$100 Oil May Mean Recession as U.S. Economy Hits ‘Danger Zone’

Simon Kennedy and Joe Richter
Bloomberg
November 13, 2007

Rising fuel prices that businesses and consumers took in stride earlier this year may now be near the point of pushing the weakened U.S. economy into recession.

“We are in a danger zone,” says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight Inc. and a former Federal Reserve economist. “It would take two shocks to bring the economy to its knees. We got one shock in the form of the credit crunch. Oil could be that second shock.”

Crude-oil prices are poised to cross the $100-a-barrel mark while the U.S. economy is still reeling from a surge in corporate borrowing costs. Europe and Japan are vulnerable as well, after the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse contaminated their credit markets.

Even before the latest jump in energy costs, economists expected U.S. growth to slow to less than 2 percent in the fourth quarter — half the third quarter’s pace. Andrew Cates, an economist at UBS AG in London, said his models suggest a 45 percent chance of a U.S. recession next year, up from 33 percent last month, as oil prices prove a “growing concern.”

Japan risks its fourth recession since the early 1990s, with its index of leading economic indicators falling to zero for the first time in a decade. The European Commission last week cut its 2008 growth forecast for the 13 nations that share the euro to 2.2 percent from 2.5 percent, partly because of costlier crude. The economy grew 2.8 percent last year.

Energy Efficiency

The world economy may still dodge recession as emerging markets continue to expand. A report last week by Deutsche Bank AG said gains in energy efficiency mean the effect of more expensive oil will “remain muted.”

Even so, gloom is spreading at a speed that suggests “we’re walking a really fine line,” says John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Even a month ago, you probably wouldn’t have thought we’d be seeing a sustained credit problem and oil holding up above $85 a barrel.”

Crude oil traded at a record $98.62 last week on the New York Mercantile Exchange and ended the week at $96.32, bringing its increase this year to 58 percent. Prices adjusted for inflation exceed the previous record, set in 1981 when Iran cut exports.

The dilemma for central banks is how to balance oil’s drag on their economies against the risk of higher inflation. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress Nov. 8 that oil prices threaten both “renewed upward pressure” on inflation and “further restraint on growth.”

Accelerating Inflation

Such concerns prompted the European Central Bank to keep interest rates on hold last week, and President Jean-Claude Trichet said he still sees a danger that inflation will accelerate.

Clayton Jones, chief executive officer at Rockwell Collins Inc., says central bankers should err on the side of supporting growth. Jones, whose Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based company makes aircraft-cockpit instruments, said in an interview that he’s “much more worried about recessionary impacts rather than inflationary impacts.”

Manufacturers are among the first to feel the pinch: Rising energy prices are increasing their costs while drooping consumer and business confidence erodes demand.

In the U.S., the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell to a seven-month low in October as gauges of orders and production declined.

Lower Profits

Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc., the world’s biggest maker of bulldozers and excavators, cut its profit forecast on Oct. 19 and said the economy would be “near to, or even in, recession” in 2008.

The pain doesn’t stop there. Rising jet-fuel prices are forcing airlines to curtail expansion plans. Chicago-based UAL Corp.’s United Airlines said it may cut capacity in 2008 to make up for higher fuel costs. Cologne-based Deutsche Lufthansa AG is raising fuel surcharges on long-haul flights.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. is “reconsidering our growth rate for next year,” because of “very significant” cost increases, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said Nov. 7.

Meanwhile, U.S. shoppers, who helped propel most of the current expansion, may cut back as gasoline and home-heating costs rise. Retail-sales growth from November through January may be the slowest since 2002, consultant Ernst & Young estimates. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

‘A Huge, Real Shock’

Fuel costs are “a huge, real shock” to consumers, says Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC and a professor at New York University. “High oil prices are going to remain with us until we go into a recession.”

Europe’s manufacturers are contending not only with increased energy costs but also the euro’s rise to a record against the dollar, which is hobbling exports.

An index of manufacturing growth in Europe dropped to the lowest level in more than two years in October, and confidence among executives in Germany fell to a 20-month low.

Morgan Stanley’s model of activity in the euro zone is now flashing the “risk of manufacturing recession,” according to Chief European Economist Eric Chaney, a former official at the French ministry of finance. He says the area’s economy may run close to its “stall speed” of about 1 percent in the first quarter, and “oil is not making things easier.”

Biggest Decline

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, the world’s largest maker of printing machines, last week reported its quarterly profit dropped by almost half, triggering the biggest decline in its shares since 2004. “Energy and raw-material costs have made life difficult,” says Dirk Kaliebe, chief financial officer of the Heidelberg, Germany-based company.

The pain extends to China and India as governments pare energy subsidies, putting more of the burden on companies and consumers. China increased fuel prices by as much as 10 percent Nov. 1, and India may follow as soon as this week.

“The stage is set for a significant slowdown in global manufacturing,” says Joseph Lupton, a former Fed economist now at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which predicts industrial-production growth worldwide will decelerate by more than half before the end of this year, to about 3 percent.

The speed of the latest jump in oil prices tests the resilience of economies that weathered previous increases, says David Hale, president of Chicago-based Hale Advisors LLC.

