Why Wolfowitz Should Stay

By NUHU RIBADU

Published: May 1, 2007 New York Times

Abuja, Nigeria

FOR the past few weeks, the world has been riveted by the difficulties of Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, regarding a potential conflict of interest involving the salary of his partner, also a senior official there. With the bank’s board deliberating this week over how to handle the charges, the controversy now needlessly and regrettably threatens Mr. Wolfowitz’s presidency, which has been largely defined by his energetic support for a new Africa that is struggling to emerge.

Over the last two years, Mr. Wolfowitz has effectively directed the bank’s energies toward fighting poverty and improving human life. He is a champion of using international development institutions to deal with some of the world’s major problems. And he has been a steadfast supporter of the efforts of African organizations to rescue our people from the scourge of misrule, which leads to poverty, disease and early death.

Over the last three years, Nigeria, once the emblem of outlandish corruption, has become a leading reformer, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which I head, has been at the cutting edge of these efforts. The enormous challenges we face would have proved almost insurmountable without external help, especially from the World Bank under Mr. Wolfowitz.

When disgruntled lawmakers here tried to cut off our financing and shut down critical aspects of our operation, a World Bank grant of $5 million allowed us to bring to closure important cases of political corruption involving key members of Nigeria’s ruling elite, including members of the executive branch and Parliament.

Today our work receives accolades from all corners of the globe, and the financial and moral support of our thoughtful and courageous allies has played a crucial role in our success. In a country that never saw a single conviction for fraud or corruption before the beginning of our reform campaign, we now have 150 convictions, with 400 more cases awaiting decision in the courts. We have also recovered $5 billion in stolen property. We have brought powerful politicians and businessmen to account through the criminal justice system.

These developments are gradually improving the integrity of our national life. Two weeks ago, Nigeria had its first general election intended to pass power from one elected government to another. While the election did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves, it did reveal that for citizens, the fight against corruption was a top priority — right up there with food, health care and education. In other words, Nigerians made the same connection between runaway corruption and human suffering that Mr. Wolfowitz rightly does.

Corruption is the greatest challenge to progress across much of the developing world, and as we in Nigeria know from bitter experience, this is particularly so in Africa. As Mr. Wolfowitz remarked in a recent speech, some two million Africans die from AIDS-related illnesses each year, while nearly 3,000 African children die each day from malaria and nearly 40 million are not in school. All this, he noted, despite $300 billion in international aid to Africa over the last 20 years.

Corruption has not only produced injustice and a chronic failure to effectively manage international support, it has also led to the squandering of Africa’s considerable human and natural resources. Nigeria has made nearly half a trillion dollars from oil in less than five decades — a figure that dwarfs that of international aid to the whole of Africa. And yet, around 70 percent of Nigerians live in conditions of dispiriting poverty, on incomes of less than a dollar a day. Corruption kills far more effectively than AIDS, malaria or war.

On my recent visit to the World Bank in Washington, I was greatly impressed with the remarkable changes in policy and direction that Mr. Wolfowitz had undertaken, as well as by the diversity of talents he had convened to execute his vision of a fairer world. The bank’s secretary and two vice presidents are Africans — one was my colleague in the Nigerian cabinet. Another vice president is Salvadoran.

Mr. Wolfowitz spoke eloquently for those of us in poor countries last month when he exhorted citizens of the industrial world: “As we go back to our comfortable beds tonight, we should think about the voiceless millions who may not even have beds at all, who go to sleep hungry, sick and uncertain about their future. For many it’s literally a matter of life and death.”

And he has matched words with deeds through initiatives to promote greater international cooperation with poor countries, especially regarding the recovery of assets from pilfered resources. Effective efforts at fighting corruption cannot stop at our borders when up to 80 percent of the “grand corruption” perpetrated in Africa is dependent on international mechanisms that facilitate money laundering.

Mr. Wolfowitz has made a praiseworthy effort to halt the illicit drain of money from the coffers of poor countries. Just this simple step — denying a haven for money stolen from a poor country — addresses more than half the problem of corruption in Africa.

It would be a terrible shame to bring all these efforts to a premature halt. Mr. Wolfowitz has openly acknowledged responsibility for the mistake he made. He has apologized and expressed willingness to accept the decision of the bank’s board of directors. But the board should consider how important his error really was, especially considering that the bank’s internal documents suggest that Mr. Wolfowitz tried to follow the rules from the beginning.

The board should avoid lending credence to the widespread suspicion that Mr. Wolfowitz is really being punished for his previous role in the United States Department of Defense. And it should consider the benefit Mr. Wolfowitz has brought to countries like Nigeria.

