From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Fri 5/6/2005 9:01 AM
To: All Employees of MS in Puget Sound; All Employees of MS in MSUS
Subject: Microsoft's principles for public policy engagement

During the past two weeks I've heard from many of you with a wide range of views on the recent anti-discrimination bill in Washington State, and the larger issue of what is the appropriate role of a public corporation in public policy discussions. This input has reminded me again of what makes our company unique and why I care about it so much.

One point really stood out in all the emails you sent me. Regardless of where people came down on the issues, everyone expressed strong support for the company's commitment to diversity. To me, that's so critical. Our success depends on having a workforce that is as diverse as our customers - and on working together in a way that taps all of that diversity.

I don't want to rehash the events that resulted in Microsoft taking a neutral position on the anti-discrimination bill in Washington State. There was a lot of confusion and miscommunication, and we are taking steps to improve our processes going forward.

To me, this situation underscores the importance of having clearly-defined principles on which we base our actions. It all boils down to trust. Even when people disagree with something that we do, they need to have confidence that we based our action on thoughtful principles, because that is how we run our business.

I said in my April 22 email that we were wrestling with the question of how and when the company should engage on issues that go beyond the software industry. After thinking about this for the past two weeks, I want to share my decision with you and lay out the principles that will guide us going forward.

First and foremost, we will continue to focus our public policy activities on issues that most directly affect our business, such as Internet safety, intellectual property rights, free trade, digital inclusion and a healthy business climate.

After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda. Since our beginning nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft has had a strong business interest in recruiting and retaining the best and brightest and most diverse workforce possible. I'm proud of Microsoft's commitment to non-discrimination in our internal policies and benefits, but our policies can't cover the range of housing, education, financial and similar services that our people and their partners and families need. Therefore, it's appropriate for the company to support legislation that will promote and protect diversity in the workplace.

Accordingly, Microsoft will continue to join other leading companies in supporting federal legislation that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation - adding sexual orientation to the existing law that already covers race, sex, national origin, religion, age and disability. Given the importance of diversity to our business, it is appropriate for the company to endorse legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on all of these grounds. Obviously, the Washington State legislative session has concluded for this year, but if legislation similar to HB 1515 is introduced in future sessions, we will support it.

I also want to be clear about some limits to this approach. Many other countries have different political traditions for public advocacy by corporations, and I'm not prepared to involve the company in debates outside the US in such circumstances. And, based on the principles I've just outlined, the company should not and will not take a position on most other public policy issues, either in the US or internationally.

I respect that there will be different viewpoints. But as CEO, I am doing what I believe is right for our company as a whole.

This situation has also made me stop and think about how well we are living our values. I'm deeply encouraged by how many employees have sent me passionate emails about the broad respect for diversity they experience every day at Microsoft. I also heard from some employees who underscored the importance of feeling that their personal values or religious beliefs are respected by others. I'm adamant that we must do an even better job of pursuing diversity and mutual respect within Microsoft. I expect everyone at this company - particularly managers - to take a hard look at their personal commitment to diversity, and redouble that commitment.

The questions raised by these issues are important. At the same time, we have a lot of other important work to do. Over the next 18 months we'll release a broader, more advanced and more exciting set of products than at any time in the company's history. Let's all recommit to the job ahead, using our diversity as a strength to work together creatively and with respect for each other.

Thanks.

Nine members of a local church had their membership revoked and 40 others left in protest after tension over political views recently came to a head, church members say.

Some members of East Waynesville Baptist Church voted the nine members out at a recent scheduled deacon meeting, which turned into an impromptu business meeting, according to congregants.

Chan Chandler, pastor of East Waynesville, had been exhorting his congregation since October to support his political views or leave the church, said Selma Morris, a 30-year member of the church.

“He preached a sermon on abortion and homosexuality, then said if anyone there was planning on voting for John Kerry, they should leave,” she said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard something like that. Ministers are supposed to bring people in.”

