Starting Points

Jun 13, 2010

Saudis act aggressively to denounce terrorism

By David Ignatius
Sunday, June 13, 2010; A15

When terrorists in the Middle East attack innocent civilians, observers in the West often ask a pained question: Where's the outrage in the Muslim world? Why don't Islamic religious authorities speak out more forcefully against the terrorists and their wealthy financiers?

It remains a potent issue: Terrorism has damaged the Islamic world far more than the West, and too many Muslims have been cowed and silent. But a powerful and so far largely unreported denunciation of terrorism emerged last month from Saudi Arabia's top religious leadership, known as the Council of Senior Ulema.

The Saudi fatwa is a tough condemnation of terror and of the underground network that finances it. It has impressed senior U.S. military commanders and intelligence officers, who were surprised when it came out. One sent me a translation of the fatwa, and Saudi officials provided some helpful background.

"There is no gray area here," said a senior Saudi official. "Once it has come out like this, from the most senior religious body in the kingdom, it's hard for a lesser religious authority to justify violence."

The fatwa already seems to have had some impact: "Negative reaction from extremists online shows that they see this as a threat that needs to be responded to," says one senior U.S. official.

The fatwa begins with a clear definition of terrorism, which it calls "a crime aiming at destabilizing security" by attacking people or property, public or private. The document goes on to list examples of this criminal activity: "blowing up of dwellings, schools, hospitals, factories, bridges, airplanes (including hijacking), oil and pipelines." It doesn't mention any geographical area where such actions might be permissible.

What's striking is that the fatwa specifically attacks financing of terrorism. The Muslim religious council said that it "regards the financing of such terrorist acts as a form of complicity to those acts . . . to bring a conduit for sustaining and spreading of such evil acts."

Image via Wikipedia

The fatwa goes on: "The Council rules that the financing of terrorism, the inception, help or attempt to commit a terrorist act of whatever kind or dimension, is forbidden by Islamic Sharia and constitutes a punishable crime thereby; this includes gathering or providing of finance for that end." The fatwa exempts "legitimate charity to help the poor" from this ban.

"The financier of terrorism is more often than not more dangerous than the actual terrorist, since without funds, schemes fail and things do not take place," Fahd al-Majid, the secretary general of the Senior Ulema Council, said in a May 23 interview with Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic daily.

Given the role that wealthy Saudis have played in financing radical Islamic groups, the fatwa has a significant potential impact. For Muslims in the kingdom, it has the force of law and it will provide a strong religious and legal backing for Saudi and other Arab security services as they track terrorist networks.

It will be harder, too, for renegade clerics to issue rival fatwas that contradict the Saudi Ulema. The signatories are guardians of the conservative Wahhabi school of Islam, which to observers has sometimes seemed to sympathize with the Muslim extremists. The fatwa, dated April 12 but issued publicly in May, was approved unanimously by the 19 members of the council. To implement the fatwa, the Saudi Shura Council is drafting a counterterrorism finance law.

Saudi sources say that King Abdullah initiated the process that led to the fatwa, by asking for a ruling on terrorist financing. His push on the issue contrasts with the royal family's traditional wariness of challenging or offending the clerical establishment, on which its legitimacy rests.

Image via Wikipedia

This growing activism partly reflects a recognition that senior members of the House of Saud are themselves prime targets of al-Qaeda. A recent example was the assassination attempt in August against Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi counterterrorism chief.

Events in Saudi Arabia are difficult for outsiders to understand, to put it mildly. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former chief of Saudi intelligence, joked in a recent speech that the kingdom's ministry of information used to be described as the "ministry of denial" because "whenever news about Saudi Arabia was reported, the ministry would deny it the following day."

What matters in Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries is what its political and religious leaders say to their own people in Arabic. By that measure, there's a new voice for moderation coming from the Muslim clerical establishment.

davidignatius@washpost.com

Jun 11, 2010

50 Coolest Niche Search Engines You Never Knew Existed

Some people may find themselves shocked by this revelation, but Google is not the be-all, end-all of search engines! Of course it does a fantastic job, though many grow frustrated with not always finding exactly what they need - maybe it ends up buried underneath a pile of useless splogs with good PR or never receives enough attention to even pop up on their radar. Fortunately, specialty search engines that appeal to a specific niche can fill in where the broader Google starts slipping. No matter their focus - though often professional, technical, or commercial in nature - they provide excellent services to help users find exactly what they need.

1. GoodSearch

While it doesn’t necessarily cater to a specific topic, GoodSearch is an amazing niche search engine in that every query run through it goes through it results in a donation made to a selected charity! Those with little money or time to give the community - most especially college students - can do at least this much to help out a favorite nonprofit.

2. Teenormous

Fans of the classic t-shirt will absolutely love using the Teenormous search engine, which scours the internet to find the stores that sell exactly what they’re looking for.

3. Goby

Dedicated to nurturing adventure and exploration, Goby serves as a very unique travel-related search engine to help users discover what’s going on at home as well as plan vacations.