Nuhu Ribadu is the chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The EU must act in Darfur

April 29, 2007 11:00 AM *From Guardian Unlimited

For four years, violence and terror have ruled in Darfur. After many futile efforts, the EU must get tough with the perpetrators.

Darfur is a humanitarian catastrophe: more than 200,000 dead, thousands raped and tortured, and 2.6 million people displaced, owing to the Sudanese government's war against its own people. Originally an anti-insurgency effort, the campaign quickly mutated into a killing and expulsion operation. Sudan's government has been recruiting and paying the local "Janjaweed" militiamen, who have attacked hundreds of defenseless villages and towns, often in close co-ordination with the Sudanese air force.

The consequences are devastating. Roughly a third of Darfur's population has been forced from their homes and are now in displaced persons camps inside Sudan, where they remain subject to the Janjaweed terror, or in equally vulnerable refugee settlements in Chad. International humanitarian efforts to help those in Sudan are hampered by Sudanese government harassment and pointless bureaucratic hassles. Even if the aid arrives, the point, to quote one senior UN official, seems to be "keeping people alive with our humanitarian assistance until they are massacred".

Darfur demands consistent and firm international action. We all bear responsibility to help the displaced return to their homes. In the last three years, the United Nations Security Council has passed ten resolutions requiring the Sudanese government to change course and fulfill its obligation to protect its own people. These include a demand from the Security Council to disarm the Janjaweed. Yet the Sudanese government never follows through on its repeated promises to do so.

In November 2004, a peaceful solution was within reach, when the government and rebels signed a ceasefire and humanitarian agreement. For a short moment, there was reason to hope that peace was at hand. A Security Council resolution and international negotiation efforts had paved the way to end the 20-year war in southern Sudan - a breakthrough that in fact led to a deal signed by the government and southern rebels in January 2005. At that time, it appeared that a similar breakthrough in western Sudan would follow.

But the worst was yet to come. After an apparent lull in aerial bombardments, the planes soon returned, and the Janjaweed resumed their campaign of murder and destruction. The next round of peace negotiations, which opened in December 2004, stalled because the government launched a military offensive just as they started, in defiance of the ceasefire. This behavior is symptomatic of the lack of respect Sudan's government has shown towards its obligations.

A Security Council resolution last August mandated a 20,300-strong UN peacekeeping force to replace the small and overwhelmed African Union mission currently on the ground. Not surprisingly, the government in Khartoum rejected the idea. Subsequent negotiations led to a compromise agreement in November for a hybrid AU-UN force that would deploy in three stages. Talks continue to this day, but despite the occasional newspaper headline announcing a deal, the Sudanese government has been using every opportunity to delay or to attempt to add conditions to the force's mandate. The result is, the second phase of the deployment has still not taken place even though it was accepted by Khartoum six months ago.

The heart of the matter is this: the Sudanese government is either unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens from mass violence. In accordance with the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, adopted unanimously by heads of state and government at the UN World Summit in September 2005, if a state fails to meet this primary obligation, responsibility shifts to the international community, which may exercise various measures, including, if absolutely necessary, military force.

But military intervention in Darfur without the Sudanese government's consent is not an option today. Not only is there insufficient political will for an international force, but, more importantly, there are valid doubts about the feasibility and prospects for the success of such an operation.

Even so, the international community still has options. Although it would be best if these options were adopted by the UN Security Council, the EU itself can and must act to increase the costs to the Sudanese government of its continued obstruction of aid deliveries and its delaying tactics on deployment of international peacekeepers.

That is why it is so important that EU foreign ministers heed the European Parliament's call for serious sanctions against the Sudanese government, whose key players were clearly identified by a UN Commission of Inquiry and Panel of Experts. The EU must freeze these individuals' assets and impose an EU-wide travel ban on them.

In addition, measures should target the Sudanese government where it hurts most: revenue and foreign investment inflows into Sudan's petroleum sector, and supply of goods and services to that and associated sectors. The EU and its member states' governments must enact legislation to ban companies based in their countries from direct involvement in Sudan's petroleum sector and in industries related to it.

Moreover, an investigation into the offshore accounts of Sudanese businesses affiliated with the National Congress Party, the ruling majority party in Khartoum, should be launched, paving the way for sanctions against the regime's commercial entities, which form the main conduit for financing its Janjaweed proxies in Darfur.

Such targeted sanctions would affect the power and privileges of the key players in this crisis. By imposing them, Europe would finally take a real step towards stopping the killing in Darfur and extending meaningful help to its people.

