Al Qaeda's Message Spreading Through English-Language Sites

Thursday, November 19, 2009
 

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RIYADH,Saudi Arabia —  Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading Al Qaeda's message to Muslims in the West.

They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.

The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.

"The point is you don't have to be an official part of Al Qaeda to spread hatred and sectarian views," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.

"If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it's not training manuals on building bombs," Kohlmann said. "The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official Al Qaeda members."

Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by Al Qaeda, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said.

The number of English-language sites sympathetic to Al Qaeda has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.

In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said.

Al Qaeda has long tried to reach a Western audience. Videotaped messages from its leader, Usama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri usually have English subtitles. But translations of writings and sermons that form the theological grounding for Al Qaeda's ideology, along with preachers like al-Awlaki, mostly eliminate the language barrier.

Al-Awlaki's sermons have turned up on the computers of nearly every homegrown terror suspect arrested in the United States, Kohlmann said.

Members of a group of Canadian Muslims arrested in 2006 for allegedly forming a training camp and plotting bombing attacks in Toronto listened to his online calls for jihad, according to the case against them in court. According to prosecutors, an al-Awlaki sermon on jihad was among the numerous materials — including videos of beheadings — found on the computers of five men convicted in December of plotting attacks on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.

On his Web site and in widely circulated lectures, the 38-year-old al-Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen, often calls on Muslims to fight against the United States, accusing it of waging war on Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nidal Hasan, who has been charged in the Fort Hood shootings, contacted al-Awlaki nearly a year ago. In an interview published in The Washington Post, al-Awlaki said he did not pressure Hasan to carry out the shooting, but after the attack, al-Awlaki praised him as a hero. U.S. investigators have said Hasan appears to have acted alone, not on orders from anyone, when he opened fire Nov. 5 at the Texas military base, killing 13.

The cleric met two of the 9/11 hijackers at mosques where he preached in the United States, and after his return to Yemen he was detained for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping gang. Yemeni officials released him because they could not confirm an Al Qaeda link, but they say they are hunting for him again on suspicion he may have ties.

U.S. intelligence officials declined comment on the spread of English-language jihadist Web sites.

Such sites are expected to follow closely the upcoming trials of Hasan and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being a top architect of the 9/11 attacks, said Rita Katz, head of the U.S. based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows on line militant traffic. The Obama administration announced this week that Mohammed and four others will be put on trial in New York City.

Almushawah said clerics like al-Awlaki are "more dangerous than any other group." And if these clerics are jailed, "it's no big loss for Al Qaeda because they don't belong to the network," he said.

Many of the sites post speeches by English-speaking clerics like al-Awlaki or, more often, translations of sermons and lectures by Arabic-speaking clerics.

One site, the Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad links to sermons by al-Awlaki, alongside English versions of speeches by some of the top sheikhs of jihadist ideology — even some who are dead like Abdullah Azzam.

The proliferation of sites in English means "potential jihadists can know only their native language and still be radicalized," Katz said.

While al-Awlaki has become popular, "other, more prominent and influential Arabic-speaking jihadist sheikhs ... have had their works and speeches translated into English and other languages. Their works tend to be used more often by the jihadist community to justify violence," she said in an e-mail interview. Al-Awlaki "fills a void in that he can directly interact, understand and communicate with English-speaking jihadists in a way that Arabic-speaking clerics cannot."

Almushawah says most of the servers for the sites are in Britain, but they can be run from anywhere and most of them are operated and receive content from the U.S. Most of the clerics who appear on them are in the Arab world with some in France and England.

U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the spread of English language sites and their influence.

Saudi Arabia set up its Assakeena program after authorities found that 70 percent of Al Qaeda sympathizers were drawn to the group through the Internet. In the campaign, government-backed preachers monitor 400 radical Islamic web sites and inject a more moderate message on the sites.

The campaigners also directly contact and dialogue with militants they encounter on the Web, conversations that can take weeks or months. Of 2,631 militants contacted by the group, 1,170 withdrew their support for radicals, according to the campaign. About a fifth of the militants were from Europe and North American, and the rest from Arab countries.

Assakeena — the name is Arabic for "Tranquility from God" — is part of other hearts-and-minds programs the kingdom launched to complement its crackdown on Al Qaeda after the group carried out a series of attacks on foreigners and oil infrastructure in 2004.