4. The Trendy Purse

Find the perfect purse for everyday activities or evenings out by using this niche search engine to look for the best deals on the best brands.

5. SlideFinder

Available in 35 languages and spanning 810 universities (and counting!), SlideFinder allows students, educators, professionals, researches, and hobbyists to browse thousands of available PowerPoint presentations on a staggering array of topics.

6. USA.gov

Most visitors to USA.gov do not realize that the search engine available through the site runs queries through every state government and federal department as well. They can also browse the archives by topic as well.

7. SplogSpot

Anyone concerned about encountering spam blogs can run queries through SplogSpot to determine legitimacy and avoid potential danger.

8. AddALL

As with the other metasearches concerning themselves with consumer goods, AddALL searches over 30 different websites for ebook price and availability.

9. Local

In the same league as the far more popular Yelp, CitySearch, and UrbanSpoon, Local serves as a search engine to discover local businesses and eateries, pick up coupons, and read what previous customers have to say about their experiences.

10. MapMachine

Explore the world via roads, satellite images, bird’s-eye views, and 3D using National Geographic’s extensive database and search feature that compiles all of their maps into one valuable search.

11. NCDC Storm Events Database

Weather aficionados can search for storms in the National Climatic Data Center’s database, which categorizes all of the recorded events in every state and territory since 1993.

12. PubMed

Use PubMed to search over 19 million articles, citations, books, journals, and other works of literature relating to the study of medicine and biology.

13. Webopedia

The computer savvy and the entirely clueless can both benefit from Webopedia, which serves as both a dictionary and a search engine for terminology relating to the internet and technology.

14. Search Bug

When looking for contact information for both people and businesses, pop into Search Bug for detailed and accurate results. Many companies use it to run quick checks on potential employees, for example.

15. Healthline

Most internet users turn to WebMD for quick medical advice and information, but Healthline provides a similar search feature. Type in different conditions and symptoms to retrieve research and tips on the subject at hand.

16. eCirc

Search the circulation data of thousands of different periodicals using eCirc, which covers everything from newspapers to farm reports.

17. Gnod

Focusing on music, books, movies, and people, Gnod also boasts an AI system that remembers a user’s preferences and eventually comes to search based on these personalized parameters.

18. The Big Cartoon Database

Animation fans and pop culture critics will definitely enjoy The Big Cartoon Database and search engine, which allows them to call up all the available information on thousands of different companies, films, shorts, characters, and more.

19. Ajax Whois

Aspiring web masters and mistresses would do well to use Ajax Whois to check the availability of specific domain names for every extension. It sure saves time typing it into the browser!

20. Bandname.com

Musicians serious about starting a band will appreciate this database and search feature, which allows them to see what names have already been taken in order to avoid any legal issues or confusion amongst fans.

21. Rollyo

Rollyo’s main attraction involves allowing users to customize their own niche searches available on the front page. They can even pick which sources they do or do not want showing up in their results as well.

22. Celebrity Search Engine

Biographers, journalists, or hobbyists who enjoy poking into the private lives of the entitled American elite who inexplicably receive exorbitant amounts of money for doing almost nothing can use the Celebrity Search Engine to only perpetuate the problem.

23. Ancestor Hunt

When working on a biography or genealogic project, Ancestor Hunt comes to the rescue by offering an extremely thorough obituary search for every state in America.

24. liveplasma

Pique curiosity and discovery with liveplasma, which allows movie and music fans to find recommendations that meld well with their favorites.

25. blinkx

One of the most advanced multimedia search engines on the web, blinkx browses over 35 million hours worth of podcasts and videos to send back exactly what users need.

26. The Teddy Bear Search Engine

This highly specialized search works wonderfully for those hoping to give a teddy bear as a gift, as it allows them to browse a multitude of shops for the perfect playmate.

27. DIYSEARCH

Fans of DIY projects and indie culture will appreciate this down-to-earth search engine and community, which seeks to spotlight some of the lesser-known people and ideas that crop up in the distant pages of a standard Google search.

28. Fly Express

Biologists and geneticists can search over 100,000 image files involving over 4,000 gene expressions specifically involving flies, making this an excellent niche resource for the zoological field.

29. Tablefly

Comparing and contrasting different concepts and consumer items becomes far simpler when using the simple and effective Tablefly tool.

30. retrievr

No relation to the dog, unfortunately. But retrievr still serves an excellent and useful function all the same! Sketch in a box and add a few colors, then let the search engine do the work by popping onto Flickr and brining back ones that match the description.

31. HORRORFIND

Whether searching for an obscure horror film for movie night or hoping to learn more about the history of favorite spooky figures, HORRORFIND will likely fetch something entertaining and informative.

32. Web 2.0 Search Engine

Run queries through Web 2.0 Search Engine when looking for information and tools on succeeding and navigating this particular corner of the web.