Repeated phone calls to Chandler today have gone unanswered and he was not available at the church or his home to comment on the allegations.

It's not clear whether the church's tax-exempt status could be jeopardized if the claims about Chandler are true.

The Internal Revenue Service exempts certain organizations from taxation, including those organized and operated for religious purposes, provided that they do not engage in certain activities, including involvement in "any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

An employee of the Diocese of Palm Beach said Thursday that Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, a Catholic, should be denied communion for allowing a 13-year-old foster child to have an abortion.

Don Kazimir, who works for the diocese's Respect Life Office, which opposes abortion and the death penalty, called Alvarez's office Wednesday to ask which church the judge attends. Kazimir said he wanted to speak with Alvarez's priest, who he said might have a problem with a Catholic judge agreeing to an abortion.

Alvarez was angry about the call. It is wrong, he said, for the church to try to intimidate a judge into putting his faith above the law.

"This isn't a religious state yet," he said.

Kazimir was disappointed by Alvarez's decision in the case of L.G., the 13-year-old who became pregnant after running away while under state care. Although officials from the Florida Department of Children and Families objected to an abortion, Alvarez ruled this week that the girl had a right to choose.

L.G. subsequently ended her pregnancy.

The original message relayed to Alvarez by his assistant said Kazimir was investigating the issue for the diocese. But Kazimir said Thursday he was speaking only for himself and did not talk to supervisors before calling the judge.

Bishop Gerald Barbarito said Thursday night he did not know about the phone call but would look into what happened. The bishop has never said he would deny communion to anyone, diocese spokesman Jim Brosemer said.

Alvarez said he thought Kazimir's call set a dangerous precedent. He said it was unfair for any judge who takes an oath to uphold the laws of a state or the country to feel pressured to follow the doctrine of his church, synagogue or mosque.

We're talking about future generations. We're talking about my kids. I've got two daughters in their 30s. We're talking about your kids and grandkids, and what kind of program is going to be there for them. And that's what we need to address, and that's why we need to find ways, basically, to shore up the system, if you will, or reform it so that those benefits will be there in the future. If we don't do anything at all, if we just stay where a lot of people have said we ought to stay -- there are a number of members of Congress of the other faith who have said that we don't need to do anything -- well, if you don't do anything, the net result will be, for somebody today, say, in their 30s, by the time they get to retirement age, their benefit levels are going to be cut some 26 percent or 27 percent. Automatic, that's what will happen with today's existing law.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz made a very horrible estimate of the situation. They concluded that the war would be Slam Bam Goodbye Saddam, followed by victory parades with local Iraqi folks throwing flowers and rice and everything nice, then the troops would come home.

When I examined the task organization, my estimate was totally contrary to this asshole Rumsfeld, who went in light and on the cheap, all based upon this rosy scenario. I never thought this would be a fight without resistance. And there was another guy who thought the same way I did; his name is Saddam Hussein. He looked at the awesome array of forces being set up against him and said, "Wait a minute, no way can I prevail, I tried that in '91 and just saw in Afghanistan what happened to Taliban and Al-Qaida, I will run away for another day."

Saddam is saying, "I am going to copy Ho Chi Minh and the Taliban and go into a guerrilla configuration." It [the invasion of Baghdad] did go Slam Bam Goodbye Saddam, but we are in there so light that we don't have sufficient force to provide the stability after the fall of the regime. We can't secure the banks, the energy facilities, the vital installations, the government, the ministry, the museums or the library. The world was witness to this great anarchy, the looting and rioting that set over Baghdad. There was that wonderful quote by Rumsfeld. "Stuff happens," he said. He flipped it off.

In the days when it could land him in jail, Rahim Al-Zaidi would whisper details of his muta'a only to his closest confidants and the occasional cousin. Never his wife.

Al-Zaidi hopes to soon finalize his third muta'a, or “pleasure marriage,” with a green-eyed neighbor. This time, he talks about it openly and with obvious relish. Even so, he says, he probably still won't tell his wife.