Criminalising the consumer

IS IT legal to make a copy of that DVD you’ve just bought so the family can watch it around the home or in the car? In one of the most watched copyright cases in recent years, a judge in northern California ruled last month that copying DVDs for personal use was legal, given the terms of the industry’s licence and the way the copies were made.


The wider implication of the ruling remains clouded—not least because the DVD Copy Control Association, the loser in the case, has 60 days to appeal. But whatever the video industry may like to think, the writing is on the wall for copy protection.

Copyright is a tricky thing. It protects only the way that an author, designer, photographer, film-maker or composer has expressed himself. It does not cover the ideas or the factual information conveyed in the work.

What constitutes fair use or an infringement is trickier still. Much depends on the purpose and character of the borrowed material’s use. Limited reproduction for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research is considered fair game. But the wholesale repackaging of the content for commercial use is a flagrant infringement.

In America, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 made it legal for people to record copyrighted radio broadcasts for personal use. But while the act said nothing about making digital recordings, ripping copyrighted music tracks off CDs and storing them on an iPod has become an everyday occurrence. Despite the number of iTunes downloaded for a fee, Apple would be in trouble if people were prevented from transferring legitimately owned CDs to their iPods. The software Apple gives away to iPod customers is designed to let them do just that.

Most people think it ludicrous that they can’t do the same with the DVDs they own. Now it seems, despite squeals from the movie industry, the law is finally moving in the video fan’s favour.

The issue in the recent case was whether Kaleidescape, a maker of digital “jukeboxes” that store a person’s video and music collections and distribute the entertainment around the home, had breached the terms of the DVD Content Control Association’s CSS (content scrambling system) licence.

A Kaleidescape server stores digital content ripped from CDs and DVDs on its hard drive. The content is then encrypted and fed to various screens and speakers around the home by a secure cable. Kaleidescape claimed that content distributed this way was even safer than it was on the original polycarbonate disks. The judge not only agreed, but couldn’t find any breach of the copy-protection licence either.

If the case ends there, to all intents and purposes the notion of fair use would appear to apply to DVDs as well as CDs. The movie industry, which nowadays depends as much on DVD sales as on box-office receipts, still seems to think that making life difficult for its customers is a recipe for success.

After likewise shooting itself in the foot for ages, the record industry is now falling over itself to abandon DRM (digital rights management) on CDs. A number of online music stores such as eMusic, Audio Lunchbox and Anthology have given up using DRM altogether. In a recent survey by Jupiter Research, two out of three music industry executives in Europe reckoned that dropping DRM would improve sales.

The latest music publisher to do so is EMI, which announced in January that it had stopped producing CDs with DRM protection. “The costs of DRM,” it declared, “do not measure up to the results.”

In an open letter entitled “Thoughts on Music”, even Steve Jobs, Apple’s charismatic boss and chief evangelist, recently called for the elimination of DRM. From this month, Apple’s iTunes will sell EMI’s highest quality recordings (those with sampling rates of 256 kilobits per second) without DRM for a small premium.

Belatedly, music executives have come to realise that DRM simply doesn’t work. It is supposed to stop unauthorised copying, but no copy-protection system has yet been devised that cannot be easily defeated. All it does is make life difficult for paying customers, while having little or no effect on clandestine copying plants that churn out pirate copies.

Now the copy protection on DVDs is proving just as easy to bypass. The biggest flop has been the CSS technology featured in the recent Kaleidescape case. It was first cracked back in 1999 by a Norwegian programmer called Jon Lech Johansen, who showed, in a few short lines of elegant code called DeCSS, just how trivial such lauded protection systems really were. Since then, even the DRM used to protect the new high-definition video disks (the Blu-ray format from the Sony camp and its HD-DVD rival from the Toshiba alliance) have been cracked wide open.

While most of today’s DRM schemes that come embedded on CDs and DVDs are likely to disappear over the next year or two, the need to protect copyrighted music and video will remain. Fortunately, there are better ways of doing this than treating customers as if they were criminals.

One of the most promising is Audible Magic’s content protection technology. Google is currently testing this to find the “fingerprints” of miscreants who have posted unauthorised television or movie clips on YouTube.

The beauty of such schemes is that they don’t actually prevent anyone from making copies of original content. Their purpose is simply to collect royalties when a breach of copyright has occurred. By being reactive rather than pre-emptive, normal law-abiding consumers are then left in peace to enjoy their music and video collections in any way they choose. Why couldn’t we have thought of that in the beginning?

