I'm more than a bit concerned about eBay's ability to do math: Try to purchase my product, and let me know whether it claims that the purchase price is the same as what it was when eBay asked you to log in, and the information that you can access on the "sellers reputation."

There should not be a sales tax charge outside California.

Please post your results here. Assuming you get what I do: What is the best alternative to Paypal for accepting payments?

Does anyone have any product marketing insights to that you want to share with me?

You were all wrong on Iraq. Completely, utterly, insanely wrong on everything. The list has gotten too long to print.

You're wrong on global warming. And now we know you'll resort to doctoring scientific documents to hide your wrongness.

You're wrong on homeland security because we know that our ports, borders and infrastructure still aren't adequately protected. You're so wrong that we've been at terror threat "Yellow" for 1,204 days now, and at "Blue" or "Green" for zero.

You're wrong on those idiotic tax cuts. They haven't stimulated job growth in the slightest, nor have they helped the middle or lower class....

You're wrong for plunging our country $7.7 trillion into debt.... Have any of you ever balanced a checkbook in your life?

You're wrong for trying to fool us into thinking that throwing Social Security into the gnashing jaws of Wall Street will solve the (minor) problem we'll face 35 years down the stinking road.

You're so wrong---oh God, how you're just lame-brained here---for ignoring the massive health care crisis in this country. A grade of F- to you...and my extended middle finger, too.

You're wrong on stem cell research. You're wrong on "intelligent design." You're wrong on this crazy missile defense shield. You're wrong to ignore the genocide in Africa. You're wrong to force a cookie-cutter education "plan" on states without paying for it. You're wrong to send an abusive shithead to be our ambassador to the United Nations even though he openly despises it. You're wrong to embrace a radical, hateful religious faction of your party while---wink, wink---you claim to welcome all religions....

Hear, hear!

There is no hearing without someone saying.

The Federal Register published my rulemaking petition for recognition of the developmental and reproductive toxicity of heavy metals today (70 FR 34699.)

Please send a comment before August 29th to SECY@nrc.gov with a subject line such as: comments on PRM-20-26 toxicity petition

I recommend that you use your own words, but please include the following points:

• Current regulations ignore the developmental and reproductive toxicity of heavy metal radionuclides, and are at present designed only to prevent kidney failure.
• The reproductive toxicology profile for uranium combustion product inhalation in humans is currently unknown with any accuracy beyond 14 years (i.e., since the February 1991 exposures) and has shown an increasing and accelerating tendency, consistent with the fact that uranium accumulates in testes damaging sperm production cells and increasing chromosome damage over time.
• It is completely unethical and immoral to allow any release of a known reproductive toxin without a fully established toxicology profile. Doing so is reckless and negligent; to willfully allow such releases is potentially a crime.
• Regulators should attempt to extrapolate the existing known toxicology profile of heavy metal radionuclides and assume the worst case within the projections' 95% confidence intervals, and in an abundance of caution allow at least a two order-of-magnitude margin of error for limiting the increase in congenital malformations in children of the exposed to 5% after 30 years.

Thank you for the time and effort to help protect against birth defects.

Sincerely,
James Salsman (my other blog is hosted by a national laboratory)

Marine recruiter charged with drug violation
Friday, June 10, 2005
By GLENDA ANDERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A third North Coast Marine is facing a court-martial following an investigation that initially focused on recruiters accused of having sex with teenagers in Ukiah and widened to include other misconduct.

Staff Sgt. Francisco Ngayan, 29, has been charged with distributing narcotics after he allegedly shared his prescription pain killers with one or more prospective recruits, said Maj. Michael Samarov, who oversees recruiting offices along the California coast between Monterey and the Oregon border.

Ngayan was based in Santa Rosa with two other recruiters caught up in the sex probe. His name emerged when military investigators delved into allegations that recruiters were engaged in sexual misconduct at the Ukiah office, Samarov said. However, Ngayan was not in Ukiah when the alleged violations occurred and is not accused of sexual misconduct, Samarov said....

Ngayan is accused of sharing prescription drugs with prospective recruits, known as poolees, while working in the Santa Rosa recruiting office, Samarov said....

The investigation into misconduct by North Coast recruiters surfaced this week when a Ukiah high school student told reporters that three male recruiters had sex with young women, some of them poolees, at a Feb. 17 sleepover in the Ukiah office.

The girl, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she had sex with one recruiter two previous times at the office after he told her it was a requirement to join the Marines.

Staff Sgt. Joseph Dunzweiler, 24, and Sgt. Brian Fukushima, 25, have each been charged with 11 counts of violating the military's code of conduct, including sexual misconduct....

A third man was also investigated for sexual misconduct, according to Marine Corps officials at the 12th Marine Corps District in San Diego, where Dunzweiler and Fukushima are being court-martialed. Maj. Joseph Kloppel said he did not know if the man was ever charged with violating military codes....