Folks, recently I received an email from Curt Dalton who, as you know, has been a blogger from the beginning, and a respected one.  His news was tragic and while I wanted to share it with all of you, I wanted Curts permission first and just received it. 

This is the permission email....

Nancy - 

This is the original message........

"Recently, those who are REALLY close to us have noticed a subtle change in the e-mails from Leslie's and my accounts.  Some have even called to ask:  What the heck is going on? 

Well, my friends, I am very sick.  

I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  While I AM very sick,  I want each and every one of you to know you are still very important to me ... That is why I have written this letter to you.  I do not want you to think I do not care for you and I want you to know that even in this time of trouble in my life, I still care very deeply for you.  While this is a "mass" e-mail, the love and feelings I have for you are as genuine as they could possibly be.

In the coming weeks, things will be undergoing some profound changes and it may be impossible for me to respond to you in an individual manner, but please rest assured, you are in my thoughts and I honestly wish I could sit down with each and every one of you and have a beer and tell you how very important you are to me and have been to me through my life.  

Thank you for being my friend.  If you want to call, please give us a call on our home phone number.  If for some silly reason you don't have our number, shoot me an e-mail and I'll get the phone number out to you as soon as possible!

My love to you all... 

------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- --

I don't know if Curt will approve of me posting his actual words but I did anyway.  He is such a great person and this is such a tragedy. 

Live from New York, a terror trial we'll regret

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 18, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

AS A CANDIDATE for president in 2004, Senator John Kerry described international terrorism as "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation," and urged voters to think of deadly jihadist violence as merely "a nuisance" that we need "to reduce," but that "we're never going to end" -- akin, he said, to gambling or prostitution.

Kerry lost that election, and the Bush administration's very different approach -- treating terrorist attacks as acts of war, not criminal violations -- continued for four more years. Pre-empting terror in advance, not prosecuting it after the fact, remained the overriding priority. Counterterrorism efforts under George W. Bush were aggressive and they drew much criticism. But whatever else might be said about them, there was no repeat of the 9/11 catastrophe on American soil during Bush's presidency.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 atrocities, is to be tried before a civilian jury in federal court in Manhattan

But Obama also said that "detainees who violate the laws of war" would be "tried through military commissions," the time-honored venue for prosecuting wartime enemies. And come what may, the president vowed, he would not release the most dangerous detainees of all -- those who "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans . . . people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States."

If that description fits anyone, it is surely Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the unrepentant mastermind of the 9/11 slaughter and an avowed enemy of the United States.

Mohammed and his al-Qaeda co-conspirators, led by Bin Laden, made war against America while committing horrendous war crimes -- above all, the deliberate, unprovoked murder of thousands of innocent civilians. The place to try such war criminals is before the military commissions Congress created for that purpose, commissions that even Obama acknowledged "have a long tradition in the United States" and "are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war." The administration's decision to transfer Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters from Guantanamo to New York City, and to put them on trial in a civilian court as if they were ordinary criminals, seems completely inconsistent with the president's earlier assurances. It is also inconsistent with the announcement that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of planning the deadly attack in 2000 on the USS Cole, will be tried by a military commission.

But worse than inconsistent, the administration's action is reckless.

As defendants in federal court, the al-Qaeda prisoners will be entitled to the full panoply of due-process rights, including the right to discovery of all of the government's information about them, where that information came from, and the methods by which it was obtained.

"Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials," writes former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy. "They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses -- intelligence sources -- must expose themselves and their secrets."

McCarthy should know. He was the prosecutor of Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheikh" put on trial after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Though Rahman was eventually convicted and is serving a life sentence, the government was required to supply defense lawyers with intelligence details, including a sensitive list of 200 potential co-conspirators -- people the government knew about, but didn't have enough evidence to charge. Within days, those names had found their way to Sudan and were in the possession of bin Laden, an intelligence windfall that strengthened his ability to wage jihad against the United States.

No good can come from blurring the distinction between conventional crimes and acts of war. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates are enemies of the United States seized in wartime, not members of our society who have run afoul of our laws. It is easy to see what al-Qaeda gains from a New York trial: a powerful propaganda platform and the forced disclosure of American secrets. Will it take another 9/11 to remind Americans how much they stand to lose?

