WHITE HOUSE WATCH A 'Third Term' for BushCondi Rice, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove need new jobs.
BY FRED BARNESMonday, March 20, 2006
It's time for President Bush to think about a third term. No, he doesn't need to overturn the Constitution. He can start the equivalent of his third term now, by filling his presidential staff and cabinet with new faces--or old faces in new positions--and by concentrating on new or forgotten initiatives. The goal: rejuvenation of his presidency by shocking the media and political community with a sweeping overhaul of his administration. The impact would be enormous because it's exactly what his foes have been demanding and exactly what he is not expected to do. And it would give him a chance to escape the political doldrums that may otherwise doom his presidency through its final 34 months.
Only a few months ago, it appeared the Bush administration didn't need emergency resuscitation. True, Mr. Bush had suffered a year of serious troubles--failure of Social Security reform, Katrina, Harriet Miers, Iraq--following his second inauguration. Yet he emerged bruised but politically alive. He'd even won the confirmation of two conservative Supreme Court justices.
Then he was belted with a new round of reversals. His State of the Union address was uninspiring, the Dubai ports deal had to be nixed, and his proposed spending cuts were going nowhere. This time the fallout was worse for Mr. Bush. Republican unity, so important to his past success, dissolved as congressional Republicans began criticizing the White House. And Iraq was again a political problem. Even several top Bush aides now suspect an infusion of fresh talent could liven up the administration.
A broad transformation, playing on the media's overreaction whenever surprised, would do more. Reporters would be forced to write stories about new officials, cover confirmation hearings, show up at press conferences they might have ignored, assess new policies, and--this is most important--take a fresh look at the president. It would be like the beginning of a new presidential term. Sure, the press and politicians would be cynical about Mr. Bush's bold moves, especially since he wouldn't be uprooting any policy or hiring Bush critics. In truth, there would be a large element of smoke and mirrors in his actions. The trade-off is that Mr. Bush might revitalize his presidency.
A sweeping overhaul on a smaller scale has worked before. In one swoop in 1975, President Ford replaced Defense Secretary James Schlesinger with Donald Rumsfeld, made Dick Cheney chief of staff, appointed George H.W. Bush as CIA director in place of William Colby, and stripped Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of his second post as national security adviser, installing Brent Scowcroft. These surprising and dramatic steps strengthened a weak Ford presidency. President Carter tried something similar in 1979 when his presidency was at a low point. But the overhaul was handled clumsily. Mr. Carter appeared to act arbitrarily and his presidency never recovered.
Mr. Bush's first task must be to jettison his admirable but unrealistic sense of loyalty. Unlike other presidents, he reciprocates the loyalty of his aides. But for the good of his presidency, he must let some of them go, regardless of whether they deserve firing.
The president's most spectacular move would be to anoint a presidential successor. This would require Vice President Cheney to resign. His replacement? Condoleezza Rice, whom Mr. Bush regards highly. Her replacement? Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, whose Bush-like views on Iraq and the war on terror have made him a pariah in the Democratic caucus.
Mr. Cheney would probably be happy to step down and return to Wyoming. But it would make more sense for him to move to the Pentagon to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, a job Mr. Cheney held during the elder Bush's administration. The Senate confirmation hearing for Mr. Cheney alone would produce political fireworks and attract incredible attention. At Treasury, Mr. Bush has a perfect replacement for John Snow, someone he already knows. That's Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of Mr. Bush's council of economic advisers and currently dean of Columbia's business school. He is in sync with Mr. Bush ideologically and has the added value of being respected on Wall Street.
With these changes, Mr. Bush would have brought in new Cabinet chiefs at three of the big four agencies. Only Justice would be untouched, but it might be too much for the president to force his friend Alberto Gonzales out as attorney general.
At the White House, highly visible changes would be required, starting with the most visible post of all besides the presidency--press secretary. Dan Senor, a Republican and former spokesman for Paul Bremer in Iraq, would be a perfect successor to Scott McClellan. He would be an articulate and forceful defender of Mr. Bush on Iraq. And if not Mr. Senor, then presidential counselor Dan Bartlett, who always does well in TV interviews.
As a new chief of staff, Mr. Bush's pal from his Harvard Business School days, Al Hubbard, could replace Andy Card. Mr. Hubbard is miscast as top White House economic adviser. To replace him, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute would fit. He has close ties to the Bush White House. There's also a natural choice for national security adviser to replace Stephen Hadley. It's Zalmay Khalilzad, the tough-minded ambassador to Iraq. Once a permanent government is installed there, he could be summoned home.
The trickiest issue is how to handle Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff and political adviser. He is the closest thing to indispensable--on policy as well as politics--at the White House. But any overhaul that didn't involve him would run the risk of not being taken seriously. The solution is to send Mr. Rove to the Republican National Committee as chairman and bring the current chairman, Ken Mehlman, back to the president's staff as communications chief. The president lauded Mr. Rove as "the architect" of his re-election in 2004. Now he could be the architect of a Republican comeback in 2006. Mr. Mehlman would sharpen the president's communication operation. He and Mr. Rove would work together, as they do now.
New faces and personnel shifts are necessary but not sufficient to produce the aura of a new presidential term. Major policy initiatives are required, too. And there are plenty to choose from. For one, Mr. Bush could mount a fresh crusade for confirmation of federal appeals court judges: 11 of them are waiting in the wings. And there's always taxes, a hardy GOP perennial. Mr. Bush's tax reform commission was a bust, but that shouldn't stop him from proposing significant tax reforms and cuts. He doesn't have to win congressional approval. To revive his presidency, at this point he only need focus on them.
In foreign policy, there's a broad new alliance waiting to be packaged, now that NATO has lost its rationale. Suggested by Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, it would bring together four antiterrorist, free-market democracies, all concerned about the growing power of China. They are the U.K., India, Japan and the U.S.
The new but still conservative look of the Bush administration and its new policy emphasis would thrill the base and perhaps independents as well. Should that lead to an unanticipated Republican victory in the midterm election in November, Mr. Bush would be empowered to return to old initiatives such as Social Security reform and his faith-based initiative.
Of course, there are risks and problems in trying to revitalize a flagging administration. The most worrisome risk is that Mr. Bush would look weak and desperate. Mr. Carter did in 1979 and became a laughingstock. That could happen to Mr. Bush. Also, it may be difficult to persuade outsiders to join what looks to them as a hopelessly lame-duck administration.
The president could lose a lot more than face. But the potential upside of a stunning facelift of his administration is great. It could make his presidency productive and enjoyable again rather than stymied and disheartened. Achieving the aura and feel of a new presidential term is not farfetched. Mr. Bush fooled everyone by becoming the president of big ideas and bold plans. He could fool them again.
Mr. Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, is author of "Rebel in Chief," published last month by Crown Forum.
Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
God awaits us in the kitchen of imagination
Friday, April 14, 2006
Britain's top scientist sees dangerous rise in global warmingApr 14
In a grim warning on climate change, the British government's chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results.
Sir David King said that, even by the most optimistic forecasts, carbon dioxide levels are set to rise to double what they were at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
That will lead to a three-degree centigrade rise in temperature, King said, adding that if nothing is done to manage such change, few eco-systems on Earth will be able to adapt.
Even worse, said King in an interview on BBC radio, up to 400 million people around the world would find themselves at risk of hunger, because 20 million to 400 million tonnes of cereal production will be lost.
In Britain, the main threat will be flooding and "coastal attack" as a result of rising sea levels.
"If you ask me where do we feel the temperature is likely to end up if move to a level of carbon dioxide of 500 parts per million -- which is roughly twice the pre-industrial (revolution) level and the level at which we would be optimistically hoping we could settle -- the temperature rise could well be in excess of three degrees centigrade," he said.
"Yet we are saying 500 parts per million in the atmosphere is probably the best we can achieve through global agreement."
King, who has the ear of Prime Minister Tony Blair and other key policy makers, said it was essential that the world act now to be able to cope with such climate change.
"We don't have to succumb to a state of despondency where we say that there is nothing we can do, so let's just carry on living as per usual," he said. "It is very important to understand that we can manage the risks."
"What we are talking about here is something that will play through over decades. We are talking 100 years or so. We need to begin that process of investment. It is going to be a major challenge for the developing countries."
Blair wants to see a global consensus on global warming that goes beyond the disputed Kyoto protocol and puts China and India -- both economically booming -- at the heart of the issue.
But the United States in particular is opposed to slashing carbon dioxide emissions, while the European Union -- including Britain -- proposed in 2002 limiting a rise in the average global temperature to two degrees centigrade.
King said the situation would be even worse if the average global temperature broke through the three degrees centigrade level.
"If we go beyond 500 parts per million, we reach levels of temperature increase and sea level rise in terms of the coming century which would be extremely difficult for world populations to manage," he said.
He lashed out at politicians who feel the answer lies in new technologies which produce cleaner fuels, saying they ought to start listening to scientists instead.
"There is a difference between optimism and (putting one's) head in the sand," he said.