The 1,400-year-old practice of muta'a — “ecstasy” in Arabic — is as old as Islam itself. It was permitted by the prophet Mohammed as a way to ensure a respectable means of income for widowed women.

Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy. Now some Iraqi clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet for male sexual desires.

The renaissance of the pleasure marriage coincides with a revival of other Shiite traditions long suppressed by the former regime. Interest in Shiite customs has accelerated since Shiite parties swept Jan. 30 elections to become the biggest bloc in the new National Assembly.

Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war?

Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to create the justification for war as the minutes indicate?

Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- Dick Cheney, speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have" -- George W. Bush, radio address, 10/5/02

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." -- George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio speech, 10/7/02

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it" -- Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, 12/4/02

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." -- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, 1/28/03

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction." -- Colin Powell, to U.N. Security Council, 2/5/03

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." -- George W. Bush, radio address, 2/8/03

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

If so, the photograph taken of President George W. Bush and embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was priceless—the windswept DeLay strutting down the tarmac beside the president, two Republican leaders rankled by political setbacks joined at the hip.

There’s a backstory that lurks behind Bush’s decision to stand by DeLay. It involves Greenberg Traurig, the firm that employed the powerful lobbyist who paid for palatial DeLay junkets, and Abramoff staffers, who were footsoldiers in the Florida recount. Greenberg Traurig has yet to receive more than $314,000 in legal fees charged to a Bush committee during the 2000 Florida recount, RAW STORY can confirm.

As a corporation, Greenberg’s unpaid tab represents a massive in-kind campaign contribution, far larger than anything that went unreported by DeLay. But it appears to be legal: corporations are allowed to donate any amount to the nebulous type of committee employed during the recount. It would, however, violate the committee's self-imposed $5,000 contribution limit from individual donors.

Bush’s recount committee doled out some $8 million, much of it to Hill staffers who made the jaunt to the Florida battlefield. But they couldn’t find the money for their telegenic counsel.

Greenberg’s leadership has apparently declined to press the issue. Jill Perry, Greenberg’s director of marketing and public affairs, declined to comment.

A White House official, who declined to be named, referred questions to the Republican National Committee.

“These are campaign issues,” the official said. “We work on doing the people’s business. The RNC handles all campaign-related [expenses].”

“We are funded through taxpayer funds, so we don’t deal with any campaign related issues,” the official added.

The RNC did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

[snip]

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.


The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

Take a 13 year old to court to force her to give birth, but shoot anybody on the street you feel threatened by.

Interesting state, this Florida.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has called on GOP Senate leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to condemn remarks by evangelical Rev. Pat Robertson, in which he said judges are a bigger threat than terrorists, RAW STORY has learned.

Robertson was a guest on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. Asked asked if judges were a more serious threat than terrorists, Robertson responded, “It depends on how you look at culture. If they look over the course of 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings. And I think we have controlled Al Qaida. I think we'll get Osama bin Laden. We've won in Afghanistan. We won in Iraq. And we can contain that. But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of oligarchy. If we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake.”

In the letter, obtained by RAW STORY, Lautenberg says he was shocked at Robertson's remarks.

“It was shocking to hear your cavalier dismissal of the atrocious 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by describing them as “a few bearded terrorists who fly planes into buildings,” wrote Lautenberg in his letter to Reverend Robertson. Lautenberg went on to write, “To suggest that members of the federal judiciary are somehow in the same class as “a few bearded terrorists” is an assault on the men and women on the federal bench who safeguard our rights under the Constitution everyday.”

In a separate letter to Sen. Majority Leader Frist, Lautenberg asks Frist to condemn Robertson's comments.

“I hope you will join me in condemning such harmful and heated language and call on Reverend Robertson to publicly apologize to every family who has lost a loved one to terrorism. Your silence on this matter would send a resounding signal to the entire country that the radical right controls the leadership of the Republican Party,” Lautenberg wrote in his letter to Majority Leader Frist.

