Steve Schacher

Breaking soon? King Abdullah: Al Qaeda WMDs Came From Syria quote:Jordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al Qaeda bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks. Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria, though he took pains not to implicate Syrian President Bashir Assad in the al Qaeda plot, saying, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it." In his testimony before Congress last year, Mr. Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S.attack on March 19, 2003 attack. While Kay said investigators couldn't be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisors described the evidence as "unquestionable." "People below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," said James Clapper, in comments reported by the New York Times on Oct. 29. Clapper heads up the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Israeli intelligence has long believed that after the U.S. delayed invasion plans to allow U.N. weapons inspectors time to search for Iraq's WMDs, Saddam moved the banned weapons to Syria, the only other country where the Ba'ath Party ruled. On April 1, Jordanian officials announced the arrest of several terrorist suspects, saying they were still hunting for two cars filled with explosives. Five days later, the State Department revealed the attackers were linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-based terrorist considered to be one of al Qaeda's most dangerous. One of Zarqawi's targets was the U.S. embassy in Amman. By Saturday morning European news services were quoting an unnamed Jordanian official who revealed that the al Qaeda plotters planned to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled attack. "We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths ... in an area of one square kilometre," the official told Agence France Press. Another operation planned by the network was to use "deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister's office in Amman," he added. A car belonging to the al Qaeda plotters, containing a chemical bomb and poisonous gas, was intercepted just 75 miles from the Syrian border. HOWEVER... A San Francisco Chronicle story on the matter (Al Qaeda warning by king of Jordan: Abdullah says his forces thwarted major bomb plot) makes no mention of the composition of the bombs. quote:Jordan's King Abdullah II, asserting that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network is "still very, very effective," said Friday that his security services had foiled a plot to blow up major government buildings and perhaps the U.S. Embassy in Amman. In a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle's editorial board, Abdullah, who is Washington's closest ally among Arab leaders, gave a bleak assessment of the fight against terrorism and the situation in neighboring Iraq, where he said civil war was "a possibility." He admitted being blindsided by President Bush's strong embrace of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday, embodied by Bush's decision to back Israeli annexation of some land in the West Bank. In a sign that Jordan may not totally escape the bloody convulsions now ripping through Iraq, Abdullah revealed that the arrest of two suspected terrorists two weeks ago had exposed plans to mount one of the most deadly terrorist attacks ever in the Arab world. The monarch said his security services had followed the trail of the suspects and captured five trucks packed with 17.5 tons of high explosives, which apparently were intended for an attack on the Jordanian prime minister's office and the intelligence ministry. "It was a major, major operation," Abdullah said. "It would have decapitated the government." Casualties would have been "in the thousands," he added. "It couldn't have been more sinister." Abdullah said European anti-terrorism experts were aiding the Jordanian police investigation, but details were still sketchy -- including a solid identification of the type of explosive the suspects were carrying. He said that although the trucks had come from Syria, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it," he said, referring to Syrian President Bashir Assad, whom U.S. officials have accused of allowing terrorist groups to use his country's territory. Abdullah's comments amplified a little-noticed announcement issued two weeks ago. On April 1, Jordanian officials said they had arrested several terrorist suspects and were hunting for two cars laden with explosives. Five days later, the State Department said the attackers were linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist believed linked to al Qaeda, and intended to attack the U.S. embassy in Amman. On Friday, Abdullah noted that the State Department had publicly said the embassy was a target in the plot, but he said Jordanian investigators had not been able to confirm this. more...The BBC reports it as a "chemical bomb" in this story: Jordan 'was chemical bomb target'. quote:Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists planned a chemical attack on Jordan's spy headquarters that could have killed 20,000 people, officials have said. Earlier this week King Abdullah said a massive attack had been thwarted by a series of arrests, but named no target. Now unnamed officials say the suspects have confessed to plotting to detonate a chemical bomb on the Amman HQ of the Intelligence Services. The plot was reportedly hatched by al-Qaeda suspect Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. Washington has accused the 38-year-old Jordanian radical of masterminding a string of spectacular suicide bombings in Iraq. 'Deadly gas' An official involved in the inquiry in Jordan told AFP news agency: "We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths ... in an area of one square kilometre. "The target of this bomb was the headquarters of the Intelligence Services," situated on a hill in the western suburb of Amman, he added. The official said another operation planned by the network was to use "deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister's office in Amman ... and other public buildings in Jordan". 'Divine protection' On Tuesday, in a letter thanking his intelligence chief for uncovering the plot, King Abdullah said Jordan had "lived through an extremely delicate situation in recent days". "But divine protection has thwarted the plans of these criminals and saved the lives of thousands of civilians in what would have been a crime never before seen in the kingdom," he argued. The intelligence chief General Saad Khair said the group used religion as a pretext for its actions, but their plans were anything but religious. He thought that they wanted to attack Jordan's position on upholding Arab causes, especially Palestinian rights. He said mop-up operations were continuing. Two weeks ago the authorities in Jordan said they had found cars carrying explosives by an underground group planning to attack US interests in the kingdom. What remains to be seen is whether these chemicals were part of a Saddam stockpile secreted to Syria, or are conventional chemicals formulated into a bomb. [ 04-17-2004, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

