Michael Savage - Why We Need To Get Armed!

Ron Paul questions Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Kohn on transparency

G8 summit pledges $20 bln to fight hunger

L'AQUILA, Italy, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Leaders at the Group of Eight (G8) summit pledged 20 billion U.S. dollars on Friday to help poor countries increase their agriculture output to fight hunger.

"We welcome the commitments made by countries represented at L'Aquila towards a goal of mobilizing 20 billion dollars over three years through this coordinated, comprehensive strategy focused on sustainable agriculture development, while keeping a strong commitment to ensure adequate emergency food aid assistance," the leaders said in a statement issued after the summit in the central Italian town of L'Aquila.

"We have initiated a L'Aquila Food Security Initiative to increase from 15 billion dollars to 20 billion dollars in three years" to help fight world hunger, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told a press conference at the end of the summit.

The three-day summit gathered leaders from G8 countries, five major developing countries and some African nations, as well as from international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among others.

Participants discussed a wide range of topics including food security, the impact of the global financial and economic crisis, and last year's spike of food prices in countries that were least able to respond to increasing hunger and poverty.

Palestine: I Resist (Never Before Campaign)

Check this ........... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWGqdyFII_s

Did You Miss Today's Freedom Watch 22? Watch Here!

Did you miss the show? The YouTubes have been posted in record time!

Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano welcomes the following guests to the show today... and you KNOW they'll be talking about yesterday's Senate blockage of S. 604 to Audit the Federal Reserve:

Rep Ron Paul
Senator Jim DeMint
Peter Schiff
David Ritgers – CATO
Dr Rand Paul

Tune in at 2pm for another power hour of liberty!

Banks' plan to refuse California notes takes heat

California promissary note recipients could be left scrambling for cash after Friday

NEW YORK (AP) -- After taking multibillion-dollar bailouts from the federal government, some of America's biggest banks are declining to lend a hand with a different financial mess: the California budget stalemate.

The banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. and some regional banks, are trying to pressure lawmakers to end the impasse by warning that, after Friday, they won't accept promissory notes -- called colloquially "IOUs" for "I owe you" -- issued by the state.

The move would leave many businesses and families with pieces of paper and fewer options for getting their money immediately.

Government officials and consumer advocates say the banks should be more sympathetic, especially since they've been the direct beneficiaries of taxpayer dollars.

"If they hold to that stance, then there's potential for hardship being suffered by the recipients of IOUs," said Tom Dresslar, spokesman in the California Treasurer's office.

Unless recipients are able to hold promissary notes until Oct. 2, the official redemption date, "they'll have to scramble" to feed their families and meet obligations, Dresslar said.

As California legislators haggle over how to close a $26.3 billion budget deficit, the state is expected to send out $3.3 billion in promissary notes this month to private contractors, state vendors, people getting tax refunds and local governments for social services.

It is the first time since 1992, and just the second time since the Great Depression, the state has sent out notes promising repayment at a later date instead of paying its bills on time. The promissary notes carry an annual interest rate of 3.75 percent.

Some banks are already placing limits on the promissary notes, accepting them from existing customers only.

"We would like for the state to resolve its budget issues as soon as possible," said Tom Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase. The bank said it was in contact with California state officials for several weeks leading up to the decision to start printing the promissary notes.

At Bank of America, which counts the state of California as a commercial client, existing customers can only deposit IOUs -- and only until Friday.

"We don't want acceptance (of IOUs) to deter the state from a budget agreement," bank spokeswoman Julie Westermann said.

But that strategy could backfire for banks that already have an image problem after taking tens of billions of dollars from the government to make up for the losses they suffered on risky mortgage investments.

The banks "can come up with any justification they want, but there will be extreme anger," said Stan Collender, managing director at Qorvis Communications, a business consulting and public relations firm in Washington. If businesses and families suffer because they couldn't cash IOUs, the banks will be viewed as "another bad guy," Collender said.

JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each received a $25 billion federal bailout in October. JPMorgan repaid the U.S. Treasury last month. Bank of America and Citigroup each received $45 billion in multiple installments between October and January. Each also benefits from guarantees against losses -- $7.5 billion for Bank of America and $5 billion for Citi.

The banks could also find themselves losing customers to institutions willing to keep accepting promissary notes. Some credit unions have been more flexible by not setting a deadline, according to the California Credit Union League. Nearly 60 have already said they would accept the promissary notes and only two might stop accepting them on Friday, league spokesman Henry Kertman said.

The federal government has not so far intervened, but it could pressure the banks to continue accepting the promissary notes.

"Clearly, the federal government has leverage over these institutions," said Matthew Lee, executive director of Inner City Press-Fair Finance Watch, a Bronx, New York-based consumer advocacy group. Hundreds of banks have received aid from the government as part of its $700 billion rescue plan last fall.

In 1992, IOUs were sent out during a stalemate between then-Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature. Some banks initially accepted the IOUs, but began declining them as the impasse continued.

If that happens this time, some alternatives could be set up to help customers awaiting payment from the government.

"They're certainly not just abandoning their customers as of July 10," Beth Mills, a spokeswoman for the California Bankers Association said. Mills said that while banks might stop accepting the IOUs, many might issue loans or establish lines of credit with customers instead. Bank customers could then repay the short-term loans in October after the state makes good on paying the IOUs.

Another possibility is that a secondary market could be established to buy up IOUs. SecondMarket, which creates marketplaces for the trading of illiquid assets, has received "decent interest" from potential buyers of the IOUs, said Jeremy Smith, the New York-based company's chief strategy office. SecondMarket will likely create a process for trading the IOUs if banks stop accepting them.

Hedge funds and municipal bond and distressed asset investors have already expressed interest in finding a place to purchase the IOUs, Smith said.

But pricing in a secondary market is still murky and customers could end up getting less than face value.

Vendors and contractors holding IOUs could potentially use them to pay state taxes, fees and liens under a bill passed by a state Assembly committee Tuesday. The bill would require the state to accept its own IOUs in lieu of money owed the government.

That could help a company like Noah Homes, which operates eight homes for 70 developmentally disabled adults in San Diego County. CEO Molly Nocon said that if Noah Homes could use IOUs to pay state licensing fees, payroll taxes and other state costs, it could save about $150,000 a year.

"If we could avoid that, it would keep us in business another couple of months."

If using the IOUs to pay government fees and taxes is not possible, the situation becomes more difficult. Nocon said the company might have to tap a $500,000 line of credit, which could help the company stay in business for about four months, she said. But that would mean Noah Homes would also be running up interest charges.

AP Writer Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, and AP Business Writers Marcy Gordon in Washington and Ieva M. Augstums in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

What's Behind Cap & Trade? (It ain't pretty)

Phil Gramm, one year ago today...

It's hard to believe how Phil Gramm could have been so completely, totally, fundamentally, crazy wrong one year ago today when he declared the recession to be just "mental".

Rev. Ted Pike on Alex Jones Tv : Say NO to Senators on Hate Speech Bill

Criminal Rothschilds

Homeless numbers include more families

WASHINGTON – The face of homelessness in the United States is changing to include more families and more people who live in the suburbs and rural communities.

The number of homeless has remained steady since 2007, but within the overall count are trends that can tell officials where federal resources would do the most good, the Housing and Urban Development Department says in its annual report to Congress being released Thursday.

About 1.6 million people used a homeless shelter or lived in transitional housing between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008 — about the same as the year before. But within that group, the number of families grew 9 percent, from about 473,000 to 517,000.

Officials said they also saw more demand for transitional housing in the suburbs and in rural areas of the country. Residents of suburban and rural communities made up about a third of those in need of housing, up from about 24 percent the year before.