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

-- ## --

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Is the feud over?  Cooling?  Warming?   Did the bad publicity finally get to him?

http://www.google.com/hoste...

This is a clip of his interview with Bill O'Reilly.  "CNN Doesn't embrace controversy, it's a miracle he lasted as long as he did."

http://video.foxnews.com/11...

Will some of you be able to listen to this with an open mind and take the man at his word?  I know some formed their opinions the day it was announced he was leaving CNN but notice that he did not badmouth ANYONE, just that CNN wanted to go in another direction.

Obama and 'The Great I Am'

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 14, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was "a painful barrier between family and friends" that symbolized "a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being." He referred to "tyranny," but never identified the tyrants -- he never uttered the words "Soviet Union" or "communism," for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan -- or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.

"Few would have foreseen," declared the president, "that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for "Ich bin ein Berliner," still less another "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn't be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made "destiny" of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called "The Great I Am," regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many "I's" in his prepared remarks. Ronald Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn't mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was "peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies."

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.

"I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that . . . I'm a better political director than my political director."

At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal "we" -- "We will build the roads and bridges . . . We will restore science to its rightful place . . . We will harness the sun and winds," he declaimed at his inauguration.

But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, "By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked 'I': 'As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.' 'I called for action.' 'I pushed for quick action.' 'I have told each of my cabinet.' 'I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.' 'I refuse to let that happen.' 'I will not spend a single penny.' 'I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.' 'I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half.'" In his speech on the federal takeover of GM, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. ("Congress" he mentioned just once.)

At this rate, it won't be long before the president's ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own.

Then again, how modest would any of us be if we were as magnificent as Obama knows himself to be? "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assemblyof the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." in September, "

In 1860, writes Doris Kearns Goodwin in her celebrated biography Team of Rivals, an author wishing to dedicate his forthcoming work to Abraham Lincoln received this answer: "I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect."

Obama has often claimed Lincoln as a role model. Apparently it only goes so far.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

-- ## --

Enjoy.  They only have two left after today.  Here's the schedule.

http://www.gobulldogs.com/s...

The first marijuana coffee shop (?) opens in Oregon.  What's next?  Cocaine Happy Houses?

http://www.foxnews.com/stor...

It will be interesting to see just how far Obama "lenient" policy lasts now.

Couldn't find Ask the CA so I'm asking you folks.  Anyone know?

'Don't call people bigots just because you disagree with them'

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 11, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

ON ELECTION DAY, voters in Maine repealed a six-month-old state law authorizing same-sex marriage. Maine was the 31^st state in which the legal definition of marriage was put to a vote, and the 31^st in which voters rejected gay marriage. And once again, the response from many on the losing side was bitter.

"Bigotry trumps compassion," wrote commentator Michael Stone, calling the vote "a shameful display of ignorance, bigotry, and hate." In the Maine Campus, the newspaper of the University of Maine, columnist Samantha Hansen denounced the voters who "let hatred, confusion, misinformation, and ignorance emerge victorious over liberty." An Associated Press story on the election results quoted Cecelia Burnett, who was despondent at the voters' refusal to redefine marriage to include gay and lesbian relationships. "I don't understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change," she said.

When it will occur to supporters of same-sex marriage that they do their cause no good by characterizing those who disagree with them as haters, bigots, and ignorant homophobes? It may be emotionally satisfying to despise as moral cripples the majorities who oppose gay marriage. But after going 0 for 31 -- after failing to make the case for same-sex marriage even to voters in such liberal and largely gay-friendly states as California, Wisconsin, Oregon, and now Maine -- isn't it time to stop caricaturing their opponents as the equivalent of Jim Crow-era segregationists? Wouldn't it make more sense to concede that thoughtful voters can have reasonable concerns about gay marriage, concerns that will not be allayed by describing those voters as contemptible troglodytes?

I oppose same-sex marriage for reasons I have explored in previous columns. I think it would be reckless to jettison the understanding, as old as civilization itself, that society has a deep interest in promoting families anchored by a married man and woman. It seems to me nonsensical to claim that men and women are utterly interchangeable, or to deny that children are likeliest to thrive when they are raised by both a mother and a father. I believe that timeless moral standards must not be casually overturned, and that doing so is apt to have unintended and unfortunate consequences. And I am sure that legalizing same-sex wedlock would fuel demands for further radical change -- legalizing plural marriage, for example.