Al Qaeda is still "very active" recruiting and seeking to attack the United States, although it has been hurt since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday.

"The enemy that appeared on 9/11 is wounded and off-balance, and on the run -- yet still very active, still seeking recruits, and still trying to find ways to hit us," said Cheney, who reviews intelligence on threats daily.

"As months and years pass, they are hoping that our country will grow complacent, and get lazy, and forget our responsibilities," he said in a speech to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, according to a text released in Washington.

"And it's our job, ladies and gentlemen, to make sure the United States of America never lets down its guard."

A baby's life support battle continues but time is running out for baby Knya. The five-month-old is on life support at Memorial Hermann Hospital. The deadline to stop treatment is Sunday.

Could the sad case Knya Dismuke be entering a new phase? Her parents are certainly hoping so. The child is currently slated to be removed from medical treatment at Memorial Hermann Hospital next Monday.

Knya was diagnosed with leukemia in December. She underwent treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center, but was later returned to Hermann Hospital, about three months later.
A committee at Hermann Hospital has decided to discontinue medical care. With chemotherapy, doctors say the child has about a 5% chance of survival. Without it, she has about two weeks to live.

On Monday morning the child's mother told Eyewitness News that her caseworker suggested Texas Children's Hospital might be in the process of reviewing this case and could assume Knya as a patient.

Tamiko Dismuke said, "I doubt that they were going to accept her because they have turned her down in the past. But (the caseworker) said that was on a different case. So we're looking at trying to get her transferred. If they accept her, that's great. If they don't, then we just have other plans to go other places."

If the family doesn't make a decision by next Monday, medical treatment will be discontinued at Memorial Hermann Hospital, except for the drugs and the care to relieve pain and suffering.

A woman alleged in a call to police last fall that U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood had started choking her while giving her a back rub at his Washington apartment, but no charges were filed, according to a published report.

The encounter between Sherwood, 64, a four-term Republican congressman, and Cynthia Ore, 29, of Rockville, Md., occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 15, according to a copy of a Washington Metropolitan Police incident report obtained by the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times Leader.

''Based on interviews with both parties and no physical evidence of injury to (Ore), there was no probable cause to make an arrest or reasonable cause to believe (Ore) was assaulted,'' the incident report stated.

But police also said in the report they did not receive a full account of events.

''Both parties have left out significant information or are not willing to discuss in detail what actually happened,'' the incident report said.

Voted YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. (Feb 2004)
Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life. (Oct 2003)
Voted YES on forbidding human cloning for reproduction & medical research. (Feb 2003)
Voted YES on banning human cloning, including medical research. (Jul 2001)
Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)
Voted YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes. (Apr 2001)
Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999)

Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on constitutional amendment prohibiting flag desecration. (Jun 2003)
Voted YES on Constitutional amendment prohibiting Flag Desecration. (Jul 2001)
Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Voted YES on Amendment to prohibit burning the US flag. (Jun 1999)
Supports anti-flag desecration amendment. (Mar 2001)

Rated 84% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-family voting record. (Dec 2003)

Renee Jensen of Elkins, West Virginia, likes to express herself.

She has put up as many as a dozen signs in her yard over the past year, protesting the war in Iraq, Bush and Cheney, and the crackdown on civil liberties.

Some of her signs have said:

"Mr. Bush, You're Fired."

"Mr. Ashcroft, We Prefer Our America Remain the Home of the Free and the Brave."

"Mr. Cheney, What You Sow You Shall Reap. Those Who Destroy the Earth Will Be Destroyed."

"Mr. Rumsfeld, Human Beings Are Not Just Collateral Damages, but People with Hopes, Dreams, Relationships, and Lives to Live."

"O, Evil Doers, Bush and Cheney Are Destroying America. I Cry Liberty and Stand for Our Constitution."

"Love One Another: War Is Dead Wrong."

Her vigorous exercise of free speech has not been well received.

One day in early January, her signs were vandalized.