HUD also attempts to count the number of homeless at a single point in time. In January 2008, about 664,000 people were in homeless shelters or in the streets on a single night. That's a drop of about 7,500 from the year before, but officials point out that the count occurred just as the nation's economic woes were beginning and did not account for soaring unemployment and other economic problems that have kicked in during the subsequent months.

The time lag associated with the national survey has led HUD to try a scaled-down, regional approach in hopes of obtaining more timely information each quarter. The first installment of that effort will also be released Thursday as part of the congressional report. The report showed that the number of people entering homeless shelters in nine regions of the country grew from 60,371 in January to 61,280 in March. Four regions experienced an increase in shelter counts. Five saw a decrease.

Participants in the quarterly reporting include New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as smaller cities like Richmond, Va., and Shreveport, La., and more rural regions, such as 118 of Kentucky's 120 counties, excluding the state's two largest cities of Lexington and Louisville.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said the annual report to Congress sheds light on how today's housing crisis and job losses are playing out in shelters and the streets. With the quarterly reporting, "we will be able to better understand the impact of the current economic crisis on homelessness across the country," Donovan said.

The quarterly report includes anecdotal summaries. For example, the case manager at a Richmond shelter reported seeing a greater number of "individuals who have held professional, skilled-craft positions."

An official in Kentucky said, "One day last month, we had to turn away three families due to full capacity." Officials in Shreveport reported a decrease in demand that they attributed to hurricane victims gradually moving back to New Orleans.

Join us on our 'bank anger' tour across the blogosphere

Bank fees are on the rise, and sometimes it may seem like there's not much we can do but complain. But complaining is something.

Now, I know that it's nothing new to blast a bank on a blog, or trash it on Twitter or spread your fury about their practices on Facebook, but with bank fees climbing and climbing (overdraft fees are estimated to cost Americans $38.5 billion this year), I went on my own little Internet tour today, looking around for reactions to banking fees, just to see what I could find and get a sense of how people are feeling toward banks these days. Not too surprisingly, I found a lot of ugly out there.

People are mad. As Hell.
First up, a blog posting at BigRobby.com. Seems this blogger and father from Maine rented five movies from a place called Redbox, and the folks at Redbox didn't put the charges through once, but as five individual charges through Big Robby's credit or debit card. He had a lower balance than he thought, and wound up getting five $35 overdraft fees from Bank of America. Big Robby is not pleased. Robby wrote a post about his feelings about Bank of America. He also expressed his feelings in a lovely photo of a finger (I'll let you guess which finger) next to the words, Bank of America.

Going over to Twitter, I typed in the words "bank fee" in the search engine, I pulled up a number of colorful expressions, mostly associated with (again) Bank of America. One young woman with the handle @Lessafish complains of an extended overdraft fee (the daily fee a bank lodges on you when your account has been in the negative for more than a few days). She uses a colorful two-word expression that suggests the bank digest some fecal matter.

Another Twitter user, @s7p, says she has closed her Bank of America account, ending her 140 character tweet with: "Take that, fee-mongerers!"

Not that all the current anger is aimed at Bank of America. One guy on Twitter has an account called I Hate chase. As in, he hates Chase Bank. If you hate Chase Bank, too, you can follow him at @IHateChase. (I'm following him, too, but only to see what he is up to. Just be warned that the type of language used here shouldn't be seen by young children, or those easily offended by strong language.

Now, to be fair, there are a number of people on Twitter who point out when banks do them a solid and refund a fee, so there is that.

But mostly, I'm finding anger. Even Scott Adams of Dilbert fame rallied against bank fees on his blog just several days ago. Adams titled his post, "Your Bank Hates You," and fumed for some time about banks in general, saying: "They have a naked interest in keeping their service as inconvenient as possible. My bank doesn't even offer a check box option for paying the entire balance on my credit card. Instead I need to write down the balance from one screen, or try to memorize it, until the screen appears where I can enter that figure. In other words, they even make money from my typos. It's totally intentional. Bastards. That trap has worked on me several times."

I can only hope this means Dilbert will be lampooning bank fees in some upcoming cartoons soon, which may provide some solace for angry bank customers.

This ends our brief tour, mostly because it's exhausting taking in all that vitriol in one sitting. But if you want to continue out on your own, simply Google "I hate banks" and be on your merry way. Remember to breathe!

Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist who often writes about money and banking issues for WalletPop and other publications. He is also the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

Source

Accused of returning to terrorism, former Gitmo detainee a respected Afghan politician

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was named by the Pentagon as one of 74 former captives who returned to terrorism after being released has done no such thing.

Instead, he has returned to doing what he was really doing before being picked up by US forces and shuttled off to Gitmo for six years: Working as a politician, a tribal elder representing Afghanistan's Kunar province.

So says a new report from McClatchy Newspapers, which profiles Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil, a tribal elder who regularly meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government officials on behalf of the people of Kunar province.

In May, an unreleased Pentagon document was leaked to the press, alleging that one in seven released Gitmo detainees -- fully 74 individuals -- had returned to terrorism once freed.

And while the veracity of that claim was questioned, the leaked Pentagon document was still considered important in changing the Washington establishment's mind about President Obama's plan to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Shortly after the report made it to the press, Congressional Democrats voted to oppose funding, requested by President Obama, to shut down Guantanamo Bay.

Now, with the apparent confirmation that at least one of the people accused of terrorist recidivism is actually a respected Afghan government official, questions will likely arise about the accuracy of that Pentagon report, as well as the motivations behind its being released to the press.

GITMO CAPTIVE WANTS TO STAY

Sometimes being trapped in a stateless prison with no hope for a fair trial is, well, better than the alternative.

Or at least so says Umar Abdulayev, a Tajik national who was brought to Guantanamo Bay in the earliest days of the camp's existence.

According to the Miami Herald, Abdulayev fears what the government of Tajikistan would do to him so much that he is fighting the US government's plan to release him and send him home.

Abdulayev's lawyer says the Gitmo detainee once refused a demand from Tajikistan's security services to spy on Muslim radicals in the country. As a result, he believes he is persona non grata in his homeland, and that, coupled with the stigma of having been a Gitmo prisoner, means he is at risk of torture, or worse.

Abdulayev's lawyer says he is open to the possibility of taking asylum in a third country.

Bank Of America Bans Customer For Life

Jesse tried to scam Bank of America. No, wait. He tried to open two accounts at once! No, that's not right either. He did something wrong, that's obvious. Isn't it? Hello? Please tell us what Jesse did wrong, Bank of America. Your lifetime banning confuses us.

Update: Be sure to check out Jesse's follow up post where he clarifies his credit history, and these stories from other short-lived Bank of America customers who had accounts closed for no clear reason, or worse.

I recently moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut. Upon my arrival I made the choice to leave my local bank account behind. I signed up for a Bank of America account through their website, thinking it would be simple to have ATMs that were available in both states.

After a month or two of frustratingly waiting, I received not one, but TWO debit cards in the mail. I looked through the paper work and found that they had in fact signed me up for two separate checking accounts.

I figured a quick call to customer service would clear the issue up, but the story only gets worse. The customer service rep I talked to told me that my account had a "flag" on it. I proceeded to ask if this was because THEY gave me two accounts and was told that the issue was not that. They said it "may have something to do with an unpaid account." The only problem is that I am young, have good credit, and had never had any account with Bank Of America. Their claim was impossible.

Finally I asked if I could just close the accounts and open a new one. They told me that I could no longer open an account with Bank Of America. I asked if I could open an account in the future and they told me that I could NEVER open an account with them again. As in NEVER.

Basically, Bank Of America banned me for signing up for an account after they made the mistake of sending me two accounts.

