders to "withhold" their votes from any director they choose, but that decision will have no effect on the election. With no other candidates, the directors will be re-elected if they receive even one shareholder vote.
   That process, it should be noted, is common in corporate America. I mention Verizon because shareholders will also get to vote on a shareholder resolution calling for...the board to nominate twice as many candidates as there are seats, thus giving voters a choice. As it is now, \sponsor investor\ Richard Dee...complained, directors "answer only to fellow directors." Verizon does not like the idea. "Nothing in law requires," the board states in the proxy, "that an election provide a choice of candidates, or that shareholders have a 'right' to nominate candidates."
   [Well, maybe the law should be updated.]
   If there were competing candidates, Verizon added, "it would be difficult to predict which individuals would be elected."
   [Yeah, real democracy is sometimes inconvenient like that - for incumbents and for the status quo. If the present standard range of corporate designs were so great,
   • how come so many companies are going into bankruptcy?
   • how come most companies have standardized a response not only to downturns, but to technological innovations, that actually induces downturns or deepens existing ones (downsizing)?
   • how come ignorance of the alternative is virtually universal (timesizing)?
   [As Churchill said, it's a bad system, but the others are much worse. What is it on the way to maximizing? Feedback, and consequent variability, the raw material of adaptibility and long-range survivability. Here are some corporate design ideas -]
   
   • Some companies allow write-in votes for directors,
   • but none allow opposition candidates to be added to the ballot.
     [But that would sure enhance feedback and variability and adaptibility and survivability, so, it's definitely an idea to consider.]
     Anyone wanting to run against the incumbents must finance his own proxies, with expensive shareholder mailings.
   • Campaigns to withhold votes from directors cannot oust the directors, although in some cases they have embarrassed companies into changing policies.
     [Well, why can't they? Embarrassment is too easy to ignore.]
     But directors can and sometimes do ignore such protests with impunity.
   • Verizon and other companies contend that requiring twice as many candidates as seats would be disruptive, and cause some good directors not to run. But that [objection] does not apply to another proposal, to allow candidates to run on the company's ballot if they are nominated by owners of at least 3% of the shares.
     [Aha, a good transition idea.]
     "This is an attempt to break up the system of coronation and make it...when shareholders want it,...a real election and a real choice," said Michael Zucker, director of corporate affairs at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees [AFSCME]..\..
   AFSCME...tried to get the idea on 6 corporate proxies this year, including Citigroup's. [But] the companies resisted allowing shareholders to vote on the proposal, and the staff of the SEC concluded that a 1976 SEC rule barred such votes.
   [A lot of little dismantlings were quietly done to the centrifugal forces on the national income since World War II, and this 1976 rule was one of them.]
   "It appears that this proposal," the SEC explained, "would establish a procedure that may result in contested elections of directors."
   [Oh NO-O-O, how HORRIBLE! A real election of directors! A real choice of directors! Kind of makes you wonder on what basis capitalists criticized communist USSR all those years for only having a one-party system and only one "choice" of candidate.]
   The [AFSCME] union has appealed that decision to members of the SEC, giving William Donaldson, the new SEC chairman, and his colleagues an opportunity to indicate that the term "shareholder democracy" is not an oxymoron. Paul Atkins, a[n SE]Commissioner [ventured] in a speech last week to say..."Shouldn't shareholders have more say than simply whether they should buy, hold or sell their stock?
   [Only if you want more corporate adaptibility and competitiveness and long-term survivability, and not just top-executive "grab the money and run" a la Chainsaw Dunlop and ilk.]
   "Just as with socialism, the danger is that if a large number of dispersed people supposedly own something, then in reality no one owns it and oversees it."
   [and takes responsibility for it and takes care of it = the classic "Tragedy of the Commons" - see Appendix B in Garrett Hardin's "Exploring New Ethics for Survival" (1972).]
   [Compare tomorrow -]
   Hewlett holders vote for say on severance, AP via 4/05/2003 NYT, C4.