"I had gone to the movies, and when I came back, all my signs were stolen," she tells The Progressive. "And one had been turned over, and someone wrote, "We love George Bush" on it."

The mayor of Elkins, Judy Guye, tried to use a city ordinance to make Jensen take her signs down.

"Guye had said she believes Jensen's signs pose a potential traffic hazard, since people driving by her house often stop or slow down to look at them," Paul J. Nyden wrote in an article for the Charleston Gazette on January 16. Nyden pointed out that the mayor, "a Republican, had a pro-Bush sign in her own front yard."

Guye backed off.

But those were the least of Jensen's problems.

In the fall, the Secret Service gave her a call.

"They said they wanted to ask me some questions," she recalls. "I said sure. They said someone called them and said I had signs up in my yard that were threatening the President. I said I did have some signs in my yard, but I wasn't threatening the President. The worst I've ever said was that he's an Evildoer. And this Secret Service man specifically asked me about the sign about Mr. Cheney. He said, "That's from revelations." I said, "Yes, I have no desire to destroy anybody. I'm just quoting out of the Bible." His name, she said, was Agent Brian Atkins.

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.
"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."

From Senator Bayh's record, courtesy of OnTheIssues.org:
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Rated 50% by NARAL, indicating a mixed voting record on abortion. (Dec 2003)
Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. (Oct 2001)
Voted YES on restricting rules on personal bankruptcy. (Jul 2001)
Broaden use of death penalty. (Jan 1998)
Undecided on School Prayer Amendment. (Jan 1998)
Voted YES on Bush Administration Energy Policy. (Jul 2003)
Voted YES on terminating CAFE standards within 15 months. (Mar 2002)
Voted NO on more funding for forest roads and fish habitat. (Sep 1999)
Voted YES on killing a bill for trade sanctions if China sells weapons. (Sep 2000)
Voted YES on establishing a free trade agreement between US & Singapore. (Jul 2003)
Voted YES on establishing a free trade agreement between the US and Chile. (Jul 2003)
Voted YES on extending free trade to Andean nations. (May 2002)
Voted YES on granting normal trade relations status to Vietnam. (Oct 2001)
Voted YES on permanent normal trade relations with China. (Sep 2000)
Voted YES on deploying National Missile Defense ASAP. (Mar 1999)
Private self-managed accounts OK. (Jan 1998)
Voted NO on Social Security Lockbox & limiting national debt. (Apr 1999)
Create Retirement Savings Accounts. (Aug 2000)
Voted YES on authorizing use of military force against Iraq. (Oct 2002)
Voted NO on allowing all necessary forces and other means in Kosovo. (May 1999)
Supports welfare-to-work & block grants. (Jan 1998)

During today's season finale of ABC's schlocky reality show, "Supernanny," James Dobson's Focus on the Family will be running ads promoting its "Focus on Your Child" program, which advises parents on how to implement the parenting principles outlined in his best-seller, "Dare to Discipline." These include spanking with "sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." Children have to be taught respect for authority at an early age, Dobson preaches, or they'll never develop respect for governmental authority or God.

Dobson's theory on corporal punishment reveals the political underside of his self-help work. The ads Focus on the Family will run are seemingly innocuous offerings of assistance to parents who, like the heroic nanny depicted in ABC's show, need techniques for pacifying "strong-willed" children. As Focus's president, Jim Daly said in Focus's newsletter,

"The show was all about Focus on the Family principles. It was boundaries and using the time-out chair, respect for authority and good parenting skills.”

Once parents bite Focus's bait and join up, they may learn some valuable techniques for improving their relationship with their children. At the same time, they will become immersed in the subculture of the Christian right, where they will meet Macho Jesus and the gay/pedophile deviants who are out to destroy the very fabric of their marriage. Family counseling is merely the net Dobson casts to bring folks on board with his political agenda.