I called them a second time to see if I could get another answer and the customer service rep said "We suggest you find another bank."

I switched to TD BankNorth and currently have no major problems, besides any bank is better than one that gives you two accounts and bans you for life before you can use either.

In a way, BoA may have done you a favor, Jesse! Now if only Chase would start banning its customers for life, we'd be getting somewhere.

Update: Matthew says the same thing happened to him, and the only explanation BoA offered was that the fine print gives them the right to close an account at any time for any reason:

I too was banned from BoA. I recently got a new job and was looking to switch banks. I loved BoA's program in which they round up purchases, and send the difference to a savings account. I signed up online and was approved and received everything I needed in the mail; Cards, Pin Numbers, etc... I sat on the cards for about a week, waiting for all my purchases to clear from my former bank account to transfer everything over. I called to activate my card, and my account had been closed. "What the heck?" I thought. I'll call tomorrow and get this straightened out. I received a letter in the mail that day stating again, that my account had been closed. An account I never used.

I searched on your website and found the numbers for the higher ups and decided to give them a call. They did confirm that my account had been closed, but could not notify me why because they had some fine print (which was there) that stated either party can close the account at any given moment. The rep then stressed to me that I would NEVER be allowed to open another BoA account again.

I wasn't mad or anything, I'm was just more worried about WHY they closed it, more-so than the fact that they did.

LAPD's public database omits nearly 40% of this year's crimes

The map, touted as a way for residents to monitor the safety of their neighborhoods, doesn't include about 19,000 serious crimes reported in other LAPD data. Officials say they're looking into it.

By Ben Welsh and Doug Smith
July 9, 2009

The Los Angeles Police Department's online crime map intended for public use has failed to include nearly 40% of serious crimes reported in the city, a Times analysis has found.

The omissions, which date back at least six months, include thousands of crimes known to LAPD officials and are included in their official crime statistics.

In one of those rapes, a man hid in the back of a woman's car, forced her to drive to an abandoned North Hollywood apartment and assaulted her. It was the kind of incident that residents of the neighborhood around Sherman Way and Kester Avenue would have wanted to know about.

The March 26 attack was reported on the LAPD's blog but has yet to show up on the public map.

The lapses mean that the map, touted by city leaders as an important and innovative resource for city residents to determine whether their neighborhoods are safe, presents a drastically incomplete image of city crime.

Some residents have tried to bring the problem to the department's attention, to no avail. Jason Insalaco, a former resident of Atwater Village who uses the pen name GlendaleBlvd, posted a message about unmapped crimes in that area on a neighborhood message board earlier this year, but his concerns were dismissed by the department. He said he was outraged by the site's inaccuracies.

"The community is not being accurately informed," Insalaco said. "They are being misled and lulled into a false sense of security."

The Times discovered the magnitude of the problem while developing its own online map to display LAPD data. Comparing the LAPD map with the department's official totals revealed that thousands of crimes through mid-June were missing. The department’s official crime tally recorded more than 52,000 serious crimes this year. But the database on the public mapping site contained fewer than 33,000 for the same period.

Among the omissions, caused by a programming error, were more than a thousand violent robberies, including two out of seven street robberies committed in April and May by men posing as police officers.

The Times informed the LAPD last week of the discrepancy and specific examples of missing crimes.

This week, the LAPD added about 20,000 crimes from 2009 to data it provides The Times. But as of late Wednesday, those additions had yet to appear on the LAPD map.

"The department is looking into the issue that you brought to our attention," said Lt. Rick Banks, the officer in charge of the online unit. "When we come up with our findings, we will respond to you."

Banks declined to say whether the crimes were lost before the information was sent to the private contractors who produce the maps or whether the problems took place when the contractor processed the data. It was also unclear whether the problem dated to the origin of the project or was more recent.

The missing crimes mark the second major problem with the LAPD's public maps. In April, The Times found that programming errors by the LAPD's contractor had caused thousands of crimes to be mapped in the wrong place, mistakenly portraying the Los Angeles Civic Center as the most crime-ridden location in the city. To resolve the problem, the contractor has dropped those crimes from the map, but has not yet placed them in their correct locations.

When the LAPD launched the mapping site in March 2006, it was promoted as a publicly accessible version of Chief William J. Bratton's vaunted CompStat system. CompStat is a computer-powered tracking process first developed under Bratton at the New York Police Department that uses maps to track crime trends and guide deployment.

The internal CompStat system is managed by LAPD staff, and CompStat's top official emphasized that the problems with the public system had not affected the department's internal statistics.

You won't see THIS on FOX: Afghan Children Left to Die After US Bombings (Clip 3)

Check this ....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2pNQJ8x7k&feature=player_embedded

新疆騷亂令中亞國家不安

（中央社台北10日電）新疆烏魯木齊市爆發騷亂後，與新疆接壤的中亞國家感到警覺和不安，吉爾吉斯和哈薩克等國已從新疆撤回大批居民。

美國之音報導，哈薩克外交部表示，迄今為止，總共有1200多名哈薩克公民搭飛機、火車或乘車從新疆撤回哈薩克。哈薩克方面還透過外交管道與中國達成共識，位於新疆的兩國邊境通關口岸晝夜開放。

哈薩克外交部還說，一些在新疆工作和經商的哈薩克公民並不想回國，這顯示當地局勢趨於穩定。

吉爾吉斯外交部表示，搭飛機從烏魯木齊撤走的第一批45名吉爾吉斯公民9日已返國，其中包括在新疆的吉爾吉斯留學生、官方人士和商務代表，第二批從新疆撤離的50多人將搭車返國。吉爾吉斯政府將對想從新疆回國的吉爾吉斯公民提供協助。

哈薩克風險評詁集團領導人薩特帕耶夫說，哈薩克人、吉爾吉斯人以及維吾爾人都是突厥人，這3個民族在語言、文化等方面都很接近，在哈薩克和吉爾吉斯等中亞 國家都有大批維吾爾人定居，其中定居在哈薩克的維吾爾人最多。新疆爆發暴力事件後，與新疆接壤的中亞國家都感到警覺和不安。

薩特帕耶夫認為，總體來講，哈薩克和吉爾吉斯都很平靜，新疆事件對這兩國的影響主要表現在經貿以及新聞媒體的報導上。但在政治層面，新疆的騷亂幾乎沒有影響。

薩特帕耶夫還說，在哈薩克定居的維吾爾人團體領導人發表聲明表示，烏魯木齊發生的事件一方面是由於中國政府的政策造成，即在新疆增加漢族人數，令當地其他 少數民族擔心，中國政府還增加漢語教學數量，令其他少數民族感到受歧視；另一方面維吾爾人和漢人都有錯，才導致暴力事件發生。

哈薩克維吾爾人協會積極分子科讓姆別爾吉耶夫對當地新聞媒體表示，他譴責中國當局在新疆使用暴力，國際社會應對北京施加壓力停止鎮壓維吾爾人。

中亞地區媒體分析新疆事件時認為，維吾爾人如果想成立獨立的國家，不但會威脅新疆從中國分離出去，維吾爾人定居的一些哈薩克地區也可能會鬧獨立。

美軍上將：中國超出國防需要擴軍令人擔心

美國總統毆巴馬提名出任美軍太平洋司令部司令的海軍上將羅伯特.威拉德7/9日說，中國規模巨大、不透明的擴大軍備行動讓美軍非常擔心。

美國軍方最高將領、參謀長聯席會議主席馬倫上將也指出，中國近來加強海軍和空軍軍備，似乎是在針對美國。

威拉德在參議院確認接受總統提名時說，美國特別關注北京發展「超出國防需要」的先進武器，產生許多的「不確定性」。威拉德說，他將尋求與中國開展「謹慎、適度」的軍事接觸，以減少雙方發生誤解的機會。同時，他還將敦促中國增加軍費開支的透明度。