"It all started at a 5,000 watt radio station in Fresno, California..." -Ted Baxter, Anchor, WJM-Minneapolis

quote:We are long overdue for some leadership in the Oval Office that has at least an inkling of common sense and far fewer hands up his backside, using him as a sock puppet to mime the wishes of a few over the needs of the many.Now, that's funny!

I just bought a new computer (I retired my P3@550mhz and got a [email protected]) and picked up the game, so I'm ready to try it out. quote:Now, the AI is stupid though. If your heading to a gate and they sight you, they'll jump to the gate and if they get there before you they'll start coming toward you.. thats where they make the first mistake, they should WAIT for you then attack you when you get there.In my opinion, the AI is pretty smart but you pointed out 1 of the 2 flaws in its operation. 1. The AI is smart enough for a hostile to jump to your jump point, but then it goes dumb and turns towards you while you are still in hyperspace instead of sitting at the jump point and waiting for you. By turning towards you, enough distance passes so that it cannot get back in range when you emerge from hyperspace. I'm not sure if it is a matter of an escort vs defend order with or without the jump point designated as leader. For instance, if it were your own ship being ordered, an escort order designates the target as the "leader" and then an attack order would designate the other object as the objective. I thought, in the early days, that there was a difference between defend and escort, being that escort kept the ship close to the leader while defend let it go anywhere. You can see how the orders translate by moving the pointer over the CC icon, but I could never see where escort vs defend made a difference. Try various command sequences, such as escort a ship (or jump gate), then attack another ship, then try the Escort Nothing, looking at the popup on the CC icon between each. Look at the values for Leader, Objective, and Order, and see how they change with different combinations of commands. The Escort Nothing order clears the leader order, but keeps the order. I sometimes do an Escort a jumpgate, then Attack Nothing, then SAD, and I wind up with a leader of the jumpgate, no objective, and an SAD order. (I'm doing this from memory, so I hope I'm not off by much) 2. The other "flaw" (which may not be a flaw, I may just have to learn to love it) is that a ship ordered to escort another ship will follow that ship to another region, but then its orders change to "target search." Presumably, what it's doing is sitting and waiting for another ship to target the leader, and then it will go after that ship. What happens, though, is if the leader jumps to a jump gate, the escort won't move until the leader jumps again to another region, which triggers the escort to jump to the gate and follow, where it will then go into "target search" mode once again. This can put a lot of distance between the escort and the leader, since the leader could be hyperjumping to its next destination by the time the escort shows up in the region. I would prefer to see an escort ship's "target search" logic allow it to jump to a leader's jump point as soon as the leader jumps (the waw that hostiles do). If the escort arrives before the leader, then the escort can go on "target search" once again.

quote:Well there's something to look foward to. Pumping all that locked up carbon and other polutants back into the atmosphere for 200 years or more. Let's not forget about all the other petroleum products that we depend on besides gasoline. There are the plastics that we use; we used to have vinyl records, but now we have CDs and DVDs; the asphalt that we drive on is a by-product from oil; the lube oils that keep the industrial machinery running (like assembly lines, printing presses, etc) comes from crude; the list goes on and on. Do we stop all oil consumption or just the automobiles?

quote:This administration won't get away with drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. There is plenty of drilling going on in the Gulf of Mexico. It's just that it's off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Florida banned drilling off of its coast, but that ban extends only so far.

quote:Holy Thursday is for the Last Supper. quote:The Jewish people also had a celebration around this time of year which is pointed out in Scripture known as the Passover, the observance when the angels of death passed over the homes of the faithful who marked their doorposts with the blood of the lamb (a blood sacrifice) to spare them from death. Ironically, the Christian holiday is sort of the same thing - Jesus, the lamb of God, being the blood sacrifice to spare believers from death in hell.Not so ironic, since the Last Supper was actually Jesus and his disciples, all observant Jews, celebrating the Passover seder.

