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The American People Badly Underestimate Iraqi Death Toll

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| Mon Feb. 26, 2007 7:09 AM PST

A new AP-Ipsos poll finds that Americans can accurately identify the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq, but badly miss the mark on the number of Iraqi civilians killed.

When the poll was conducted, the number of Americans killed was just over 3,100. Poll respondents guessed 3,000, on average. The number of Iraqis killed is a difficult question, but what we do know is that it's really, really high. From the AP story on the poll: "Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone."

What do Americans guess? 9,890. Yikes.

But apparently even that badly inaccurate number is too high for an increasingly war-weary country. "Whatever their understanding of the respective death tolls," writes the AP, "three-quarters of those polled said the numbers of both Americans and Iraqis who have been killed are 'unacceptable.'" For an explanation for why the American public doesn't know how many Iraqis have been killed, look no further than the Bush Administration, which was exposed as systematically undercounting Iraqi dead by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Hit this link to read the obvious but damning allegation.

Mother Jones content on counting the Iraqi dead here and here.

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Disabled Iraq Vets Shortchanged, Already

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| Sun Feb. 25, 2007 11:40 PM PST

On Saturday the Army announced that its Inspector Generals Office has found 87 problems with the service's medical retirement system, including inconsistent training for counselors, inadequate record keeping and a failure to follow Defense Department policy. The announcement came after a yearlong probe where the IG's office talked with 650 soldiers and employees at 32 posts around the world.

Also this weekend we hear, via Army Times, that the Army is holding back disability retirement ratings to cut costs.

"These people are being systematically underrated," said Ron Smith, deputy general counsel for Disabled American Veterans. "It's a bureaucratic game to preserve the budget, and it's having an adverse affect on service members."

Turns out that the number of approvals for disability retirement have remained steady for the other branches—Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force—since 2001 but in the Army, where we are seeing the majority of casualties and the bulk of our 23,000 injured, "the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement has plunged by more than two-thirds, from 642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005, according to a GAO report from last year.

The Army Times also points out that:

While the number of soldiers placed on permanent disability retirement has declined in the past five years, the number placed on temporary disability retirement — with medical conditions that officials rule might improve so they can return to work over time or worsen to the point that they must be permanently retired — has increased more than fourfold, from 165 in 2001 to 837 in 2005.

Compared to the overall size of the defense budget, disability retirement costs are relatively small, compared to what we are spending in theater. In 2004, the military paid more than $1.2 billion in permanent and temporary disability benefits to 90,000 people, the GAO said.

More on the hits our men and women in uniform are taking in Iraq, and everything else you might want to know about the Iraq War, in our Iraq 101 guide, here, and on newsstands later this week.

Al Gore Wins! And This Time Gets To Keep the Prize

—By

| Sun Feb. 25, 2007 10:22 PM PST

Okay, so I get that awards shows are going political. First the Dixie Chicks run the table for standing up to Bush, then tonight's Al Gore show at the Oscars.

To sum up:

-Leonardo DiCaprio with Al early on, together they announce that the Oscars has gone totally green, carbon neutral, pats on the back all around.

-Leo then turns to Al in appreciation, asks him if he doesn't have any sort of announcement to share with his international audience. Gore pulls out a paper and starts to lead into an "I've decided to..." when the Oscar score interrupts him, all part of the script.

-Melissa Etheridge wins for best song ("I Need to Wake Up") for Inconvenient Truth, thanks her wife, tells us how it's not about Democrats and Republicans, red and blue, that we are all green and says what a hero Gore is.

-Minutes later Inconvenient Truth wins for best documentary and the director thanks Gore for (and I am paraphrasing here, didn't have the reporters notebook handy) "letting us do this film 30 years in the making." Gore grabs the statue, feels quite at home on the Hollywood stage and uses his time wisely, tells America that its not too late, that we can change the course of our planet's future, but not without action from a passive administration. Something like that.

So, like I said, I get that Hollywood likes to reach out and grab their courageous ones by the tie, or in last year's case by the cowboy hat, but then they have to go all soft and give The Departed the best motion picture nod? (They had already given the oft-snubbed Scorsese the Best Director win, so that's not an excuse.) I may be in the minority here but in my opinion Little Miss Sunshine and Babel (the only other two I saw) both ran circles around the mob film propped up by a ridiculously-flush cast. Maybe it was Alec Baldwin's line about unwarranted wiretapping that grabbed the academy? When his police team is listening in on a deal going down he squeals, "The Patriot Act! I love it, I love the Patriot Act!"

Yeah, probably not.

I know these award shows matter little, and it's Hollywood so what do I expect, but it irks me that they take a serious tone, responsible tone, all political and progressive by theme, and then throw it all down the Charles River before the night is through.