“We’ve had stages in which the price has gone up over a period of two or three years,” he told a Nov. 7 teleconference. “The recent price spike from $85 to $96 has happened in just a few weeks, so this will pose more of a risk.”

The longer prices remain high, the greater the threat, says Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Holdings Inc. in New York.

While Soss doesn’t expect a recession, he compares the danger to “driving on an icy road: You may get away with it for a while, but the risk of having an accident has gone up.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center presents 9/11 sites alongside radical Jihadist sites to House Hearing on “Terrorism and the Internet”

911Blogger
November 13, 2007

On Tuesday, November 6, 2007, a House Homeland Security Subcommittee had a hearing on “Terrorism and the Internet”. The hearing featured presentations from several groups, including the RAND Corporation, and Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The hearing was chaired by Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, and ranking Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert.

Toward the end of the hearing, Weitzman rolls out a PowerPoint presentation that presents a few 9/11 truth sites sandwiched in between websites that offer training in terrorist tactics, and a website that glorified the attack of 9/11. Among the websites presented under the heading “Internet: Incubator of 9/11 Conpiracies and Disinformation”, are Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and other sites, such as Killtown’s, who brought this Hearing to our attention.

Now, we wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea here. Here at 911blogger we are opposed to any and all terrorist activities, including STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM. Don’t really care who the state is either. It’s all bad.

Californians, if Harman is your representative, please set her straight. Washington state, if Reichert is your critter, don’t let him absorb this crap with no static.

CSPAN has been more than fair to 9/11 skeptics. Last year they broadcast Alex Jones’ American Scholars Symposium, in 2005, they broadcast David Ray Griffin, and they will probably listen to feedback regarding this broadcast.

View the hearing as a video stream here — the pertinent section begins at the 43:31 mark, but I recommend watching the entire program, because there is so much disinformation in the broadcast itself, it’s hard to know where to begin unraveling it.

Homeland Security - Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_…

Please ask the Simon Wiesthenthal Center (Mark Weitzman in particular) to stop conflating terrorist violence with 9/11 truth, and even though he has not extended the courtesy to us, be polite;

U.S. Intelligence Official: Privacy Is a Soviet Style Bureaucracy That Knows Everything About You

Cryptogon
November 12th, 2007

In other words, anonymity is out, but trust us to implement, “a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured.”

You can already see where this is going: We don’t want to do this, but the terrorists give us no choice. Besides, you have no anonymity anyway. (Read the full transcript.)

This isn’t a question of some theoretical, far out situation in the future.

It’s built. Done. Operational:

NSA, AT&T and the NarusInsight Intercept Suite

Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation

AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance

Mark Klein on AT&T/NSA Domestic Surveillance Program: “The NSA is Getting Everything.”

The Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity

Anyone who doubts it hasn’t been paying attention.

Via: Arstechnica:

Donald Kerr, a top intelligence official with the US government, says that citizens need to change their definition of privacy to match the government’s definition, the AP reports. Appointed Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 2005, Kerr is now the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Kerr is one of many in the intelligence community who finds Americans’ views on privacy to be antiquated and unreasonable.

Kerr echoes the view that privacy is not synonymous with anonymity. Americans who want to see anonymity at the center of privacy policies need to give up this notion, he says. “Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it’s an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture… but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity - or the appearance of anonymity - is quickly becoming a thing of the past,” Kerr said according to a PDF transcript of his comments.

Americans need to shift their definition of privacy to center instead on the proper maintenance and protection of personal data by government and business entities. Kerr said that “privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.”

Deputy Director of National Intelligence: Kiss the Fourth Goodbye

Kurt Nimmo TruthNews November 11, 2007

It’s now official: the American version of Stasi is in control of the horizontal and vertical.

“As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy,” reports the Associated Press. ” Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.”

Once upon a time, “government rules” abode the law, that is to say the Constitution, specifically the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Now? Spooks—or as the Associated Press deems it, “intelligence officials”—have declared the Fourth Amendment to be a dead letter because privacy “no longer can mean anonymity,” as you must be tracked and traced continually in the name of national security, that is to say “security” from government created terrorists and phantoms.

“Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms,” Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Associated Press (a government “intelligence” asset under Operation Mocking Bird). “The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together.”

Especially when government is doing this with the participation of business.

Once upon a time, when a lot more people read books and had at least a rudimentary understanding of government and history, this partnership was viewed skeptically.

Indeed, it was called by its appropriate name—fascism.

Ministry Of Truth Helpfully Redefines Privacy

Chris Weigant
Huffington Post
November 12, 2007

A United States Ministry of Truth spokesman proudly unveiled the new official definition of “privacy” today, on the heels of their successful campaign to redefine “torture.” The new meaning of the word “privacy” will now be (according to MiniTru): “the secure feeling citizens get by knowing that their government is collecting and protecting their personal data.” Old definitions of privacy will no longer be operative.

The MiniTru spokesman was quite enthusiastic about the definition rollout. “For generations Americans have been burdened by the responsibility of guarding their own privacy,” he said. “This was too great a task for the public to adequately control, so the logical answer was to have the government take over this onerous work, to better serve each citizen’s private life. No longer will Americans have to worry about their own privacy, because now Big Brother will take care of it for them.”