中國近20年來軍費開支每年以兩位數字的百分比增長，但是，中國反駁說，任何擔心都是沒有根據的。

日 前，美國斯坦佛大學國際安全和合作中心的學者薛立泰博士認為，中國海軍是中國軍隊三個技術兵種當中近年來發展最快的，所以中國海軍實力發展倍受外界關注。 薛立泰認為中國海軍發展主要是為了應對台灣問題，遏制台灣獨立勢力。但美國則認為中國海軍發展有更深遠的目的，即從近海防禦職能向遠洋海軍發展。

威拉德在周四的參議院聽証中還警告說，朝鮮的導彈和核武器威脅有可能引發亞洲地區的軍備競賽。最近，朝鮮先后試射導彈、核武器，并且發出了一系列針對美國、日本和韓國的措辭強硬的威脅，給亞洲東北部地區帶來不安。

威拉德說，朝鮮的行為給美國及其盟國造成「嚴重威脅」，而且有可能在鄰國引發軍備競賽。

中國‧中外交部：騷亂“幕後黑手”涉恐‧嚴打“三股勢力”

（中國‧北京）中國外交部發言人秦剛週四（7月9日）說，新疆“7﹒5”事件“幕後黑手”與恐怖組織有關。

他把中國所說的煽動新疆“7﹒5”事件的“宗教極端勢力、民族分裂勢力和恐怖勢力”等“三股勢力”稱為此地區各國家的“公害”。

秦剛在新聞發佈會說，打擊“三股勢力”的時候，國際間應該一致、不能有“雙重標準”。

他表示，中國掌握了許多證據，可以證明“三股勢力”的成員曾經在境外接受“基地”之類恐怖組織的訓練。

新疆政府點名熱比婭策動

另一方面，新疆維吾爾自治區人民政府新聞辦公室週四披露，6月26日廣東韶關市旭日玩具廠發生員工械鬥，以世界維吾爾代表大會主席熱比婭為首的“三股勢力”多次密謀策劃，蓄意利用這治安事件煽動境內群眾鬧事。

新聞辦發言人侯漢敏表示，“6‧26”事件發生後，熱比婭即召開世維會高層緊急會議，積極利用“廣東韶關事件”鼓動境內鬧事、爭取國際社會同情和支持、將6‧26定為“紀念日”的三項決議。

熱比婭等提出，可通過網絡聊天、打電話等多種方式對新疆進行煽動，“將國內同胞動員起來”，號召他們不怕犧牲，同時呼吁“全世界所有維吾爾人”在7月5日、6日“行動起來”，向中國政府施壓。

中國‧駁斥新疆騷亂提交聯國‧中責土耳其干政

（中國‧北京）中國週四（7月9日）駁斥土耳其，提出將新疆騷亂提交聯合國安理會討論的建議，聲稱有關事件是中國的內政。

外交部發言人秦剛向記者表示，中國政府是按照法律採取果斷措施。

他說：“這完全是中國內政，沒有提交安理會討論的理由。”

在週三（7月8日），土耳其促北京儘快結束新疆的“暴行”，並表示會把事件提交聯合國安理會。土耳其目前是安理會非常任理事國。

土耳其總理埃爾多安當天在電視講話中表示，新疆事件宛如一場“暴行”。他說：“處理這場人道危機，土耳其責無旁貸”。

向中使館擲石荷蘭14人被控

另一方面，荷蘭當局表示，14名涉及在新疆騷亂後，向中國駐荷蘭大使館擲石的嫌疑者，將於週四受審。

他們被控以暴力傷人和毀壞他人財產等罪名，法官會即時作出判決。

示威者週一向駐當地的中國大使館圍牆擲石頭，一些玻璃窗被砸碎，共有142人在事件中被捕。

中國‧胡錦濤：新疆穩定第一‧依法嚴懲暴力份子

（中國‧北京）中國國家主席胡錦濤和中共政治局等領袖強調，維護和保持新疆社會大局穩定，是當前新疆“最重要、最緊迫的任務”。

中國領導人並誓言，將對涉及新疆騷亂的策劃者、組織者及骨幹份子，以及嚴重暴力犯罪份子，依法嚴厲懲處。

突中斷外訪不尋常

新疆烏魯木齊爆發騷亂後，胡錦濤週三（7月8日）罕見地突然中斷原定的外訪行程提前返國，引發各界關注。這是中國國家元首，首度因國內局勢中斷外訪，提早回國。

官方新華社週四（7月9日）報導，中共政治局常務委員會週三晚上召開會議，研究部署維護新疆社會穩定工作。會議由胡錦濤主持。

會議聽取了有關部門，關於處置新疆維吾爾自治區烏魯木齊市，打砸搶燒嚴重暴力犯罪事件情況的匯報。

新疆局勢或需軍方介入

香港《明報》指出，身兼中央軍委主席的胡錦濤被迫放棄八國集加五峰會回國主持大局，反映新疆局勢惡化超出高層預料，地方應急預案失效，需軍方支援。

北京中國人民大學國際關係學院教授時殷弘則認為，胡錦濤的“破格”舉措反映中國領導人高度重視民眾生命安全，重視邊疆地區穩定，把犧牲150多條人命的事故置於國際峰會之上。

一名資深官方新聞機構人員也稱，胡錦濤今次打破官場的慣例和常規，應該視為一種“進步”。

新疆暴亂無外國人傷亡

中國外交部發言人秦剛表示，新疆週日的暴亂目前還沒有發現有外國人傷亡。

秦剛說，今後如果發現有這方面的情況，中方會及時地通報有關國家的外交機構。

中國‧火車站機場擠滿人潮‧烏魯木齊掀返鄉避難潮

（中國‧烏魯木齊）新疆烏魯木齊掀避難潮！

經過連日的混亂，烏魯木齊市面大致回復平靜，部份商店週三（7月8日）開門營業，街頭行人明顯增多，巴士恢復行駛，漢族區已見不到民眾持械防範的情況。

不過，鑑於局勢仍未明朗，有市民擔心這只是重兵駐守下的暫時安寧，不知道未來會如何，故選擇離開這片是非之地。

票價被黃牛黨炒高兩倍

法新社估計，自騷亂爆發以來，每天都有逾萬維、漢兩族民眾如驚弓之鳥，搶搭巴士或火車撤離當 地，返回鄉下暫避，再加上學校剛好放暑假，令烏魯木齊市內各主要車站、火車站及機場，連日擠滿大批的返鄉人潮，票價被黃牛黨炒高兩倍，依然被搶購一空，有 人甚至苦候兩晝夜，仍未能上車。車站內一名維族人說，他害怕會再有流血衝突，唯有逃回老家喀什投靠母親，“但買了車票，卻根本沒有車，我已經在這裡睡了2天了！”

一名漢族婦女買了返回甘肅蘭州家鄉的車票，她說：“我只是要回去暫避一陣子，待局勢平靜下來後，再回來這裡。”