RE: Condi Rice Testimony SNL got in a few good jokes about it last night. One was "Former Sen. Bob Kerrey mistakenly referred to Dr. Rice as Dr. Clarke several times. But most embarrasing was when he referred to her as 'Omarosa'." The other funny one was "The White House release the August 20, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within United States'. Also released was the August 26 briefing entitled 'No, Really, Laden Determined to Attack Within United States', and the September 1 briefing entitled 'How Many Times Do I Have to Tell You, Laden Determined to Attack Within United States'." The key phrase from the report was about plans for hijacks. If you were to ask anyone what that meant prior to 9/11/01, you would have gotten almost 100% conformity that hijacking meant hostages, just like the TWA flight that was taken to Beirut for a 17 days in 1985. Nobody would have first thought of flying a jet into a building. RE: Oil & Alternative Fuels The source of the increased gasoline prices is two-fold: 1) increased worldwide demand in emerging industrial countries like China (don't know whether it is for industry or strategic stockpile), and 2) "boutique" fuels in the USA, where each state/city has their own formulations for clean air regulations. The 60-odd boutique gasoline formulations across the country create a patchwork of formulations which makes it impossible for surplus markets to transfer their gasoline to shortage markets. Refineries have to plan their production so that once a batch of gasoline is made to one blend specification, they start making the next blend for the next region, and so on and on. What really has to happen is the creation of a national standard gasoline formulation so that surplus fuels can be transferred anywhere where shortages are beginning. Only then will the forces of supply and demand work to stabilize the gas prices nationwide.

quote:I read over on DU that someone would vote for a ham sandwich if they thought it could beat Bush.Bush beats ham every time.

Air America is propaganda, not commercial radio. There are practically no commercials, just PSAs. It is being funded by Soros and Co. Plus, it is on in only 5 stations around the country. Out here in the SF Bay Area, they took over the only Chinese-language radio station in the East Bay (Berkeley) for their station. Its purpose is only to survive until November 2. After that, it becomes pointless. If Kerry (or whomever is nominated at the convention) is elected, then the network becomes superfluous. If Bush is reelected, then the network failed and the people have spoken -- it would just be pissing in the wind. Personally, I don't think that Franken has the stomach for a fresh 3 hours of radio 5 days a week. He was drafted for his anger, passion, and name recognition, not his talent. His talent was for sketch parody, and I do find him funny in that format sometimes. But for original 15 hours/week, I don't think he will be able to sustain it. And, he needs to start taking some more callers. If he is unwilling to engage the random masses, then that speaks volumes in itself.

The stolen documents are copies that a reporter obtained with the Freedom of Information act. I'm sure the originals are safe in their government hiding place...

quote:fantasy league governmentWell, if that's the standard (are you sure you didn't mean Justice League)... President: Superman (who else?)... oh, yeah... the alien rule annuls Superman and Arnold... Vice President: Wonder Woman (gotta have a woman VP) Secretary of State: Reed Richards (gotta be able to twist into all sorts of contortions) Secretary of Defense: The Incredible Hulk (you REALLY don't want to make me angry...) National Security Advisor: Captain America (gung ho, plus cool shield) Secretary of Education: Dr. Xavier (he's a doctor, and a school teacher, how bad can that be?) Attorney General: The Daredevil (Americans with Disabilities Act) Secretary of Energy: Johnny Storm (Flame On!) Secretary of the Interior: Prince Namor (environmentalist whacko, but he can breathe under water, can you?) Secretary of Labor: Iron Man (what factory made your armor flying suit?) UN Ambassador: Ben Grimm (It's Clobberin' Time!!!) Secretary of Treasury: Bruce Wayne (millionaire playboy -- NOT!!) Did I leave anyone out?

quote:You guys will do and say ANYTHING to support a man who is unworthy of your well meaning but misguided loyalty. To attempt to paint a decorated war hero who put his life on the line for your and my sorry asses as a traitor while Bush played army men is beneath contempt.The rumbling about Kerry's "decorations" are out there, but both sides of the partisan media seem to have agreed to not make an issue of it. The issue is that of medal inflation. Kerry received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Kerry left Viet Nam due to the three Purple Hearts, which are awarded for receiving injuries in battle. Apparently, three Purple Hearts allows one to have been sent home. The question is how Kerry, on a "Swift Boat" on the rivers of Viet Nam, acquired three Purple Hearts in his short four months "in country," routinely patrolling up and down the rivers. Also of interest is the fact that Kerry, while being awarded three Purple Hearts, also recorded no lost time from duty. Alas, I can't provide cited sources because the media of both sides are giving this one a pass. All I can point to are anecdotal stories of others from the same era who performed under similar circumstances and question the propriety of the stories being presented today given the situation of the time. This may be one reason why Kerry won't release his medical history. [ 03-28-2004, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

quote:I remember once instance that I had read about where a woman had this procedure done because the baby had a birth defect where the baby's intestines where outside of his stomach. That sounds outrageous to me. Intestines are outside of one's stomach -- the stomach flows into one's intestines. However, more to your point, there have been stories of mothers aborting babies because of cleft palates. A cleft palate is a minor birth defect correctable with plastic surgery.