OK, I made those quotes up, I admit. But I’m sad to say I didn’t make up the story itself. Both the AP and the New York Times have stories about principal deputy director of national intelligence Donald Kerr’s recent speech [PDF transcript] to the Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Here are some of the quotes from Kerr:

“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety.”

. . .

“Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity, but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity — or the appearance of anonymity — is quickly becoming a thing of the past.”

When asked to elaborate on the “privacy does not equal anonymity” implications, Kerr responded:

It’s a really good question because, in fact, it’s a personal question that everyone, in a way, has to answer for themselves. But I think today, you know, I’m willing to call up, pick the vendor of your choice. I’m willing to share my credit card number and expiration date with a person I have never seen, have no idea whether they’ve been vetted or not. I’ve certainly been able to get past being anonymous in that transaction. And of course, you multiply that by all of the transaction [sic] that you’re involved in every day.

I was taken by a thing that happened to me at the FBI, where I also had electronic surveillance as part of my responsibility. And people were very concerned that the ability to intercept emails was coming into play. And they were saying, well, we just can’t have federal employees able to touch our message traffic. And the fact that, for that federal employee, it was a felony to misuse the data — it was punishable by five years in jail and a $100,000 fine, which I don’t believe has ever happened — but they were perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an ISP who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data. It struck me as an anomalous situation.

So this is not something where groupthink works for an answer. I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that up doesn’t empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.

Kerr gets bonus points for using a Newspeak-y term “groupthink” in there, and for gratuitous immigrant-bashing as well.

Not content to rest on his laurels, he somewhat bizarrely took a swipe at Tonto, while explaining that we’re all just going to have to get used to his new definition of privacy:

Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it’s an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture. The Long Ranger [sic — I’m sure he meant to say “Lone Ranger”] wore a mask but Tonto didn’t seem to need one even though he did the dirty work for free. You’d think he would probably need one even more. But in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity — or the appearance of anonymity — is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Anonymity results from a lack of identifying features. Nowadays, when so much correlated data is collected and available — and I’m just talking about profiles on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube here — the set of identifiable features has grown beyond where most of us can comprehend. We need to move beyond the construct that equates anonymity with privacy and focus more on how we can protect essential privacy in this interconnected environment.

Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that. Instead, privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.

I think people here, at least people close to my age, recognize that those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it’s not for us to inflict one size fits all. It’s a need to have it be adjustable to the needs of local societies as they evolve in our country. Eventually, we can only hope that people’s perceptions — in Hollywood and elsewhere — will catch up.

So because I’ve used Google once in my life, I have agreed to have the United States government tap my email and phone?

Wow.

But seriously, this is the type of person who is supposed to be in charge of protecting privacy while “going after terrorists,” and his complete inability to see the difference between a transaction between a citizen and a private company and the government’s ability to listen in to that conversation. This is terrifying. That someone with such a basic lack of the principles involved is high up in the chain of command at National Intelligence, and is apparently informing the citizenry of the “new” and “improved” definition of privacy: Private is Public. Anonymous is Evil.

Towards the end of the AP article, the Electronic Freedom Foundation gives their response, which I couldn’t agree with more:

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual property rights, said Kerr’s argument ignores both privacy laws and American history.

“Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms,” Opsahl said. “The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together.”

Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service.

“There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy.”

“It’s just another ‘trust us, we’re the government,’ ” he said.

Or, more properly, Trust Big Brother. Big Brother loves you!

Georgian Police Use Sound Weapons on Demonstrators

Kurt Nimmo TruthNews November 12, 2007

No World System reports:

Leonid Ivashov vice-president of the Academy on geopolitical affairs: “It’s due to the U.S. training program given to Georgia’s riot police that they managed to do what they did. This year Georgia has received over 10 million dollars, more than any other CIS state. Georgia police supplied modern anti-riot machines, and up to date methods of fighting demonstrators.”

From Digital Bits:

The weapon in this case is a directional sound wave generator. The depelopers in the US Government won’t comment, so details are sketchy, but the device most likely operates by generating low-frequency sound pulses and sends them toward a target, like the weapon mentioned here.

Some earlier sound weapons simply caused pain from high decibel noises (like Mariah Carey), or generated severe nausea using subsonics (subsonic or infrasonic noise is defined as any sound whose frequency is less than 20 Hz, like Barry White’s voice).

The human body does not react well to extremely low frequency noises: Certain low frequencies can cause sickness, balance problems and discomfort and pain to soft tissues and organs. At higher energy levels, a subsonic shock wave is powerful enough to do damage.

Previous limitations on this technology included massive amounts of power needed to run a weapon of this type, and the physical size of the device itself (subsonic sound weapons fire such low-frequency sound waves, the gun aperture itself has to be large in order to generate the “noise”).

For more information, see this brief history of sound weapon technology.

It appears the sonic weapons in Georgia are of the LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) variety. Wikipedia notes:

The long range acoustic device (LRAD) is a crowd-control and hailing device developed by American Technology Corporation.