But strongly opposing gay marriage doesn't mean I can't understand why many people just as strongly favor it. I can sympathize with committed gay and lesbian couples who feel demeaned by the law's rejection of same-sex marriage, or who crave the proof of societal acceptance, the cloak of normalcy, that a marriage license would provide. I don't regard the redefinition of marriage as a civil rights issue; nor do I buy the argument that laws barring same-sex marriage are comparable to the laws that once barred interracial marriage. But I recognize that many people -- sincere and decent people -- do. By my lights they are mistaken, not evil.

Why do so many same-sex marriage advocates find it so hard to see marriage traditionalists in the same light?

In a recent paper for the Heritage Foundation, Thomas Messner surveys the "naked animus" that was directed against supporters of Proposition 8, the California marriage amendment that voters approved last year. His meticulously footnoted study makes chilling reading, with example after example of the blacklisting, vandalism, intimidation, loss of employment, anti-religious hostility, and even death threats to which backers of Prop 8 were subjected.

Of course not all proponents of same-sex marriage display such vehement intolerance toward those who insist that the purpose of marriage is to unite male and female. But far too many do to shrug it off as insignificant. And voters don't have to be paranoid to wonder: If this is the kind of abuse that opponents of gay marriage can be subjected to now, how much more intolerance will dissenters face if gay marriage becomes the law of the land?

After 31 losses in 31 states, it's time for same-sex marriage activists to seriously consider a piece of advice that Barney Frank offered a few years ago. "There's something to be said for cultural respect," the nation's most prominent gay political figure said in 2004. "Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don't call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them."

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

-- ## --

Follow Jeff Jacoby on Twitter.

Join the Fans of Jeff Jacoby on Facebook.

Related Topics:  Initiative and Referendum, National Politics, Same-sex marriage

This was sent to me by a fellow blogger.  I sent it on to everyone I know and a couple of bloggers suggested I post it here.  It sure sums it up folks.  Thanks to our great blogger who shared it with me..he knows who he is.

Random Thoughts for the Day:

 1.    I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

 2.   Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

 3.   I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

 4.   There is great need for a sarcasm font.

 5.   How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

 6.   Was learning cursive really necessary?

 7.   Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5.  I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

 8.   Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

 9.   I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10.   Bad decisions make good stories.

11.   You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12.   Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray?   I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13.   I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14.   "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this --  ever.

15.   I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16.   I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day.  What a waste.

17.   I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18.   My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the heck do I respond to that?

19.   I think the freezer deserves a light as well...

20.   I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given night more kisses begin with cocktails than with Kay.



 

I woke up at 4am ish this morning and kept laying there hoping I was wrong about the time.  Rolled over and look and sure enough, by then it was 4:30, cold and dark.  I wallowed around in bed until 5 then couldn't take it anymore and got up.  My heater thermostat isn't set to come on til 6 and since I'm tying to conserve resources I don't change it when I get up.  I just put on a fuzzy robe, fuzzy wooly pants, and sock with slippers.

Now I understand that this is great for parents with kids in school because it's easier to get them to bed at night and up in the morning but for some of us who are retired it's miserable.

By 8:30 at night I'm ready for bed but have to fight it or I'd be awake at 2:30 instead of 4:30.  I doze a lot, missing half of a show and fooling myself into thinking that dozing on the couch isn't the same as going to bed early.  Sometimes I think that, since there's nothing on TV, and my feet are chilly, that I'll get in bed with the electric blanket and read.  Sure, like THAT's going to happen.  I last about 15 minutes.

I yearn for the long days and short evenings when I things I can do outside or errands I can run later in the evening without the shroud of darkness.  I miss the early morning hours when it's still cool and I can watch the sun come up.  Outside.  I miss waking up and seeing the clock strike 6 am and not 4. 

Ahhh, if only we could keep the hours of summer and they daytime temp of fall.  Now that would be paradise.

This one is televised.

First of two parts

TWO THINGS supporters of a government-run "public option" for health insurance know for sure. One is that private health insurers are raking in obscenely high profits. The other is that only a government rival can force them to compete on price.

In a clever new commercial featuring Heather Graham as an agile sprinter named "Public Option," the left-wing pressure group MoveOn combines both themes, describing insurance companies as "lazy" and "bloated from the profits of raising our health care costs sky-high." Why, it asks, should anyone resist the competition a public option would generate? After all, "competition is as American as apple pie." In a less amusing print ad a few weeks ago, MoveOn charged that "insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up, as long as their profits are safe."