"Quite clearly what we have to do as we move forward with these discussions is see that this consensus position of the scientific community is brought right into the table where the discussions are taking place."
Last month Blair's government unveiled plans to fight global warming by cutting greenhouse gases in every sector of the nation's economy, including imposing stricter emission caps on industry.
It claimed that Britain was on course to well exceed the 12.5 percent reduction target by 2012 under the Kyoto protocol -- but would fall short of its own goal of 20 percent by 2010.
In a grim warning on climate change, the British government's chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results.
Sir David King said that, even by the most optimistic forecasts, carbon dioxide levels are set to rise to double what they were at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
That will lead to a three-degree centigrade rise in temperature, King said, adding that if nothing is done to manage such change, few eco-systems on Earth will be able to adapt.
Even worse, said King in an interview on BBC radio, up to 400 million people around the world would find themselves at risk of hunger, because 20 million to 400 million tonnes of cereal production will be lost.
In Britain, the main threat will be flooding and "coastal attack" as a result of rising sea levels.
"If you ask me where do we feel the temperature is likely to end up if move to a level of carbon dioxide of 500 parts per million -- which is roughly twice the pre-industrial (revolution) level and the level at which we would be optimistically hoping we could settle -- the temperature rise could well be in excess of three degrees centigrade," he said.
"Yet we are saying 500 parts per million in the atmosphere is probably the best we can achieve through global agreement."
King, who has the ear of Prime Minister Tony Blair and other key policy makers, said it was essential that the world act now to be able to cope with such climate change.
"We don't have to succumb to a state of despondency where we say that there is nothing we can do, so let's just carry on living as per usual," he said. "It is very important to understand that we can manage the risks."
"What we are talking about here is something that will play through over decades. We are talking 100 years or so. We need to begin that process of investment. It is going to be a major challenge for the developing countries."
Blair wants to see a global consensus on global warming that goes beyond the disputed Kyoto protocol and puts China and India -- both economically booming -- at the heart of the issue.
But the United States in particular is opposed to slashing carbon dioxide emissions, while the European Union -- including Britain -- proposed in 2002 limiting a rise in the average global temperature to two degrees centigrade.
King said the situation would be even worse if the average global temperature broke through the three degrees centigrade level.
"If we go beyond 500 parts per million, we reach levels of temperature increase and sea level rise in terms of the coming century which would be extremely difficult for world populations to manage," he said.
He lashed out at politicians who feel the answer lies in new technologies which produce cleaner fuels, saying they ought to start listening to scientists instead.
"There is a difference between optimism and (putting one's) head in the sand," he said.
"Quite clearly what we have to do as we move forward with these discussions is see that this consensus position of the scientific community is brought right into the table where the discussions are taking place."
Last month Blair's government unveiled plans to fight global warming by cutting greenhouse gases in every sector of the nation's economy, including imposing stricter emission caps on industry.
It claimed that Britain was on course to well exceed the 12.5 percent reduction target by 2012 under the Kyoto protocol -- but would fall short of its own goal of 20 percent by 2010.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
FROM ANDREW SULLIVAN
A longtime reader sent an email as part of a conversation we'd been having. I reprint it, despite its great length, because it's powerfully written, and I disagree with much of it. But I disagree with it less than I did a year ago. See what you think:
I supported the action in Afganistan. Everyone - the whole world - realized that that action was necessary. Hell, even Dennis Kucinich supported it. There was no other choice. And had we prosecuted the action in Afganistan competently, and to the end, by securing the peace and rebuilding the country, we might have come out of the war on terror with our heads held high and with the world's respect and even admiration. Certainly our action there, and the related pressure on Pakistan, resulted in the most important single victory in the war on terror to date: the unmasking of the A. Q. Khan network. But we never finished in Afganistan. We let bin Laden escape. We did not and have not secured the country, or rebuilt it. Why? Well, why have we not secured or rebuilt Iraq? There is a reason. This is not just criminal negligence. This is a pattern.
I opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. It smelled. It smelled to high heaven. This was no action in response to 9/11. This was something else. Some grand design for restructuring the Middle East, for "draining the swamp". A war of revenge against the man who ordered the President's father assassinated. Unfinished business. Oil. Yes, all those and more, as Wolfowitz admitted, but none of them would do as a trigger, so WMD was chosen. WMD was the one excuse that would work, the one threat that, tied to 9/11, would inspire action and overwhelm and silence opposition.
But the real motivation for the war in Iraq, Andrew, was the consolidation of Republican power here at home. Iraq was to be George W. Bush's great victory, and Karl Rove's hammer. The victory of the Republican right was to be complete and permanent. Bush and his crew knew the WMD excuse was fraudulent. As Zinni said, he knew, and they had the same information he had. But they did believe the old stockpiles, or some portion of them, were still there, moldering in Saddam's secret bunkers, and would provide all the evidence needed to justify their war, cover their lies, and secure their political triumph. The shame of the election of 2000 would be history, Bush would become the image of the man he always wished to be, and Rove would secure the Republican realignment.
But Bush's great victory has turned to ash, and Rove's hammer to a dagger he holds by the blade. One could write a book (and no doubt many will) on the Oedipal complex that drove Bush the son to surpass the father, and fail. A Greek tragedy played out in real life, right before our eyes. And could Shakespeare have bettered the cast of characters we have lived with these last six years, or the themes, or the plot? My God, what a play! He would be writing furiously even now. One play? No. Three, perhaps: Bush the Second, Parts I, II and III. We are in the middle of the third play. The end is coming.
I'm not being facetious. The horror and terror of tragedy is its inevitability. The audience sees what the characters cannot. And the audience knows that they too suffer, like the characters they watch. The play is a mirror. The war in Iraq has been our tragedy, our mirror. Perhaps, if we are lucky, our catharsis. But we are not yet to that stage, which comes after. We are still in the midst of the horror, unable to look away from the mirror. You stare into the face of Abu Ghraib. Me? What do I stare at? And all of us. We are living one of the great stories of history, Andrew.
Did I really know all this back then? Yes. Not so clearly, or at least, I would not have been able to express it so simply. Many people saw it, people of good faith, not just mindless Bush-haters or partisans. And every suspicion I had, and shared with those others, about Bush, and Rove and the rest, and about their motivations and methods, has proved out, and then some. And there is, I know, future revelations yet to come. None of it surprises me.
I'm only surprised that you are surprised. I think, Andrew, you were blinded by idealism, the desire to slay the monster Saddam. Have you read the Gilgamesh Epic? Or Castenada? We are betrayed, not by our faults, but by our strengths. Because that's where we're truly blind. Thus you. And me. And Bush. The difference is of degree, not kind. But that difference of degree is crucial. Bush doubts nothing. He is trapped in a rigid arrogance, a self-righteousness based ultimately on low self-esteem and fear of failure. Fear is his basic spiritual signature. You refused to doubt, because you love the ideal. We love you for that. But that's also your blind spot. Yet you have never been trapped like Bush (or Rumsfeld or Gonzalez or Yoo) because, quite simply, you are far more humble, far more secure in your own being and in your trust of the Divine. Your humanity is alive and kicking, while theirs is deeply compromised. And me? Good question. I doubt much, and it has served me well. But I have not trusted enough, and that has not. That is my confession. And so we struggle, Andrew.
But there is one great dividing line here, between you and me on one side, and Bush and his cohort (and the Christianists and the Islamists and the scientific reductionists, and all the other -ists) on the other: the humility of a faith based on love, with its attendant qualities of acceptance, inclusion and non-violence, and the arrogance of a faith based on fear, with its attendant qualities of judgment, exclusion and, inevitably, violence. You have written of this division in your own way when you wrote of the "conservatism of doubt" vs "conservatism of faith". I truly believe this division marks the great spiritual, social and political challenge before us in the 21st century: the shift from a faith - and a world - based on the fear of God to one based on the love of God. That is an evolutionary challenge. And a global challenge. And I think that some day it will be recognized as the great theme being played out at the center of the Bush Presidency, and the American tragedy in Iraq. Fear and lies, or love and truth. It's just that simple.
I could have supported intervention in Iraq. Saddam was a monster. But not Bush's intervention. If his Dad, and Powell, had put together a true global coalition, with a real commitment to pay the high price in money, manpower and years necessary to free Iraq, secure the peace and rebuild the country, yes, I could have supported it. But I knew GWB and his team would never accomplish those ends, because those ends were not his ends. His ends, and his means, speak for themselves. All the rest is lies.
The battle within faith - between a faith of certainty and order and a faith of humility and wonder - is indeed the great battle of our time. I've just finished the rewrite of a book on politics. Re-reading it, I realize it's also a book about religion. The tragedy of our time is that the two subjects are now almost interchangeable.