One for the Bizarro File

—By

| Sun Feb. 25, 2007 4:26 PM PST

Not everyday that you see a CNN headline like this: "Genealogists: Thurmond's family owned Sharpton's kin."

The story is this: Genealogists commissioned by the Daily News discovered that Al Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by a woman named Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather. What I really want to know is, did the Daily News get a tip that there was a connection between Sharpton and Thurmond, or do they do genealogical studies of all prominent black Americans to see if their ancestors were owned by the ancestors of prominent white Americans? How creepy would that be?

Late Update: Answers from the WaPo story on the subject:

The genealogy study was produced by researchers for the Web site Ancestry.com. Daily News reporter Austin Fenner initially asked them to research his own roots. He then approached Sharpton and asked if he would permit an investigation of his family history as well, for use in a story. Sharpton agreed. Neither the Daily News nor Sharpton paid for the research.

Victory Against New Coal Plants

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| Sun Feb. 25, 2007 12:08 PM PST

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The Texas-based utility company TXU's plans to build 11 new coal plants, with funding from firms such as Merrill Lynch, have been scuttled. Two equity firms will buy TXU under terms that include trashing the controversial plans. The group Billionaires for Coal had staged protests outside Merrill Lynch offices last week. At about the same time, equity firms entered into negotiations with environmental heavyweights National Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, asking the groups what it would take for them to support the buyout. TXU will instead look to develop cleaner energy holdings. The New York Times is touting the deal as a beacon of what financial dealings may look like in "a regulatory and public-relations landscape in an era of climate change."

Important Gay Rights Bills Likely to Pass This Session

—By

| Sat Feb. 24, 2007 6:46 PM PST

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports today that two breakthrough bills for gays and lesbians are likely to be passed by the new Democratic Congress. Both possibilities have me on the brink of tears of joy, they are so overdue and yet still seem so implausible. The first is an employment discrimination ban. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) projects that the bill will even include gender identity—which, to have any teeth, it must, lest employers shift from discriminating against those who are queer to those who act queer (which it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they've long since done).

The only problem with this bill—and it's a major one—is that churches and small businesses would be exempt. Churches: Feh—I don't have the energy to wade into the constitutionally murky waters of whether they should be exempt or not. But small businesses, which is to say most businesses? Why should they be exempt? No one is talking about a quota; the issue is whether GLBT people are turned away from positions for which they are qualified.

The other bill would include GLBT identity among those covered by hate-crimes legislation. That's right, nearly 10 years after Matthew Shephard was executed there is no national hate-crimes protection for GLBT people, who make up 14 percent of all victims of hate crimes. If that's not reason enough to support it, here's what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has to say: "It's taking us to the point where anyone who opposes the sexual behavior of homosexuals will be silenced." Now, he's probably exaggerating, but just for a moment imagine the utopia of not having to listen to the invented slanderous anecdotes and statistics about GLBTs groups like Perkins' generate. The sweet, sweet silence of it.

But before you let those tears of joy trickle down your cheeks, remember on whose desk the veto pen rests.

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Bill Richardson Serious About This "Running for President" Thing

—By

| Sat Feb. 24, 2007 10:26 AM PST

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has an op-ed in today's WaPo arguing that George Bush's refusal to use diplomacy early in his administration led to a nuclear North Korea, and that if we aren't careful we'll repeat our mistakes with Iran. Hard to argue with logic like this:

Rather than directly engaging the Iranians about their nuclear program, President Bush refuses to talk, except to make threats. He has moved ships to the Persian Gulf region and claims, with scant evidence, that Iran is helping Iraqi insurgents kill Americans. This is not a strategy for peace. It is a strategy for war -- a war that Congress has not authorized. Most of our allies, and most Americans, don't believe this president, who has repeatedly cried wolf.
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No nation has ever been forced to renounce nuclear weapons, but many have chosen to do so. The Iranians will not end their nuclear program because we threaten them and call them names. They will renounce nukes because we convince them that they will be safer and more prosperous if they do that than if they don't. This feat will take more than threats and insults. It will take skillful American diplomatic leadership.

As I wrote a couple days ago, I totally agree. The funny thing about this is that it isn't just Democratic boilerplate from a presidential candidate. Bill Richardson knows diplomacy. Bill Richardson knows nukes. The man was U.S. ambassador to the U.N., negotiated with Saddam Hussein way back when, negotiated a ceasefire in Darfur more recently, and briefly ran the U.S. Department of Energy under Clinton. (All of this leads me to believe that Richardson, who is unlikely to get the nomination for president, would make an excellent Secretary of State.)