Hooked On Violence

BYLINE: By BOB HERBERT

BODY:

Two days after the massacre at Virginia Tech, a mentally disturbed man with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun opened fire in a house in Queens, killing his mother, his mother's disabled companion and the disabled man's health care aide. The gunman then killed himself.

Sixteen months ago, in the basement of a private home in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, four aspiring rappers, aged 19 to 22, were summarily executed in a barrage of semiautomatic gunfire. Two teenagers were arrested five months later, and one was charged as the gunman.

I had coffee the other day with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, and she mentioned that since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That's more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history.

''We're losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence,'' she said. ''As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days.''

The first step in overcoming an addiction is to acknowledge it. Americans are addicted to violence, specifically gun violence. We profess to be appalled at every gruesome outbreak of mass murder (it's no big deal when just two, three or four people are killed at a time), but there's no evidence that we have the will to pull the guns out of circulation, or even to register the weapons and properly screen and train their owners.

On the day after Christmas in 2000, an employee of Edgewater Technology, a private company in Wakefield, Mass., showed up at work with an assault rifle and a .12-gauge shotgun. Around 11 a.m. he began methodically killing co-workers. He didn't stop until seven were dead.

An employee who had not been at work that day spoke movingly to a reporter from The Boston Globe about the men and women who lost their lives. ''They were some of the sweetest, smartest people I've ever had the chance to work with,'' he said. ''The cream of the crop.''

The continuing carnage has roused at least one group of public officials to action: mayors. ''We see the violence that is happening in America today,'' said Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston. ''Illegal guns are rampant. Go into almost any classroom in Boston -- sixth and seventh grade, eighth grade, high school -- and 50 percent of those kids know somebody who had a gun.''

The mayor noted that since the beginning of the year, more than 100 people have already been killed in Philadelphia, and nearly 80 in Baltimore. Most of the victims were shot to death.

Last year Mayor Menino and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, at a meeting they hosted at Gracie Mansion, organized a group of mayors committed to fighting against illegal firearms in the U.S. ''It is time for national leadership in the war on gun violence,'' Mr. Bloomberg said at the time. ''And if that leadership won't come from Congress or come from the White House, then it has to come from us.''

The campaign has grown. There were 15 mayors at that first gathering. Now more than 200 mayors from cities in 46 states have signed on.

When asked why Mayor Bloomberg had become so militant about the gun issue, John Feinblatt, the city's criminal justice coordinator, mentioned the ''human element.'' He said: ''I think it's because he's watched eight police officers be shot. And because, like all mayors, he's the one who gets awakened, along with the police commissioner, at 3 in the morning and 4 in the morning, and has to rush to the hospital and break the news that can break somebody's heart.''

Those who are interested in the safety and well-being of children should keep in mind that only motor vehicle accidents and cancer kill more children in the U.S. than firearms. A study released a few years ago by the Harvard School of Public Health compared firearm mortality rates among youngsters 5 to 14 years old in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership with those in the five states with the lowest rates.

The results were chilling. Children in the states with the highest rates of gun ownership were 16 times as likely to die from an accidental gunshot wound, nearly seven times as likely to commit suicide with a gun, and more than three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm.

Only a lunatic could seriously believe that more guns in more homes is good for America's children.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: April 26, 2007

logical fallacies

1. Genetic Fallacy

instead of talking about the real argument itself, talks about the origin of the argument. <- irrelevant!

e.g. I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born. (Ronald Reagan)

2. Ad Hominem

ignores the merits of his/her opponents' arguments rather target at the persons who produce the arguments.

i. Abusive<- irrelevant!

ii. Circumstantial

point out the circumstance of the opponents themselves (they CAN have an ulterior motive and their arguments are still GOOD for OTHER people) >> only means you should be more careful, it doesn't mean the opposite is true!!!

iii. Tu Quoque

“you do it too!” <- hasn't really respond to the argument!

3. Ad Populam

the person appeals to bandwagoning, snobbery, or fear of being different than the majority in order to influence the other person

i. Bandwaggoning: “a lot of people do it!”

ii. Snobbery: “the elite do it!”

4. Appeal to Pity

emotional appeal <- irrelevant!

5. Straw Man

distort an opponent's position, directs arguments at this distorted position <- you've changed my point!