2. Senator John Kerry angers G.O.P., NYT, B9.
   WASHINGTON -...A Democratic presidential candidate suggested in a speech [yesterday] that "we need a regime change in the United States" as well as in Iraq, drawing angry responses from Republican leaders.
   [Amen to that! Hey, maybe there's hope for this prettyboy after all. Kerry may yet redeem himself after voting for this indefinitely costly and unintendedly consequential first-strike.]
   Sen. Kerry [D, Mass.] told an audience in Peterborough NH that pResident Bush had lost the trust of many international leaders [never mind the leaders, it's the people!] with his handling of the Iraq conflict [never mind the handling, its the starting!] and that those relations could not be restored while Mr. Bush remained in office....
   [Probably true. Compare in "Iraq's not Vietnam," op ed by Nicholas Kristof, NYT, A19 -]
   ...A California bumper sticker declares, "Regime change starts at home"....
   [Kerry may yet avoid the Spanish premier's fate -]
   Spanish premier's support for war is hurting him politically, by Emma Daly, NYT, A8.

1. Dean's antiwar stance burnishes image among Democrats' doves, by John Harwood, WSJ, A4.
   NEW YORK - "I don't support the pResident on Iraq," says former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, "and I'm not ashamed of it." With that, applause breaks out inside an upscale Manhattan bar called Mod. For the 100 or so young professionals who paid $100 apiece to hear the Democratic presidential candidate speak here, that stance is making Mr. Dean more appealing than ever.
   [Howard Dean is joined in his antiwar stance by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D, Ohio) and -]
   Mr. Dean may soon face stepped-up competition for the backing of antiwar Democrats. Sen. Bob Graham of Forida...voted against authorizing force [in Iraq] and plans to enter the race soon....

2. Senate moves to boost soldiers' pay, by David Rogers, WSJ, A2.
   ...by 50%.
   [Not much use if they're simultaneously cutting soldiers' benefits, like soldiers' health insurance and burial benefits. But at least they're also boosting one benefit -]
   The Senate...voted to more than double the family-allowance for military households....
   [Then there's the subhead -]
   House conservatives are proposing to cut funds from foreign aid today.
   [Which would only be a good thing if they cut the huge "foreign aid" to Israel, but since Washington has recently been talking about jumping Israel's handout from the usual annual $3½ billion to $9 billion this year, it's unlikely.]

1. [America's most intact native tribe builds on the same Iroquois Confederacy that inspired Jefferson -]
   Arizona: Hopis plan a new constitution, AP via NYT, A16.
   ...would give more power to the tribe's 12 villages and create a new system of checks and balances.... Would replace a 1936 document, would allows the villages to "select any form of government that suits their values and modern needs"....
   [This will give the Hopi more variability. Let's see how many of the 12 villages we can name - 3rd Mesa: (Old) Oraibi, Kykotsmovi (=New Oraibi), Hotevilla, the one on the other side of the road, the one west near Tuba City (Moenkopi?); 2nd Mesa: Mishongnovi, Shipaulovi, Shungopovi; 1st Mesa: Walpi, the one slightly down the ridge, and Polacca at the bottom. How many names did we get? Hmph, only 9. Colleague Kate & Phil have a potential mnemonic device for this. Remember the song from the 60s musical "Hair" with the words, "Hari krishna - hari krishna - krishna krishna - hari haaaari..."? Well, to that tune, these words: "Mishong-no-vi, Shi-paul-o-vi, Shung-o-po-vi, Hoteviiiilla..." etc.]

2. Candidate...reports raising $7.4m in Q1, by Glen Johnson, Boston Globe, A3.
   [and our anti-war candidates, not yet releasing figures but unfortunately having smaller campaign funds, are -]
   
   • ...Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont
   • ...Dennis Kucinich of Ohio [pronounced /kooSINNitch/]

3. [the fight for freedom of speech in America -]
   Ex-generals defend their blunt comments, by Jim Rutenberg, NYT, B1.

4. Trade concerns as Canada sits out war, by Bernard Simon, NYT, W1.
   [Thank God for some common sense north of the border! Prime Minister Jean Chretien has a lot of courage to resist this preemptive-war madness.]