有一個維族家庭的十多名成員一同乘火車離開，他們透露，家人已被漢族老闆辭退，加上感到局勢混亂，所以舉家回鄉。

由於返鄉人數眾多，當局已加派往南疆的臨時列車，疏導人流，又派遣百多輛巴士，將滯留在當地的數千名大學生送返家鄉。

烏魯木齊國際機場同樣是撤離人流成潮，但機場航班正常，未見搶購機票情況。

由於人流多，當局已增派軍警，荷鎗實彈在車站及機場內外駐守。

喀什市要求外國人離開

與此同時，由於擔心會受到烏魯木齊騷亂波及，喀什市政府週五（7月10日）下令包括記者在內的所有外國人必須離開，以保障他們的安全。

喀什市外事辦事處表示，雖然此市至今沒有亂事，但為了確保外國旅客的安全，所以決定要他們離開。外國記者也被視為外國旅客，同樣需要離開。

早前中國官方表示，收到消息，有人欲於喀什、伊犁、蘇爾克等市煽動騷亂；喀什市為此已將保安級別，提昇至去年北京奧運期間的水平。

中國‧烏魯木齊暴亂‧韶關女工尖叫成導火線

（中國‧北京）造成156人死亡、逾千人傷的烏魯木齊大暴亂，最初的導火線，竟是廣東韶關旭日玩具廠一名19歲見習女工的一聲尖叫！

新華社英文通稿報導，這名女工當天走錯了路，誤闖進了男工宿舍，見到了幾名維族青年就尖叫起來，然後掉頭拔腿就跑。

這名見習女工叫黃翠蓮（譯音），來自廣東的農村，她受訪時說，自己也不知道為何當時會害怕到尖叫起來：“我只是覺得他們來意不善，因此掉頭拔腿就跑。”

她記得，當時其中一名維族青年站了起來，將腳用力在地板上踩了一下，好像要追她似的，她後來才知道原來那名維族青年只是在捉弄她。

讓黃翠蓮萬萬想不到的是，這一聲尖叫竟讓人誤會她被維族青年性侵犯了，先是引發廠內維漢兩族工人的衝突，進而觸發烏魯木齊大暴動。

韶關6月26日的玩具廠集體鬥毆事件，是由“維族工人性侵犯一名漢族女孩”的指責而引發的，鬥毆事件最終造成2死、逾百人傷。

耐人尋味的是，與黃翠蓮的獨家訪問，新華社只發佈了英文報導，而沒有中文報導，相當明顯的，報導是針對國際媒體而發的。

網上發佈漢女遭新疆男強姦
始作俑者懺悔

在網上率先謠傳有漢女遭新疆男強姦的始作俑者，首次回應謂深表懊悔。

中新社報導，因在韶關網發佈《有新疆男孩強姦無辜少女》的帖子而被刑拘的24歲韶關人朱某，週四（7月9日）在韶關市看守所接受記者訪問時表示：“沒想到會有這個結果，現在真的很後悔。”

他說，自己原本是旭日玩具廠的員工，辭職後，又想回到這廠工作，但被拒絕，剛好聽說有人在傳廠內有人被強姦的謠言，就在一時衝動和不滿下到網上發了這帖子，結果造成惡劣社會影響。

6月28日，警方將他逮捕歸案，他對自己的所為供認不諱。韶關市公安局副局長劉國強表示，旭日玩具廠6月發生的毆鬥事件，初步確定是一宗無預謀、無組織、無指揮的偶發性治安事件，在當地歷史上罕見，主要起因是言語不通所致，至今刑事拘留14人。

中國‧防維漢再衝突‧烏魯木齊禁回教堂禮拜

（中國‧烏魯木齊）今日（週五，7月10日）是回教徒聚禮日，烏魯木齊當局再次繃緊敏感神經，下令市內所有回教堂都不能開放，以防範維吾爾人和漢人再發生衝突。

同時，第二大城市喀什也要求記者和外國人所有離開。

週五是回教徒的祈禱日，由於擔心群眾聚集，烏魯木齊當局在市內市多間回教堂外部署大批荷鎗實彈的武警和多架裝甲車駐守，維族和回族回教徒當天來到回教堂外準備祈禱時，不得其門而入。

路透社指，市內多間回教堂都已貼出告示，指當天的週五禮拜會取消，告示上寫著“根據上層指示，基於在這非常時刻對民眾安全的考量，我們敦促所有人回家做祈禱。”

一名維吾爾人向法新社說：“政府宣佈週五不會舉行祈禱會。我們不知所措……政府害怕民眾會以宗教之名支持‘三股勢力’。”

中國當局聲稱極端主義、分裂主義和恐怖主義這“三股勢力”，正設法將新疆從中國分裂出去。一名教士說：“我們不希望讓犯罪份子有機會破壞局勢。政府擔心邪惡份子將利用回教助長‘三股勢力’。”

美國‧瞞報重要信息及說謊‧美中情局承認誤導國會

（美國‧華盛頓）美國中央情報局局長帕內塔承認，當局自2001年以來，長期誤導國會，隱瞞了不少重要行動的信息，甚至說謊。

美國眾議院情報委員會主席、民主黨人雷耶斯，在一封致共和黨議員的公開信中揭露，帕內塔是於6月24日在眾議院情報委員會秘密作證時，承認了此事。

帕內塔說，中情局過去在向該委員會匯報時，漏報和隱瞞了許多信息，並且至少在一件事上完全說謊。

此前，眾議院議長佩洛西也曾指責中情局在審訊方式問題上誤導過她。對此中情局發言人表示，誤導 國會不符合當局既定方針，此次中情局主動認錯，並且將確保此類情況今後不再發生。美國民主黨自2006年取得國會控制權後，一直在追究中情局在伊拉克戰爭 戰前情報和虐囚事件中，有無誤導國會的行為。

智利‧復活島化學物質提煉而成‧“長生藥”延壽10年？

（智利）人類自古以來一直追求長生不老，當年一統天下的秦始皇曾一心想尋求長生不死藥，近日有科學家發現，在南太平洋復活島的土壤中發現的一種化學物質，老鼠服用後壽命顯著延長，相信讓人類服用，至少可延長10年壽命。

這種延年益壽的藥物名為雷帕黴素（Rapamycin），是從智利復活島上發現的一種化學物質提煉而成，原本供病人接受器官移植手術後作為抗排斥的藥物。

美國研究人員哈里遜《自然》期刊發表研究報告稱：“雷帕黴素可望延長壽命，不論是以延緩癌症死亡或阻滯老化，或兩者同時並進。”

在動物實驗中，這種化學物質使老鼠壽命最多增加了38%，相對於人類的10年壽命。

測試抗癌功效

雷帕黴素於70年代在復活島被發現，當時科學家正尋找一種抗生素。

它是一種由復活島土壤中的細菌鏈黴菌所分離出來的物質，具有非常強的免疫抑製作用，一般用作器官移植後的抗排斥藥物，但也用於心臟手術，亦有抑制腫瘤的效果，並正測試其抗癌功效。

科學家指出，今次發現有如科幻小說情節，令人類朝着延年益壽邁進重要一步。

新加坡‧命下屬做假賬掩飾虧損‧三井石油副總裁囚36月

（新加坡）三井石油（亞洲）公司副總裁高橋政次，51歲）因指示下屬做假賬，掩飾公司交易虧損8100萬美元（約馬幣2億8千萬令吉），被法庭判坐牢36個月。

被告共面對20項控狀，指他在2006年4月4日至11月1日之間指示下屬，以欺騙的手法，篡改公司輕石油（又稱石腦油）每日交易的虧損賬目，因而抵觸刑事法典第477A節。觸犯該節條文，可被判坐牢長達7年或兼罰款，或兩者兼施。

但控方僅提控4項控狀，其餘的讓法官下判時一併考慮。被告認罪後，法官雷內伯判每項控狀坐牢9個月，4項控狀的刑期分開執行，共坐牢36個月。

被告認為刑罰太重，表示要上訴。法官准他照舊以25萬元保釋，護照扣押，等待高庭的上訴聆訊。通常，在外候審的被告，認罪後要求保釋，保金必須增加，但這回控方並沒有提出要求。