quote:And that negates the facts in his book how? When he begins appearing on other shows will that make his claims more credible? (Red herring.)That doesn't negate the facts in his book. What negates the facts in his book is that he was the principle source for Richard Miniter's book "Losing Bin Laden" where he said essentially the opposite things.

quote:My god I am watching 60 Minutes tonight and I am in shock. Any indictment I make against G.W. is mild in comparison to this INSIDER'S take. "I think he has done a terrible job in regard to terrorism"... priceless.The truth is starting to come out about Richard Clarke. First, he has a book coming out, which is why he's making these charges. Two, he's a disgruntled Clinton holdover who was demoted from a cabinet position when Bush took over. Three, his 60-minutes appearance to promote his book was corporate nepotism as the parent company of 60-minutes owns the book. I heard a clip of a TV appearance on Good Morning America this morning where he was asked if he thought the world was safer without Saddam Hussein. His answer was, Ask the 3,000 wounded soldiers if they feel safer, ask the soldiers in Iraq who are targets if they feel safer. So, according to him, the purpose of the military is to be kept safe? He sidestepped the question by questioning the military.

quote:Errrm then why isn't anyone explaining this to anyone? It seems to me that if these numbers were somehow artificially valid (ooohhh there is a term for greenspan) then the Bush guys would be saying "Yeah Clinton had super low unemployment but that was due to the dot com era." Or some such thing.A couple of reasons: 1. Most reporters don't understand economics, let alone the people. The reporters only care about the horse race, who's up and who's down this week. 2. Neither party wishes to run on the Clinton coattails. They want to establish their leaders as their own people. They will avoid bringing up Clinton because the knee-jerk reaction is to say "There you go again." Clinton is not running, Bush and Kerry are, and so the policies of those two will be the focus. 3. The campaign is still very young. Give it time.

quote:As for the unemployment matter... WAKE UP. Perception isn't an AVERAGE... perception is this fact, DURING THAT BASTARD CLINTON'S TERM OF SERVICE THE UNEMPLOYMENT WENT DOWN.. ALL YEARS... NOT ONE, NOT TWO... EIGHT.What good is a downward unemployment if it is based on a lie? Remember all the corporate ethics problems -- Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, Global Crossing, Adelphia, etc? And don't forget the massively hyped AOL-Time Warner merger that fell flat and almost destroyed both companies. What happened was that CEO bonuses were based on stock options instead of dividends, so the object for CEOs was to inflate the stock price so that the value of their options would skyrocket. Then they would sell out and leave an over-inflated company behind in their wake. A lot of the unemployment increase is also due to the failures of these companies after the senior management looted them. All of that happened during the Clinton administration, but the ramifications occurred during the Bush administration.

quote:1993-01-01 7.3 - President William J. Clinton 1994-01-01 6.6 - President William J. Clinton 1995-01-01 5.6 - President William J. Clinton 1996-01-01 5.6 - President William J. Clinton 1997-01-01 5.3 - President William J. Clinton 1998-01-01 4.6 - President William J. Clinton 1999-01-01 4.3 - President William J. Clinton 2000-01-01 4.0 - President William J. Clinton ------------------------------------- 43.3 / 8= 5.4 2001-01-01 4.2 - President George W. Bush 2002-01-01 5.6 - President George W. Bush 2003-01-01 5.8 - President George W. Bush 2004-01-01 5.6 - President George W. Bush ------------------------------------------ 21.2 / 4= 5.3 Clinton's Average Unemployment = 5.4% Bush's Average Unemployment = 5.3%Unfortunately, a second look at that chart paints a different picture. You can't use the 1993-01-01 number for Clinton, as he didn't take office until 1-20, so that would be for Bush's last year in office. So, Clinton's average would be calculated from 1994-01-01 through 2001-01-01, and Bush would only have three years, 2002-01-01 through 2004-01-01. Breaking out the chart that way, you have Clinton with an average 5.0% and Bush with an average 5.6%. However, Clinton is getting the benefit of averaging with 8 observations to Bush's 3, where each observation has a greater impact on the total (Bush's numbers are weighted .333 while Clinton's are weighted .125).

quote:Clinton's 5.6% number was considered low because it came down from 7.3%. Bush's 5.6% number is considered high because it went up from 4.0%. PERCEPTION.You say perception, I say BIAS. 4.0% was extroardinarily low. Even CNN was amazed in 1996 at how low it was, given the normal churn in employement. That 4.0% (and lower) has to be at the extreme of probabilities, the kind of number that occurs less than 5% of the time. In fact, given that the CBO has already restated the economic figures from 1995-2000 in 2002, I wouldn't be surprised if the unemployment numbers were cooked somehow, also. Anyway, back to the question, I believe that it is bias in reporting that is making 5.6% seem high when it has been historically low, just like with how CBS recently spiked their own recent poll showing Bush ahead of Kerry. CBS claims that the poll became invalid because it was taken before the Spain bombing, but they never failed to report a Kerry leading poll, no matter what events may have led to that. They should have reported the poll as taken, and then run an explanatory story along with it, leaving it to the reader to decide the merits of the poll. It is that kind of bias, spiking polls harmful to Democrats and spinning good numbers as bad, that we will see more of in the months to come.

