Yankees Fans to Cheney, "Go F**K Yourself" Cheney received a not-so-warm welcome at the Yankees / Red Socks game. From ESPN.com

With Vice President Dick Cheney looking on and a sellout crowd of 55,231 yelling from the first pitch, there was a postseason atmosphere at Yankee Stadium.

Cheney, who visited both clubhouses after batting practice, watched part of the game from the box of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and part from a first-row seat next to the Yankees dugout, where he sat between New York Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Cheney was booed when he was shown on the right-field videoboard during the seventh-inning stretch.

But mostly it was a night of cheering in the ballpark.

From New York Daily News You bet Cheney got booed while Ronan Tynan sang "God Bless America." Cheney - close to the action for a change - had been down in a box seat next to the Yankee dugout with Rudy Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki. Now Cheney was upstairs in George Steinbrenner's box, and when they put his face on the big screen in the outfield, there was plenty of booing. It was about the only thing that stopped the real cheers for the Yankees at Yankee Stadium as they kept pouring it on against the Red Sox.

Real game story last night? Cheney got booed.

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  Fuzzy Math  
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  Camilo Mejia, Conscientious Objector A vigil was held Wed. June 23rd for Camilo Mejia, who is being held in the Fort Sill Regional Corrections Facility. Camilo is charged with being AWOL. As the article in the Lawton Constitution notes:

To the Army, Camilo Mejia is just a deserter.

But to his family and the supporters who held a vigil for him here Wednesday, the 28-year-old father is a "prisoner of conscience" who refused to return to Iraq for moral reasons.

The purpose of the vigil organized by the Oklahoma Committee for Conscientious Objectors was to advocate for official conscientious objector status for Mejia and for the commuting of his one-year sentence to time served.

According to Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, public affairs officer for 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga., former staff sergeant Camilo Mejia was considered absent without official leave (AWOL) as of Oct. 16, 2003, after he failed to return from two weeks' R&R. Mejia turned himself in to the custody of military authorities at Fort Stewart on March 17. Charges were preferred against him on March 24 by Fort Stewart's commanding general, Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., court-martial convening authority.

Mejia was arraigned April 16, and his trial began May 19. He was tried by special court-martial under Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which covers desertion.

Mejia was ordered to serve one year in the Fort Sill Regional Corrections Facility, at the end of which he is to receive a bad conduct discharge (assuming the conscience objector packet and hearing does not change this part of the sentence). He was also reduced in rank from staff sergeant E-6 to private E-1 and ordered to forfeit two-thirds of his pay for 12 months.

The vigil was timed to coincide with a hearing on Mejia's application for conscientious objector status. Although the hearing took place on Fort Sill Wednesday, it was conducted by officials from Fort Stewart, according to Master Sgt. Tony McKinney, noncommissioned officer in charge of the Fort Sill Public Affairs Office.

As the vigil was ending shortly after 4 p.m., participants said the hearing was still going on and they had received no word as to the outcome.

"We haven't heard anything, and I'm not sure my office will," Kent said from Fort Stewart later Thursday.

For more information go to freecamilo.org

"Behind these bars I sit a free man because I listened to a higher power, the voice of my conscience". Camilo Mejia

In related AWOL news, AP Sues for Bush Guard Records  ¶ 12:36 AM 0 comments

  The Two Johns 
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  Concerns about the Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report The State Department has recently revised it's 2003 Global Terrorism Report. From the Washington Post:

New figures released yesterday by the Bush administration show dramatically higher terrorism casualties last year than the State Department documented in an April report that U.S. officials heralded as evidence of great progress in the battle against terrorism.

According to the 2003 Global Terrorism Report:

We have made significant progress in the two and one-half years since
the global war on terrorism began.