33. Pixsy

Whether looking for stock photos for a project or a video for pure entertainment, Pixsy serves as an excellent multimedia search engine.

34. Movie Review Query Engine

Before popping in or streaming a movie, browse what professionals and hobbyists alike make of thousands of different titles. MRQE also provides a glut of information on all sorts of interesting film trivia.

35. like.com

Online shopping never used to allow the same personalization, comparison, and options that hitting traditional brick-and-mortar stores. However, like.com’s grand visual search engine provides nearly every benefit of leaving home to shop - aside from actually touching or trying on the products themselves.

36. Artcyclopedia

Art lovers in search of images and information on their favorite creators and works can browse names, pieces, and museums to find everything the internet has to offer on the subject.

37. Retrevo

Use Retrevo when purchasing electronics online, as it searches different shops in order to help consumers make the right decisions when it comes to price and quality.

38. Open Library

Cataloging every book every published, Open Library provides users a way to find exactly what they need - and share some recommendations of their own!

39. WeatherBug

Check the current weather and forecasts for anywhere in the United States - even download a nifty little desktop add-on!

40. LawCrawler

This specialized search engine, which sits atop Google, only sends and returns search queries through confirmed legal websites and blogs.

41. SideStep

Check out SideStep when comparison shopping for the best travel deals possible - it makes for a viable alternative to Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Priceline, and the like!

42. FindSounds.com

When looking for an MP3, .wav, or other audio file, flip through FindSounds.com to see what sort of useful goodies pop up.

43. Dailystocks.com

Dailystocks.com provides a search engine to find the latest news, developments, and information on a specific stock - making this an excellent resource for anyone looking to work with investments.

44. SkreemR

Touting itself as “the world’s greatest Mp3 Search Engine,” SkreemR does…well…exactly that! Use it to find podcasts, music, and other sounds in that specific format.

45. SeeqPod

Because the only thing better than music is free music, SeeqPod offers visitors a chance to find their favorite songs and discover new artists completely gratis.

46. GamePublic

Gamers in search of information and reviews regarding their hobby have their very own search engine to explore everything the industry has to offer them.

47. CheatServer

A service from GameFly Media, CheatServer provides exactly what its nomenclature implies. When stuck on a particularly aggravating boss or wanting to push a game to its limits, run a search through this engine and grab the useful information that comes up.

48. Sourcebank

Sourcebank specifically targets developers and programmers, and their search engine specializes in finding code, articles, and other resources regarding the professions.

49. Slifter

Another specialized shopping search engine, Slifter stands out from its competition by having users search for the best deals at physical stores in their area rather than online retailers.

50. Auction Mapper

Many critics point out that eBay has a search engine of its very own, but Auction Mapper actually allows users a much higher degree of flexibility and customization than the default.

In spite of its prolificacy and prowess, Google is basically the Batman of the search engine world. It may beat out all the other non-powered mortals, but it still possesses entirely human flaws and weaknesses. Fortunately, niche search engines form a great supporting network (think of them as basically Alfreds, Robins, Batwomans, Nightwings, Oracles, Batgirls, and Huntresses) to pick up where the big guy trails off. They’re perfectly capable of standing on their own and provide a valuable function to help visitors solve their own problems.

Jun 9, 2010

Tweets on Languages

Image via Wikipedia

JohnAMacDougall

Jennifer's language page: http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/ via @addthis #words and #phrases in #many #languages 2 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

Mion-chànanan na h-Eòrpa: http://bit.ly/bF5kjf via @addthis #European #minority #languages 4 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Online #Language #Dictionaries and #Translators: http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html via @addthis 8 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

Linguaguide: #language #learning #resources #portal : http://www.linguaguide.com/directory/ via @addthis#directory 10 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Free #Online #Language #Courses: http://www.word2word.com/course.html via @addthis 12 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Ethnologue #list of #most #spoken #languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://bit.ly/9NkFFq via @addthis 14 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Lingua #franca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://bit.ly/bZg1Ge via @addthis - #origins #list #descriptions #language 17 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Mandarin #Chinese (pŭtōnghuà, guóyŭ, huáyŭ): http://aboutworldlanguages.com/Mandarin/ via @addthis #language #distribution 23 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Arabic (al-'arabiyyah, العربية): http://bit.ly/bE6kTO via @addthis #language #introduction #varieties 33 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

#Celtic Branch of the #IndoEuropean Family: http://bit.ly/amEavJ via @addthis #language #distribution #map 35 minutes ago via web
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JohnAMacDougall

BBC News - Life in #Spanglish for California's #young #Latinos: http://bit.ly/a9RXP7 via @addthis #language #spanish #english #us about 1 hour ago via web

Many Thai workers, now out of poverty, are in dissent

Image by __maurice via Flickr

By Andrew Higgins
Wednesday, June 9, 2010; A10

NONBON, THAILAND -- San Silawat has three dogs, two cows and a parrot. He grows rice and spring onions on a small plot of land. But he's hardly a pauper: He's added a second floor to his house and built a blue-tiled patio. His son plays computer games in the front room. His daughter recently bought a Nissan pickup truck. His granddaughter studies nursing in Bangkok.