Clinton's "exraordinarily low" unemployment numbers is what we today call the "dot com bubble." All these companies popped up to try to take advantage of the maturing internet. When people realized that these companies didn't actually produce anything, the interest dissipated, the captial went elsewhere, the dot coms failed, and the bubble burst. That is why you see the low dip in unemployment under Clinton. Track the employment numbers with the dot com craze, and it all becomes evident. His unemployment numbers are as flimsy as the dot com bubble was.

quote:Democrat undergroundBeen there, done that, years ago.

quote:1991-01-01 6.4 - President George H. W. Bush 1992-01-01 7.3 - President George H. W. Bush 1993-01-01 7.3 - President William J. Clinton 1994-01-01 6.6 - President William J. Clinton 1995-01-01 5.6 - President William J. Clinton 1996-01-01 5.6 - President William J. Clinton 1997-01-01 5.3 - President William J. Clinton 1998-01-01 4.6 - President William J. Clinton 1999-01-01 4.3 - President William J. Clinton 2000-01-01 4.0 - President William J. Clinton 2001-01-01 4.2 - President George W. Bush 2002-01-01 5.6 - President George W. Bush 2003-01-01 5.8 - President George W. Bush 2004-01-01 5.6 - President George W. Bush 5.6% unemployment has historically been considered low. In fact, in 1996 CNN ran stories on the low rate: U.S. jobless rate hits six-year low. quote:WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Economists didn't expect June's unemployment rate to be much different from May's, which was an already-low 5.6 percent. But in fact, it did fall -- to 5.3 percent. The unemployment rate hasn't been that low since June 1990. So the question is, why was 5.6% considered low when Clinton was in office, but now it is considered high when Bush is in office? Also, if 5.6% is high, what do you consider to be low? The theoretical minimum for unemployment has been around 3.0%-3.5%, considering normal turnover and seasonal employment. [ 03-20-2004, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

Takvah, and others new to this board: The tone of debate on this thread is starting to get out of hand. We encourage spirited debate and all points of view, but we do not tolerate personal attacks. Attack the message, not the messenger. Jaguar is right about posts disappearing. If they do, it is not because he disagrees with your point of view, it will be because you violated board protocol. So, message to everyone: tone down the personal snippiness and stick to the subject matter.