According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the equipment weighs 45 pounds (20 kg) and can emit sound in a 30° beam (only at high frequency, 2.5kHz) from a device 33 inches (83 cm) in diameter. At maximum volume, it can emit a warning tone that is 146 dBSPL (1000 W/m²) at 1 metre, a level that is capable of permanently damaging hearing, and higher than the normal human threshold of pain (120 – 140 dB). The design range extends to 300 metres maximum usable range. At 300 metres, the warning tone (measured) is less than 90 dB. The warning tone is a high-pitched shrill tone similar to that of a smoke detector…. Carl Gruenler, (former) vice president of military and government operations for American Technology Corp. (and who now runs a company making a competing device), says that being within 100 yards (90 m) of the device is extremely painful, but its use should be limited to 300 yards (270 m) to be effectively used. He concedes that the device is powerful enough to cause permanent auditory damage, but that it is only meant to be used for a few seconds at a time.

As the above video demonstrates, the LRADs were used for longer than a few seconds. It can only be assumed that those subjected to the weapon did indeed suffer permanent auditory damage.

Student Confesses: Clinton Aide Fed Her Climate Change Question

911Blogger
November 13, 2007

On Tuesday, November 6, 2007, a House Homeland Security Subcommittee had a hearing on “Terrorism and the Internet”. The hearing featured presentations from several groups, including the RAND Corporation, and Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The hearing was chaired by Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, and ranking Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert.

Toward the end of the hearing, Weitzman rolls out a PowerPoint presentation that presents a few 9/11 truth sites sandwiched in between websites that offer training in terrorist tactics, and a website that glorified the attack of 9/11. Among the websites presented under the heading “Internet: Incubator of 9/11 Conpiracies and Disinformation”, are Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and other sites, such as Killtown’s, who brought this Hearing to our attention.

Now, we wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea here. Here at 911blogger we are opposed to any and all terrorist activities, including STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM. Don’t really care who the state is either. It’s all bad.

Californians, if Harman is your representative, please set her straight. Washington state, if Reichert is your critter, don’t let him absorb this crap with no static.

CSPAN has been more than fair to 9/11 skeptics. Last year they broadcast Alex Jones’ American Scholars Symposium, in 2005, they broadcast David Ray Griffin, and they will probably listen to feedback regarding this broadcast.

View the hearing as a video stream here — the pertinent section begins at the 43:31 mark, but I recommend watching the entire program, because there is so much disinformation in the broadcast itself, it’s hard to know where to begin unraveling it.

Homeland Security - Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_…

Please ask the Simon Wiesthenthal Center (Mark Weitzman in particular) to stop conflating terrorist violence with 9/11 truth, and even though he has not extended the courtesy to us, be polite;

One Man’s Recession

Kurt Nimmo
TruthNews
November 13, 2007

Dan Dorfman, writing for the New York Sun, tells us that “Wall Street superstar” Jim Melcher is “worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we’ll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product.”

With the housing market in a state of collapse — and he says he believes it is far from over — Mr. Melcher argues that average homeowners will not be able to withstand the kind of recession he sees, given the added burdens of rising energy and food costs, and continued deterioration in the credit markets.

Noting that consumption is already slowing, Mr. Melcher figures sharply rising unemployment is inevitable. Another of his worries is that central banks around the globe, America’s included, are debasing their currencies, which is setting the stage for a new round of higher inflation. Our bear figures the next six to 12 months will be awful for investors as the market goes down “pretty substantially.” His frightening outlook calls for an additional 20% to 30% decline from current levels. A drop of that magnitude would put the Dow down in a range of roughly 9,100 to 10,400.

For some reason, these guys refuse to use thje “D” word instead of recession. Of course, this time around, with “rising unemployment” that this Geko-like character believes is “inevitable,” we will not witness humble folks falling passively into soup lines as they did in days of yore. It’s going to get nasty our there.

Lock and load.

Read entire NY Sun article

Rove Decries ‘Nutty’ ‘Vitriolic’ Bloggers Who Spew ‘Bad Words’

Think Progress
November 9, 2007

Yesterday, ThinkProgress attended a Yahoo-sponsored Citizen 2.0 event in Washington, DC, at which Karl Rove discussed the intersection of politics and the Internet. Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web, but then proceeded to use his speech as a partisan bashing of the netroots. According to Rove, bloggers are “nutty,” “vitriolic,” and “kooks.” The Washington Times reported on his remarks:

“The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse,” said Mr. Rove, who served as one of President Bush’s top strategists until he resigned this past summer, and is a noted technology nut.

“People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog,” Mr. Rove said during a speech about politics and the Web at the Willard InterContinental, a hotel just blocks from his former place of employment.

“I’m a fan of many blogs. I visit them frequently and I learn a lot from them,” Mr. Rove said. “But there also blogs written by angry kooks.”

He also claimed that liberals use more “bad words,” comparing sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground to Townhall and FreeRepublic. The “netroots often argue from anger rather than reason, and too often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion,” said Rove.

The Internets is not the reason hyperpartisan politics have been elevated; people like Karl Rove are. A look at some of Rove’s contributions to anger and vitriol in public discourse:

– When Bush ran against Democratic Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994, Rove was connected to a rumor that Richards was a lesbian.