For all his relatively good fortune, however, San is certain about one thing: "Life is definitely getting worse," said the 62-year-old farmer, grumbling about the price of gasoline, school fees and a political and economic system he sees as rigged in favor of the rich.

Last month, San and six friends from this village in northeastern Thailand piled into a pickup and drove 14 hours to join "red shirt" protests in Bangkok. During nine weeks of demonstrations, scores of other rural folk from Nonbon and nearby settlements made the same 390-mile trip.

Beneficiaries of an economic boom that, in just three decades, has cut the proportion of Thais living below the poverty line from 42 percent to about 8 percent, San and his family represent both the promise and the peril of Asia's dizzying transformation.

From China in the north to Indonesia in the south, hundreds of millions of people are now living far better than a generation ago. But the gap that separates them from the rich has often grown wider. As their fortunes and expectations have risen, so too has their frustration. And, as recent turmoil in Thailand has shown, this can mean big trouble.

San and his neighbors rallied to the red shirts not because they are hungry, uninformed and desperate but because they are no longer any of those things. Though still very poor compared with Bangkok residents who cheered the red shirts' defeat when government troops moved in on May 19, they are a better-off, better-informed and far more demanding voice in national affairs than their elders. San buys and reads a newspaper every day.

"Farmers in the past didn't ask for anything. They just did their farming," said his daughter, Tasaneeporn Boran, standing next to her brand-new black Nissan, which she bought in February.

"We now know what is going on," she said. "We know what we want and don't want." What she doesn't want most of all is a "government that only looks after the rich, instead of ordinary people."

Continental divide

It is a demand that raises alarming questions not just for Thailand's Eton- and Oxford-educated prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, but for governments across Asia struggling to manage rising expectations amid growing, but unevenly spread, prosperity. Thailand's protests began in March not during a recession, but as the economy recorded first-quarter growth of 12 percent, its strongest performance in 15 years.

China, meanwhile, saw its economy surge by 11.9 percent -- and has since been hit by a wave of labor unrest, including a strike over wages at a Honda factory in Guangdong, one of the country's wealthiest regions. China's Communist Party has staked its future on a bet that economic growth will reinforce, not undermine, stability. But Thailand's experience shows how easily such calculations can come unstuck.

Instead of political calm, growth in Thailand has brought increased tension. When the country set off the 1997 Asian financial crisis and fell into a deep slump, political stability in Thailand actually increased and then plunged as the economy took off again, according to the Worldwide Governance Indicators, compiled by experts from the Brookings Institution and the World Bank.

Over the last four decades, Thailand's economy has grown an average of about 7 percent a year, and average real per-capita income has roughly tripled since the mid-1980s. But, according to a recent report on Thailand last year by the United Nations Development Program, the Southeast Asian nation is beset by "persistent inequality" that defies a widely accepted theory that the gap between rich and poor widens during an initial phase of development but then narrows.

Thailand's income inequality is roughly the same as that of much poorer nations such as Uganda and Cambodia and slightly worse than that of China and the United States, both highly unequal in terms of income distribution, according to data in the United Nations 2009 Human Development Report.

Despite the income gap, the people of Nonbon have unquestionably benefited from their country's rapid development. Tasaneeporn recalled growing up in the 1970s with no electricity, no running water and no paved roads. Only one family had a TV.

The main economic driver in the region at the time was the U.S. Air Force, which used a big airfield in the nearby city of Ubon Ratchathani to launch bombing runs over Vietnam and Cambodia. Now, a recently widened four-lane highway -- dotted with convenience stores and shopping centers -- connects Ubon Ratchathani, the regional capital, to farmland around Nonbon.

Tasaneeporn's brother recently got work in the city at a new luxury hotel. The job gives him a small, steady income -- and puts him in daily contact with people who have far more money.

'Voice of the People'

The most vocal red shirt supporters in these parts are not the destitute -- people like Sritta Sorsrisuk, a 71-year-old farmer who has seen two of his six children die. "I don't care about politics," he said, sitting in a tumbledown shelter next to his tiny plot of land. But others "talk about it all the time: red this, red that."

More keen on the red shirts is Usasorn Anarat, a neighbor of San's who traveled to Bangkok twice to join the protests. Thanks to her husband, who works in Qatar, and modest profits from a rice farm, Usasorn has a monthly income of about $1,000, far above the local average.

Like San, Tasaneeporn and nearly everyone in the villages around here, she's a huge fan of Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former prime minister who was ousted by the military in 2006 and is now wanted for "terrorism" under a Thai warrant. Thaksin, Usasorn said, "loves the country, won elections, and they chased him away."