President Obama also attacks health insurers as avaricious profiteers.

"The insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform," he declared on Oct. 16, "even as costs continue to rise and our health-care dollars continue to be poured into their profits (and) bonuses." When he addressed Congress in September, Obama insisted that only a public option will "keep insurance companies honest." On the White House Blog, ObamaCare opponents are accused of "fighting to protect insurance industry profits."

Indeed, there is no shortage of voices characterizing health insurers as greedy villains. Earlier this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised her party for highlighting "the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry." On CNN last week, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown demanded a public option "so the insurance industry can't continue to game the system and discriminate" against women and the disabled -- tactics insurers have used to "quadruple their profits in the last five years." If quadrupled profits don't seem rapacious enough, the union-backed Health Care for American Now! ups the ante, claiming, according to the AFL-CIO's news blog, that "during the past five years, health insurance company profits have soared by 1,000 percent."

Outbidding them all is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Health insurance companies "are so anti-competitive," he said last month, "because they make more money than any other business in America today."

To such overheated agitprop, the only useful response is a cold shower of facts, and the Associated Press supplied a timely one last week. For all the impassioned talk about obscene profits and bodies piling up, AP's Calvin Woodward reported, "health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent" of revenues, a return "that's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries."

On the Fortune 500 list of top industries, health insurance companies ranked 35^th in profitability in 2008; their overall profit margin was a mere 2.2 percent. They lagged far behind such industries as pharmaceuticals (which showed a profit margin of 19.3 percent), railroads (12.6 percent), and mining (11.5 percent). Among health insurers, the best performer last year was HealthSpring, which had a profit of 5.4 percent. "That's a less profitable margin," AP noted, "that was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach, and Molson and Coors beers."

For the most recent quarter of 2009, health-insurance plans earned profits of only 3.3 percent, ranking them 86^th on the expanded Yahoo! Finance list of US industries. The application-software industry, by contrast, is pulling in profits of nearly 22 percent. Why aren't MoveOn and the Democrats demanding a "public option" to compete with Microsoft and Adobe and drive down their "immoral" profits?

There are certainly industries doing worse than health insurance -- airlines and newspapers, for example -- but the notion that health insurers "make more money than any other business in America today" is preposterous. Advocates of a public option may find it tactically expedient to paint insurers as insatiable predators, swollen with ill-gotten profits. The reality is otherwise.

Still, the critics do have one thing right: More competition would bring down health-care premiums. But the way to increase competition is not by adding a government-run health plan to the 1,300 private firms already providing Americans with health insurance. After all, there's no public option for auto insurance and life insurance, yet they're sold in a highly competitive national market. There is no reason health insurance can't be sold the same way.

Next: More competition, less government

The public's best option: Less government, more choice

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 4, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

Second of two parts (Read Part 1 here).

"MY GUIDING PRINCIPLE is and always has been that consumers do better when there is choice and competition." So said President Obama in his address to Congress on health care, making an argument for a government-run "public option" to sell health insurance that many Democrats have echoed.

In 34 states, Obama noted, three-fourths of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. "Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down." But add a public option "administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare," he said, and competition would revive.

No, it wouldn't.

A government-run health insurer would radically tilt the health-insurance playing field. It would amount to a new entitlement program, able to undercut the price of private insurance by squeezing hospitals and doctors, reimbursing them at below-market rates. "Just like Medicaid and Medicare," which also underpay medical providers, the public option would force hospitals and doctors to charge private insurers more. Those insurers, in turn, would be compelled to raise their premiums, eventually losing millions of customers to the government plan.

Obama and other Democrats insist that any public option would have to be self-supporting, properly balancing its premiums and risk and not expecting the government to cover its losses. Sound familiar? The same assurances were made about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business," the president insists now. As a US Senate candidate in 2003, he sang a different tune: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. . . . But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately." Has he changed his mind? Or only his talking points?

More competition among health insurers is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But there are far better ways to get there than a public option.