6. Appeal to force

7. Appeal to authority

EXPLAIN why he's credible/ more credible than the other authority

8. Appeal to Ignorance

lack of evidence =negation of the argument

9. slippery slope

10. false dichotomy

the arguer claims that his conclusion is one of only 2 options, when in fact there are other possibilities. he goes on to show that 1 option is outrageous therefore his preferred conclusion must be embraced.

key difference btw slippery slope & false dichotomy: SS. the disjunction maybe true (could be only 2 choices), the problem is how you get “not B”; FD. there are MORE options

11. alternate description

gives an alternate description of an object or event, and implying that under the new description the opponent's argument is flawed. [it's a fallacy if the original description is more appropriate]

e.g. take his son to a topless bar ~ “spend time with his loving father!”

12. composition [particulars -> whole]/ division

one mis-attributes properties of the whole to the part [division ]or the part to the whole [composition]

e.g. The Balboa Suspension Bridge was constructed using the strongest steel available, so the bridge must be extremely strong. >> what about the other parts of the bridge? what about a loosened nail? what about the design?

13. false cause [requires a causal chain]

mistaken a correlation for a cause

i. coincidence

ii. A causes B

iii. B causes A

iV. A and B both caused by C

14. hasty generalization [some particulars -> all particulars]

sample not typical: sample might be too small, or systematically biased

15. weak analogy

A has features WXYZ

B has features WXYZ

C has features WXYZ

D has features WXY, so it also has feature Z

16. begging the question

the arguer attempts to establish some conclusion P by appealing to some premises such that one or more of the premises illicitly assumes that P is true

17. affirming the antecedent / denying the consequent

attempting to fallaciously derive a conclusion from a conditional

e.g. if I had cake, I would be full; I'm full, so I had cake. (why? I could have had bread!)

.....; I didn't have cake, so I'm hungry. (really?)

Guns and More Guns

By now, the logic is almost automatic. A shooter takes innocent lives, and someone says that if the victims had been armed, this wouldn’t have happened. The only solution to a gun in the wrong hands, it seems, is a gun in the hands of everyone.

That’s the state of the debate over gun control today. The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby have silenced every legislature in this country. Instead of stricter laws, tighter controls and better background checks, the gun lobby proposes more guns. And what the gun lobby proposes, lawmakers deliver.

Seung-Hui Cho bought his guns illegally, though with the appearance of legality. He slipped through a loophole, through a disconnect between the way Virginia defines a disqualifying mental incapacity and the way the federal government does. After the fact, the loophole is self-evident, and it’s tempting to believe that now political leaders will work harder to keep people who are dangers to themselves from becoming dangers to others by buying guns. But the laws are as fragile and imperfect as they are because that is how the gun lobby wants them — and it is paying good money to keep them that way.

Those gun advocates who believe that the Second Amendment confers the right to carry a gun in public are quick to point out that they are law-abiding, decent citizens trying to protect themselves and their families in a world gone mad. But, of course, the guns can’t tell the difference. Arming more people would be a recipe for disaster.

True safety lies in the civility of society, in laws that publicly protect all of our rights and in having law-enforcement officers who are trained in the use of deadly force, then authorized to apply it in rationally defined situations. It is the gun lobby’s incessant efforts to weaken the gun laws that makes a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech possible.

Climate Change Adds Twist to Debate Over Dams

The power company that owns four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River says the dams provide a crucial source of so-called clean energy at a time when carbon emissions have become one of the world’s foremost environmental concerns.

But the American Indians, fishermen and environmentalists who want the dams removed point to what has happened since the first one was built nearly 90 years ago: endangered salmon have been blocked from migrating, Indian livelihoods have been threatened, and, more recently, the commercial fishing industry off the Oregon and California coasts has been devastated. They say the dams are anything but clean. They say the river is a mess.

“Should we have to sacrifice water quality for air quality?” said Craig Tucker, who is coordinating efforts by the Karuk tribe of Northern California to take down the dams. “Should Indians and family fisherman be the ones who have to sacrifice to address this problem?”

Whether the power company, PacifiCorp, wants to keep the dams because they improve air quality or simply because they are inexpensive to operate is not clear. But emphasizing an environmental argument that touches on climate change has added a new wrinkle to the longstanding debate over dam removal in the Pacific Northwest. In a region where plenty of residents measured their “carbon footprints” long before green became the new black, PacifiCorp is suggesting that righting one environmental wrong could lead to another, one that could affect people more than fish.

The Klamath dams provide enough power to serve about 70,000 homes, a small fraction of PacifiCorp’s 1.6 million customers, which span six Western states. But the company says only coal or natural gas are likely to be reliable enough to replace the river, which hits hydroelectric turbines four times on its way to the sea from east of the snow-capped Cascade Range.