I supported the action in Afganistan. Everyone - the whole world - realized that that action was necessary. Hell, even Dennis Kucinich supported it. There was no other choice. And had we prosecuted the action in Afganistan competently, and to the end, by securing the peace and rebuilding the country, we might have come out of the war on terror with our heads held high and with the world's respect and even admiration. Certainly our action there, and the related pressure on Pakistan, resulted in the most important single victory in the war on terror to date: the unmasking of the A. Q. Khan network. But we never finished in Afganistan. We let bin Laden escape. We did not and have not secured the country, or rebuilt it. Why? Well, why have we not secured or rebuilt Iraq? There is a reason. This is not just criminal negligence. This is a pattern.
I opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. It smelled. It smelled to high heaven. This was no action in response to 9/11. This was something else. Some grand design for restructuring the Middle East, for "draining the swamp". A war of revenge against the man who ordered the President's father assassinated. Unfinished business. Oil. Yes, all those and more, as Wolfowitz admitted, but none of them would do as a trigger, so WMD was chosen. WMD was the one excuse that would work, the one threat that, tied to 9/11, would inspire action and overwhelm and silence opposition.
But the real motivation for the war in Iraq, Andrew, was the consolidation of Republican power here at home. Iraq was to be George W. Bush's great victory, and Karl Rove's hammer. The victory of the Republican right was to be complete and permanent. Bush and his crew knew the WMD excuse was fraudulent. As Zinni said, he knew, and they had the same information he had. But they did believe the old stockpiles, or some portion of them, were still there, moldering in Saddam's secret bunkers, and would provide all the evidence needed to justify their war, cover their lies, and secure their political triumph. The shame of the election of 2000 would be history, Bush would become the image of the man he always wished to be, and Rove would secure the Republican realignment.
But Bush's great victory has turned to ash, and Rove's hammer to a dagger he holds by the blade. One could write a book (and no doubt many will) on the Oedipal complex that drove Bush the son to surpass the father, and fail. A Greek tragedy played out in real life, right before our eyes. And could Shakespeare have bettered the cast of characters we have lived with these last six years, or the themes, or the plot? My God, what a play! He would be writing furiously even now. One play? No. Three, perhaps: Bush the Second, Parts I, II and III. We are in the middle of the third play. The end is coming.
I'm not being facetious. The horror and terror of tragedy is its inevitability. The audience sees what the characters cannot. And the audience knows that they too suffer, like the characters they watch. The play is a mirror. The war in Iraq has been our tragedy, our mirror. Perhaps, if we are lucky, our catharsis. But we are not yet to that stage, which comes after. We are still in the midst of the horror, unable to look away from the mirror. You stare into the face of Abu Ghraib. Me? What do I stare at? And all of us. We are living one of the great stories of history, Andrew.
Did I really know all this back then? Yes. Not so clearly, or at least, I would not have been able to express it so simply. Many people saw it, people of good faith, not just mindless Bush-haters or partisans. And every suspicion I had, and shared with those others, about Bush, and Rove and the rest, and about their motivations and methods, has proved out, and then some. And there is, I know, future revelations yet to come. None of it surprises me.
I'm only surprised that you are surprised. I think, Andrew, you were blinded by idealism, the desire to slay the monster Saddam. Have you read the Gilgamesh Epic? Or Castenada? We are betrayed, not by our faults, but by our strengths. Because that's where we're truly blind. Thus you. And me. And Bush. The difference is of degree, not kind. But that difference of degree is crucial. Bush doubts nothing. He is trapped in a rigid arrogance, a self-righteousness based ultimately on low self-esteem and fear of failure. Fear is his basic spiritual signature. You refused to doubt, because you love the ideal. We love you for that. But that's also your blind spot. Yet you have never been trapped like Bush (or Rumsfeld or Gonzalez or Yoo) because, quite simply, you are far more humble, far more secure in your own being and in your trust of the Divine. Your humanity is alive and kicking, while theirs is deeply compromised. And me? Good question. I doubt much, and it has served me well. But I have not trusted enough, and that has not. That is my confession. And so we struggle, Andrew.
But there is one great dividing line here, between you and me on one side, and Bush and his cohort (and the Christianists and the Islamists and the scientific reductionists, and all the other -ists) on the other: the humility of a faith based on love, with its attendant qualities of acceptance, inclusion and non-violence, and the arrogance of a faith based on fear, with its attendant qualities of judgment, exclusion and, inevitably, violence. You have written of this division in your own way when you wrote of the "conservatism of doubt" vs "conservatism of faith". I truly believe this division marks the great spiritual, social and political challenge before us in the 21st century: the shift from a faith - and a world - based on the fear of God to one based on the love of God. That is an evolutionary challenge. And a global challenge. And I think that some day it will be recognized as the great theme being played out at the center of the Bush Presidency, and the American tragedy in Iraq. Fear and lies, or love and truth. It's just that simple.
I could have supported intervention in Iraq. Saddam was a monster. But not Bush's intervention. If his Dad, and Powell, had put together a true global coalition, with a real commitment to pay the high price in money, manpower and years necessary to free Iraq, secure the peace and rebuild the country, yes, I could have supported it. But I knew GWB and his team would never accomplish those ends, because those ends were not his ends. His ends, and his means, speak for themselves. All the rest is lies.
The battle within faith - between a faith of certainty and order and a faith of humility and wonder - is indeed the great battle of our time. I've just finished the rewrite of a book on politics. Re-reading it, I realize it's also a book about religion. The tragedy of our time is that the two subjects are now almost interchangeable.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Discovered: the missing link that solves a mystery of evolution
Alok Jha, science correspondent
GuardianScientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago.
Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action - like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.
As such, it will be a blow to proponents of intelligent design, who claim that the many gaps in the fossil record show evidence of some higher power.
Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, said: "Our emergence on to the land is one of the more significant rites of passage in our evolutionary history, and Tiktaalik is an important link in the story."
Tiktaalik - the name means "a large, shallow-water fish" in the Inuit language Inuktikuk - shows that the evolution of animals from living in water to living on land happened gradually, with fish first living in shallow water.
The animal lived in the Devonian era lasting from 417m to 354m years ago, and had a skull, neck, and ribs similar to early limbed animals (known as tetrapods), as well as a more primitive jaw, fins, and scales akin to fish.
The scientists who discovered it say the animal was a predator with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head, and a body that grew up to 2.75 metres (9ft) long.
"It's very important for a number of reasons, one of which is simply the fact that it's so well-preserved and complete," said Jennifer Clack, a paleontologist at Cambridge University and author of an accompanying article in Nature.
Scientists have previously been able to trace the transition of fish into limbed animals only crudely over the millions of years they anticipate the process took place. They suspected that an animal which bridged the gap between fish and land-based tetrapods must have existed - but, until now, there had been scant evidence of one.
"Tiktaalik blurs the boundary between fish and land-living animal both in terms of its anatomy and its way of life," said Neil Shubin, a biologist at the University of Chicago, and a leader of the expedition which found Tiktaalik.
The near-pristine fossil was found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, which is 600 miles from the north pole in the Arctic Circle.
Scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University led several expeditions into the inhospitable icy desert to search for the fossils.
The find is the first complete evidence of an animal that was on the verge of the transition from water to land. "The find is a dream come true," said Ted Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
"We knew that the rocks on Ellesmere Island offered a glimpse into the right time period and were formed in the right kinds of environments to provide the potential for finding fossils documenting this important evolutionary transition."
When Tiktaalik lived, the Canadian Arctic region was part of a land mass which straddled the equator. Like the Amazon basin today, it had a subtropical climate and the animal lived in small streams. The skeleton indicates that it could support its body under the force of gravity.
Farish Jenkins, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University said: "This represents a critical early phase in the evolution of all limbed animals, including humans - albeit a very ancient step." Tiktaalik also gives biologists a new understanding of how fins turned into limbs. Its fin contains bones that compare to the upper arm, forearm and primitive parts of the hand of land-living animals.
"Most of the major joints of the fin are functional in this fish," Professor Shubin said.
"The shoulder, elbow and even parts of the wrist are already there and working in ways similar to the earliest land-living animals."
Dr Clack said that, judging from the fossil, the first evolutionary transition from sea to land probably involved learning how to breathe air. "Tiktaalik has lost a series of bones that, in fishes, covers the gill region and helps to operate the gill-breathing mechanism," she said. "The air-breathing mechanism it had would have been elaborated and having lost the series of bones that lies between the head and the shoulder girdle means it's got a neck, it can raise its head more easily in order to gulp the air.
"The flexible robust limbs appear to be connected with pushing the head out of the water to breathe the air."
H Richard Lane, director of sedimentary geology and palaeobiology at the US National Science Foundation, said: "These exciting discoveries are providing fossil Rosetta stones for a deeper understanding of this evolutionary milestone - fish to land-roaming tetrapods."
A cast of the fossil goes on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington central London today.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Alok Jha, science correspondent
GuardianScientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago.
Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action - like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.
As such, it will be a blow to proponents of intelligent design, who claim that the many gaps in the fossil record show evidence of some higher power.
Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, said: "Our emergence on to the land is one of the more significant rites of passage in our evolutionary history, and Tiktaalik is an important link in the story."