– A former Rove staffer said that during the 1996 Alabama Supreme Court race, the campaign of Harold See — run by Rove — “initiated a whisper campaign” that See’s opponent “was a pedophile.”

– “Political operatives” have charged that Rove orchestrated a “widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered mentally unfit for office.”

During the Q & A session, Rove admitted that despite the coarseness of the political debate, he hopes the netroots “keep at it” because it helps Republicans. If only the blogosphere were as civil as Karl Rove.

UPDATE: Looks like Rove took some time out to get his picture taken with some of those crazy netroots activists.

UPDATE II: Atrios highlights one of Rove’s oh-so-civil quotes: “We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!”

UPDATE III: Kos weighs in with more thoughts: “Look, we all know Rove’s M.O. is to attack his enemy’s strongest points, so thanks Karl!”

UPDATE IV: The Washingtonian writes that Rove later IMed MoveOn’s Tom Matzzie, admitting he criticized him:

Rove criticized MoveOn.org’s Tom Matzzie for boasting that an antiwar group would end the war. Later, the two IM’d on a T-Mobile Sidekick provided by Clay Johnson, a Democratic Internet consultant and friend of the antiwar leader. According to Clay, Rove wrote to Matzzie: “This is rove and I did take your name in vain.” He then mysteriously added, “Have enjoyed listening to your [MoveOn?] calls!”

Michael Bassik at TechPresident and Ari Melber at The Notion have more. Danny at Beltway Blogroll notes that “the fact that Rove clearly only likes bloggers who help his cause or share his views shows that he, like too much of official Washington, still doesn’t appreciate the medium. What a shame.”

Vaccine Causes AIDS/HIV Related Infection that Spreads Through the Body via Common Cold Virus

Cryptogon
November 10th, 2007

This is THE most terrifying story that I have ever seen.

Of course, They’re saying that V520 vaccine trial was a failure.

But let’s boil this down. What did They actually wind up with after two decades of research?

V520 amounts to an AIDS/HIV related infection that spreads through the body via the common cold virus.

This was no failure. Far from it.

Via: Time Magazine:

It’s not yet clear why V520 didn’t work, but one theory involves its vector, or delivery vehicle. Like a number of other AIDS vaccines in development, Merck’s drug used the common cold virus to transport its payload — three synthetic HIV genes — into the body’s cells. What makes the adenovirus ideal for the task is precisely the reason colds make us so miserable — once inside a host, the cold virus infects cells and starts to replicate quickly. The down side to that efficiency, however, is that cold viruses are so common that most people have developed a certain level of tolerance to them; if the adenovirus fails to excite the immune system, then any bugs piggybacked on the virus, such as HIV genes, will also slip past immune defenses. That’s exactly what appears to have happened in the Merck trial: People with the highest pre-existing immunity to the common cold also had the highest rates of infection with HIV.

More: Vaccine Failure Exposes Aussies to AIDS Risk

More: Vaccine Development Or Bioweapon Trial?

Related: Endgame [Must Watch]

Related: Over 1000 Imbeciles Volunteer to be Poisoned by Quacks as Heavily Armed Cops Keep Watch

Research Credit: Ebbing

“Drug War” Puts Blackwater Back in the Running

Kurt Nimmo TruthNews November 13, 2007

Just when you thought Blackwater would have its purse strings clipped: “A Defense Department contract involving antidrug training missions may test the durability of the political controversy over Blackwater Worldwide’s security work in Iraq,” reports August Cole for the Wall Street Journal.

The Moyock, N.C., company, which was involved in a September shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead, is one of five military contractors competing for as much as $15 billion over five years to help fight a narcotics trade that the government says finances terrorist groups.

Also competing for contracts from the Pentagon’s Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office are military-industry giants Raytheon Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., as well as Arinc Inc., a smaller aerospace and technology contractor.

The contracts are expected to be awarded as the need arises, so the Pentagon’s level of concern about employing Blackwater will likely be measured over time and by whether the company wins leading roles or is shut out.

In other words, the military-mercenary complex is expanding operations. Obviously, the terrorism market has its limits, so the government is creating new markets. It’s a match made in heaven—the CIA and bankers import the drugs and the military-mercenary complex is contracted to impose “zero tolerance,” for the sake of the children, don’t you know.

Companies competing for the work might be called on to develop detection or surveillance technology; train U.S. and foreign forces; or provide logistics, communications and information-technology systems, among other areas.

Of course, it is not enough Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, et al, are busy manufacturing and selling technology designed to kill Iraqi (and soon enough, Iranian) grade schoolers and grandmothers, now they are getting into the “detection or surveillance” business, in other words big bucks are to be made building the snoop state. If you think this technology will be used strictly to monitor the activity of the Tony Montanas out there, I have a bridge for sale.

According to the DoD Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office webpage:

The Department of Defense (DoD) is an integral part of the national commitment to reduce trafficking in illegal narcotics and material that supports global terrorist activities. Consistent with National Drug Control Policy and Public Law, the DoD Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office (CNTPO) has the lead for developing technology for interagency and multinational operations to disrupt, deter and deny narcoterrorist activities.