quote:The republicans are always trying to take credit for the black middle class after plunging more black families into poverty than any adminsitration in modern history.From Family Secrets, by Walter E. Williams, November 20, 2002: quote:Airing the "family's" dirty laundry in public can qualify one for less-than-flattering descriptions. That's particularly applicable to a black person, and even more so when he questions the civil rights gospel that the problems black people encounter are rooted in racial discrimination and a legacy of slavery. To argue that most of the problems black people confront today have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination risks being labeled everything but a child of God, not to mention accusations of having "sold out" and "letting white people off the hook." One need not deny the existence of racial discrimination to ask the policy-relevant question: How much of what we see can be explained by discrimination? The black illegitimacy rate is close to 70 percent. Less than 40 percent of black children live in two-parent families. This produces devastating socioeconomic consequences, but is it caused by racial discrimination? Or, might it be a legacy of slavery? In the early 1900s, black illegitimacy was a tiny fraction of today's rate. Roughly 75 percent, and in New York City 85 percent, of black children lived in two-parent households. The fact of lower illegitimacy and more intact families, at a time when blacks were much closer to slavery and faced greater discrimination, suggests that today's unprecedented illegitimacy and weak family structure has nothing to do with discrimination and slavery. It's explained better by promiscuity and irresponsibility, and as such it's not a civil rights problem. To point out that black people are the primary victims of violent crimes is OK. Some of the statistics are staggering. FBI reports on arrest data show that blacks committed half of all homicides, nearly half of rapes, 59 percent of robberies and 38 percent of aggravated assaults. Suggestions about causes and solutions can get you into to trouble. It's clear sailing if you argue that the high crime rate is caused by poverty and discrimination, and the way to get rid of crime is to eliminate these root causes. But there's a problem with that theory. It doesn't explain why black communities were far safer in earlier times, such as in the '20s, '30s and '40s, at a time of far greater poverty and discrimination, and fewer opportunities. Crime imposes devastating economic and personal costs on many black neighborhoods, but it's not a civil rights problem. The high crime rate represents political choices made by black politicians, civil rights organizations and many black citizens to tolerate criminals. Another family secret is that black academic achievement is a national disgrace. Many youngsters who manage to complete high school do so not being able to perform at the eighth- and ninth-grade levels. Standards that others have to meet for employment or college admittance which many blacks cannot meet are labeled racist. Demands are made to lower standards using face-saving euphemisms such as affirmative action, diversity and multiculturalism. The standard civil rights vision of the solution to these problems for blacks is to vote more Democrats into federal, state and local offices, and to elect more blacks to city mayorships and city councils. That theory suggests that cities run by Democrats and black politicians must be the very cities where illegitimacy and violent crimes are the lowest and black academic achievement is the highest -- cities such as Washington, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark and East St. Louis. In these cities, blacks hold mayorships and have representation on city councils. That's a nice theory, but the result is the exact opposite. In medicine, misdiagnosis leading to mistreatment and further injury can lead to malpractice suits. Unfortunately, in politics, misdiagnosis, mistreatment and further injury lead to re-election. From Education fraud in Philadelphia, by Walter E. Williams, December 19, 2001: quote:Education in Philadelphia's public schools is so rotten that the state government is threatening a takeover. There are 176 out of 264 schools on the failing list. The primary victims of Philadelphia's public schools are black students whose chances for upward mobility are being systematically destroyed by callous politicians and teacher's unions. If the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan set out to destroy black academic excellence in Philadelphia, I doubt whether he could achieve as much damage. Let's look at some of the facts of black education. Earlier this year, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that 63 percent of black fourth-graders were unable to read proficiently. This is devastating because a child unable to read and write by 9 or 10 years of age will probably never catch up. As such, it's virtually a life sentence to the fringes of an increasingly high-tech information society. Education fraud is further evidenced when Philadelphia's students take college admission tests. At predominantly black high schools, the average SAT scores in 2000 were: Audenreid (590), Bartram (693), Overbrook (726), Gratz (790) and West Philadelphia (709). There were similar average SAT scores at most other predominantly black high schools, including my alma mater Benjamin Franklin (750), where I graduated in 1954. These scores, out of a maximum of 1600, are a disgrace -- especially considering that test-takers get 400 points for simply taking the test. The scores also mean colleges must practice racial discrimination in order to admit many black students. At neighborhood and school reunions, I've asked former classmates and friends, "Did we know anybody who couldn't read, or perform simple computations?" The answer has always been no. Black academic achievement in Philadelphia was higher during the '40s and'50s, at a time when there were no black principals, only a handful of black teachers, never a black mayor and maybe just one black city councilman. What's more, blacks were poorer, faced more discrimination and had fewer hopes and opportunities for upward mobility. That's in stark contrast to today. I don't believe history is going to be very kind to today's black politicians and civil rights leaders who foster, promote and protect Philadelphia's disgraceful public education system. From Do facts matter?: Part II, by Thomas Sowell, October 19, 2001: quote:During the era of slavery, it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, throughout the Western Hemisphere. In parts of the antebellum South, it was also illegal for free blacks to be educated, and there was no provision for them to be educated in much of the North. Yet the census of 1850 showed that more than half of the 500,000 free blacks were able to read and write. How did that happen? It happened because they set up their own schools, even in places where such schools were illegal and had to operate underground. What an insult to their memory when blacks in ghetto schools today who want to get an education are accused by their peers of "acting white"! Black people risked jail to set up schools for their children