Collective Sigh

Nearly one in 10 American soldiers who served in Iraq were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, most after witnessing death or participating in combat, a study said on Tuesday.

Mental health screening of veterans showed 21,620 out of 222,620 returning from Iraq and assessed over the year ending April 30, 2004, suffered from post-traumatic stress -- a disorder that can lead to nightmares, flashbacks and delusional thinking.

When the service member is diagnosed, she/he should immediately call 1-800-827-1000, and ask to be connected to the Veterans Administration Regional Office. Once connected, ask for instructions on how to apply for services related to PTSD. Do not take no for an answer. Depending on the VA facility, or even a given individual VA employee, you may be discouraged from filing a claim. Even if they tell you that you are not entitled, demand the application paperwork and file it.

The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the past five years, the number of veterans receiving compensation for the disorder commonly called PTSD has grown nearly seven times as fast as the number receiving benefits for disabilities in general, according to a report this year by the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs. A total of 215,871 veterans received PTSD benefit payments last year at a cost of $4.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 1999 -- a jump of more than 150 percent.

...the latest poll shows that perceptions of Bush's performance are deteriorating again.

On Iraq, 30 percent said they approved of his management of the situation there - down from 37 percent in January - and 65 percent disapproved. In addition, 36 percent said things were going well in Iraq, down from 45 percent in January.

One of the important points made in this excerpt (the entire piece is available to subscribers only) is that a goodly portion of our success or failure in Iraq has ultimately to do with how we react in terms of either lending our support or leveling our criticisms against the campaign.

And this is (and has been) a crucial component of the war—one that many on the anti-war side are loathe to admit: that their constant naysaying, though it is well within their right to voice, has objectively hurt the war effort, particularly when the criticism incorporates carefully-crafted falsehoods many of the war’s critics know for a fact to be objectively untrue.

President Bush on Tuesday strongly defended a deal that would let a United Arab Emirates-based company run six major U.S. seaports, telling reporters that he would veto any bill to hold up the agreement. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has threatened to introduce a bill aimed at holding up the deal. Critics cite a potential security threat arguing the UAE was a finance center for the 9/11 terror attacks, but the State Department said the deal has nothing to do "with the responsibility for security in American ports."

Larry Johnson: There were a total of 3204 terrorist incidents in 2004. Instead of 1907 fatalities there were 6110. And, instead of 6704 people wounded in terrorist attacks there were 16,257. So far, no one in the mainstream media has asked the Bush Administration to explain why more people died from terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any previous year, including 2001.

Tax cuts make money

By Bill Frist

Many people in Washington have long known a dirty little secret about tax-cut measures: When done right, they actually result in more money for the government.

Ever since the Senate approved the last major tax relief bill, in 2003, revenues have increased every year. In 2004, they went up 5.5%. Last year, they rose 14.5%, the largest increase in nearly 25 years.

“I have been a law-abiding, tax-paying resident of this county for over twenty years. I have supported, with both time and money, the local schools, fire department, sheriff’s office, hospital. I make it a point to trade at local businesses.

I have poured millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars into the area in 2006 alone.

If the county doesn’t pay to pave my driveway and landscape my yard, I’m pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere.”

The News & Record of Greensboro reported that the company “threatened that it might take the jobs to China without local tax breaks.” RF Micro opened a “test, tape, and reel” facility in Beijing in September. The plant, where components made in Greensboro reach their final stage of assembly, is the only manufacturing facility the company has in China. The company was invited by wireless phone maker Nokia to become one of its suppliers in China.

RF Micro manufactures its products at two plants in Greensboro. Vice President and Corporate Treasurer Suzanne Rudy said incentives were one of several important considerations that factored into the company's decision. “We had other options,” she said. “We could have easily done this in China and we considered outsourcing.”

The company wants $1.4 million in government incentives over three years from the county and Greensboro. The city's portion is $590,000.

(...)

Commissioners split over the value of the incentive.

"I don't want to risk losing this company," Democratic Commissioner Bruce Davis of High Point said during a Greensboro hearing.

The new grant increases the county's incentive contribution to more than $4 million since 1999 and brings the total to more than $7 million from Greensboro and the county.

"This is not equal justice under the law," said Republican Commissioner Steve Arnold of High Point. "You can't give money to a corporation and call it equal for everybody".

"When somebody else pays the bills, rarely do you ask price or ask the cost of something," the president said during a panel discussion on his health care initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services. "The problem with that is that there's no kind of market force, there's no consumer advocacy for reasonable price when somebody else pays the bills. One of the reasons why we're having inflation in health care is because there is no sense of market."

"When you go buy a car you're able to shop and compare," he said. "And yet in health care that's just not happening in America today."

Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."

Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper.

A chastised Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff sparred with senators of both parties on Wednesday as he acknowledged "many lapses" in his agency's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Chertoff told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that he would do things differently if he had the chance. One thing he would not do: give overall responsibility for the relief effort to Michael Brown, who was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time.

Czech Ambassador Dr. Petr Kolar will be in Biloxi 11:30 a.m. on Thursday to present the donation to St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy, known for helping the Coast's poor, uninsured and elderly with medicine needs.