新加坡‧比賽中被踢傷頸中招‧跆拳道男生被踢昏不治

（新加坡）在跆拳道友誼錦標賽中遭對手踢著頸部後，突然暈倒的陳思豪（前譯陳志豪）與死神搏鬥數天後，最終還是無法戰勝，週三（7月8日）下午在樟宜醫院加護病房逝世。

陳思豪的姐姐陳麗慧週三晚上對記者說，母親知道兒子的死訊後，在醫院暈了過去，家人也還在嘗試接受這個事實。

“弟弟是在下午4點半左右過世的。媽媽知道後，情緒很不穩定，當場暈了過去，所以我們決定讓她留醫一晚。我們也還在試著平復自己的心情，接受這個消息。”

陳思豪的家人至今仍不清楚事情的來龍去脈，更不明白他為何就這樣突然離他們而去。

陳麗慧說，家人很希望有人能夠給他們一個解釋。

對手和教練都沒露面她說：“由始至終，我們並沒有見到思豪的對手和教練。對方的教練只是通過電話向我母親道歉，並沒有面對面表達歉意，怎麼能算是道歉。他也沒有解釋到底發生了甚麼事。”

17歲的陳思豪是在上週日早上參加跆拳道友誼錦標賽時，遭15歲的對手踢著頸部，他稍微調整護頭套，沒多久就不支倒地，陷入昏迷。在場的教練和一些工作人員見狀，立即上前將他扶到一邊，並撥電召來救護車。他送入樟宜綜合醫院後，便一直昏迷不醒，需要依靠器材維繫生命。

這個比賽是由甘榜烏美—景萬岸社區體育委員會和Greenville居民委員會主辦。

人民協會證實已經介入調查，不過截至週三，發言人仍無法針對此事件給予任何回復。

事故發生後，比賽照樣進行，不過Singapore Taekwondo Gymnasium規定所有參賽者不准攻擊對手的頭部。

Pics From Planet Earth

Check this link ............. http://blog.dreamslaughter.com/2009/07/pics-from-planet-earth.html

The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence

The U.S. military's global presence is vast and costly. More than one-third of U.S. troops are currently based abroad or afloat in international waters, and hundreds of bases and access agreements exist throughout the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, the government pushed to expand this presence through a variety of mechanisms. Yet the Department of Defense's budget presentations lack enough detail to make it possible to know the precise cost. The budgets don't break down the numbers, for example, on maintaining bases at home and overseas.

Nevertheless, from data on personnel, bases, and the Pentagon's budgets, it's possible to make an estimate. This number comes from the proportion of each branch's budget devoted to military personnel stationed overseas, excluding troops based in and around Iraq and Afghanistan. Since one-fourth of these military personnel are stationed overseas, the overall figure includes one-fourth of the defense-wide budget. Finally, it includes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the amount of military assistance to other countries. The report does not include subsidies from governments that host bases, three-quarters of which come from Japan alone.

The final bill: The United States spends approximately $250 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets, and bases overseas.

For the full report, please click here.

Anita Dancs is an assistant professor of economics at Western New England College and a Foreign Policy In Focus analyst.

Editor: Miriam Pemberton

Hundreds injured in China Earth quake 中國‧126萬人受災‧雲南6級地震‧至少1死300傷

Chinese state media reports that at least 350 people were injured and many homes destroyed in an earthquake recording at a 6.0 magnitude that struck southwestern China.

The earthquake struck at 7:19 pm local time on Thursday (11.19 am GMT) and was centred 98 kilometres east-northeast of Dali in Yunnan province. Xinhua news agency reports that a total of 336 people were injured by the quake and more than 2,700 homes were destroyed. It said several of the victims suffered serious injuries.

The quake was followed by several aftershocks. China National Seismological Network reported at least 8 aftershocks.

According to state officials,they have allocated 2,500 tents, 3,000 quilts and other relief materials to the affected region and two rescue teams, one headed by the Yunnan governor Qin Guangrong, and another from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Commission for Disaster Reduction, were en route to the epicentre.

Last year, an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 shook Sichuan province in Southern China killing more than 87,000 people.

（中國‧雲南）中國雲南省姚安縣週四（7月9日）晚發生6級地震，造成至少1死300多人傷，126萬人受災。

成都軍區300餘名官兵，已於今日（週五，7月10日）凌晨趕抵災區救災。

中國地震台網測定，地震在週四傍晚7時19分許發生，震央距離姚安縣城16公里，深度為10公里。截至週五凌晨5時許，楚雄州大姚縣、姚安縣先後發生10多次餘震，最低震級2.8級，最高4.1級。

近2萬間房屋倒塌

據抗震救災指揮部的統計，地震至今造成楚雄州姚安、大姚、牟定、南華、元謀、永仁6縣55個鄉鎮126萬人受災，1人因災死亡，300多人受傷，40萬人疏散，近2萬間房屋倒塌，受損7萬多間。

此外，交通、水利、學校、醫院等基礎設施不同程度受損，預計經濟損失超過1億元（人民幣，下同）。

鄰近的昆明、大理、麗江等地震感亦強烈，部份房屋倒塌，道路塌方。

啟動三級應急救災

中國地震局目前已啟動三級應急響應。楚雄州、姚安縣迅速成立17個工作組，分工負責組織抗震救災工作。雲南省也緊急下撥2000萬元。

記者沿途看到有房屋倒塌，部份鄉村的供電、通訊中斷，道路被毀。

國家地震現場工作隊員趕往災區，雲南省地震局派出的現場應急人員、專家、救援人員分期分批抵達救災，迅速展開震情監測、災情評估、通訊保障等工作，協助當地政府展開抗震救災工作。目前，當地民眾情緒穩定，救災工作正在有序進行。

Recent Earthquakes in Hawai`i

Check this link ..... http://tux.wr.usgs.gov/Maps/155.25-19.5.html

Women spend nearly one year deciding what to wear

Women will spend almost one year of their lives deciding what to wear, a study found.

The average female will spend 287 days rifling through their wardrobe Photo: GETTY

Choosing outfits for work, nights out, dinner parties, holidays, gym and other activities means the average female will spend 287 days rifling through their wardrobe.

The biggest chunk of that time is used up picking a killer ensemble for Friday or Saturday nights out or selecting the right clothes for a holiday.

Experts found on average women spend 16 minutes every weekday morning deciding what to wear and around 14 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

A spokesman for clothes giant Matalan, which compiled the results after polling 2,491 women, said: "What you wear has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself and it is important a woman feels exceptional in her outfit.

"Whatever the occasion your clothes portray an image and we understand this is fundamentally important to women."

The study - which was based on an adult lifetime from the age of 16 to 60 - found most women will spend around 20 minutes deciding what to wear before hitting the town on a weekend night.

Week nights out can take up to 20 minutes a time too.

Deciding on what clothes to take on holiday uses up to 52 minutes each time.

While on holiday, ten minutes a morning will be taken up trying to find an acceptable outfit with another ten minutes spent picking evening clothes.

On top of that dinner parties, Christmas parties and black tie events - at around 36 minutes a time six times a year - adds up to three and a half days.

The study also found on average women will try on two outfits each morning before coming to a final decision. And one in two women spend 15 minutes the night before work working out what to wear.

National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)

National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.

NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation's overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.

NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.

EXERCISE FOCUS

NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector participants.

The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.

NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or recovery activities.

NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

EXERCISE OBJECTIVES

Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will assess prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and regionally. Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise is currently designed to validate the following capabilities:

• Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
• Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
• Air, Border and Maritime Security
• Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
• International Coordination

VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM

Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, tribal, local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks, and rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist attack or major disaster that occurs.