Tiktaalik - the name means "a large, shallow-water fish" in the Inuit language Inuktikuk - shows that the evolution of animals from living in water to living on land happened gradually, with fish first living in shallow water.
The animal lived in the Devonian era lasting from 417m to 354m years ago, and had a skull, neck, and ribs similar to early limbed animals (known as tetrapods), as well as a more primitive jaw, fins, and scales akin to fish.
The scientists who discovered it say the animal was a predator with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head, and a body that grew up to 2.75 metres (9ft) long.
"It's very important for a number of reasons, one of which is simply the fact that it's so well-preserved and complete," said Jennifer Clack, a paleontologist at Cambridge University and author of an accompanying article in Nature.
Scientists have previously been able to trace the transition of fish into limbed animals only crudely over the millions of years they anticipate the process took place. They suspected that an animal which bridged the gap between fish and land-based tetrapods must have existed - but, until now, there had been scant evidence of one.
"Tiktaalik blurs the boundary between fish and land-living animal both in terms of its anatomy and its way of life," said Neil Shubin, a biologist at the University of Chicago, and a leader of the expedition which found Tiktaalik.
The near-pristine fossil was found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, which is 600 miles from the north pole in the Arctic Circle.
Scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University led several expeditions into the inhospitable icy desert to search for the fossils.
The find is the first complete evidence of an animal that was on the verge of the transition from water to land. "The find is a dream come true," said Ted Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
"We knew that the rocks on Ellesmere Island offered a glimpse into the right time period and were formed in the right kinds of environments to provide the potential for finding fossils documenting this important evolutionary transition."
When Tiktaalik lived, the Canadian Arctic region was part of a land mass which straddled the equator. Like the Amazon basin today, it had a subtropical climate and the animal lived in small streams. The skeleton indicates that it could support its body under the force of gravity.
Farish Jenkins, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University said: "This represents a critical early phase in the evolution of all limbed animals, including humans - albeit a very ancient step." Tiktaalik also gives biologists a new understanding of how fins turned into limbs. Its fin contains bones that compare to the upper arm, forearm and primitive parts of the hand of land-living animals.
"Most of the major joints of the fin are functional in this fish," Professor Shubin said.
"The shoulder, elbow and even parts of the wrist are already there and working in ways similar to the earliest land-living animals."
Dr Clack said that, judging from the fossil, the first evolutionary transition from sea to land probably involved learning how to breathe air. "Tiktaalik has lost a series of bones that, in fishes, covers the gill region and helps to operate the gill-breathing mechanism," she said. "The air-breathing mechanism it had would have been elaborated and having lost the series of bones that lies between the head and the shoulder girdle means it's got a neck, it can raise its head more easily in order to gulp the air.
"The flexible robust limbs appear to be connected with pushing the head out of the water to breathe the air."
H Richard Lane, director of sedimentary geology and palaeobiology at the US National Science Foundation, said: "These exciting discoveries are providing fossil Rosetta stones for a deeper understanding of this evolutionary milestone - fish to land-roaming tetrapods."
A cast of the fossil goes on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington central London today.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Atlantic Hurricane Season to Top Normal for 4th Year (Update1)
April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Another above-average Atlantic basin hurricane season is expected this year following a record number of storms in 2005, scientists said.
The June-through-November period will yield nine hurricanes out of a total of 17 named storms, Colorado State University scientists Philip Klotzbach and William Gray said in a report today from Fort Collins. The 2005 season produced a record 15 hurricanes and 27 named storms.
``The climate signals are such that this looks like it's going to be an active year,'' Gray said in a telephone interview today from his office. ``Atlantic sea-surface temperatures are very warm. That's a major factor.''
Five of the nine hurricanes will pack sustained winds of 111 miles (179 kilometers) per hour or more, making them major hurricanes on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, the scientists said. Today's forecast agrees with the Colorado team's December outlook.
The forecast for another above-active hurricane season this year conforms to the scientists' theory that the Atlantic basin is in an extended period of above-average hurricane activity. Nine of the past 11 years have been above-average seasons, Gray said, and he expects the trend to last another 15 to 20 years. The 2003 and 2004 seasons generated seven hurricanes and nine hurricanes, respectively.
La Nina
``The hurricane forecast team expects continued warm tropical and north Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, prevalent in most years since 1995, as well as neutral or weak La Nina conditions -- a recipe for greatly enhanced Atlantic basin hurricane activity,'' the researchers said in the report.
La Nina refers to the cooling of ocean surface temperatures off the western coast of South America. The phenomenon affects the jet stream, alters storm tracks and creates unusual weather patterns. La Nina typically increases tropical activity in the Atlantic Ocean.
The 2006 season probably will not see as many storms make landfall as last year or 2004, the report's authors said. Four hurricanes hit the U.S. coastline in each of those years: Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma last year and Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne in 2004. Gray attributed the higher-than-normal number of storms hitting the U.S. in those years to upper-air currents over the Atlantic that helped push storms toward the mainland.
The 2005 season was the most destructive ever, the researchers said.
The number of hurricanes last year topped the previous record of 12 in 1969, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total of 27 named storms exceeded the previous record of 21 in 1993 and forced the government to turn to the Greek alphabet for the first time to name storms. Epsilon was the 15th hurricane of the 2005 season.
Katrina and Rita
Katrina in August flooded as much as 80 percent of New Orleans and wreaked havoc in Mississippi and Alabama. Hundreds of thousands of evacuees from across the Gulf Coast were forced to flee.
Katrina, and Rita in September, wrecked offshore oil and natural-gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, hampering production that's still not yet recovered. The storms tore drilling rigs from their moorings and flooded onshore processing plants and refineries.
At one point, all of the region's oil production and more than 80 percent of its gas output was shut, along with about 30 percent of the country's oil-refining capacity. Prices for crude oil, natural gas, gasoline and heating oil soared to records between late August and early October.
Still Not Recovered
As of March 22, 23 percent of normal daily oil production remained offline in the Gulf, and 14 percent of gas output was down. So far, a quarter of annual oil production and 19 percent of gas output have been lost to the storms.
Gray and Klotzbach last year predicted seven hurricanes would develop in the Atlantic out of a total 13 named storms.
Storms get names when wind speeds reach 39 mph or more, signaling they've reached tropical-storm strength. Storms become hurricanes on the Saffir-Simpson scale when wind speeds reach at least 74 mph. Gray has been forecasting Atlantic basin hurricane seasons for 23 years.
Alberto, Ernesto, Helene, Oscar and Valerie are among names set aside for this year's season, according to the Web site of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The average season has 10 named storms and six hurricanes, Gray said. Two of the hurricanes typically are major storms, meaning they are at least Category 3 hurricanes on the Saffir- Simpson scale. Category 5 storms are the strongest.
In the 2004 season, Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne caused more than $20 billion in U.S. property damage. To contact the reporter on this story:
Geoffrey Smith in New York at gsmith15@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 4, 2006 11:54 EDT
Monday, April 03, 2006
CORRECTIONS CLEANUP
By MARC CAPUTO
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
TALLAHASSEE - With Vietnam's jungles and the corpse-strewn landscape of Rwanda in his past, old soldier Jim McDonough now faces one ''tough mission'': clean up Florida's prison system, mired in investigations and reports of theft, cronyism and a cut-throat softball culture of steroids and beer brawls.
''Sexual harassment seems to be pretty rife at the department. Man, it just goes on,'' said McDonough, who marvels at the ''cultural malaise'' that gripped the nation's third-largest prison system.
In less than two months on the job as head of the Department of Corrections, McDonough fired, suspended, demoted or forced the resignations of so many people that he lost count -- the number is 22. He is reviewing the DOC's finances, its 900 contracts and its 26,000-employee payroll. He even referred to reviewing a few old ''suspicious'' deaths but wouldn't specify.
McDonough, 59, Florida's former drug czar, had retired as a U.S. Army colonel in 1996 and counts among his medals three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, earned after stepping on a Vietnamese land mine. Despite no corrections experience, he's treading fearlessly in his new job in the belief that improving the decayed agency ''isn't brain science'': instill professionalism and punish wrongdoers to change the tone.
''It had become a culture that was trying to compete with the prisoner culture,'' McDonough said. 'Instead of a professionalism that most people wanted to do, it had become a culture of `We are bigger. We are tougher. We are meaner. We are more brutal. We can do what we need to do because we are all of those things,' instead of saying, 'Wait a minute. We're professionals. We have a code of ethics that we abide by.' ''
A MILITARY SPIT-POLISH
McDonough's actions have encouraged many of the rank and file, intimidated some of the old guard and provided Gov. Jeb Bush a badly needed military spit-polish on Florida's tarnished jails and prisons: Aside from the troubles at DOC, the Department of Juvenile Justice is reeling from the Jan. 6 death of a 14-year-old after he was beaten by guards at a boot camp. The former executive director of the now-defunct commission overseeing the state's private-run prisons pleaded guilty last month to stealing $225,000 in tax money. And an audit in September showed that the state overpaid two private prison companies $13 million.