5. Lawyer says soldiers sent home, Reuters via NYT, B15.
   Two British soldiers...questioned the legality of the war in Iraq.
   [Good for them! They're in the same position as Israeli soldiers who question the legality of the West Bank settlements.]
   [They] have been sent home from the Persian Gulf and may face disciplinary action, their lawyer said Tuesday....
   [These strain-to-justify preemptive wars leave freedoms at home less worth fighting for in both the once-free US and UK. Compare -]
   Most Britons back the war, but mistrust how the U.S. is waging it, by Sarah Lyall, NYT, B1.
   [The statement that they "back the war" is grossly misleading, but at least it's half-clarified in the first sentence -]
   LONDON...- Britons generally support the war in Iraq, in that they want Saddam Hussein removed from power....
   [and the subsequent story indicates the wording here should have been, "they want Saddam Hussein out of power," not "removed," e.g., by the Americans acting with -]
   a bluster and swagger both dangerously inappropriate and all too American....
   [Well, if you dumb Brits can't control your own PM and MP's (members of Parliament) - who should long since have got rid of Blair in a vote on no-confidence, you're a little late complaining about American "bluster and swagger." Shame on you for your disgusting participation in this neanderthal action. Compare -]
   On the outskirts of Baghdad, Arab volunteers and British mixed feelings, by Anthony DePalma, NYT, B1.
   ...Ambivalence in Britain, last subhead.
   They are the other major ally in the coalition, with 45,000 troops in Iraq. So how do Britons see the war? The most recent public opinion poll shows British support for the war running at just over 50%, but the antiwar movement also is robust....
   [Apparently the British educational system is following the deterioration of U.S. education. What devastatingly undeserved credibility they have given to Cheney's Mad War by granting it a toff British-accent option. What a disgrace the motherland is to the Commonwealth - and that goes for Australia too. Here's hoping somebody's actually fiddling their poll numbers, as is sooo easy to do around the 50% mark.]

6. [but relief is on its way -]
   TV networks trim Gulf news as ratings slide, by Flint & Rose, WSJ, B1.

7. and a possible crack in Sharon's suicidal belligerence -]
   Events may force Israel to pursue peace - Domestic woes, pressure from the U.S. could lead Sharon to bargaining table, by Karby Leggett, WSJ, A13.
   [3 problems:
   • how well does somebody function at the bargaining table if they're forced there?
   • how much can you motivate Sharon toward peace while you're still paying him $3.5 billion a year regardless?
   • how much can Bush & Cheney pressure anyone else to the bargaining table when they have dismissed negotiations and non-violent solutions?]

8. [Then there's this little antitrust battle that's been won by the good guys -]
   Visa and MasterCard lose bid to halt antitrust lawsuit [against them], AP via NYT, C4.

9. U.S. raises some fuel economy rules, NYT, C13.

10. Smoking ban linked to big drop in heart attacks, AP via NYT, A16.
    ...in Helena, Mont., fell by more than half last summer after voters passed a broad indoor smoking ban.... Climbed back to their original level after..\..six months [when] enforcement was suspended....

1. Dissent - Conscientious objector numbers are small but growing, by Laurie Goodstein, NYT, B13.
   [Hey, we've got the COs. Now all we need's the draft!]

2. [Worldwide -]
   War protests in India aim at [American] bottlers [eg: Pepsi], by Saritha Rai, NYT, W1.

3. A city with clean streets and a low crime rate, by Bernard Simon, NYT, C7.
   Toronto, Canada's largest city....
   [Phil Hyde's home town, not self-hobbled with preemptive wars (but currently afflicted with SARS).]

4. Vancouver's heroin 'fix' - Injection facilities draw the ire of U.S. officials, others, by Joel Baglole, WSJ, D8.
   Angering U.S. officials fighting the war on drugs, the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia [BC], is opening North America's first safe-injection sites for heroin users. Backers insist it's better to treat drug addiction as a public-health issue rather than a criminal matter....