The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide. Participants will exercise prevention and information sharing functions that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies.

For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600.

FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.

The Global Warming Scam

Check this link ................ http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming.html

The Place of Women on the Court

In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama’s first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court.

Now another woman, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is about to begin the confirmation hearings that stand between her and a seat near Ginsburg on the high bench. After 16 years on the court — the last three, since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, as the only woman working alongside eight men — Ginsburg has a unique perspective on what’s at stake in Sotomayor’s nomination. I sat down with the 76-year-old justice last week to talk about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court.

I first met Justice Ginsburg a year ago, when she invited me to her chambers and to a tea for international fellows from Georgetown law school, at which she was speaking. It struck me then, as we walked through the courthouse, that each marker she pointed out involved women’s history — from a photograph and a political cartoon in the hallway outside her chambers of Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court bar, to the renaming of a dining room at the court in honor of Natalie Cornell Rehnquist, wife of the late chief justice. (The tribute was O’Connor’s idea. “My former chief was a traditionalist, but he could hardly object,” Ginsburg said with a bit of glee.)

This time, we talked for 90 minutes in the personal office of Ginsburg’s temporary chambers (she is soon moving to the chambers that Justice David Souter is vacating). Ginsburg, who was wearing an elegant cream-colored suit, matching pumps and turquoise earrings, spoke softly, and at times her manner was mild, but she was forceful about why she thinks Sotomayor should be confirmed and about a few of the court’s recent cases. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our interview.

At the end of our time together, Ginsburg rose and said energetically that she would soon be off to her twice-weekly 7 p.m. personal-training session. She works out at the court on an elliptical machine, and she lifts weights. “To keep me in shape,” she said.

Q: At your confirmation hearings in 1993, you talked­ about how you hoped to see three or four women on the court. How do you feel about how long it has taken to see simply one more woman nominated?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: My prediction was right for the Supreme Court of Canada. They have Beverley McLachlin as the chief justice, and they have at least three other women. The attrition rate is slow on this court.

Q: Now that Judge Sotomayor has been nominated, how do you feel about that?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I feel great that I don’t have to be the lone woman around this place.

Q: What has that been like?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: It’s almost like being back in law school in 1956, when there were 9 of us in a class of over 500, so that meant most sections had just 2 women, and you felt that every eye was on you. Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity.

Q: Did you feel that this time around from your male colleagues?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: My basic concern about being all alone was the public got the wrong perception of the court. It just doesn’t look right in the year 2009.

Q: Why on a deeper level does it matter? It’s not just the symbolism, right?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: It matters for women to be there at the conference table to be doing everything that the court does. I hope that these hearings for Sonia will be as civil as mine were and Steve Breyer’s were. Ours were unusual in that respect.

Q: Did you think that all the attention to the criticism of Sotomayor as being “bullying” or not as smart is sex-inflected? Does that have to do with the rarity of a woman in her position, and the particular challenges?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I can’t say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They’ll seize on any handle. One is that she’s a woman, another is that she made the remark about Latina women. [In 2001 Sotomayor said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”] And I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

Once Justice O’Connor was questioning counsel at oral argument. I thought she was done, so I asked a question, and Sandra said: Just a minute, I’m not finished. So I apologized to her and she said, It’s O.K., Ruth. The guys do it to each other all the time, they step on each other’s questions. And then there appeared an item in USA Today, and the headline was something like“Rude Ruth Interrupts Sandra.”

Q: It seemed to me that male judges do much more abrasive things all the time, and it goes unremarked.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the notion that Sonia is an aggressive questioner — what else is new? Has anybody watched Scalia or Breyer up on the bench?

Q: She’ll fit right in?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: She’ll hold her own.

Q: From your point of view, does having another woman on the court matter primarily in terms of the public’s perception, or also for what it feels like to be in conference and on the bench?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: All of those things. What was particularly good was that Sandra and I were different — not cast in the same mold. Sandra gets out two words to my every one. I think that Sonia and I will also be quite different in our style. I think she may be the first justice who didn’t have English as her native language. And she has done just about everything that you can do in law as a prosecutor, in a private firm and on the District Court and the Court of Appeals.

Q: Do you know her well or a little bit?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I know her because I’m the Second Circuit Justice. So I go once a year to the Judicial Conference.

Q: What do you think about Judge Sotomayor’s frank remarks that she is a product of affirmative action?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: So am I. I was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972, every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program. Every university had a contract, and Stan Pottinger would go around and ask, How are you doing on your affirmative-action plan? William McGill, who was then the president of Columbia, was asked by a reporter: How is Columbia doing with its affirmative action? He said, It’s no mistake that the two most recent appointments to the law school are a woman and an African-American man.

Q: And was that you?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I was the woman. I never would have gotten that invitation from Columbia without the push from the Nixon administration. I understand that there is a thought that people will point to the affirmative-action baby and say she couldn’t have made it if she were judged solely on the merits. But when I got to Columbia I was well regarded by my colleagues even though they certainly disagreed with many of the positions that I was taking. They backed me up: If that’s what I thought, I should be able to speak my mind.

Q: Is that another example of how you’ve worked with men over the years?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world. If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Q: You sent me an article by Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor, that was about ways in which you and Thurgood Marshall were effective as litigators. Klarman pointed out that you were very good at influencing a male lawyer’s brief without making him feel that you had taken over the case. Is that something you learned to do? Was it a conscious approach?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it was a conscious approach. If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, You don’t know how to use the English language, or how could you make that argument? It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

Q: Do you think women have to learn how to do that in a different way from men sometimes in the workplace?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I haven’t noticed it. There are some very sympathetic men.

Q: Is it an approach that you still use with your colleagues to try and have a gentle touch?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, or to have a sense of humor.

Q: Do you think if there were more women on the court with you that other dynamics would change?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think back to the days when — I don’t know who it was — when I think Truman suggested the possibility of a woman as a justice. Someone said we have these conferences and men are talking to men and sometimes we loosen our ties, sometimes even take off our shoes. The notion was that they would be inhibited from doing that if women were around. I don’t know how many times I’ve kicked off my shoes. Including the time some reporter said something like, it took me a long time to get up from the bench. They worried, was I frail? To be truthful I had kicked off my shoes, and I couldn’t find my right shoe; it traveled way underneath.

Q: You are said to have very warm relationships with your colleagues. And so I was surprised to read a comment you made in an interview in May with Joan Biskupic of USA Today. You said that when you were a young lawyer, your voice was often ignored, and then a male colleague would repeat a point you’d made, and other people would be alert to it. And then you said this still happens now at conference.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Not often. It was a routine thing [in the past] that I would say something and it would just pass, and then somebody else would say almost the same thing and people noticed. I think the idea in the 1950s and ’60s was that if it was a woman’s voice, you could tune out, because she wasn’t going to say anything significant. There’s much less of that.But it still exists, and it’s not a special experience that I’ve had. I’ve talked to other women in high places, and they've had the same experience.

Q: I wonder if that would change if there were more women who were part of the mix on the court?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it undoubtedly would. You can imagine in Canada, where McLachlin is the chief, I think they must have a different way of hearing a woman’s voice if she is the leader.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the academic research on the effect of sex on judging. Studies have found a difference in the way male and female judges of similar ideologies vote in some cases. And that the presence of a woman on a panel can influence the way her male colleagues vote. How do these findings match your experience?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I’m very doubtful about those kinds of [results]. I certainly know that there are women in federal courts with whom I disagree just as strongly as I disagree with any man. I guess I have some resistance to that kind of survey because it’s what I was arguing against in the ’70s. Like in Mozart’s opera “Così Fan Tutte”: that’s the way women are.