The pressing question is how is "significant progress" defined. If progress is defined by reducing the number of "Total International Terrorists Attacks" then some progress is being made. Even when the State Department numbers are adjusted, International Terrorists Attacks have generally been on the decline since 1991, with a sharp decline from 2001 to 2002. Even with the decline in attacks the number of fatalities is the highest since 1998. From the Post Article:

The revised figures show that more people were killed by terrorists last year than at any time since 1998, apart from 2001, when the Sept. 11 hijackings caused 2,973 deaths. Terrorist bombings and shootings left 3,646 people injured around the world -- more than in any year in the past six.

Once the number of attacks is viewed by region (here,pg.2)the war on terrorism starts to become less of a picture of success. As seen from the graph, the decline of terrorists attacks is found mostly in Africa and Latin America. What is most disturbing is that the number of terrorists attacks have risen in the Middle East. This is disturbing because clearly the Middle East has been the focus of the Administration when conducting the war on terror. Clearly it is difficult to define the war on terrorism as successful when the number of fatalities has risen as has the number of terrorists attacks in the main theater of operations, the Middle East.   ¶ 6:02 PM 0 comments

  'Straining at Gnats', Humphreys Job Numbers The Humphreys for Senate campaign has made the argument that 54,000 new jobs were created in Oklahoma City while Humphreys was mayor a central part of the campaign. However, as noted in a recent article in the Oklahoman, Humphreys 'overstated' the number of jobs created in Oklahoma City. As the article notes, the Humphreys campaign originally claimed to have created 54,000 jobs. The campaign now argues the number is closer to 38,000. That number may be overstated as well because it takes into account a greater area then just Oklahoma City. As the article notes:

However, the new number still greatly overstates the number of new jobs in the city over which Humphreys presided, because it accounts for employment in the entire Metropolitan Statistical Area. In the 2000 Census, the Oklahoma City MSA included six counties and cities such as Norman, Edmond, Midwest City, Moore, Guthrie and Shawnee.

Here is a map of the MSA areas in Oklahoma.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oklahoma City had 16,332 more jobs in October 2003 when Humphreys left office than it did in May 1998, when he became mayor.

People who would argue with him using job numbers for the metro area, he said, “are straining at gnats.”

In fact, even though the number of new jobs grew so did the unemployment rate.

In May 1998, Oklahoma City’s unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. By the time Humphreys left office last October, it had risen to 5.6 percent. For the metropolitan area, the unemployment rate rose from 3.7 percent to 5 percent in the same period.

Humphreys reply:

Humphreys said in an interview that the unemployment rate in Oklahoma City was still probably lower than it was statewide and in the entire nation.

The Numbers:

In October 2003 the unemployment rate for Oklahoma City (5.5) was about the same as it was for the entire state (5.7). The Oklahoma City rate was lower then the national unemployment rate which was 6.0 in October 2003.

It is interesting to note that in October 2003 Oklahoma county had the third highest unemployment rate of the seven surrounding counties.

Pottawatomie County: 6.1
Lincoln County: 5.9
Oklahoma County: 5.5
Canadian County: 4.7
Logan County: 4.4
Cleveland County: 3.6
Kingfisher County: 3.0

What does it all mean? Well, to be fair to Humphreys he is correct is saying that the unemployment rate in Oklahoma City when he left office (5.5) was lower then the national unemployment rate for that same month (6.0). However, is it not legitimate for Humphreys to claim credit for creating 38,000 new jobs, since that number takes into account cities and counties beyond Humphreys jurisdiction. It would be similar to Brad Henry claiming credit for new jobs in Texas.

The true jobs number that Humphreys could claim credit for is 16,000. Although it is good news any time new jobs are created, it needs to be pointed out that the number of new jobs did not keep pace with the growing labor force, this is evidenced by the growing unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployed workers in the labor force. To be considered as a part of the labor force individuals must be actively seeking employment. This means that the number of people actively seeking employment that could not find employment grew during Humphreys tenure. Humphreys may need to start straining at some other gnats and not rely on his "jobs record" to carry him through the primaries and to the Senate.   ¶ 12:33 AM 0 comments

  Rand Beers: Why I left the Bush administration This is an interview of former Bush adviser Rand Beers, distributed by the Kerry campaign.