Meantime, the FBI and state investigators launched a massive probe of the DOC that began with the breakup of a steroid ring.
But as Democrats started publicly asking ''who's minding the store?'' Bush brushed criticism aside last fall and stood by McDonough's predecessor, James Crosby, refusing his resignation.
Bush abruptly fired Crosby in February -- a month before Bush headed into his final 60-day lawmaking session -- from the $124,000-a-year job, citing the investigation. Bush praised McDonough recently for ''providing some stability to the department'' and leading it properly. When asked why it took so long, Bush said only that the matter has been under investigation.
McDonough literally wrote an Army manual on how to conduct warfare as well as two novels and a memoir of Vietnam. Earning a political-science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McDonough served in Vietnam shortly after graduating from West Point in 1969. Having led the first U.S. soldiers into Rwanda after the genocide, he later left the Army in 1996 and worked in the White House drug-czar office but left after criticizing President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Gov. Bush tapped McDonough in 1999 to become Florida's drug-control strategist until now. He is Bush's longest-serving agency chief.
Soon after he was tapped for the prisons job, McDonough asserted his independence when he demoted Brad Tunnell, son of McDonough's colleague, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy Tunnell. Brad Tunnell, 31, then resigned.
Tunnell had been suspended with pay by Crosby in October for his alleged involvement in a drunken beat-down at a Tallahassee softball banquet between prison higher-ups and a former employee. A month later, Tunnell allegedly broke the jaw of another DOC employee in a bar in Jacksonville where the department was hosting its annual softball tournament.
Tunnell claimed that Crosby tried to exert pressure to get his dad to cancel the FDLE prison probe. Crosby told FDLE investigators he did nothing improper. Crosby declined to comment to The Miami Herald, as did Tunnell, concerning the he-said-he-said probe that is now closed.
'PERVERSION' OF VALUES
Like many insiders and observers of the Department of Corrections, McDonough was taken aback by ''this infatuation with softball,'' which he called ''a perversion of what is valued.'' Just last week, a former minor-league baseball player pleaded guilty to defrauding the state when he accepted a no-show job to play on the winning team in the softball tournament.
''It was a dominant-macho, physical-ability, raw-power culture. Softball fits a lot of that,'' McDonough said. ``Overlaid with the softball, by the way, was an awful lot of excessive drinking.''
And steroids.
Of the seven who had pleaded guilty in federal court to steroid charges, many were avid softball players and were connected to Crosby's protégé, former North Florida prison boss Allen Clark, a five-foot-nine, 230-pound man who narrowly avoided a criminal trial in the softball-banquet fight. State agents seized auto parts from the vehicles owned by Clark and four others during the investigation into alleged theft and misused labor.
Clark was appointed by Bush to sit on a commission that nominates judges for the bench. Clark has since cut all official ties to the state. Asked whether he had any regrets about Clark's appointment, Bush issued a terse: ``No.''
Many of the allegations about misused labor, steroids and softball were long ago reported by an activist named Kay Lee on a popular ''Department of Corruptions'' website. So far, she praises McDonough.
MORE TO COME?
'We desperately need someone there who has absolutely no connection to the good ol' boys,'' Lee said. ''Although I like most of what McDonough has done so far, the housecleaning has not swept nearly deep enough. I hope there's much more to come.'' McDonough briefly froze 50 employee funds that were supposed to pay for parties but were diverted for softball teams. McDonough said he's looking into a number of deals, including a troubled pharmaceutical contract.
He promised widespread and frequent random drug tests of guards. ''We used to have drug dogs. Somehow they got rid of drug dogs. The drug dogs are coming back,'' he said.
McDonough's zero-tolerance policy isn't so much a vestige of his time as a drug czar as it is a style of leadership that dates to when he stopped an entire patrol in Vietnam and ordered a young soldier to return a soda he stole from a villager.
''If I allowed him to steal, I allow him to slap. If I allow him to slap, I allow him to rape. If I allow him to rape, I allow him to murder,'' he said. ``You have to draw the line early.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com
TALLAHASSEE - With Vietnam's jungles and the corpse-strewn landscape of Rwanda in his past, old soldier Jim McDonough now faces one ''tough mission'': clean up Florida's prison system, mired in investigations and reports of theft, cronyism and a cut-throat softball culture of steroids and beer brawls.
''Sexual harassment seems to be pretty rife at the department. Man, it just goes on,'' said McDonough, who marvels at the ''cultural malaise'' that gripped the nation's third-largest prison system.
In less than two months on the job as head of the Department of Corrections, McDonough fired, suspended, demoted or forced the resignations of so many people that he lost count -- the number is 22. He is reviewing the DOC's finances, its 900 contracts and its 26,000-employee payroll. He even referred to reviewing a few old ''suspicious'' deaths but wouldn't specify.
McDonough, 59, Florida's former drug czar, had retired as a U.S. Army colonel in 1996 and counts among his medals three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, earned after stepping on a Vietnamese land mine. Despite no corrections experience, he's treading fearlessly in his new job in the belief that improving the decayed agency ''isn't brain science'': instill professionalism and punish wrongdoers to change the tone.
''It had become a culture that was trying to compete with the prisoner culture,'' McDonough said. 'Instead of a professionalism that most people wanted to do, it had become a culture of `We are bigger. We are tougher. We are meaner. We are more brutal. We can do what we need to do because we are all of those things,' instead of saying, 'Wait a minute. We're professionals. We have a code of ethics that we abide by.' ''
A MILITARY SPIT-POLISH
McDonough's actions have encouraged many of the rank and file, intimidated some of the old guard and provided Gov. Jeb Bush a badly needed military spit-polish on Florida's tarnished jails and prisons: Aside from the troubles at DOC, the Department of Juvenile Justice is reeling from the Jan. 6 death of a 14-year-old after he was beaten by guards at a boot camp. The former executive director of the now-defunct commission overseeing the state's private-run prisons pleaded guilty last month to stealing $225,000 in tax money. And an audit in September showed that the state overpaid two private prison companies $13 million.
Meantime, the FBI and state investigators launched a massive probe of the DOC that began with the breakup of a steroid ring.
But as Democrats started publicly asking ''who's minding the store?'' Bush brushed criticism aside last fall and stood by McDonough's predecessor, James Crosby, refusing his resignation.
Bush abruptly fired Crosby in February -- a month before Bush headed into his final 60-day lawmaking session -- from the $124,000-a-year job, citing the investigation. Bush praised McDonough recently for ''providing some stability to the department'' and leading it properly. When asked why it took so long, Bush said only that the matter has been under investigation.
McDonough literally wrote an Army manual on how to conduct warfare as well as two novels and a memoir of Vietnam. Earning a political-science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McDonough served in Vietnam shortly after graduating from West Point in 1969. Having led the first U.S. soldiers into Rwanda after the genocide, he later left the Army in 1996 and worked in the White House drug-czar office but left after criticizing President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Gov. Bush tapped McDonough in 1999 to become Florida's drug-control strategist until now. He is Bush's longest-serving agency chief.
Soon after he was tapped for the prisons job, McDonough asserted his independence when he demoted Brad Tunnell, son of McDonough's colleague, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy Tunnell. Brad Tunnell, 31, then resigned.
Tunnell had been suspended with pay by Crosby in October for his alleged involvement in a drunken beat-down at a Tallahassee softball banquet between prison higher-ups and a former employee. A month later, Tunnell allegedly broke the jaw of another DOC employee in a bar in Jacksonville where the department was hosting its annual softball tournament.
Tunnell claimed that Crosby tried to exert pressure to get his dad to cancel the FDLE prison probe. Crosby told FDLE investigators he did nothing improper. Crosby declined to comment to The Miami Herald, as did Tunnell, concerning the he-said-he-said probe that is now closed.
'PERVERSION' OF VALUES
Like many insiders and observers of the Department of Corrections, McDonough was taken aback by ''this infatuation with softball,'' which he called ''a perversion of what is valued.'' Just last week, a former minor-league baseball player pleaded guilty to defrauding the state when he accepted a no-show job to play on the winning team in the softball tournament.
''It was a dominant-macho, physical-ability, raw-power culture. Softball fits a lot of that,'' McDonough said. ``Overlaid with the softball, by the way, was an awful lot of excessive drinking.''
And steroids.
Of the seven who had pleaded guilty in federal court to steroid charges, many were avid softball players and were connected to Crosby's protégé, former North Florida prison boss Allen Clark, a five-foot-nine, 230-pound man who narrowly avoided a criminal trial in the softball-banquet fight. State agents seized auto parts from the vehicles owned by Clark and four others during the investigation into alleged theft and misused labor.
Clark was appointed by Bush to sit on a commission that nominates judges for the bench. Clark has since cut all official ties to the state. Asked whether he had any regrets about Clark's appointment, Bush issued a terse: ``No.''