Minnesota Goes Green, Really Green

—By

| Fri Feb. 23, 2007 7:20 PM PST

Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota signed a law yesterday requiring that all state utility companies generate at least a quarter of their power from renewable sources by 2025. (One company, Xcel, which provides the state with half of its electricity, must meet 30% by 2020.) This plan is more ambitious than the state's previous 10% by 2015 objective.

Not ones to count on feds whose idea of an energy bill includes reversing decades of renewables wisdom and polluter protection waivers to solve the nation's energy problems, some two dozen states have adopted renewable energy goals. California, Hawaii, New York, Nevada, and New Jersey have all set their mark at 20% or more. "As states are catching up with us, we want to raise the bar," Pawlenty said.

Minnesota's law passed just days after EU energy ministers weakened a "20% renewable energy by 2020" plan by recommending that the target be made voluntary. Last year, China enacted a 15% by 2020 law, and Australia remains committed to producing enough renewable energy to power the homes of 4 million of its 20 million people by 2010.

Though New Hampshire and Colorado are considering stricter standards, Minnesota's initiative to more than triple its 8% renewable energy production in less than two decades prompted analysts to call it "the most aggressive in the country." If Pawlenty's bar-raising doesn't inspire other domestic and even international actions toward going greener, his Republican-governed Northern Great Plains state may become the most environmentally progressive place in the world.

--Nicole McClelland

Green Cars Electrify the Red Carpet

—By

| Fri Feb. 23, 2007 5:39 PM PST

This year Tim Robbins won't be the only one stepping onto the red carpet from a hybrid. Global Green USA says it has 30 green cars ready for Oscar night to transport stars like Penelope Cruz and Orlando Bloom to the ceremonies. Celebs who have previously used Global Green's eco-cars include Charlize Theron, Robin Williams, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Jack Black, and Will Ferrell.

Ferrell, who called eco-cars "just plain sexy," may be proven right this year. A prototype of the lipstick-red, two-seater Tesla Roadster sports car will make its TV debut at the red carpet roll-up. The super-quiet, totally electric vehicle can go from 0 to 60 mph in four seconds, costs $92,000, and has the smooth, curving body of a traditional hot-rod. Commercial production will begin later in 2007.

Consumers interested in more, ahem, affordable eco-friendly cars can see Global Green's list of the most environmentally-friendly vehicles here .

—Jen Phillips

New Documentary Broaches the Big O

—By

| Fri Feb. 23, 2007 5:34 PM PST

When Chris Anderson, director of The O Tapes, first read the findings of the Laumann study that made public the information that 43% of women experience sexual dysfunction, he was shocked. If this was the case for men, he thought, there would be a pill. Just a few months after reading the findings, one was released—for men, not for women. After doing a bit more research, he discovered that the incidence of sexual dysfunction in men was believed to be about half that recorded for women by the Laumann study.

Anderson, who had been working as a film editor, was in the market for a documentary film project, and after doing a bit of research into the subject himself, the elusive female orgasm became its subject. The only problem, he determined was that he was the wrong gender to carry this project through. But this didn't deter him. He hired an all-female staff and proceeded to interview hundreds of women and a few noted (or notorious) experts in the field about sexuality. Many of these interviews revealed that women just don't talk about sexuality.

Last night, I attended a sparsely populated screening of The O Tapes in San Francisco that was followed by a short panel discussion featuring the director and three local experts on human sexuality. Either San Franciscans think they already know everything about sex or the rainy weather served as a deterrent, because the Lumière Theater wasn't even a quarter full. But I guarantee that everyone in the audience learned something new, whether it was a historical fact or a point of view put forth by someone interviewed in the film.

While I would have preferred a more narrative approach, the organization of the film around subjects was effective. As Anderson pointed out during the panel discussion, the interview covered about 60 subjects, most of which could not be included in the final version of the film. Instead, he used his editing skills to define a more narrow set of topics including "orgasm" "foreplay," and "self image" to provide organization for the project.

The primary strength of The O Tapes isn't the film's organization, but rather, the diversity of voices that Anderson was able to capture during the interview process. The women in this film range in age from 25 to 84, and are from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. While almost all of the women are heterosexual, a few queer women are also given a voice. The project is more than reminiscent of The Vagina Monologues (click here for a Mother Jones interview with Ensler), but the diversity of voices and content goes beyond that normally attained in sex-positive film festivals.

Even though the so-called sexual revolution started something moving in the right direction, we have a long way to go when it comes to understanding female sexuality. For Chris Anderson, part of the solution might be found simply in talking about, rather than around, sex. Getting this dialogue going isn't an easy undertaking in a culture that has many taboos centered around female sexuality. Fortunately, as revealed in the film, many women do love to talk.

Click here for show times.

--Rose Miller