Those who support removing the dams largely dismiss the clean-energy argument, saying the benefits outweigh losing a relatively small source of hydropower. They note that PacifiCorp’s increased interest in the environment comes as recent rulings by judges and federal fisheries agencies have given new momentum for removal. The company’s federal license to run the dams expired last year, and the government has said PacifiCorp must build fish ladders over the four dams to get a new license, a proposition that could cost $300 million and reduce the power the dams generate, potentially making removal a less costly choice.

Yet whatever is spent to restore salmon, and whether the solution is fish ladders or dam removal, the company has said that its customers will bear the cost, and the carbon.

“It’s a conundrum in many ways,” said Dave Kvamme, a spokesman for PacifiCorp. “Taking away a very useful resource like the Klamath puts more pressure on us to build something else or buy it on the market.”

The Klamath runs more than 250 miles from southwest Oregon to the California coast, connecting two states where power and water supply have long been contentious issues. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon are helping lead the push for clean fuel sources. Last year, California passed a law requiring a 25 percent reduction in the state’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. Oregon is also pushing to increase the amount of renewable energy it uses.

Both governors have said removing the Klamath dams should be an option, but they have not taken firm positions. Earlier this year, Mr. Schwarzenegger proposed spending about $4 billion to build two dams on the San Joaquin River for water storage, an idea environmentalists have long opposed.

The Northwest, where more than 80 percent of the power generated comes from hydroelectricity, has long had some of the lowest electricity rates in the nation. It has also been the setting for epic environmental fights that reflect the tension across the region’s topographic and demographic divides.

“We think of ourselves as ahead of the curve, as eco-topia, when it comes to saving endangered species, like the spotted owl,” said John M. Findlay, a history professor at the University of Washington. “But these things are much more complicated when we try to actually solve them.”

Mr. Findlay said the region’s identity as an environmental leader was rooted in cities like Portland and Seattle, not in the areas where rivers provide power and water for farms.

“They’re the most sympathetic to taking down the dams,” he said of big-city residents. “But they’re also the people who are kind of taking cheap power for granted. If you’re in a city and you have the power just piped in over wires it’s too easy to not recognize where that comes from, and not to realize that people and economies are all connected to that.”

The Klamath dams are among the most controversial in a much broader dam removal effort led by environmentalists, American Indians and commercial fishermen.

In the next several years, dams on the Elwha and White Salmon Rivers in Washington and the Sandy River in Oregon are scheduled to be removed. But in many ways, they are only steppingstones to larger targets, including the dams on the Klamath and four on the Lower Snake River.

More fish could be saved by removing the bigger dams, but more power would be lost, too.

Supporters of removal say conservation measures and new sources of energy like wind and sun can replace lost hydroelectric power. Some also say the fact that snowpack is decreasing could reduce the amount of electricity dams generate. Dam owners in the region, including private utilities and the federal government, say the new sources of clean energy cannot replace dams. The use of wind power is expanding quickly, but its effectiveness depends in part on having dams or another steady energy source during lulls in the breeze.

In a written statement last month, Bill Fehrman, the president of PacifiCorp, said replacing power from the Klamath would “cost our customers more money, and potentially a lot more money” and “could result in adding combustion emissions to the environment.”

PacifiCorp has said it is not opposed to removal, but it would need approval from regulating commissions in six states before it could pass on costs of dam removal to its customers. Blending the cost and climate change arguments could strengthen its case.

“We have to demonstrate to our commissions that we’ve done what we can to protect their interest,” said Mr. Kvamme, the spokesman.

Salmon and air quality are not all that is at risk. The river and its dams support an elaborate irrigation system started by the federal government more than a century ago. Water from the river provides for about 240,000 acres of cattle pastures, alfalfa fields and other farming. It also flows through a wildlife preserve.

When Edward Bartell and his family moved to southwest Oregon from California to raise beef cattle 30 years ago, land, water and power were inexpensive. Now, the water supply is at the mercy of an ever denser maze of environmental regulations intended to protect fish. And the price of power, delivered wholesale thanks to the Klamath dams, went through the roof when PacifiCorp said it could no longer justify the discounted rate in the current market.

Mr. Bartell shook his head when asked if families who moved here to farm because of the available irrigation knew such a knot could one day develop, that the dams might not last forever.

“It was unthinkable,” Mr. Bartell said. “Obviously, nobody would have come.”

U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun

Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. Cho’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was “involuntarily committed” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

“It’s clear we have an imperfect connection between state law and the application of the federal prohibition,” Mr. Bonnie said. The commission he leads was created by the state last year to examine the state’s mental health laws.