before the Civil War. One of the most inspiring and heroic episodes in the history of black education in America came after the Civil War, when numerous white school teachers from the North went South to teach the children of the freed slaves, often under the auspices of religious organizations -- and in defiance of ostracism by Southern whites. Voluntary and privately financed efforts to educate blacks were so widespread that it was 1916 before there were as many blacks in public high schools as in private high schools. Blacks themselves went to extraordinary lengths to create an educated class. The building of Tuskeegee Institute, literally with the students' own hands, is a story seldom told, because it was done under the leadership of Booker T. Washington, who is not politically correct today. He is excoriated by those who have never bothered to study the facts about the man or his times. As far back as 1899, the one black academic high school in Washington scored higher on standardized tests than two of the three white high schools in the nation's capital. In the decades that followed, its graduates went on to college at a higher rate than that of white Americans. From this school came the first black federal judge, the first black general to lead men in combat, the first black Cabinet member, the first black elected to the Senate and many other firsts. All this from one school. Yet this story too is seldom mentioned today, because it too was done in ways that are not considered politically correct today. Far from looking inward at the ghetto or being Afro-centric or teaching -- or even tolerating -- "black English," it opened the students' minds to a wider world of culture, including requiring the learning of Latin and the study of the classics. Facts about other successful black schools, past and present, get very little attention from the intelligentsia because the stories of these schools would not forward the agendas of the left. In short, history is treated as just the continuation of politics by other means. From A usable black history, by Walter E. Williams, August 22, 2001: quote:John McWhorter, linguistics professor at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, has written a compelling essay in the summer 2001 issue of City Journal titled, "Toward a Usable Black History." Last year, he wrote "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America," arguing there's a culture of black anti-intellectualism impeding academic excellence, resulting from an ideology of victimization and separatism. The pursuit of academic excellence is seen as "acting white" and as such amounts to racial betrayal. In his City Journal article, McWhorter says that, while it would be folly not to teach the history of the injustices of slavery, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination, " a history of only horrors cannot inspire." McWhorter says, "When, 'Learn your history,' means, 'Don't get fooled by superficial changes'; and, 'Today's New York City Street Crimes Unit can't be distinguished from yesterday's Bull Connor'; and our aggrieved despair over our sense of disinclusion from the national fabric remains as sharp as ever, could any people find inner peace when taught to think of their own society as their enemy?" Instead, a better, more usable history would be one that gives greater emphasis to black successes in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. That kind of history inspires, instead of breeding victimhood. McWhorter says today's education chaos is not business-as-usual but something entirely new. From the late 1800s to 1950, some black schools were models of academic achievement. Black students at Washington's Dunbar High School often outscored white students as early as 1899. Schools such as Frederick Douglas (Baltimore), Booker T. Washington (Atlanta), P.S. 91 (Brooklyn), McDonough 35 (New Orleans) and others operated at a similar level of excellence. These excelling students weren't solely members of the black elite; most had parents who were manual laborers, domestic servants, porters and maintenance men. McWhorter says that instead of "romanticizing failure" in black communities, young people should be taught that successful economic communities can be had. Chicago's "Bronzeville" is a handy example. After 1875, blacks occupied a three by 15 block enclave on the South Side. During the early 1900s, Bronzeville was home to several black newspapers and 731 business establishments, by 1917 in 61 lines of work. The Binga Bank opened in 1908 by its founder Jesse Binga, who started out with a wagon selling coal and oil. By 1929, Bronzeville blacks had amassed $100 million in real-estate holdings. Chicago wasn't the only city where blacks established a significant business presence. Other cities would include New York; Philadelphia; Durham, N.C.; Atlanta and Washington, D.C. -- and Tulsa's Greenwood district, which was destroyed by rioting whites. Keep in mind that when blacks established business successes such as those in Bronzeville and Durham, it was accomplished in a harsh racial environment. No one can attribute their successes to SBA minority loans, business set-asides, affirmative action and measures deemed indispensable by today's race experts. It was accomplished through hard work, sacrifice and, as my father used to say, coming early and staying late. Ignoring or downplaying black achievement promotes the victim attitude, where people believe that in order for them to be successful somebody else must perform some benevolent act. The bottom line indisputable fact of business is that black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles, in a shorter span of time than any other racial group in mankind's history. That speaks well of the intestinal fortitude of a people, and it also speaks well of a nation in which such gains were possible. Today's whining and portrayal of black people as a victim class amounts to an unspeakable betrayal of the sacrifices and the successes of our ancestors.From Demoralizing young blacks, from Walter E. Williams, April 4, 2001: quote:David Bell, Harvard law professor, counseled, "Black people will never gain full equality in this country." The late columnist Carl Rowan said, "Racism remains a terrible curse on this society, and ... nothing in sight suggests that that curse will end soon." New York Rep. Charles Rangel said: "Black men are not the problem. Black men are the victims." Jesse Jackson said: "We (blacks) are under attack by the courts , legislatures and mass media. We're despised. Racists attack us for sport to win votes." New York Supreme Court judge Ivan Warner somberly said, "The entire United States is a racist society." These comments, observations and counsel are just a tiny sample of three decades worth of defeatist poison bestowed on the black community by leftist politicians, civil rights leaders, professors and teachers. Black people are taught that every waking thought of white America is racist; black people are perennial victims of white oppression; we have no control over our lives and destiny. The only way black people can achieve anything is to prey upon white guilt, and seek special privileges like quotas, handouts, and lately reparations and apologies for slavery. We're taught that