Fukushima, Dunzweiler and Ngayan all lived in Santa Rosa and worked at various times with potential recruits in Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties, Samarov said.

All three face a maximum of 12 months confinement; a two-thirds reduction in their base pay for 12 months; a reduction in rank to the lowest enlisted rank; and a bad conduct discharge....

A maximum of 12 months? Those aren't felonies? Does Bush have a blanket pardon in place, or what?

more recruitment stories on DailyKos

Step 2

Judiciary GOP pulls the plug on Conyers 'forums'
by Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour
The Hill
June 14, 2005

If the Financial Services Committee is the best in the House when it comes to bipartisan comity, then the Judiciary Committee may well be the worst.

In December, ranking Democrat John Conyers (Mich.) began holding "forums" -- gatherings with all the trappings of official hearings -- after Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) refused to hold hearings on topics Conyers requested. The forums have been held in smaller committee rooms, often with C-SPAN coverage and formal witness lists.

In a sign of how far relationships on the committee have soured, majority staff recently announced a new policy to deny any request from a committee Democrat for the use of a committee hearing room.

Majority spokesman Jeff Lungren said the Republicans have given Democrats three opportunities to make clear that the forums are not official committee business. Nevertheless, Lungren said, in at least one case, members were addressing Conyers as "Mr. Chairman."

"They were unwilling or unable to make those changes," Lungren said. "At this point, if they want to hold these forums, they'll have to find some other place to do it."

Sean McLaughlin, deputy chief of staff for Sensenbrenner, recently wrote to a minority staffer in more pointed language.

"I'm sitting here watching your 'forum' on C-SPAN," McLaughlin wrote. "Just to let you know, it was your last. Don't bother asking [for a room] again."

A committee source said committee Democrats are still planning to hold the forums when they find other available space.

I believe a hearing on the steps of the Capitol would be in order under these circumstances. Lets see if they try to get the Park Police out!

So, I fired up R and typed this to make this graph:

decade <- c(1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990)
billions <- c(3.5, 5, 7.5, 13, 40)

plot(decade, billions, xlim=c(1950,2050), ylim=c(0,1000), main="average yearly inflation-adjusted dollar cost of extreme weather events worldwide")

pm <- lm(billions ~ poly(decade, 3))
curve(predict(pm, data.frame(decade=x)), add=TRUE)

summary(pm)

The adjusted R^2 statistic is 0.98, meaning that 98% of the variation is explained by the third-degree polynomial, which means that the extrapolation is probably accurate.

Dangerous storms: they cost $3.5 Billion a year in the 50's, and they're projected to cost 300 times that in the 40's, adjusting for inflation.

Is health care projected to increase 300 times in 90 years in real terms?

Even the shortest of trips becomes an armed adventure
May 26, 2005
Army Times

Habbaniyah, Iraq -- Moving about Iraq just gets harder and harder. When photographer Scott Mahaskey and I were finished with stories out in Marine country, we needed to move from Habbaniyah to Tikrit. When I was here in March 2004, one could have driven from Habbaniyah to Baghdad and then north to Tikrit. In all, about 130 miles, half a day's drive. Reporters made those trips regularly.

Not now. The only Americans who travel those roads do so in heavily armed convoys. For us it meant flying from Habbaniyah to Baghdad. That took two days. We got bumped the first day from our flight. Not enough space. Once at Camp Victory in Baghdad we had to wait an entire day for a flight. Four days to go 130 miles. Nothing makes a reporter more crazed that waiting.

Our armed forces now live in armed forts so totally isolated from the Iraqis that even the shortest of trips become an armed adventure....

And Jeremiah Cornelius is in London . . . coincidence?!?

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war 'excuse'
by Michael Smith
Sunday Times
June 12, 2005

Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

"US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia," the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality "would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation".

The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times....

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war....

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it....

I'm very happy about the quality of the Sunday Times' source, waiting for the sloppy denial before releasing the proof that it was a cover-up. Much better than releasing the minutes memo and the briefing paper all at once. People were thinking that since this was released in the week before the UK election, that the intent was to hurt Blair. If that had been the intent, this would have happened months ago. I think the leaker has something else in mind.

Decisive victory doubtful in Iraq
Military: Diplomacy is only path to peace

by Bryan Bender
Boston Globe
June 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - Military operations in Iraq have not succeeded in weakening the insurgency, and Iraq's government, with U.S. support, is now seeking a political reconciliation among the nation's ethnic and tribal factions as the only viable route to stability, according to U.S. military officials....

Recent comments to that effect by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on May 31 that the insurgency was in its ''last throes," took many U.S. officials and analysts by surprise, Pentagon officials and others with extensive knowledge of the war said in a series of interviews. The available data, they said, simply do not support such a claim.

''That is the most extreme form of wishful thinking," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington. ''There is simply no basis for making that statement...."