Many of the allegations about misused labor, steroids and softball were long ago reported by an activist named Kay Lee on a popular ''Department of Corruptions'' website. So far, she praises McDonough.
MORE TO COME?
'We desperately need someone there who has absolutely no connection to the good ol' boys,'' Lee said. ''Although I like most of what McDonough has done so far, the housecleaning has not swept nearly deep enough. I hope there's much more to come.'' McDonough briefly froze 50 employee funds that were supposed to pay for parties but were diverted for softball teams. McDonough said he's looking into a number of deals, including a troubled pharmaceutical contract.
He promised widespread and frequent random drug tests of guards. ''We used to have drug dogs. Somehow they got rid of drug dogs. The drug dogs are coming back,'' he said.
McDonough's zero-tolerance policy isn't so much a vestige of his time as a drug czar as it is a style of leadership that dates to when he stopped an entire patrol in Vietnam and ordered a young soldier to return a soda he stole from a villager.
''If I allowed him to steal, I allow him to slap. If I allow him to slap, I allow him to rape. If I allow him to rape, I allow him to murder,'' he said. ``You have to draw the line early.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Sadism in Florida: Cracker Justice Lives!
MIAMI HERALD WATCHDOGMinor offenses at camp brought beatingsA smile, a mumble and other forms of nonviolent behavior resulted in force against teenage boys at a Florida sheriff's boot camp, a Miami Herald investigation found.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLERcmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
The teenage boys smiled, they shrugged and they smirked. They spoke without permission or they refused to speak at all.
That's all it took for the boys at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp to provoke a swift and painful response from their guards. Even crying and ''whimpering'' brought harsh discipline.
The scenes were repeated over and over, 180 times over the past three years, at the juvenile boot camp in Panama City, according to Florida Department of Juvenile Justice records obtained by The Miami Herald under the state's public-records law.
In only eight of the 180 instances documented since January 2003 were the teenagers described as hitting guards, fighting with other youths, threatening to escape or trying to harm themselves.
The documents -- use-of-force reports written by the guards themselves -- show that the overwhelming majority of the youths were subjected to ''takedowns,'' hammer-fist blows and ''knee strikes'' for:
• Being unwilling or unable to perform rigorous exercises.
• Exercising without sufficient ``motivation.''
• Being ''insolent'' with guards.
• Speaking without permission.
• ``Breathing heavily.''
• ''Tensing'' themselves.
Boys were physically ''restrained'' for furrowing their brows, mumbling or gritting their teeth. On Christmas Day 2004, one boy was disciplined for smiling.
VIOLENT PUNISHMENT KNEES, FISTS, THUMBS USED FOR DISCIPLINE
Their punishments: knees jabbed forcefully into their thighs, hammer-fist punches to the arms, wrist twisting, and being wrestled to the ground. Another common tactic was the use of ''pressure points,'' in which guards used their thumbs to cause pain by pressing on sensitive areas behind the youths' ears or under their chins.
''I . . . observed offender become still and his breathing become shallow and I felt him tense his right arm. . . . I then applied a knee strike to his left thigh area,'' a sergeant wrote after one episode on Feb. 23, 2005.
In many of the cases, the guards used the tactics despite written orders by Department of Juvenile Justice chief Anthony Schembri, who in June 2004 banned the use of physical force except in extreme situations.
TREATMENT CRITICIZED EXPERT FINDS `PATTERN OF TORTURING CHILDREN'
Juvenile justice experts who reviewed the documents at The Miami Herald's request said the treatment of the youths was unjustifiable.
''What you have there is an administratively approved, systematic pattern of torturing children,'' said Ron Davidson, director of mental health policy in the psychiatry department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied the 180 reports. Davidson has reviewed nearly 400 group homes, mental hospitals and juvenile justice facilities for the U.S. Department of Justice, the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and other agencies.
Waylon Graham, a Panama City attorney for the camp's second-highest-ranking officer, Lt. Charles Helms, defends the actions of the guards, saying they behaved exactly as DJJ and Sheriff's Office administrators expected of them, and never intended to harm the youths in their custody.
''They were tightly supervised,'' Graham said. ``Everything was videotaped there. There were no rogue drill sergeants out of control. To be blunt, some of those kids showed up at the boot camp mean as hell, after they'd been rejected by alternative programs. This was kind of the end of the line.''
A computer analysis of the boot camp use-of-force reports -- which were redacted by the state to exclude the youths' names for privacy reasons -- shows that all but seven of the 180 incidents were declared ''appropriate'' by the camp's administrators. Three were found to have been inappropriate, and four were left unresolved.
Among the unresolved cases: the Jan. 6 death of Martin Lee Anderson, who was punched, kneed and choked by several guards when he said he couldn't breathe and couldn't run more laps. Martin's death remains under investigation by a special prosecutor in Tampa appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush.
The physical punishments meted out at the camp were well known to officials at the DJJ. All of the use-of-force reports were faxed to DJJ headquarters in Tallahassee for review, and there is no record of DJJ officials ever objecting to the boot camp's methods for dealing with uncooperative detainees.
''Whoever read those reports has to share the blame -- and there is blame,'' said retired Miami-Dade Juvenile Judge Tom Petersen, who also reviewed the use-of-force reports for The Miami Herald. ``The fact that this went on, and went on for years, makes it so much worse.''
A spokeswoman for Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Since Martin's death, the Sheriff's Office has declined to discuss the camp, citing state and federal investigations into the teenager's death. The camp is closing down Thursday, although all of the youthful offenders have already been released or moved to other DJJ facilities.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp opened in 1994, as the state tried to cope with a series of violent, well-publicized crimes by teens. Some of the mayhem had been directed at tourists, the state's economic lifeblood.
The theoretical underpinning of the boot camp programs, all run by county sheriffs, was that troubled youths needed strong discipline and an outlet for limitless energy, as well as successful adult role models to emulate.
But at some point, academic experts say, many of the camps became all ''tough'' and no ``love.''
''You communicate to the kid, right away, that he is in a very intimidating place, and he can get the tar kicked out of him unless he does exactly what you want,'' said Petersen, who also taught juvenile justice for 10 years at the University of Miami. ``It's not the way to run a juvenile justice program, and we've known that for years.''
EXERCISE IS A BIG ISSUE GUARDS OFTEN CITED YOUTHS' AVERSION TO IT
Exercise -- or the inability or refusal of many detainees to perform it -- was the cause for much of the physical force used at the camp. Guards cited lack of ''motivation'' during physical training in 58 of the use-of-force reports.
In a typical incident, on Jan. 22, 2004, an officer slammed his knee into a youth's thigh because the teen displayed a ''threatening posture.'' The incident began when the boy showed ''poor motivation during alternative training'' and was ordered ``to raise his motivation and to continue performing exercises as instructed.''
On May 6, 2004, a guard hit a youth with his knee and pressed his thumb on pressure points on his head twice because the teen was ''performing his alternative training with extremely poor motivation,'' a report said. ``Offender became passive aggressive by not completing his exercises.''
On Feb. 15, 2005, a guard used the pressure-point tactic on a boy who insisted he couldn't continue to do ''low crawl'' exercises during orientation to the camp.
'Offender began speaking without permission in an insolent tone, `Sir, I can't do this, sir,' '' the report states.
And on Sept. 22, 2005, a guard used pressure points and the ''bent wrist'' technique on a boy when he was found ``performing . . . pushups with low motivation.''
Whatever the provocation, the physical-force sessions often escalated. Typically, youths who misbehaved were placed in what guards called the ''escort'' position for ''counseling.'' In practice, that meant a boy would have one or two guards holding him forcefully by the arms, often against a wall or pole, or prone on the ground.
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS RESPONSES TO FORCE BRING MORE RESTRAINTS
Experts who reviewed the records say the teens' reactions were to be expected: They became tense. They spoke disrespectfully. They mumbled. They clenched their teeth.
Invariably, that provoked more force.
On March 9, 2005, one boy slammed a door and then showed ''low motivation [and] a poor attitude while stretching'' before exercises. An officer ordered the boy to ''open his eyes and answer . . . questions.'' The boy refused, and the guard thrust his thumb into the pressure point behind the boy's ear.
'Offender began crying, tensed up his arm and stated in an insolent tone, `All y'all want to do is bring me down!' '' the guard's report said. ``At that time, I delivered a knee strike to offender's right thigh as a distractionary technique and escorted him to the ground.''
On Sept. 9, 2005, a youth got into trouble for becoming ''visibly angry'' by furrowing his eyebrows and hanging his head. His ''poor attitude'' got him a knee strike.
''Offender became passive resistant by not answering my questions,'' the guard wrote. ''When asked a question offender would begin to make whimpering sounds. . . . I again applied the hollow behind the ear'' pressure-point technique.
Five days later, on Sept. 14, guards used force on a boy who was ''mumbling'' during a drill and ceremony class.
''Offender then rolled his eyes and stood staring directly at me,'' a guard wrote. ``I applied a bent wrist to [his] right wrist for approximately 12 to 15 seconds.''