racism is everywhere. If a disproportionate percentage of blacks are on death row, it isn't because 50 percent of murders committed in America are committed by blacks and almost all the victims are black. No, the disproportionate percentages are caused by racism in the criminal justice system and slavery's legacy. When large percentages of black high-school graduates can't muster even 700 or 800 on the SAT, it isn't because they haven't studied hard enough and applied themselves. It's the result of racism and slavery's legacy. The strangest feature of this particular claim, and a testament to the power of racists, is that racists are able to wreak the greatest educational havoc in the very cities where the mayor is black, the superintendent of schools is black, and most of the teachers and principals are black. When it's noticed that black illegitimacy is 70 percent, and less than 40 percent of black children live in two-parent families, and social pathology reigns supreme, it's not because of personal irresponsibility. Instead, it's racism and the legacy of slavery. Nobody bothers to notice that a century ago, when blacks were much closer to slavery, had fewer civil rights and far fewer opportunities, black illegitimacy and family breakdown was a tiny fraction of today's. The victimization counsel of black and white liberals is debilitating. Think of it this way. Imagine you're a high-school or college administrator. Your basketball-team coach counsels his players: "You're going to play a team that's better than you. No matter how much you practice, no matter how hard you try, you can't win. The only possible way for you to win is if we can get the scorers and referees to cheat for you." What would you do to that coach? I'd say that simply firing him would be too kind. The victimization vision teaches young blacks they have no choice or control over their own lives. Success depends not on their own efforts, but on handouts, concessions and leg-ups given by white people. As a black person born in 1936, who's witnessed and experienced gross discrimination and seen the personal sacrifices made by both blacks and whites to create today's opportunities, I find the victimization vision not only offensive and racially demeaning, but a gross betrayal of the monumental bravery and sacrifice of those who came before us. South Carolina Rep. Robert Smalls (1874-1886) said it best: "My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."From Democrats, republicans and blacks, by Thomas Sowell, September 28, 2000: quote:Democrats can claim credit -- if that's the word -- for all the government social programs that have played such a role in the disintegration of families. These programs have done little to reduce poverty. Blacks did more to reduce their own poverty than the government ever has. Between 1940 and 1960, the poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent to 47 percent. Yet there was no major federal civil rights legislation or welfare state programs created during that period. The continuing rise of blacks out of poverty during the 1960s, when their poverty rate fell an additional 17 points, cannot be arbitrarily attributed to the Great Society programs, since this trend was already decades old before these programs were created. As for the first decade of affirmative action -- the 1970s -- the poverty rate among blacks fell by only one percentage point then. Education had much to do with the rise of blacks. As of 1940, black adults averaged just 5 years of schooling. By 1960 that was 8 years and by 1970 it was 10 years. Obviously, doubling your education within one generation tends to increase your income, regardless of which party is in power or what policies they follow. In our own high-tech era, education is even more important. Nothing is more of a handicap to blacks today than inadequate education. There are many reasons for these inadequacies. How do the Democrats and Republicans compare, when it comes to the education of black youngsters? Democrats are too completely dependent on the teachers' unions to be able to break the public school monopoly or to get rid of incompetent teachers or even to insist on the teaching of the basics, instead of the dumbed down education and amateur social engineering that the education establishment likes. From Blacks and bootstraps, by Thomas Sowell, August 10, 2000: quote:It is considered the height of callousness to tell blacks to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. But the cold historical fact is that most blacks did lift themselves out of poverty by their own bootstraps -- before their political rescuers arrived on the scene with civil rights legislation in the 1960s or affirmative action policies in the 1970s. As of 1940, 87 percent of black families lived below the official poverty line. This fell to 47 percent by 1960, without any major federal legislation on civil rights and before the rise and expansion of the welfare state under the Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson. This decline in the poverty rate among blacks continued during the 1960s, dropping from 47 percent to 30 percent. But even this continuation of a trend already begun long before cannot all be attributed automatically to the new government programs. Moreover, the first decade of affirmative action -- the 1970s -- ended with the poverty rate among black families at 29 percent. Even if that one percent decline was due to affirmative action, it was not much. The fact that an entirely different picture has been cultivated and spread throughout the media cannot change the historical facts. What it can do -- and has done -- is make blacks look like passive recipients of government beneficence, causing many whites to wonder why blacks can't advance on their own, like other groups. Worse, it has convinced many blacks themselves that their economic progress depends on government programs in general and affirmative action in particular. It is undoubtedly true that the careers of black "leaders," politicians and community activists depend heavily on government programs. It is their ability to lobby for government goodies that keeps such people in business and in the limelight. It was the breakdown of restrictions on black voting in the South that caused a rapidly rising number of black elected officials. Even today, it is the politicizing of racial hype that enables many black public figures to remain public figures and to extort money and concessions from private businesses by threatening to call them racists or organize boycotts if they don't pony up. There is no question that the 1960s marked the decisive upturn in opportunity for race hustlers. At one time, the aspirations of black leaders and the well being of the black population at large coincided, since both were striving to end Jim Crow laws and other racial barriers. But such coincidences do not last, either among blacks or among other racial or ethnic groups in the United States or in other countries. "Leaders" have their own interests and agendas that they push, even when the effect on those for whom they claim to speak is detrimental. That is where we are today. Black leaders have a vested interest in black dependency -- on them and on the government that they can try to influence.