Focus's ad buy is its first in prime time TV. It has ostensibly purchased the ads through its 501 c-3, the self-help component of its organization, so it can claim legally that the ads are not political. But they are, and it's absurd to say they're not. On his radio show, Dobson shamelessly begs for money for his 501 c-4, Focus on the Family Action, his organization's political arm. FOF Action is the entity which collaborated with the Family Research Council to bring us the memorable event known as "Justice Sunday," where Dobson blamed the Supreme Court for "the worst Holocaust in human history." Given that the political and family components of Dobson's empire are so indistinguishable, I think it would be appropriate and necessary to file a complaint with the FCC over Focus's insidious ad buy.

Furthermore, ABC's accomodation of Focus smacks of hypocrisy. Last winter, ABC's broadcast network refused to an ad by the National Council of Churches promoting its inclusive policy to gays and other groups explicity forbidden from belonging to churches under the ideological sway of Dobson and his ilk. According to the United Methodist News Network on 12/06/04,"ABC said it would air the advertisement on its ABC Family cable channel but not on its broadcast network." ABC stifled the speech of a group which promotes inclusiveness and diversity, while enabling an organization led by a man who told the Daily Oklahoman on 10/23/04, "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." What am I missing?

From 2001-2002, the US economy lost a large number of jobs that either make things or require technical knowledge. Notice, how new jobs do not involve new products or technologies. This information is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Manufacturing - 1.1 million jobs
The information industry - 225,000 jobs,
Professional, scientific, and technical services - 225,000 jobs,
Computer systems and design - 140,000 jobs
Wholesale Trade - 120,000

And what areas of the economy increased their number of employees from 2002-2003?

Finance and insurance + 22,000
Health Care and Social Assistance + 442,000
Food Service and drinking + 153,000
Education + 93,000
Government + 373,000

Let's move forward 1 year, from 2002-2003, the last full year of information in the BEA's database. The following industries lost jobs.

Manufacturing - 740,000
Information - 185,000
Computer and Electronic Products - 145,000
Professional, scientific and technical -15,000

And the following industries added jobs

Food Service and Drinking Places 151,000
Government + 85,000
Education + 64,000
Health Care and Social Assistance + 345,000

Why does an economy have to make new products to grow? Because in the natural chain of economic events one product naturally leads to new products. Let me use computers as an example. First, there is the actual computer that has to be assembled. This requires parts and labor, creating one group of jobs. The computer needs software, which requires programmers - more jobs. The computers have to be sold, which requires wholesalers, retail outlets and sales people yet more jobs. And lets not forget all of the ancillary products that resulted from computers - networks and the internet.

New products sustain the middle class by providing high-paying jobs. Detroit led the way n the 1950s. The high-tech industry employed millions of workers in the 1990s who benefited from high wages. The information jobs from the 1990s are going away, and we are not replacing them with the next wave of technologically innovative products.

By not creating new products and technologies or products the US is resting on its economic laurels, letting other countries make the products for us. As a result, new jobs on the cutting edge of whatever market are not benefiting the US. Instead, we are importing products we use to make on credit instead of the wages that should result from the "next big thing."

[snip]

Economists generally agree the economy needs to create 150,000/month to keep up with population changes, lost jobs etc.... According to the Bureau of Labor Services, since 2001, there are only 5 months when the economy created more than 150,000 jobs - March, April, May and October 2004 and February 2005. In other words, we are not creating jobs fast enough to absorb new and displaced workers.

This has lead to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population being employed. In 2000, 64.4% of the population was employed. That percentage has dropped to 62.3% in 2004. In other words, the number of people working as a percentage of the total US population is decreasing.

This leads to poor wage growth because employers can essentially say to prospective employees, "I can get someone who will do the job for lower wages." Wages grew 3.1% in 2002, 1.7% in 2003 and 2.3% in 2004. Compare this wage growth to inflation, which increased 1.9% in 2002, 2% in 2003 and 2.3% in 2004. In other words, wages rose below the rate on inflation for the past 2 years. In other words, the average worker is making less money for the last 2 years.