Pressure points behind the ear were used on one boy for questioning whether the guards were allowed to rough him up. ''Offender began to speak without permission and told me that I could not touch him without a reason,'' a guard wrote on June 1, 2005.
Petersen, the veteran juvenile judge, said the guards' actions amounted to needless violence.
'It's absolutely absurd that they would interpret `breathing heavily' or 'tensing the left arm' as some kind of threat that justifies physical force,'' he said.
``All that violence. It's evil.''
USE OF FORCE IS RISKY OFFICIAL CITES INJURIES TO 'TOO MANY' YOUTHS
Camp officials have maintained that the use-of-force techniques are fairly harmless.
But records from the DJJ and the boot camp suggest that such manhandling of children carries risks.
On June 21, 2004, DJJ chief Schembri banned four physical restraints that had been in wide use at DJJ youth programs, including all ''pressure points'' and the ''wristlock,'' a technique similar to the ''bent wrist'' often used at the Bay County boot camp.
''Too many youth have been injured in incidents with these techniques,'' Schembri wrote in the memo. ``While these holds may be appropriate for an adult population, experience has shown us that it is too easy to injure a young person when applying these holds.
``Physical restraint should be applied only to prevent a youth from hurting himself or others, and to prevent property damage or escape.''
NEED FOR REVIEW CITED`WE CAN DO BETTER,' FLORIDA AGENCY SAYS
It is unclear why the banned techniques were used on nonviolent youths at the Bay County boot camp, which operated under contract with the DJJ. Cynthia Lorenzo, a spokeswoman for the DJJ, declined to discuss why the agency failed to react to the barrage of force reports from Panama City that showed that the camp was ignoring state policy.
''Recent events have brought to light the need for a more thorough review of the procedures involving use of force at juvenile facilities,'' Lorenzo said in a brief statement. ``The agency is committed to the safety and well being of youths in our care. We need to do better, we can do better, and we will do more.''
Dr. Janet Konefal, director of complementary medicine at the University of Miami and a longtime practitioner of acupuncture and pressure-point techniques in healing, said that applying extreme pressure to certain parts of the body can cause great pain -- which is why pressure points also are used in martial arts.
''Most people will just comply because it hurts,'' Konefal said. ``You can bring somebody to their knees. You can make somebody faint.''
BEHAVIOR QUESTIONED FORCEFUL TACTICS LIKENED TO CHILD ABUSE
Chelly Schembera, a retired Florida social service administrator with extensive child welfare, juvenile justice and inspector general experience during her 27-year tenure with the Department of Children & Families, said the use of such tactics as using pressure points, knee strikes and wrist holds would send parents or other caregivers straight to jail.
''This would be categorized as child abuse,'' said Schembera, who reviewed all the camp's use-of-force re- ports for The Miami Herald.
One teenager told the Bay County boot camp's second in command why he struck out at three officers who used force against him when, according to the camp's report, he ''began to perform exercises poorly.'' The youth was charged with battery, although the charges were later dropped.
''I was getting tired and I wasn't doing [push-ups] as quickly as I could,'' the boy said in a taped statement on Nov, 5, 2004. ``Sir, I was yelling, sir, like in pain, sir. . . . I rolled over and I struck the officer trying to get him off me . . . cause they put [pressure] underneath my throat, sir, and I couldn't breathe.''
''I was crying, I had tears, sir, I just wanted to get this over so I was trying to get my mind to think about something else,'' the boy said.
A report on the Oct. 30, 2004, incident said the boy had a ''dime-size'' bruise behind his right ear that had scabbed up from one of the pressure points applied to his head.
Another boy described how pressure was applied to his throat on Feb. 8, 2005. Officers used force on the boy shortly after he entered the boot camp.
''They asked me if they were going to have any problems with me, and I stopped to think about it and the next thing I know . . . the staff is in my face yelling at me,'' the boy is quoted as saying in a Sheriff's Office report, written for the DJJ inspector general. ''One of the [guards] placed his hand on my adam's apple and tilted my head back applying pressure,'' the youth said in a taped statement. ``He applied pressure to my adam's apple to the point where it felt like I was being choked.''
One boy was given a ''rug burn'' above his eye during a ''takedown'' on Feb. 8, 2005, after an encounter that the guards described as ``search and instructions.''
The report does not say how a takedown led to a rug burn on the face.
Another teen got his lip cut during a lengthy use of force the next day. The boy provoked guards by ''talking to himself while sitting in his doorway,'' a report said. As guards maneuvered to do a takedown, the boy ``tensed his left arm after being repeatedly ordered not to tense his arm.''
For that, the youth was slammed with a knee and pressed with a thumb behind the ear.
''I then noticed that offender had blood on his bottom lip,'' the report said, giving no explanation for how the youth got cut.
GUARDS HAD LEEWAY THEIR TACTICS LABELED `CORPORAL PUNISHMENT'
Schembera, the retired DCF official, said the guards should never have been allowed to use force in the incidents they reported.
''I don't have any doubt in the world that this is corporal punishment,'' she said. ``And I don't have any doubt in the world that it would not be allowed by any state agency or government contractor -- especially without any real justification.
``It is against the law to use corporal punishment on children in state care in the state of Florida.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com
The teenage boys smiled, they shrugged and they smirked. They spoke without permission or they refused to speak at all.
That's all it took for the boys at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp to provoke a swift and painful response from their guards. Even crying and ''whimpering'' brought harsh discipline.
The scenes were repeated over and over, 180 times over the past three years, at the juvenile boot camp in Panama City, according to Florida Department of Juvenile Justice records obtained by The Miami Herald under the state's public-records law.
In only eight of the 180 instances documented since January 2003 were the teenagers described as hitting guards, fighting with other youths, threatening to escape or trying to harm themselves.
The documents -- use-of-force reports written by the guards themselves -- show that the overwhelming majority of the youths were subjected to ''takedowns,'' hammer-fist blows and ''knee strikes'' for:
• Being unwilling or unable to perform rigorous exercises.
• Exercising without sufficient ``motivation.''
• Being ''insolent'' with guards.
• Speaking without permission.
• ``Breathing heavily.''
• ''Tensing'' themselves.
Boys were physically ''restrained'' for furrowing their brows, mumbling or gritting their teeth. On Christmas Day 2004, one boy was disciplined for smiling.
VIOLENT PUNISHMENT KNEES, FISTS, THUMBS USED FOR DISCIPLINE
Their punishments: knees jabbed forcefully into their thighs, hammer-fist punches to the arms, wrist twisting, and being wrestled to the ground. Another common tactic was the use of ''pressure points,'' in which guards used their thumbs to cause pain by pressing on sensitive areas behind the youths' ears or under their chins.
''I . . . observed offender become still and his breathing become shallow and I felt him tense his right arm. . . . I then applied a knee strike to his left thigh area,'' a sergeant wrote after one episode on Feb. 23, 2005.
In many of the cases, the guards used the tactics despite written orders by Department of Juvenile Justice chief Anthony Schembri, who in June 2004 banned the use of physical force except in extreme situations.
TREATMENT CRITICIZED EXPERT FINDS `PATTERN OF TORTURING CHILDREN'
Juvenile justice experts who reviewed the documents at The Miami Herald's request said the treatment of the youths was unjustifiable.
''What you have there is an administratively approved, systematic pattern of torturing children,'' said Ron Davidson, director of mental health policy in the psychiatry department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied the 180 reports. Davidson has reviewed nearly 400 group homes, mental hospitals and juvenile justice facilities for the U.S. Department of Justice, the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and other agencies.
Waylon Graham, a Panama City attorney for the camp's second-highest-ranking officer, Lt. Charles Helms, defends the actions of the guards, saying they behaved exactly as DJJ and Sheriff's Office administrators expected of them, and never intended to harm the youths in their custody.
''They were tightly supervised,'' Graham said. ``Everything was videotaped there. There were no rogue drill sergeants out of control. To be blunt, some of those kids showed up at the boot camp mean as hell, after they'd been rejected by alternative programs. This was kind of the end of the line.''
A computer analysis of the boot camp use-of-force reports -- which were redacted by the state to exclude the youths' names for privacy reasons -- shows that all but seven of the 180 incidents were declared ''appropriate'' by the camp's administrators. Three were found to have been inappropriate, and four were left unresolved.
Among the unresolved cases: the Jan. 6 death of Martin Lee Anderson, who was punched, kneed and choked by several guards when he said he couldn't breathe and couldn't run more laps. Martin's death remains under investigation by a special prosecutor in Tampa appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush.
The physical punishments meted out at the camp were well known to officials at the DJJ. All of the use-of-force reports were faxed to DJJ headquarters in Tallahassee for review, and there is no record of DJJ officials ever objecting to the boot camp's methods for dealing with uncooperative detainees.
''Whoever read those reports has to share the blame -- and there is blame,'' said retired Miami-Dade Juvenile Judge Tom Petersen, who also reviewed the use-of-force reports for The Miami Herald. ``The fact that this went on, and went on for years, makes it so much worse.''