Again, the Hegelian Dialectic—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—of this must be underscored: the government creates both terrorism and “nacroterrorism,” proposes draconian measures to deal with this “threat,” and imposes a “solution,” usually worse than the initial problem it created. In the process, a few people get rich, never mind the rest of us eventually lose our rights, as “detection or surveillance” pervades all social aspects.

Pump price to jump 20 cents next 2-3 weeks: government

Tom Doggett
Reuters
Tuesday November 13, 2007

U.S. consumers could pay record gasoline prices for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with pump costs expected to climb another 20 cents over the next two to three weeks, the government's top energy forecaster warned on Monday.

Guy Caruso, who heads the U.S. Energy Information Administration, said not all of the recent jump in crude oil prices has been reflected in motor fuel costs which now top $3 a gallon in many parts of the country, about 80 cents more than a year ago.

"We haven't seen the full pass-through (of high oil prices) yet," Caruso told reporters at a briefing on oil market conditions held at Energy Department headquarters. "I would say what's in the pipe right now (for gasoline) is about another 20 cents."

If the projected gasoline price materializes it would be the most consumers have ever paid to fill up at Thanksgiving and could break the all-time high of $3.22 a gallon set last May.

The national average retail pump price has already jumped by 25 cents since mid-October, reflecting soaring crude oil costs, which for U.S. oil hit a record $98.62 a barrel last week.

The price of crude accounts for about half the cost of making gasoline.

So far, healthy gasoline imports from Europe and weaker driving demand for this time of the year has helped soften some of the price spike, Caruso said.

Full article here.

Giuliani Gave David Rockefeller U.N. Award

JonesReport.com | November 12, 2007

Rudy Giuliani's false image as a conservative is further debunked by his pining over globalist-kingpin David Rockefeller as he presents him with a medal from the Business Council of the United Nations circa 1994.

Giuliani thanks him personally for his "contributions to world peace," and listed amongst his influential activities membership organizations including the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group (yes, Giuliani mentions this secretive group) and the Americas Society.

David Rockefeller has done a great deal as an individual to subvert sovereignty and shrink the United States' ability to continue what he condemns as "auto-determination." Furthermore, the organizations listed by Giuliani work specifically to exert and maintain extra-national influence and are anything but patriotic, and instead aim to dissolve borders in favor of control by world bodies.

This is further evidence that, while Giuliani is not a formal member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is well within their sphere of influence. And as he apparently regards these groups, and Mr. Rockefeller in particular, as a "force for freedom and peace in the world," the valid question is raised-- whose interests would he serve.

Giuliani recently confirmed that he spoken before the CFR and sees "nothing wrong" with belonging to the organization. Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate in either party with any vitality that has no affiliation with the CFR, and has proposed a think tank to counter the heavy influence of the CFR's intellectual crowd.

"Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure---one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

--David Rockefeller, Memoirs, page 405

American Flags Collapse On Hillary Clinton

Youtube
Tuesday November 13, 2007

Pentagon Insider Has Dire Warning

Daniel Ellsberg
American Free Press
Monday November 12, 2007

Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, offered insights into the looming attack on Iran and the loss of liberty in the United States at a recent American University symposium. What follow are his comments from that speech. They have been edited only for space.

By Daniel Ellsberg

Let me simplify . . . and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9-11. That’s the next coup that completes the first.

The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution . . . what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world—in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.

There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.

All these violations were impeachable had they been found out at the time but in nearly every case the violations were not found out until [the president was] out of office so we didn’t have the exact challenge that we have today.

That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were impeachable. They weren’t found out in time. But I think it was not their intention, in the crisis situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.

It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early 1970s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but [they] have believed in executive government, single-branch government under an executive president—elected or not—with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.

When I say this, I’m not saying they are traitors. I don’t think they have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this country and what they think is best for this country—but what they think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the Founders of this country [and the Framers of the Constitution] thought.

They believe we need a different kind of government now, an executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we’re getting with ‘signing statements.’

Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says: ‘I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.’

It’s [the same] with the military commissions, courts that are under the entire control of the executive branch, essentially of the president—a concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one branch, which is precisely what the founders meant to avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability in the Constitution.”

* * *

Now I’m appealing to that as a crisis right now not just because it is a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my experience that on this point the Founders had it right. It’s not just ‘our way of doing things’— it was a crucial perception on the corruption of power to anybody, including Americans.

On procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under control because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.

That brings me to the second point. This executive branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition [even] from most of the rest of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran, which, even by imperialist standards, [violates] standards in other words which were accepted not only by nearly everyone in the executive branch but most of the leaders in Congress.

The interests of the empire, the need for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of the Middle East and many other places. That is consensual in our establishment. …

But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say that quietly, I don’t mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it’s not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms of the consequences.

Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn’t; it doesn’t even make it unlikely.

That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for various reasons of the Congress—Democrats and Republicans—and the public and the media, we have freed the White House — the president and the vice president—from virtually any restraint by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.

And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.

And the question is what then, can we do about this?

We are heading toward an insane operation. It is not certain. [But it] is likely.… I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.

What I’m talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an attack on Iran, is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16 months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.

And . . . we will not succeed in moving Congress, probably, and Congress probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that’s where we’re heading. That’s a very ugly, ugly prospect.