An Interview with Rand Beers

After serving at the National Security Council at the White House during Republican and Democratic administrations, Rand Beers resigned as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Combating Terrorism in March 2003 to protest the Bush administration's loss of focus on the war on terrorism. Eight weeks later, he joined the Kerry Campaign as National Security/Homeland Security Issues Coordinator. He began his career as a Marine rifle company commander in Vietnam.

Was it a difficult decision to leave the Bush administration?

Rand Beers: It was an extraordinarily difficult decision for me to make. When you've worked with people for a number of years, you develop a sense of loyalty and camaraderie. But I feel strongly that if you're going to play a part in any government, you have to be one hundred percent committed. When I could not give that kind of commitment because of differences in philosophy and the administration's rush to war, I decided to leave.

After I left, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do, and came to the conclusion that rather than being part of the problem, which I was within the administration, I wanted to be part of the solution.

There were nine Democrats in the field when you joined the Kerry campaign. Why pick John Kerry over all the rest?

Rand Beers: I joined John Kerry's campaign because I knew about his record in the Senate, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I knew that he cared about the changing security environment that the world was facing. And one of his former staffers, Jonathan Winer, worked for me as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department, so I had a good appreciation of the kinds of issues and concerns that John Kerry was passionate about.

I also admire Senator Kerry because of his Vietnam experience. Like him, I served in Vietnam. Like him, I went back for a second tour after having spent a full year there. Like him, I came back to the United States deeply concerned that our efforts in Vietnam had gone off track. I was drawn to John Kerry because of our similar experiences, plus the knowledge that individuals who have served in combat have an important perspective when they make decisions about war and peace

What steps do we need to take to restore U.S. authority and leadership in the world?

Rand Beers: It's absolutely essential that the next president, from his first day in office, makes a major effort to reach out to countries around the world. We need to return to the kind of dialogue that is necessary to knit together relationships and alliances into meaningful coalitions, to deal with the problems around the globe. If you're not prepared to listen, as well as talk, then it's much harder to bring other countries together for common purposes and common solutions.

What lessons from history can we apply to fighting the war on terror?

Rand Beers: I think that the major lesson from history is that if we do not work together with allies around the world, we are going to be unable to prevent terrorists from attacking us and hurting us. We will never have a perfect defense; but we will be stronger and more secure with strong allies.

Second, we need to adapt our capabilities to the new threats we face. Terrorism was previously a secondary concern not only for the United States but for most countries. The face of terrorism is ever-changing and evolving. We're going to have to look at our military forces, our intelligence forces, and our law enforcement community, both within the United States and globally, to make sure that we have the right kind of people, the right kind of capabilities, and the right kind of skills in order to deal with these new threats.

We also have to dry up support and sympathy for al-Qaeda in the Islamic world. We have to reinforce the perception in the Islamic world that the kind of activity and behavior that al-Qaeda engages in is unrepresentative of the religion as a whole. This will take time and considerable effort, but it's a mission that we must participate in with the Islamic world and other members of the international community.

How will a John Kerry presidency differ from a George Bush Presidency, in terms of foreign policy, the war on terrorism, and Iraq?

Rand Beers: John Kerry presented a very clear set of differences in his speech in Seattle last Thursday. First, he would return to the alliance structure that has stood so well since the second World War. Those alliances need to be updated, strengthened and refocused for a post 9/11 world, so that organizations such as NATO are no longer confined in their vision.

Second, John Kerry will ensure that we have the kind of military that's necessary for security missions. We must have more than just a force that is capable of fighting conventional wars. We also must have the skills and capabilities that will allow us to deal with failed states, terrorism, and threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, especially keeping them away from terrorists.

Third, John Kerry will use all the tools in our foreign policy arsenal. We will emphasize the use of diplomacy, which the Bush administration has put in cold storage. We need better intelligence capabilities and better use of economic power, our ideas, and our values.

Finally, we need to become energy independent, so our foreign policy isn't distorted by our dependence on Middle East oil.

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