A spokeswoman for Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Since Martin's death, the Sheriff's Office has declined to discuss the camp, citing state and federal investigations into the teenager's death. The camp is closing down Thursday, although all of the youthful offenders have already been released or moved to other DJJ facilities.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp opened in 1994, as the state tried to cope with a series of violent, well-publicized crimes by teens. Some of the mayhem had been directed at tourists, the state's economic lifeblood.
The theoretical underpinning of the boot camp programs, all run by county sheriffs, was that troubled youths needed strong discipline and an outlet for limitless energy, as well as successful adult role models to emulate.
But at some point, academic experts say, many of the camps became all ''tough'' and no ``love.''
''You communicate to the kid, right away, that he is in a very intimidating place, and he can get the tar kicked out of him unless he does exactly what you want,'' said Petersen, who also taught juvenile justice for 10 years at the University of Miami. ``It's not the way to run a juvenile justice program, and we've known that for years.''
EXERCISE IS A BIG ISSUE GUARDS OFTEN CITED YOUTHS' AVERSION TO IT
Exercise -- or the inability or refusal of many detainees to perform it -- was the cause for much of the physical force used at the camp. Guards cited lack of ''motivation'' during physical training in 58 of the use-of-force reports.
In a typical incident, on Jan. 22, 2004, an officer slammed his knee into a youth's thigh because the teen displayed a ''threatening posture.'' The incident began when the boy showed ''poor motivation during alternative training'' and was ordered ``to raise his motivation and to continue performing exercises as instructed.''
On May 6, 2004, a guard hit a youth with his knee and pressed his thumb on pressure points on his head twice because the teen was ''performing his alternative training with extremely poor motivation,'' a report said. ``Offender became passive aggressive by not completing his exercises.''
On Feb. 15, 2005, a guard used the pressure-point tactic on a boy who insisted he couldn't continue to do ''low crawl'' exercises during orientation to the camp.
'Offender began speaking without permission in an insolent tone, `Sir, I can't do this, sir,' '' the report states.
And on Sept. 22, 2005, a guard used pressure points and the ''bent wrist'' technique on a boy when he was found ``performing . . . pushups with low motivation.''
Whatever the provocation, the physical-force sessions often escalated. Typically, youths who misbehaved were placed in what guards called the ''escort'' position for ''counseling.'' In practice, that meant a boy would have one or two guards holding him forcefully by the arms, often against a wall or pole, or prone on the ground.
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS RESPONSES TO FORCE BRING MORE RESTRAINTS
Experts who reviewed the records say the teens' reactions were to be expected: They became tense. They spoke disrespectfully. They mumbled. They clenched their teeth.
Invariably, that provoked more force.
On March 9, 2005, one boy slammed a door and then showed ''low motivation [and] a poor attitude while stretching'' before exercises. An officer ordered the boy to ''open his eyes and answer . . . questions.'' The boy refused, and the guard thrust his thumb into the pressure point behind the boy's ear.
'Offender began crying, tensed up his arm and stated in an insolent tone, `All y'all want to do is bring me down!' '' the guard's report said. ``At that time, I delivered a knee strike to offender's right thigh as a distractionary technique and escorted him to the ground.''
On Sept. 9, 2005, a youth got into trouble for becoming ''visibly angry'' by furrowing his eyebrows and hanging his head. His ''poor attitude'' got him a knee strike.
''Offender became passive resistant by not answering my questions,'' the guard wrote. ''When asked a question offender would begin to make whimpering sounds. . . . I again applied the hollow behind the ear'' pressure-point technique.
Five days later, on Sept. 14, guards used force on a boy who was ''mumbling'' during a drill and ceremony class.
''Offender then rolled his eyes and stood staring directly at me,'' a guard wrote. ``I applied a bent wrist to [his] right wrist for approximately 12 to 15 seconds.''
Pressure points behind the ear were used on one boy for questioning whether the guards were allowed to rough him up. ''Offender began to speak without permission and told me that I could not touch him without a reason,'' a guard wrote on June 1, 2005.
Petersen, the veteran juvenile judge, said the guards' actions amounted to needless violence.
'It's absolutely absurd that they would interpret `breathing heavily' or 'tensing the left arm' as some kind of threat that justifies physical force,'' he said.
``All that violence. It's evil.''
USE OF FORCE IS RISKY OFFICIAL CITES INJURIES TO 'TOO MANY' YOUTHS
Camp officials have maintained that the use-of-force techniques are fairly harmless.
But records from the DJJ and the boot camp suggest that such manhandling of children carries risks.
On June 21, 2004, DJJ chief Schembri banned four physical restraints that had been in wide use at DJJ youth programs, including all ''pressure points'' and the ''wristlock,'' a technique similar to the ''bent wrist'' often used at the Bay County boot camp.
''Too many youth have been injured in incidents with these techniques,'' Schembri wrote in the memo. ``While these holds may be appropriate for an adult population, experience has shown us that it is too easy to injure a young person when applying these holds.
``Physical restraint should be applied only to prevent a youth from hurting himself or others, and to prevent property damage or escape.''
NEED FOR REVIEW CITED`WE CAN DO BETTER,' FLORIDA AGENCY SAYS
It is unclear why the banned techniques were used on nonviolent youths at the Bay County boot camp, which operated under contract with the DJJ. Cynthia Lorenzo, a spokeswoman for the DJJ, declined to discuss why the agency failed to react to the barrage of force reports from Panama City that showed that the camp was ignoring state policy.
''Recent events have brought to light the need for a more thorough review of the procedures involving use of force at juvenile facilities,'' Lorenzo said in a brief statement. ``The agency is committed to the safety and well being of youths in our care. We need to do better, we can do better, and we will do more.''
Dr. Janet Konefal, director of complementary medicine at the University of Miami and a longtime practitioner of acupuncture and pressure-point techniques in healing, said that applying extreme pressure to certain parts of the body can cause great pain -- which is why pressure points also are used in martial arts.
''Most people will just comply because it hurts,'' Konefal said. ``You can bring somebody to their knees. You can make somebody faint.''
BEHAVIOR QUESTIONED FORCEFUL TACTICS LIKENED TO CHILD ABUSE
Chelly Schembera, a retired Florida social service administrator with extensive child welfare, juvenile justice and inspector general experience during her 27-year tenure with the Department of Children & Families, said the use of such tactics as using pressure points, knee strikes and wrist holds would send parents or other caregivers straight to jail.
''This would be categorized as child abuse,'' said Schembera, who reviewed all the camp's use-of-force re- ports for The Miami Herald.
One teenager told the Bay County boot camp's second in command why he struck out at three officers who used force against him when, according to the camp's report, he ''began to perform exercises poorly.'' The youth was charged with battery, although the charges were later dropped.
''I was getting tired and I wasn't doing [push-ups] as quickly as I could,'' the boy said in a taped statement on Nov, 5, 2004. ``Sir, I was yelling, sir, like in pain, sir. . . . I rolled over and I struck the officer trying to get him off me . . . cause they put [pressure] underneath my throat, sir, and I couldn't breathe.''
''I was crying, I had tears, sir, I just wanted to get this over so I was trying to get my mind to think about something else,'' the boy said.
A report on the Oct. 30, 2004, incident said the boy had a ''dime-size'' bruise behind his right ear that had scabbed up from one of the pressure points applied to his head.
Another boy described how pressure was applied to his throat on Feb. 8, 2005. Officers used force on the boy shortly after he entered the boot camp.
''They asked me if they were going to have any problems with me, and I stopped to think about it and the next thing I know . . . the staff is in my face yelling at me,'' the boy is quoted as saying in a Sheriff's Office report, written for the DJJ inspector general. ''One of the [guards] placed his hand on my adam's apple and tilted my head back applying pressure,'' the youth said in a taped statement. ``He applied pressure to my adam's apple to the point where it felt like I was being choked.''
One boy was given a ''rug burn'' above his eye during a ''takedown'' on Feb. 8, 2005, after an encounter that the guards described as ``search and instructions.''
The report does not say how a takedown led to a rug burn on the face.
Another teen got his lip cut during a lengthy use of force the next day. The boy provoked guards by ''talking to himself while sitting in his doorway,'' a report said. As guards maneuvered to do a takedown, the boy ``tensed his left arm after being repeatedly ordered not to tense his arm.''
For that, the youth was slammed with a knee and pressed with a thumb behind the ear.
''I then noticed that offender had blood on his bottom lip,'' the report said, giving no explanation for how the youth got cut.
GUARDS HAD LEEWAY THEIR TACTICS LABELED `CORPORAL PUNISHMENT'
Schembera, the retired DCF official, said the guards should never have been allowed to use force in the incidents they reported.
''I don't have any doubt in the world that this is corporal punishment,'' she said. ``And I don't have any doubt in the world that it would not be allowed by any state agency or government contractor -- especially without any real justification.
``It is against the law to use corporal punishment on children in state care in the state of Florida.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com