Thaksin, a billionaire, regularly visited the Thai countryside and launched a raft of programs to help rural residents, including cheap health care, easy credit and handouts of about $30,000 to each village head. He even stopped off in the village next to Nonbon.

"Nobody had done that before," said Tasaneeporn. Her father managed to shake Thaksin's hand. He now has a picture of Thaksin pinned on his living room wall, along with photographs of Thailand's king.

After Thaksin and King Bhumibol Adulyadej, now 82 and hospitalized, the most popular person around here is Phichet Thabbudda, a rabble-rousing radio announcer known as "DJ Toy."

He founded and ran the "Voice of the People," a shoestring local radio station that won a big following with fiery denunciations of the government and the well-to-do. He also organized convoys of vehicles bound for Bangkok

Echoing the rhetoric of red shirt leaders in Bangkok, DJ Toy spoke of Thailand as a nation divided between hard-working but impoverished "serfs" and an oppressive, greedy "aristocracy." This played well in Nonbon and in other villages across northern Thailand. But Jamnong Jitnivat, a longtime local campaigner for farmers' rights, said it distorts reality. The real issue, he said, is a government bureaucracy out of touch with an increasingly well-informed and better-off population that now "demands much more than before."

When troops moved in to dislodge protesters in Bangkok on May 19, DJ Toy's radio station thundered against the crackdown and called on listeners to show their anger. Protesters burned down city hall in Ubon Ratchathani. The following day, police and soldiers arrested DJ Toy at his home, raided his studio and hauled away his antenna.

San, the rice farmer, said he misses his broadcasts but still keeps up with events by reading the newspaper and watching TV. "We all know what is happening," he said. "We know who is good and who is bad."

Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House speaker, is heckled by liberals

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, June 9, 2010; A02

For 17 months, anger at President Obama and congressional Democrats has been pooling on the left. On Tuesday morning, it spilled onto the floor of an Omni Shoreham ballroom and splashed all over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The celebrated San Francisco liberal took the stage to greet what should have been a friendly audience: the annual gathering of progressive activists organized by the Campaign for America's Future.

Instead, Pelosi was eaten by her own.

Just three minutes into her speech -- right after she gave the triumphant news that "Change is here!" -- two men stood up and spread out a large pink banner in front of the podium demanding "Stop Funding Israel Terror."

At that moment, a wheelchair-bound woman named Carrie James began to scream from her table about 30 feet away: "I am not going to a nursing home!" At that cue, about 15 people in the crowd -- who, like James, wore orange T-shirts demanding "Community Choice Act Now" -- unfurled bedsheet banners and struck up a chant: "Our homes, not nursing homes!"

Bodyguards rushed forward and formed a six-person ring around Pelosi and the lectern. Leaders of the conference tried to take the speaker backstage until the disturbance could be quelled, but she brushed them off: "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving," she said. "You have made your point. I'm going to give my speech over your voices."

And she did, for an excruciating half-hour. The hecklers screamed themselves hoarse, dominating Pelosi's speech through her concluding lines: "I want to say thank you to Campaign for America's Future for your relentlessness, for your dissatisfaction, for your impatience. That's what I see every day in my district."

Political movements tend to unravel gradually, but on Tuesday this one seemed to be imploding in real time. As the "tea party" right has gained strength, Obama's hope-and-change left has faded. The frustration has crystallized at the gathering this week of demoralized activists.

At Monday's opening session, attendance was sparse: 10 empty tables and about 200 empty chairs. "Progressives have grown ever more dissatisfied, and for good reason," Robert Borosage, the conference organizer, said at the start. "Our hopes or illusions were shattered: escalation in Afghanistan, retreat on Guantanamo, no movement on worker rights or comprehensive immigration reform, dithering on 'don't ask, don't tell,' reverses on choice, delay on climate change and new energy."

After a musical break that included the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," Borosage's co-director, Roger Hickey, took up the complaint. "Larry Summers and Tim Geithner and Rahm Emanuel don't see themselves as part of a movement, and we often see them as part of a problem," he said.

Up next, Darcy Burner of ProgressCongress.org accused Obama of "split the baby" politics and complained that some liberal leaders had sold out for invitations to "White House cocktail parties."

Tuesday brought a denunciation of the Democrats from former Democratic chairman Howard Dean: "It's time for them to behave like Democrats if they want to get reelected. They have forgotten where they came from -- and they haven't been here that long."

In the exhibit hall was a table labeled "Phone Bank for Bill Halter" -- the man trying to unseat Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) for being insufficiently liberal.

But that was tame compared with the treatment of Pelosi. With her daughter and infant granddaughter watching, the House speaker stammered and struggled to belt out her speech as disability activists shouted her down. Borosage, shaking his head and licking his lips, tried to shoo the wheelchairs away from the podium.

Some audience members tried to shout down the hecklers. "Why are you doing this? You think this is going to help?" pleaded one. Another man asked the demonstrators if they'd "mind shutting up" and flipped his middle finger at them.