The first two weeks of May saw 21 suicide attacks in Baghdad alone; there were just 25 in all of 2004....

Meanwhile, a recent internal poll conducted for the U.S.-led coalition indicated that nearly 45 percent of the Iraqi population supports the insurgent attacks, making accurate intelligence difficult to obtain. Only 15 percent of those polled said they strongly support the U.S.-led coalition.

U.S. army investigates possible fragging of 2 officers in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military has launched a criminal inquiry into the killings of two army officers at a base north of Baghdad, the military said Friday.

The officers were killed Tuesday evening in what the military first believed was [a mortar] attack on Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, 130 kilometres north of Baghdad....

"Upon further examination of the scene by explosive ordnance personnel, it was determined the blast pattern was inconsistent with a mortar attack," the statement added without elaborating.

The officers, Capt. Phillip Esposito and 1st Lieut. Louis Allen, were assigned to the 42nd Infantry Division, New York Army National Guard. Esposito was company commander and Allen served as a company operations officer.

The statement said the military's Criminal Investigation Division is investigating their deaths as a criminal case.

A war so unpopular that it can make our all-volunteers start acting like a bunch of conscripts?

Marines 'beat US workers' in Iraq
Contractors say they were treated like insurgents

by Jamie Wilson
June 9, 2005
The Guardian

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month.

"I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane," one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names."

A Marine Corps spokesman denied that abuse had taken place and said an investigation was continuing. According to the marines, 19 employees of Zapata Engineering, including 16 Americans, were detained after a marine patrol in Falluja reportedbeing fired on by a convoy of trucks and sports utility vehicles. The marines also claim to have seen gunmen in the convoy fire at civilians....

The security guards claim the shooting incident was a case of mistaken identity. A spokeswoman for the company told the LA Times that the guards had fired warning shots into the air when an unidentified vehicle approached their vehicle as it passed through Falluja, but had not fired at any marines.

Mark Schopper, a lawyer for two of the contractors, told the newspaper that his clients, both former marines, were subjected to "physical and psychological abuse". He said they had told him that marines had "slammed around" several contractors, stripped them to their underwear and placed a loaded weapon near their heads.

"How does it feel to be a big, rich contractor now?" one of the marines is alleged to have shouted at the men, in an apparent reference to the large sums of money private contractors can make in Iraq....

"If the marines think [the contractors] did do something illegal there is no process they can go through. Who are they going to hand them over to?" Mr Singer said. "There have been more than 20,000 [contractors] on the ground in Iraq for more than two years and not one has been prosecuted for anything."

Boggle!

Receipt of Request for Action Under 10 CFR 2.206

Docket No. 040-08850, License No. SUB-1440, ATK Tactical Systems Company, LLC
Docket No. 030-28641, License No. 42-23539-01AF, Department of the Air Force
Docket No. 040-06394, License No. SMB-141, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-07086, License No. SUB-734, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-08814, License No. SMB-1411, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-08838, License No. SUB-1435, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-07354, License No. SUB-834, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-08779, License No. SUC-1391, Department of the Army
Docket No. 040-08767, License No. SUC-1380, Department of the Army
Docket No. 030-29462, License No. 45-23645-01NA, Department of the Navy

Notice is hereby given that by petition dated April 3, 2005, James Salsman has requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission take action with regard to licensees holding a depleted uranium munitions license. The petitioner requests that ``* * * all licenses allowing the possession, transport, storage, or use of pyrophoric uranium munitions be modified to impose enforceable conditions on all such licensees in order to rectify their misconduct * * *.''

The petitioner states ``The basis for this request is the gross negligence on the part of the licensees, * * *.''

The request is being treated pursuant to 10 CFR 2.206 of the Commission's regulations. The request has been referred to the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS). As provided by 10 CFR 2.206, appropriate action will be taken on this petition within 120 days. The petitioner discussed the petition with the NMSS Petition Review Board on May 4, 2005. The results of that discussion were considered in the Board's determination regarding the petitioner's request for immediate action and in establishing the schedule for the review of the petition. By letter dated May 26, 2005, the Director denied the petitioner's request for immediate action regarding depleted uranium munitions licenses. A copy of the petition (Accession Number ML051240497) is available in the Agencywide Documents and Management System (ADAMS) for inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, and from the ADAMS Public Library component on NRC's Web site, http://www.nrc.gov (the Public Electronic Reading Room).

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 26th day of May, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Jack R. Strosnider,
Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.

February: 27% short of goal
March: 31% short
April: 42% short
May (before hasty adjustment): 48% short
May (after adjustment): 25% short

So, the obvious military solution: kidnapping!

Next thing [high school student] Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.

He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

By then [his mother] Marcia had "freaked out."

She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.

Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests...."

Even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm....

What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.

Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.

The few, the proud, the criminaly stupid.