However, I think it’s up to us to work to increase that small, perhaps—anyway not large—possibility and probability to avert this within the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the rest of our lives.

* * *

Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don’t get started now, it won’t be started under the next administration.

Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9-11, another attack, is for right now, it can’t be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little.

We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, ‘traitor,’ ‘weak on terrorism’—names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.

How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn’t just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.

I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath of office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the armed services.

And that oath is not to a commander in chief, which is not [even] mentioned. It is not to a Fuehrer. It is not even to superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran.

I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath, which I eventually came to do.

I’ve often said that Lt. Ehren Watada—who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war—is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously [the matter of] upholding his oath.

The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. [All the personnel] under him who understand what is going on — and there are myriad — are violating their oaths. And that’s the standard that I think we should be asking of people.

On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate—and frankly of the Republicans —that it is not their highest single absolute priority to be reelected or to maintain a Democratic majority so that Pelosi can still be speaker of the House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase that majority.

I’m not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not worry about that.
Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but they’re acting like it’s their sole concern. Which is business as usual. “We have a majority, let’s not lose it, let’s keep it. Let’s keep those chairmanships.”

Exactly what have those chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?

I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read [about] in The Washington Post who threatened a filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The ruling out of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats did not get us back to George the First it got us back to before King John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.

I think we’ve got to somehow get home to them [in Congress] that this is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth struggling for in part because it’s only with the power that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only with that can we protect the world from madmen in power in the White House who intend an attack on Iran.

And the current generation of American generals and others who realize that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves —they might be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell, and would not risk their career or their relations with the president to the slightest degree.

That has to change. And it’s the example of people like those up here who somehow brought home to our representatives that they as humans and as citizens have the power to do likewise and find in themselves the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you.”

Bets against the dollar unlikely to slow this quarter

Reuters
Monday November 12, 2007

Speculators are placing record bets against the U.S. dollar and analysts see no sign of that trend abating for now, suggesting Monday's big dollar rally may be short-lived.

Concerns about the strength of the U.S. economy, the outlook for U.S. interest rates compared with those elsewhere in the world and worry that U.S. financial institutions may divulge further losses from subprime mortgage exposure will weigh on the dollar for some time, analysts say.

"Everyone is piling on, it is the trade that works," said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, of shorting the greenback. "The dollar bear trend is still intact."

Net positions against the dollar grew for the fourth consecutive week to a peak of $32.54 billion in the period ended Nov. 6, up from $30.73 billion the prior week.

The data from the CFTC's Commitments of Traders report on speculative positioning is sometimes used by analysts as an indicator of future market direction. Extreme net short speculative positions may signal a coming bounce for a currency.

However, analysts say there is just too much working against the greenback right now for there to be a rebound.

Full article here.

Health and Safety Nazis Ban Childhood

Richard Littlejohn
UK Daily Mail
Tuesday November 13, 2007

There's reported to be much joy in heaven over any sinner who repenteth. So I suppose celebrations should be unconfined at the news that the head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has put the boot into the elf'n'safety nazis.

After all, preventing accidents provides the moral justification for these self-righteous lunatics interfering in our lives and banning pretty much every activity known to man.

Tom Mullarkey, chief executive of Rospa, says his worthy cause has been hijacked by 'extremists'.

Consequently, children are being deprived of their childhood because they are prevented from doing anything which carries even a scintilla of risk.

Everything from playing conkers to wearing football boots with studs and swimming with snorkels has been outlawed in the name of keeping our kids safe.

"We do not believe in extremist health and safety ideas which would keep children wrapped in cotton wool," said Mr Mullarkey.

"Our argument is that a skinned knee or twisted ankle in a challenging and exciting play environment is not just acceptable, it is a positive necessity."

Let's overlook the tortuous use of language. In the real world, children play in parks - in officialdom, they utilise "challenging and exciting play environments".

Full article here.

Laura Ingraham: War In Iraq Is Going Well

Laura Ingraham is guest-hosting on "The View" today, and when talk turned to Iraq, she had some interesting things to say about the success of the American effort. She claimed that "we have...really good news coming out of Baghdad" but "The View" co-hosts and the media more generally prefer to focus on the narrative of the US as a loser. And when challenged, by Barbara, Laura reverted to the age-old conservative tactic of questioning Barbara's patriotism, asking, "Do you want to win in Iraq?"

Watch:

From ABC, 11/12

Hillary Imagines Being "President Again"

John Perna
JBS
Tuesday November 13, 2007

Hillary Clinton waffles on giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, then makes what some have called a "Freudian slip."

Follow this link to the original source: "The Girl Can't Help It"

How many people have picked up on the following "slip of the tongue" from Hillary as she was being interviewed on her immigration stance by Candy Crowley of CNN on Nov. 06, 2007? For those who missed it, here it is:

CROWLEY: If I wrote a story that said: "Absent a broad illegal immigration bill, Hillary Clinton agrees about giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants," is that correct?

CLINTON: No. What I have said is that I support what governors are trying to do. And governors are on the front lines because of the failures to get comprehensive immigration reform. There are already eight states that issue driver's licenses without any verification of citizenship. That is a decision that the governors and legislatures and the people of those states have made. I understand...