Here are three:

■ Tear down the barriers to buying health insurance across state lines. Under federal law, states are permitted to regulate "the business of insurance" as they see fit, and most of them have seen fit to allow the sale only of insurance policies licensed by their own state insurance commissions. As a consequence, there is no competitive national market for health insurance; there are 50 state markets instead, most of which are dominated by a handful of insurers. This, says Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, is the "original sin" of health insurance regulation.

When it comes to almost any other product or service, Americans would find a ban on interstate commerce and competition intolerable: Imagine being told that you could buy a car or a computer only if it was manufactured in your state. Consumers in the market for a mortgage are free to do business with an out-of-state lender; those in the market for health insurance should be equally free to do business with an out-of-state insurer.

■ Repeal mandatory benefits that make health insurance needlessly expensive. Compounding the lack of interstate competition is the way states drive up the cost of health insurance by making certain types of coverage compulsory. Consumers and insurers should be free to work out for themselves just how comprehensive or limited a policy should be. But state mandates prevent such flexibility by requiring insurance companies to sell a fixed array of benefits that many customers may not want. Individuals seeking plain-vanilla health insurance -- a policy that will cover them, say, in case of major surgery or catastrophic illness -- may find themselves forced to pay for a policy that also covers acupuncture, in vitro fertilization, alcoholism therapy, and a dozen additional treatments.

When compulsion takes the place of competition, the result is invariably less choice at higher cost.

■ De-link health insurance from employment. Nothing distorts America's health insurance market like the misbegotten tax preference for employer-sponsored health insurance. Until that preference is removed, tens of millions of Americans will continue to rely on their employers' health plan instead of buying health insurance for themselves, they way they buy every other type of insurance. Fix the tax code, and no longer could insurance companies routinely bypass employees and deal only with their employers. Instead there would be intensive competition for individual customers -- and the lower premiums such competition would yield.

Yes, Mr. President, consumers do benefit from choice and competition. The key to both is not more government regulation and control, but less.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

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Anyone have any idea why, now that I had to reinstall Vista, that every time I try to copy and paste Windows shuts down and restarts?

All my keystrokes and features are ginched up but the sutting down thing is a PAIN!

From time to time people start a blog where we can put poetry or short essays we'vre written.  Please feel free to post yours here.

Bear in mind if there are ANY negative comments here or off topic, they will be deleted.  This is a place to share poetry and prose.

Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash with Wylie Post in 1935

Even if he didn't say all of them, it's still good advice.

 Enjoy the following:
1.  Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2.  Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3.  There are 2 theories to arguing with a woman...neither works.
4.  Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5.  Always drink upstream from the herd.
6.  If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7.  The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.
8.  There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading.  The few who learn by observation.  The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

9.  Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10.  If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11.  Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12.  After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring.  He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.  The moral:
When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

I posted this on a blog here but will be removing it.  I shouldn't have highjacked another blog to show it. 

I am SO fed up with the barbs from the left about how the right hates this and the right hates that when all the whil the left is spewing bile like an overflowing garbage disposal.  First example below.

"Tell ya what fellas, when you guys start admitting that the "hate" talk isn't just on the right, I'll start believing one or two things you say.  Your credibilty is shot when you don't admit things like this.

"Florida Democrat Alan Grayson has a reputation for inflammatory rhetoric, but he took it even further when showing his disdain for Federal Reserve senior advisor Linda Robertson by calling her a "K Street whore" in a recent radio interview.

"This lobbyist, this K street whore, is trying to teach me about economics," Mr. Grayson fumed in a segment for a radio program hosted by Alex Jones on the Genesis Communications Network.
"This K street whore is trying to teach me about economics," Mr. Jones repeated back to the congressman. "Who was that particular K street whore?"

"I don't remember her name," Mr. Grayson, who once worked as an economist and conveyed he did not feel Ms. Robertson was qualified to lecture Congress on financial matters, said. "This was several month ago, but you can look it up, the lobbyist who was the head lobbyist for Enron was hired with our taxpayer money to try and spend this office effort to try and get transparency at the Federal Reserve."

Mr. Jones confirmed later in his show, Mr. Grayson was referring to Ms. Robertson. A short and a long form version of the audio clip have been uploaded to YouTube.

Mr. Grayson's spokesman Todd Jurkowski declined to comment on the exchange when asked by the Washington Times for clarification."

I heard he apologized...I guess that makes it ok but only if a Dem apologies.  If  Rep apologies he still gets ripped apart.