Bush Aides Linked to Talks on Interrogations

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/washington/25detain.html?scp=1&sq=bush%20aides%20linked%20to%20talks%20on%20interrogation&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Subject: Bush Aides Linked to Talks on Interrogations
To: letters@nytimes.com

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To the Editor:
   In 1984, President Reagan signed the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. When our congress subsequently ratified it, it became the "supreme law of the land" as per our Constitution. Anyone who violated or conspired to violate this convention is liable to felony prosecution--or would be if our Department of Justice were interested in enforcing the law. Attorney General Mukasey has signaled that he is more loyal to George Bush than to the Constitution which he swore to uphold. We look forward to a next Attorney General who will take his/her responsibilities more seriously.

Barry Levine

Bush to Hold Meeting on Bailout; First Debate Up in Air: Plea for Support

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/26bush.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Bush%20to%20Hold%20Meeting%20on%20Bailout&st=cse&oref=slogin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Subject: Bush to Hold Meeting on Bailoutg; First Debate Up in Air: Plea for Support
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

  If taxpayers' money is to be risked in a bailout of investment banks, we must have reason to believe that the structural problems will be fixed and that we will never again face this same crisis. President Bush has now acknowledged that regulation of the investment banks is necessary. That much is good. His proposal that regulation can wait until after the bailout is an insult to our collective intelligence. Any bailoutmust be contingent upon the regulations.

Barry Levine

1142 Brown Ave

Lafayette, CA 94549

Blocking the Sky to Save the Earth

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/opinion/20homerdixon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=david-keith&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:39 AM
Subject: Blocking the Sky to Save the Earth
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

   For two centuries, we have been pumping gigatons of carbon from fossil pools into the atmosphere. That carbon dioxide is now contributing to global climate change that threatens to make our planet uninhabitable. That same carbon dioxide is simultaneously causing an acidification of our oceans. If we were to address global warming by blocking some of the incident sunlight but fail to address the acidification of the oceans, we could end up just as extinct. Blocking incident sunlight cannot be enough. We have to actively take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration--whether as carbon dioxide or anthropogenic peat--would ameliorate global warming and the acidification of our oceans simultaneously.

Barry Levine

Pumping Hydrogen

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/business/businessspecial2/24hydro.html?ref=businessspecial2

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Subject: Pumping Hydrogen
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:
    Whatever form our energy economy takes after the demise of petroleum, we need to make our choices rationally. It is neither helpful nor honest to assert that "hydrogen offers a plentiful and clean form of energy". There are no fossil deposits on earth of hydrogen as there are of coal, gas and oil. Hydrogen must be made, just as electricity must be generated. It is a medium for storing and transporting energy, rather than  a source.

Barry Levine

1142 Brown Ave

Lafayette, CA 94549

Dear Iraqi Friends

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/opinion/24friedman.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=friedman&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 9:32 AM
Subject: Dear Iraqi Friends
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
 Sometimes, wisdom emerges from dialogue even when neither
participant saw it before. Witness Thomas Friedman and George W.
Bush--never mind that George is just a sock puppet here--acknowledging
that we were wrong in invading Iraq. As Mr. Friedman now has his dummy
say: " [Iraqis]are now going to have to step up and finish this job".
Of course Iraqis are going to have to finish the job. It was never our
job to chase fictitious WMDs, to distract the world from Bin Laden
still at large or to remake the Iraqi government. President George
H.W. Bush knew this. Colin Powell knew this. President Bush closed his
ears to his wisest advisers and blundered forward. Now we are
distracted by problems of our own. We have made a dreadful mess of
Iraq, but we can't afford to stay and fix it. Sorry; it's your
problem.
Barry Levine
1142 Brown Ave
Lafayette, CA 94549

McCain Laboring to Hit Right Note on the Economy

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/us/politics/17mccain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=mccain%20laboring&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 8:23 AM
Subject: McCain Laboring to Hit Right Note on the Economy
To: letters@nytimes.com

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To the Editor:

    So now senator McCain has told us that the economy is "sound" and that it is "broken". He has told us that we're better off than we were eight years ago (before the Enron scandal and 9/11), and that we're worse off than we were four years ago (when we were already mired in two wars and our government was spying on us). What has become of the straight-talking maverick whom we had come to respect? This rudderless changeling who just reads whatever Dick Cheney's boys put up on the teleprompter is neither an inspiring candidate nor a fit leader.

Barry Levine

Are We Experienced?: Flight School

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14gray.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=stephen%20r.%20gray&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Subject: Are We Experienced?: Flight School
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

   Stephen R. Gray enumerates the skills and virtues that allow a pilot to safely fly from and land on an aircraft carrier. We should compare these to lieutenant McCain's experience.  When he was shot down over North Vietnam, lieutenant McCain did not safely bring his plane back to land on the carrier. Nor was this his first. Five times he ditched his planes in the jungle or in the sea. Is this the record from which we should draw comfort? There is no parachute to save us if he were to crash the ship of state.