This only worsened the disturbance. "Sorry, the stakes are a little high!" James shouted from her wheelchair. Pumping her fists in the air, she chanted: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, nursing homes have got to go!"

Pelosi tried to make a joke. "Listen, I'm used to noise. I talk to the Democratic caucus every single day." A bit of laughter mixed in with shouts of "Our homes! Our homes!"

Pelosi said she supports the hecklers' legislation, a long-languishing proposal to increase access to community services for the disabled, who say it would allow more of them to live at home. But the protest wasn't about reason; it was about rage. Pelosi finally finished her speech to a mixture of cheers and boos. "Everybody calm down," Hickey pleaded. "Let's take a deep breath."

As if to admonish the discontented activists over their treatment of the speaker, the strains of Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" came from the sound system:

We've come a long, long way together

Through the hard times and the good

I have to celebrate you, baby

I have to praise you like I should.

Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Matthew Stoltzfus, left, on his farm in Lancaster, Pa., where a government program is working with Amish farmers to try to instill more environmentally sound methods for handling runoff.

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

LANCASTER, Pa. — With simplicity as their credo, Amish farmers consume so little that some might consider them model environmental citizens.

“We are supposed to be stewards of the land,” said Matthew Stoltzfus, a 34-year-old dairy farmer and father of seven whose family, like many other Amish, shuns cars in favor of horse and buggy and lives without electricity. “It is our Christian duty.”

But farmers like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay.

And the Environmental Protection Agency, charged by President Obama with restoring the bay to health, is determined to crack down. The farmers have a choice: change the way they farm or face stiff penalties.

“There’s much, much work that needs to be done, and I don’t think the full community understands,” said David McGuigan, the E.P.A. official leading an effort by the agency to change farming practices here in Lancaster County.

Runoff from manure and synthetic fertilizers has polluted the Chesapeake Bay for years, reducing oxygen rates, killing fish and creating a dead zone that has persisted since the 1970s despite off-and-on cleanup efforts. But of the dozens of counties that contribute to the deadly runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus, Lancaster ranks at the top. According to E.P.A. data from 2007, the most recent available, the county generates more than 61 million pounds of manure a year. That is 20 million pounds more than the next highest county on the list of bay polluters, and more than six times that of most other counties.

The challenge for the environmental agency is to steer the farmers toward new practices without stirring resentment that might cause a backlash. The so-called plain-sect families — Amish and Old Order Mennonites, descended from persecuted Anabaptists who fled Germany and Switzerland in the 1700s — are notoriously wary of outsiders and of the government in particular.

“They are very resistant to government interference, and they object to government subsidies,” said Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College who studies the Amish. “They feel they should take care of their own.”

But the focus on the plain-sect dairy farmers is unavoidable: they own more than 50 percent of Lancaster County’s 5,000-plus farms.

“It’s been an issue over the last 30 years,” Dr. Kraybill said. “We have too many animals here per square acre — too many cows for too few acres.”

For now, the environmental agency’s strategy is to approach each farmer individually in collaboration with state and local conservation officials and suggest improvements like fences to prevent livestock from drifting toward streams, buffers that reduce runoff and pits to keep manure stored safely.

“These are real people with their own histories and their own needs and their own culture,” said John Hanger, the secretary of environmental protection in Pennsylvania. “It’s about treating people right, and in order to treat people right, you’ve got to be able to start where they are at.”

But if that does not work, the government will have to resort to fines and penalties.

Last September, Mr. McGuigan and his colleagues visited 24 farms in a pocket of Lancaster County known as Watson’s Run to assess their practices. Twenty-three of the farms were plain sect; 17 were found to be managing their manure inadequately. The abundance of manure was also affecting water quality. Six of the 19 wells sampled contained E. coli bacteria, and 16 had nitrate levels exceeding those allowed by the E.P.A.

Persuading plain-sect farmers to install fences and buffers underwritten by federal grants has been challenging because of their tendency to shy from government programs, including subsidies. Members neither pay Social Security nor receive its benefits, for example.

Word of the E.P.A.’s farm visits last September traveled rapidly through Amish country, Mr. Stoltzfus said, even though most plain-sect farmers do not have their own phones.

The farmers whom the agency visited declined to be interviewed. But Mr. Stoltzfus, whose brother-in-law was among them, said that as the news circulated, some farmers decided on their own to make changes in anticipation of intervention by the agency.

“I had never heard of the E.P.A. coming out to do inspections,” he said. “I think these practices are going to be required more.”

With help from the Lancaster County Conservation District, Mr. Stoltzfus applied for a government grant to help finance construction of a heifer barn with a manure pit. He expects the grant to cover about 70 percent of the cost.

But some Amish farmers were angered by the agency’s intrusion and its requirements.

“It’s certainly generated controversy,” said Sam Riehl, a farmer in the area. “We wonder whether we are being told what to do, and whether the E.P.A. will make it so that we can’t even maintain our farms.”