Mr. Bonnie, the director of the University of Virginia Institute on Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, said his panel would look into the matter. “We are going to fix this,” he said.

“I’m sure that the misfit exists in states across the country and the underreporting exists,” he said.

After two female Virginia Tech students complained about Mr. Cho’s behavior in 2005, he was sent to a psychiatric unit for evaluation and then ordered to undergo outpatient treatment, which would not qualify as an involuntary commitment under Virginia law, Mr. Bonnie said.

“What they did was use the terms that fit Virginia law,” he said. “They weren’t thinking about the federal. I suspect nobody even knew about these federal regulations.”

But Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at the University of Florida who is an expert on mental health, said that under his reading of Virginia law, outpatient treatment could qualify as involuntary commitment, meaning Virginia law should have barred Mr. Cho from buying a weapon as well. Mr. Bonnie said he and the state’s attorney general disagreed with that interpretation.

Mr. Slobogin added that the federal statute “on the plain face of the language, it would definitely apply to Cho.”

A spokesman for the Virginia attorney general’s office declined to comment on Friday, saying only that various agencies were “reviewing this situation.”

Richard Marianos, a spokesman for the federal firearms agency, said Friday that federal and state officials were looking into the question, studying the court proceedings and testimony.

But Mr. Marianos added, “If he was adjudicated as a mental defective by a court, he should have been disqualified.”

Dennis Henigan, legal director at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the oversight on the federal law in Virginia had probably been occurring for some time.

“They may have been doing this for years, just basically assuming, if the guy’s not disqualified under state law, then we don’t have to send anything to the state police,” Mr. Henigan said. “It’s a failure to recognize the independent obligation to the federal law.”

Most states do not follow the letter of the federal law when it comes to the mental health provisions, said Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group.

“I suspect if we look at all the requirements that exist for the states, there’s probably a whole lot of them that don’t implement them,” Mr. Honberg said, explaining that the gap often comes from a lack of resources but also because no one is enforcing the requirements.

“When something like this happens, then people start to pay attention to this,” he said.

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York, has been pushing a bill to require states to automate their criminal history records so computer databases used to conduct background checks on gun buyers are more complete.

The bill would also require states to submit their mental health records to their background check systems and give them money to allow them to do so.

According to gun control advocates, the mental health information currently submitted to the national check system is often spotty and incomplete, something Ms. McCarthy’s bill is designed to address.

Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a former member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, is co-sponsoring the bill, which has twice passed the House only to stall in the Senate. Congressional aides say Mr. Dingell is negotiating with pro-gun groups to come up with language acceptable to them.

“The N.R.A. doesn’t have objections,” Mr. Dingell said in an interview. “There are other gun organizations on this that are problems.”

A spokesman for the rifle association declined to comment Friday on the legislation, but Mr. Dingell said the measure could prevent future tragedies.

“It resolves some serious problems in terms of preventing the wrong people from getting firearms,” he said.

Cho’s Mental Illness Should Have Blocked Gun Sale

Under federal law, the Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from purchasing a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a government official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from purchasing a gun.

A special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms also said if that if found mentally defective by a court, Mr. Cho should have been denied a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. Cho’s ability to purchase two guns despite his history of mental illness has cast new attention on Virginia’s relatively lax gun laws. And since states are supposed to enforce federal gun laws, the sales raise questions about whether Virgina — and other states — fully comply with the federal restrictions.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. As a result, the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification only addresses the state criteria, which lists two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police — someone who was “involuntarily committed,” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

“It’s clear we have an imperfect connection between state law and the application of the federal prohibition,” said Mr. Bonnie. The commission he chairs was created by the state last year to examine the state’s mental health laws.

Mr. Bonnie, the director of the University of Virginia Institute on Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, said his panel would look into the matter: “We are going to fix this.”

He also said he believed similar problems likely exist elsewhere in the country.

“I’m sure that the mis-fit exists in states across the country, and the underreporting exists,” he said.

After a pair of female students complained about his behavior in 2005, Mr. Cho was sent to a psychiatric unit for evaluation and then ordered to undergo outpatient treatment, which would not qualify as an involuntary commitment under Virginia law, Mr. Bonnie said.

“What they did was use the terms that fit Virginia law,” he said. “They weren’t thinking about the federal. I suspect nobody even knew about these federal regulations.”

But Christopher Slobogin, a professor of law at the University of Florida who is an expert on mental health issues, said that under his reading of the Virginia law, outpatient treatment could also qualify as involuntary commitment, meaning Virginia state law should have barred him from buying a weapon as well, an interpretation Mr. Bonnie said he and the state’s attorney general disagree with.