Barry Levine

1142 Brown Ave

Lafayette, CA 94549

A Message From John McCain

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/opinion/12fri3.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 2:53 PM
Subject: A Message From John McCain
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

    Faced with torture, home foreclosures, warrantless wiretaps and stop-loss orders, I had looked forward to a substantive campaign in the issues. Instead, senator McCain has sought to drown the issues in questions of character. Does his campaign of lies. organized by the same people who abused him eight years ago speak to his failing memory, or to his failing ethics? Either way, I judge, his is not the character for the job.

Barry Levine

Bhutto's Widower, Viewed as Ally by U.S., Wins the Pakistani

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/world/asia/07pstan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=zardari%20ally&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:26 PM
Subject: Bhutto's Widower, Viewed as Ally by U.S., Wins the Pakistani
Presidency Handily
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
 As far as has been reported, president Musharraf was eventually
forced from office by the Pakistani people; their rejection was fueled
in part by his bid to suborn the Supreme Court. If it were to turn out
that it was the U.S. government that put Mr. Zardari into office, I
would look to this newspaper to report it. If--as seems likely--he was
duly elected by the Pakistani people, this newspaper account seems
embarrassingly provincial in stressing his relationship to Washington
over his relationship to Pakistani jurisprudence. Where is the
discussion of chief justice Chaudhry, whom Musharraf ousted and whom
Zardari had promised to re-instate?
Barry Levine

Trail of Evidence Points to High Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/world/asia/08afghan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=trail%20of%20evidence&st=cse&oref=slogin

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 8:55 AM
Subject: Trail of Evidence Points to High Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
 The U.S. military made a policy of overcounting enemy dead
throughout the Vietnam conflict. Doing so, it managed to prolong the
death and destruction there for years. Now it has been caught
undercounting the civilian deaths in Afghanistan. If senator McCain
means to claim our "success" in Iraq as a reason to vote for him, he
will need to first find a credible witness to that "success". It's not
the U.S. military, nor is it the captive embedded press corp on the
military's leash.
Barry Levine
1142 Brown Ave
Lafayette, CA 94549

Running Against Themselves

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/opinion/04thu1.html?scp=1&sq=running%20against%20themselves&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Subject: Running Against Themselves
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

    This paper persists in tallying the cost of earmarks at their face value only; the real cost is far greater. An earmark of a few millions can bring a lawmaker aboard for legislation that would otherwise have failed. Bad laws and irresponsible budgets are enacted by a patchwork of deals, each cemented with our federal dollars. In pursuit of this pork for their constituents, our representatives in congress forsake their role as national leaders.

Barry Levine

Handshake Defuses a Standoff in Baghdad

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=handshake%20defuses%20a%20standoff%20in%20baghdad&st=cse&oref=login

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:24 AM
Subject: Handshake Defuses a Standoff in Baghdad
To: letters@nytimes.com

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To the Editor:

   Two years ago, the U.S. changed tactics in Iraq. Instead of emphasizing non-sectarian national institutions, we poured money into sectarian groups who offered to pacify their own people in their own areas. Now that the national government wants to extent its sway, there is tension. Should we be surprised? Those who have hailed this last year as "progress" need to define where we're heading. This is progress towards an Iraq partitioned. To hold it together as a nation-state would require an indefinite presence of Americans to keep prevent sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing.

Barry Levine

A Star is Born? 2

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/opinion/01kristol.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=kristol&st=cse&oref=slogin- Hide quoted text ----------- Forwarded message ----------From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 8:21 AMSubject: A Star is Born?To: letters@nytimes.com - Hide quoted text -To the Editor: As I live and learn, today I agree with William Kristol. Mr. Kristol tells us ""McCain doesn't need a foreign policy expert as vice president to help him out". Never mind his reliance on senator Lieberman to explain (again and again) the difference between Shia and Sunni; senator McCain would bring far more to the presidency than did president Bush. America now has seven years experience of a co-presidency in which our nominal leader has tried to lead on issues he doesn't understand. It's time for the vice president to resume the job of being ready in case the worst happens to the president. This is the role for which governor Palin isn't ready.Barry Levine- Hide quoted text -1142 Brown Ave.Lafayette, CA 94549

A Star is Born?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/opinion/01kristol.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=kristol&st=cse&oref=slogin
- Hide quoted text ----------- Forwarded message ----------From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 8:21 AMSubject: A Star is Born?To: letters@nytimes.com

- Hide quoted text -To the Editor: As I live and learn, today I agree with William Kristol. Mr. Kristol tells us ""McCain doesn't need a foreign policy expert as vice president to help him out". Never mind his reliance on senator Lieberman to explain (again and again) the difference between Shia and Sunni. America now has seven years experience of a co-presidency in which our nominal leader has tried to lead on issues he doesn't understand. It's time for the vice president to resume the job of being ready in case the worst happens to the president. This is the role for which governor Palin isn't ready.Barry Levine- Hide quoted text -1142 Brown Ave.Lafayette, CA 94549