Q: We started by talking about the idea of three or four women on the Supreme Court. Could you imagine a Supreme Court that had five or six or seven women on it?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, we’ve had some state Supreme Courts that have had a majority of women.

Q: Do you have a sense of what that would be like to actually work on and how it would be different?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The work would not be any easier. Some of the amenities might improve.

Q: Do you think that some of the discrimination cases might turn out differently?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think for the most part, yes. I would suspect that, because the women will relate to their own experiences.

Q: That’s one area in which outcomes might actually differ?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. I think the presence of women on the bench made it possible for the courts to appreciate earlier than they might otherwise that sexual harassment belongs under Title VII [as a violation of civil rights law].

Q: Can I bring up the Ricci case, brought by the New Haven firefighters?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: This case had some very hard elements. It was a bit like the Heller case, which involved the Second Amendment. [Last year, the Supreme Court found that Washington gun-control laws that barred handguns in private homes were unconstitutional.] For that, the plaintiff was a nice guy who was a security guard at the Federal Judicial Center, and he had to carry a gun on his job, but he couldn’t carry it home. And in Ricci, you have a dyslexic firefighter. Which is just exactly what you should do as a lawyer. I mean, that’s what I did.

Q: It’s true, it’s a very good strategy. He was a very sympathetic plaintiff. And it was important that the city had already given the test that the white firefighters scored high on and the black firefighters did not.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. And the city weights the written and oral parts of the test 60-40, and says: That’s what the union wanted, it’s been in the bargaining contracts for 20 years.

I don’t know how many cases there were, Title VII civil rights cases, where unions were responsible. The very first week that I was at Columbia, Jan Goodman, a lawyer in New York, called me and said, Do you know that Columbia has given layoff notices to 25 maids and not a single janitor? Columbia’s defense was the union contract, which was set up so that every maid would have to go before the newly hired janitor would get a layoff notice.

Q: What about the case this term involving the strip search, in school, of 13-year-old Savana Redding? Justice Souter’s majority opinion, finding that the strip search was unconstitutional, is very different from what I expected after oral argument, when some of the men on the court didn’t seem to see the seriousness here. Is that an example of a case when having a woman as part of the conversation was important?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it makes people stop and think, Maybe a 13-year-old girl is different from a 13-year-old boy in terms of how humiliating it is to be seen undressed. I think many of [the male justices] first thought of their own reaction. It came out in various questions. You change your clothes in the gym, what’s the big deal?

Q: Seeing that Souter wrote the opinion in Savana Redding’s case reminded me of Justice Rehnquist writing the majority opinion in Nevada v. Hibbs, the 2003 case in which the court ruled 6-3 that the Family Medical Leave Act applies to state employers, for both female and male workers. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in his opinion about an idea you have been talking about for a long time, about stereotypes. He discussed how when women are stereotyped as responsible for the domestic sphere, and men are not, that makes women seem less valuable as employees. I wonder if one of the measures of your success on the court is that a male justice would write an opinion like this?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That opinion was such a delightful surprise. When my husband read it, he asked, did I write that opinion? I was very fond of my old chief. I have a sense that it was in part his life experience. When his daughter Janet was divorced, I think the chief felt some kind of responsibility to be kind of a father figure to those girls. So he became more sensitive to things that he might not have noticed.

Q: Right. Chief Justice Rehnquist once said that sex-discrimination claims carry little weight. And he quipped at the end of a case you argued, when you were a lawyer, “You won’t settle for putting Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar, then?” Do you think he was affected by working with you and Justice O’Connor?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wouldn’t attribute it to one thing. I think I would attribute it to his court experience and his life experience. One of the most moving statements at a memorial service I ever heard was when Janet Rehnquist’s daughter read a letter that she had written to her grandfather. The closeness of their relationship and the caring was just beautiful. Most people had no idea that there was that side to Rehnquist.

Q: You have written, “To turn in a new direction, the court first had to gain an understanding that legislation apparently designed to benefit or protect women could have the opposite effect.” The pedestal versus the cage. Has the court made that turn completely, or is there still more work to be done?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Not completely, as you can see in the case involving whether a child acquires citizenship from an unwed father. [Nguyen v. INS, in which the court in 2001 upheld, by 5 to 4, a law that set different requirements for a child to become a citizen, depending on whether his citizenship rights came from his unmarried mother or his unmarried father.] The majority thought there was something about the link between a mother and a child that doesn’t exist between the father and a child. But in fact the child in the case had been brought up by his father.

They were held back by a way of looking at the world in which a man who wasn’t married simply was not responsible. There must have been so many repetitions of Madame Butterfly in World War II. And for Justice Stevens [who voted with the majority], that was part of his experience. I think that’s going to be over in the next generation, these kinds of rulings.

Q: Let me ask you about the fight you waged for the courts to understand that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wrote about it a number of times. I litigated Captain Struck’s case about reproductive choice. [In 1972, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who became pregnant during her service in the Air Force. At the time, the Air Force automatically discharged any woman who became pregnant and told Captain Struck that she should have an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. The government changed the regulation before the Supreme Court could decide the case.] If the court could have seen Susan Struck’s case — this was the U.S. government, a U.S. Air Force post, offering abortions, in 1971, two years before Roe.

Q: And suggesting an abortion as the solution to Struck’s problem.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. Not only that, but it was available to her on the base.

Q: The case ties together themes of women’s equality and reproductive freedom. The court split those themes apart in Roe v. Wade. Do you see, as part of a future feminist legal wish list, repositioning Roe so that the right to abortion is rooted in the constitutional promise of sex equality?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Oh, yes. I think it will be.

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

Q: When you say that reproductive rights need to be straightened out, what do you mean?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.

Q: Does that mean getting rid of the test the court imposed, in which it allows states to impose restrictions on abortion — like a waiting period — that are not deemed an “undue burden” to a woman’s reproductive freedom?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I’m not a big fan of these tests. I think the court uses them as a label that accommodates the result it wants to reach. It will be, it should be, that this is a woman’s decision. It’s entirely appropriate to say it has to be an informed decision, but that doesn’t mean you can keep a woman overnight who has traveled a great distance to get to the clinic, so that she has to go to some motel and think it over for 24 hours or 48 hours.

I still think, although I was much too optimistic in the early days, that the possibility of stopping a pregnancy very early is significant. The morning-after pill will become more accessible and easier to take. So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.

Q: Since we are talking about abortion, I want to ask you about Gonzales v. Carhart, the case in which the court upheld a law banning so-called partial-birth abortion. Justice Kennedy in his opinion for the majority characterized women as regretting the choice to have an abortion, and then talked about how they need to be shielded from knowing the specifics of what they’d done. You wrote, “This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women’s place in the family and under the Constitution.” I wondered if this was an example of the court not quite making the turn to seeing women as fully autonomous.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The poor little woman, to regret the choice that she made. Unfortunately there is something of that in Roe. It’s not about the women alone. It’s the women in consultation with her doctor. So the view you get is the tall doctor and the little woman who needs him.

Q: In the 1980s, you wrote about how while the sphere for women has widened to include more work, men haven’t taken on as much domestic responsibility. Do you think that things are beginning to change?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That’s going to take time, changing that kind of culture. But looking at my own family, my daughter Jane teaches at Columbia, she travels all over the world, and she has the most outstanding supportive husband who certainly carries his fair share of the load. Although their division of labor is different than mine and my husband’s, because my daughter is a super cook.

Q: Can courts play a role in changing that culture?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The Legislature can make the change, can facilitate the change, as laws like the Family Medical Leave Act do. But it’s not something a court can decree. A court can’t tell the man, You’ve got to do more than carry out the garbage.