Mr. Slobogin added that the federal statute “on the plain face of the language, it would definitely apply to Cho.”

A spokesman for the Virginia state attorney general’s office declined to comment today, saying only that various agencies are “reviewing this situation.”

Richard Marianos, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, would only say today that federal and state officials were looking into the question, studying the court proceedings and testimony.

But he added: “If he was adjudicated as a mental defective by a court, he should have been disqualified.”

Federal authorities apparently have not noticed Virginia’s failure to comply with federal guidelines restricting gun sales to the mentally ill. Dennis Henigan, legal director at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the oversight on the federal law in Virginia has probably been occurring for some time.

“They may have been doing this for years, just basically assuming, if the guy’s not disqualified under state law, then we don’t have to send anything to the state police,” he said. “It’s a failure to recognize the independent obligation to the federal law.”

Most states do not follow the letter of the federal law when it comes to the mental health provisions, said Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group.

“I suspect if we look at all the requirements that exist for the states, there’s probably a whole lot of them that don’t implement them,” he said, explaining the gap often comes from a lack of resources but also because no one is enforcing them. “When something like this happens, then people start to pay attention to this.”

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat, has been pushing a bill that would require states to automate their criminal history records so that computer databases used to conduct background checks on gun buyers are more complete. The bill would also require states to submit their mental health records to their background check systems and give them money to allow them to do so.

Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the NICS system, the statement said.

According to gun control advocates, however, the mental health information submitted is often spotty and incomplete, something Ms. McCarthy’s bill is designed to address.

Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and former member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, is co-sponsoring the bill, which has twice passed the House only to stall in the Senate, with Ms. McCarthy. According to congressional aides, he is negotiating with pro-gun groups to come up with language acceptable to them.

“The NRA doesn’t have objections,” he said in an interview. “There are other gun organizations on this that are problems.”

A spokesman for the NRA declined to comment Friday on the legislation, but Mr. Dingell said the measure could prevent future tragedies: “It resolves some serious problems in terms of preventing the wrong people from getting firearms.”

Loosening the Stem Cell Binds

The Senate easily approved a bill this week that would free embryonic stem cell research from the worst shackles imposed by the Bush administration. The House passed its version earlier. A substantial majority of Americans tell pollsters they support embryonic stem cell research. Yet one man, President Bush, and a minority of his party, the religious and social conservatives, are once again trying to impose their moral code on the rest of the nation and stand in the way of scientific progress.
Mr. Bush is threatening a veto, and neither house had enough votes for the bills on initial passage to override him. Concerned voters will need to ratchet up the pressure on recalcitrant Republicans to help stop the president from killing the second enlightened stem cell bill in less than a year.
Under the president’s current policy, federal funds can be used to support research on only some 20 stem cell lines that have limited scientific value. Many of the lines are deteriorating or contaminated, and the group as a whole lacks the diversity needed to conduct a wide range of studies. There is no doubt that progress is being hampered. The director of the National Institutes of Health, who had initially been a good soldier in trying to live within the president’s policy, told the Senate last month that American science would be better served if the nation let researchers have access to more stem cell lines.
The restrictions on federal financing have led to absurdly complicated and costly maneuvers. Scientists are forced to buy extra equipment and laboratory space with private money to perform off-limits research while using equipment and supplies bought with federal money on the permitted stem cell research. In a shocking example cited during Senate debate, a California researcher who had been cultivating stem cells in a makeshift privately financed lab suffered a power failure but was unable to transfer her lines into industrial-strength freezers in another lab because they were federally financed. Two years of work melted away because of this inanity.
The Senate bill would greatly expand the available stem cell lines by tapping into the thousands of surplus embryos left over at fertility clinics. The bill would allow federal support for research on stem cell lines derived from embryos originally created for fertility treatments but not needed for that purpose and thus doomed to be discarded. The donors would have to give their informed consent and could not receive any financial or other inducements to donate their surplus embryos. In a nod to the religious conservatives, the bill also calls for research on alternative techniques to derive stem cells without the use of human embryos, an approach that is certainly worth pursuing but is deemed less promising by most experts.
At the same time, the Senate passed a bill proposed by supporters of the president’s policy that seeks to derive stem cells from embryos that might be judged “naturally dead,” perhaps because they were considered unsuitable for transplantation at a fertility clinic. This is a poorly considered proposal that can only be deemed a diversion from the main business at hand — the need to free American science from the chains imposed by the president.