CROWLEY: But you see why people think...

CLINTON: Well, but you know, Candy...

CROWLEY: ... that you are not answering the question.

CLINTON: Well, but you know, Candy, well, but I think that if you go back and look at the complexity of this issue, I don't think a lot of these hard questions lend themselves to raising your hand. And I know that that's easier in a 30 second context to try to do. I think the fact that governors are being forced into this position is really unfortunate. They should not be making immigration policy. The federal government should be making immigration policy and that's what I'm going to try to do as president again and I do not believe that in the context of federal immigration reform that that would be an issue that governors would have to contend with."

We're guessing that what Hillary meant to say in that last sentence was something like this: "The federal government should be making immigration policy, and again, that's what I'm going to try to do as president."

That's one interpretation. Another is that it was a Freudian slip. "Hillary's use of 'again' ('that's what I'm going to try to do as president again') has drawn a lot of notice as a Freudian slip," says Thomas Lifson at American Thinker. "I think it also shows that Hillary is reeling, truly off-balance, winging it. She is much more comfortable with scripted answers."

Now, a hypothetical question: If this was a Freudian slip and Hillary secretly believes she was co-president back when her husband occupied the Oval Office, maybe she should take herself out of the race. After all, a president can only serve two terms.

Hidden costs 'raise US war price'

US Democrats say the wars are costing the US too much

bbc
The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing nearly double the amount previously thought, according to a report set to be released by Congress.

Democrats say the wars have cost $1.5 trillion - almost twice the requested $804bn (£402bn) - because of "hidden costs", the Washington Post reports.

That figure would amount to $20,000 for an average US family of four, it adds.

And some of the figures cited in the report were labelled speculative by funding experts, the Post says.

Among the indicators contributing to the higher cost of the conflicts are higher oil costs and payments to war veterans.

'Lost earnings'

The report is expected to be presented to Congress later on Tuesday.

The Democratic authors included the costs of treating wounded veterans and mounting interest payments on money borrowed to finance the wars.

The report calculates that the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the average US family of four more than $20,000.

It adds that the amount could rise to $46,300 over the next decade, the Washington Post says.

The committee's Democrats estimate that treating veterans could add more than $30bn to war costs, including disability payments and lost earnings for veterans affected by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Republicans have not yet commented officially on the report.

Russian Military Chief Calls America "Evil"

Baluyevsky says U.S. missile defense is aimed at Moscow as tensions rise

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Russia's top military chief has dubbed America "evil" while cautioning that the "insidious" U.S. missile defense shield weapons system has nothing to do with countering Iran and is aimed squarely at Moscow, as tensions continue to heat between the two superpowers.

The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky told Russia Today, an English-language state TV channel, that Washington's plans to place a radar in the Czech Republic and ten missile interceptors in Poland supposedly to counter Iran was just a pretext to deploy weaponry close to Russia's borders.

"If the Americans deploy the radar by 2011 and anti-ballistic missiles by 2012-2013, they will certainly be directed against Russia, and we can easily prove it," said Baluyevsky.

"There will be no Iranian threat to the United States in the near future. Iran will be unable to create intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States until at least 2020," he added.

In the same interview, Baluyevsky labeled America as "evil" and swore to defend Russian military interests while absolving Russia of the responsibility of defending the rest of the world against American imperialism.

"Today, there is no need to be afraid of the Russian Armed Forces. However, I do not believe that the Russian military is obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans," he said.

Baluyevsky's inflammatory comments are likely to sour increasingly hostile relations between Washington and Moscow and they come just a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin compared the Pentagon's plan to deploy weapons in central Europe to the Soviet Union's 1962 deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Report: Wars cost U.S. families $20,000

Report: Wars cost U.S. families $20,000

Democrats say hidden costs double price of conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan

Reuters

updated 5:26 a.m. ET, Tues., Nov. 13, 2007

WASHINGTON - A new study by congressional Democrats says "hidden costs" have driven the price of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to about $1.5 trillion, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

That figure is nearly double the $804 billion the White House has spent or requested, according to the report by the Democratic staff of Congress's Joint Economic Committee, which examines the hidden costs of the wars, the Post said.

According to the panel, the hidden costs include higher oil prices, the expense of treating wounded veterans and interest payments on money borrowed to pay for the wars, the newspaper said.

The report was expected to be presented on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

A 21-page draft obtained by the newspaper estimates that the wars have cost the average U.S. family of four more than $20,000, the Post said.

The study concludes that the cost to the average family could more than double, to $46,300, over the next decade, with estimated economic costs to the United States reaching $3.5 trillion if the conflicts continue at their current pace, the Post said.

The Post said the report estimated that war injuries could add more than $30 billion in future disability and medical care costs, including billions in lost earnings for veterans who cannot work because of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Members of the panel's Republican staff could not be reached for comment, the Post said.

The newspaper cited war funding experts as saying that some of the numbers in the report should be met with skepticism.

The experts said it is difficult to calculate the precise impact of the Iraq war on global oil prices. They also said it was speculative to estimate how much the war will cost over time because situations change daily on the battlefield, the Post reported.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21766479/