Mr. Riehl said he had vowed never to accept a government grant. He does have a manure management plan and a manure pit, he said, although several of his neighbors do not.

Last year the federal Fish and Wildlife Service awarded $500,000 to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to work with the farmers on switching to barnyard runoff controls, streamside forest buffers, no-till farming and cover crops. The money has been lucrative for local agricultural companies like Red Barn Consulting, which has used some of it to hold milk-and-doughnut sessions in barns for Amish farmers and drop off fliers door to door.

The firm’s owner, Peter Hughes, and his employees instruct the farmers on manure management and do free walkthroughs to offer suggestions. In the last six months, Mr. Hughes said, his plain-sect clientele has soared from several dozen farmers to about 200.

Working with the plain sect presents challenges, Mr. Hughes said. For one thing, the group is deeply averse to salesmanship. Then there is the technological communication problem: most of the farmers share a phone booth along a road with several neighbors.

“I had one client who would call me at 5:15 every morning,” he said. “That was his allotted time to use the phone, and that was the only way for us to talk.”

Most days Mr. Hughes is on the road in his pickup visiting farmers. As he drives, he said, he is often struck by the dichotomy between a would-be pastoral ideal and the environmental reality.

“You see those cows and the fields, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “But then there’s that big pile of manure sitting back there.”

Mr. Stoltzfus hopes he is ahead of the game. By adopting new practices and building the manure pit, he thinks he can both help the environment and steer clear of E.P.A. interference.

At midday, Mr. Stoltzfus was placing a bowl of cut fruit into a propane-powered cooler in his backyard, one of the family’s few concessions to technology. Hand-washed black pants and plain cotton dresses fluttered on a clothesline behind him. He offered a taciturn reflection on how quickly things had changed — his willingness to accept the grant, for example.

“A while back, Old Order Amish would not participate in programs like this,” he said, “but farming is getting expensive.”

And then he ended the conversation.

“Is that all?” he said politely but coolly. “I have work to do.”

It was milking time.

Cough If You Need Sick Leave

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

Americans shouldn't have to work when sick or lose pay, but is the aftermath of the Great Recession the right time to add another new business cost?

By James Warren

The short, lumpy red couch in Stili Klikizos' second-grade classroom at Milwaukee's Fratney Elementary School was meant for quiet-time reading. Now it's "the sick couch," a place for ill students to lie down as they await the bus that takes everybody home at day's end. "The parents work and will lose pay if they come get them," she told me as I sat on the couch. Thanks to her union contract, Klikizos gets 12.5 paid sick days a year. Many of her students' parents aren't so fortunate. "It crosses socioeconomic lines. Sometimes kids tell me not to even call, since 'Mom will get fired if she leaves.'" Last year, several couch-sitters were belatedly diagnosed with swine flu.

The no-show parents are among the 40 percent of the private sector who don't receive sick pay. Among full-time workers, 73 percent are covered by paid medical days. (Ninety-one percent have paid vacation, 89 percent paid holidays). The percentage is far lower on every count for part-time workers, though it's not just the motel cleaning lady or immigrant dishwasher who is scared to call in sick, see a doctor, or pick up a kid from school. Retail sales supervisors and information technology managers deal with the same domestic crises.

They all have a stake in the little-noticed debate over paid sick days now unfolding in Washington, state capitals, and cities, with strong arguments for change confronting the economic and political realities of a recession that makes employers nervous about any extra costs. In Congress, the proposed Healthy Families Act—one of the last bills sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy before he died—would guarantee as many as seven paid sick days a year for workers at companies with at least 15 employees. More than 30 million additional workers would be covered if it passes, including 6 million food-service and food-preparation workers who now have to either work when sick or lose pay. Consider that next time you're dining out.

Similar state and local proposals are launching debates in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York City. Laws are already in force in San Francisco and the District of Columbia, with the constitutionality of Milwaukee's soon to be argued in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The face-offs echo those surrounding the Family & Medical Leave Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, with one side invoking morality and practicality and the other warning of dire economic consequences. The FMLA allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to deal with a serious health problem, birth or adoption of a child, or care for a family member. Its impact has been decidedly benign.

Under a city ordinance that passed in 2008, Milwaukee workers would be eligible for up to five sick days a year if privately employed in a business of fewer than 10 workers, and up to nine days at larger firms. An employer that already provides paid leave, notably personal days or vacation, might get a pass. Still, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce insists the change would kill jobs "by making Milwaukee a high-cost island in which to do business." It doesn't acknowledge the possibility that new employer costs might be outweighed by reduced turnover and recruitment expenses.

In San Francisco, both the Chamber of Commerce and the Golden Gate Restaurant Assn. had similar qualms before its law took effect in 2007. Kevin Westlye, the association's executive director, says members assumed that, given the city's high minimum wage ($9.79) and mandated health insurance, paid sick leave was "strike three." The first two mandates still rankle, but paid sick days "is the best public policy for the least cost. Do you want your server coughing over your food?" The nightmare vision restaurateurs had of organized sickouts and staffers splitting "to go see the Giants play on a Friday," he says, hasn't panned out.