"All was lost in Katrina and we have to restock," said executive director Theresa Pavlov, whose office is in the new pharmacy location, 735 Division St., at the corner of Lameuse.

"We've had tremendously generous people to help us rebuild our facility and the Czech donation will mean that we can purchase medicine and operate for the next six months. In the past our Coast physicians supplied about two-thirds of our medicines for the pharmacy and now many of them have lost their offices or are displaced. This money will be a godsend."

"Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time-there-were-quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be the 78 year old man. Even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists-he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face.

Far from the victims of Katrina for whom they are meant, the furnished shelters crowd an airport, benefiting only the town of Hope, Ark.

After the Aug. 29 storm left thousands homeless on the Gulf Coast, officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama began calling for trailers to provide temporary shelter. More than 100,000 were requested, and somebody decided to create holding areas for the trailers outside the hurricane zone.

Today, legions of wide-bodied mobile homes sit empty at Hope's Municipal Airport, a sprawling former military base. After all these months, storm victims can't seem to get the trailers, which are proving a mixed blessing to Hope and Arkansas.

"It just boggles the mind in this day and time," said Mark Keith, director of the Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce. "There are 10,770 trailers at Hope Airport. That's one for every man, woman and child in Hope, with a few left over to send to Emmet, down the road."

On the plus side, new jobs have been created for security guards, maintenance workers and others for trailers that cover all but one of the airport's runways and spill onto adjacent land. At Uncle Henry's, owner Bobby Redman says business is up by as much as 20%. The small army of truckers who deliver the trailers pump money into many parts of the local economy.

"It's been good for the whole town," said Mayor Dennis Ramsey. The Federal Emergency Management Agency picked Hope after searching the Internet for World War II-era military airports, he said.

More Medicines From Abroad Seized

The U.S. government apparently is stepping up seizures of cheap drugs ordered by Americans — mainly seniors — from abroad, Canadian pharmacies say.

The pharmacies, which sell drugs by mail and over the Internet, say their shipments are being intercepted by U.S. Customs officials around the country where foreign mail is handled.

"It's huge — we've had over 800 seizures in January," up from 15 in a typical month, said Barney Britton, president of Calgary-based MinitDrugs.

Other pharmacies reported four- to five-fold increases. An informal survey of 30 Canadian pharmacies that cater to American customers, conducted by a senior-citizen advocacy website, showed that the rise began in November, doubled in December and doubled again in January.

(...)

"It's despicable," said Samuel Robert Greenberg, a Laguna Niguel retiree who lost a package of anti-cholesterol pills and glaucoma eyedrops late last month. "They are playing with people's lives."

Greenberg, 73, said he and his wife had bought drugs from Canadian pharmacies for years without incident.

But if replacements for his Lipitor pills don't arrive by next week, Greenberg said, he will have to buy from a local pharmacy at a cost of about $3 a pill — a third more than he pays through the mail.

Greenberg said such seizures were a waste of government resources. "Forget about the heroin," Greenberg said. "They are going to stop the Lipitor."

"I went to a football game," said Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs), adding sarcastically: "Oh my God, my soul has been purchased."

It wasn't just a football game, as any Georgia Bulldogs fan will tell you.

The Bulldogs faced the West Virginia Mountaineers. And it was in Atlanta, having been moved from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina.

The game was a sellout, and many UGA season ticket holders ended up watching their team lose a nail-biter on the tube.

But 17 Georgia lawmakers used their connections with lobbyists to get some of the best seats in the Dome, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of reports detailing lobbyist spending in January.

The tickets, refreshments and parking passes were valued at more than $4,500, the analysis shows. They cost the 14 Republicans and three Democrats nothing.

Lobbyist largesse is part of life under Georgia's Gold Dome. In 2005, lobbyists spent $1.1 million on meals, tickets to sporting events, and other gifts for lawmakers.

"They say it doesn't influence them — I just don't buy it," said Jim Kulstad, a lobbyist with the watchdog group Common Cause Georgia. "Exclusive tickets to the Sugar Bowl — that's special, and it's remembered."

After returning to the White House from New Hampshire, the president signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which makes $39 billion in cuts to student loan subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies and other programs.

"Spending restraints means making difficult choices, yet making those choices is what the American people sent us to Washington to do," the president said before signing the legislation.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.

Oil drilling companies are upset that the Bush administration has proposed killing funding for oil and natural gas exploration research and development programs at the Department of Energy, an industry lobbyist said Monday.

Q. And what about bringing the troops home from Iraq?

A. He made an amazing statement saying he is not going to withdraw troops until the generals tell him to. He is saying he is not the commander in chief. "I've decided to send you to war and you can tell me when it's over." I was struck by that being an abdication of power.

Prince Harry is to be sent to Iraq next year as a troop commander and is likely to patrol the hazardous border with Iran, defence sources have disclosed.

The third in line to the throne will join the Army's 1st Mechanised Brigade, which will be deployed to Basra in May 2007.

The prince has told colleagues that he is determined to go on operations and be treated as normally as possible - not kept out of the line of fire.