There's a pattern here. Washington declines to raise the federal minimum wage during hard times, and states tend to go ahead and do so. There's no question that the aftermath of the Great Recession is a tricky time to impose new costs, even if this is the right move for fairness and public health. It's a mistake for cities to "undertake a social justice agenda" and "ideologically impose" such mandates, says Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, which represents major businesses. She's convinced of ill effects from the pending New York City proposal yet doesn't deny a popular allure. There's a certain inevitability to paid sick leave; as even Wylde concedes, "Who can argue that somebody should be cooking in a restaurant with a contagious flu?" Let the lumpy red couch in Milwaukee be used for reading, not recuperating.

Warren is a reporter for Bloomberg News.

Online Advertising Spending Surges in the Middle East

Image via CrunchBase

Large Internet companies are taking note of the region's recent vigor, and a potential surfing population of 300 million in 22 countries

By Alaa Shahine and Massoud A. Derhally

In 2006, with the Egyptian economy on course for its biggest growth in at least two decades, Con O'Donnell's business was in trouble. Sarmady Communications, his Cairo-based digital media company, was struggling to attract advertisers to its websites. "Our business is creating content and selling advertising, and we ended up saying, 'do you want us to do a website for you?' We would do those things to have some cash flow."

Four years later, Sarmady has three offices, and its sports and entertainment websites are awash with advertisements from companies such as Toyota Motor (TM), BMW, adidas, and Telecom Egypt. Revenue more than tripled, to $2 million in 2009, and may reach $4.3 million this year, O'Donnell said.

The turnaround reflects new marketing strategies across the Middle East region of 22 countries and more than 300 million people. Over the past two years companies have begun to increase spending online, taking advantage of the growing number of Internet users and inexpensive multimedia technologies to advertise their products.

Spending on online advertising in the Arab world may surge to about $400 million within four years from about $90 million in 2009, said Samih Toukan, chief executive of Jabbar Internet Group, which owns online businesses such as e-commerce website Souq.com. That's in contrast to the recent performance of online advertising worldwide, which fell 2.4 percent in 2009, to $26.4 billion, research group IDC said in March.

A growing number of Arab businesses are "looking at the return on their [ad] investment and the best way to track that is online," said Husni Khuffash, Google's (GOOG) regional manager for the United Arab Emirates, Lower Gulf, and Levant.

Large Internet companies are taking note of the region's recent vigor. Last year, Yahoo!, owner of the second-most-popular U.S. search engine, paid $164 million for Arabic-language Internet venture Maktoob.com, which owns e-mail, search, auction, and entertainment websites. In 2008, Vodafone Egypt took a majority stake in Sarmady.

"There is a lot of room for advertising to grow, unlike other mature markets," says Ahmed Nassef, managing director for Yahoo! in the Middle East. "The numbers are there, and we have a vibrant advertising market" of as much as $9 billion in the Gulf Arab countries and elsewhere in the region, he says. Ad sales at Yahoo! Maktoob expanded more than 50 percent in 2009, says Nassef.

Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN gained first-mover advantage five years ago, with an Arabic version of its portal operated by LinkdotNet, an Egyptian company that owns nine sports, financial service, and entertainment ventures. The company now also operates MSN North Africa and another site dedicated to Pakistan.

Online ads are "doing super well; it surprises most people," says Karim Bichara, the 35-year-old CEO of LinkdotNet. The company expects revenue this year to surge 110 percent.

In February, LinkdotNet's advertising arm, Connect Ads, signed an agreement to sell ads in the region for social media site Facebook. Last month, Sarmady launched the Arabic-language version of the official website of the National Basketball Assn., which has a strong following in Arab nations, including Lebanon, Jordan, and the Arab Emirates.

Still, challenges abound for online operators in the Middle East. Broadband penetration has picked up only in the past few years and remains low—12 percent in 2009, according to a study by the Dubai Press Club, compared with 64 percent in North America.

That's pushing many online ad and content companies to tap the mobile phone market, which has more than 230 million users in the region, according to Jawad Abbassi, general manager of Amman-based research company Arab Advisors Group.

Of Sarmady's projected revenue this year, 40 percent will come from ads on the cellular applications of websites. Its flagship, sports website FilGoal.com, has already attracted campaigns from such advertisers as Egyptian vehicle assembler and distributor GB Auto.

The lack of content is also a potential stumbling block. While 5 percent of Internet users worldwide are Arabs, only 1 percent of content is in Arabic, Nassef of Yahoo says. "If we grow content, that's going to increase user engagement online, and it will help grow the industry too."

The bottom line: Internet advertising is growing fast in the Arab world. Low broadband penetration and lack of content in Arabic are challenges.

Alaa Shahine is a reporter for Bloomberg News. Massoud A. Derhally is a reporter for Bloomberg News.