Hi folks I'm David Pool - Thom's producer. This is a new section for "on air" questions for Thom to answer on the radio. Please don't post comments to the questions in this section. I will be removing any comments posted.

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Is this true?

I received the following e-mail, in my my spam folder:
______________________
### URGENT: Proposed rule requires federal permission to fly in U.S. and abroad...Hearing tomorrow. ###



From: Dstacey
A hearing is set for tomorrow on a proposed rule that in effect says that you will not be able to fly on commercial flights without first getting government permission.

"If you can, please attend the TSA hearings on Thursday (Grand Hyatt Washington, 1000 H Street, N.W. beginning at 8:00am). If you can´t attend in person, you have until October 22, 2007 to submit written comments through the Docket Management System (http://dms.dot.gov). The docket number is TSA-2007-28572."

Here is the notice of the hearing which explains the proposed rule:
http://www.dailykos.com:80/storyonly/2007/9/17/9846/64393

And here is an article that gives background on this odious proposal:
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/p102/484384.pdf



The Nightmare of DHS´s *Secure Flight*



by Blue Patriot Woman



Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 10:34:23 AM PDT


Buried in the September 5 issue of the Federal Register, was a notice that this Thursday, September 20, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) will hold public hearings on their ¨Secure Flight Plan.¨ (http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/p102/484384.pdf)

Come with me into a nightmare world where American citizens will have to obtain permission from the government before they can travel by air in the U.S.
Blue Patriot Woman's diary :: ::

Your government (meaning the Department of Homeland Security) is up to no good.

Beginning in February 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will implement their ¨Advance Passenger Information System (APIS),¨ the gist of which is that you will need permission from the United States Government to travel on any air or sea vessel that goes to, from or through the U.S. The travel companies will not be able to issue a boarding pass until you are cleared by DHS. This applies to ALL passengers, US citizens and visitors alike. And how do you get said permission to travel? That´s for your government to know and you to never find out.

Now TSA proposes to do for domestic travel what APIS will do for international routes. That´s what I said: the new TSA rule would require that you obtain PERMISSION to travel within the U.S.

Here is the summary of their proposed rules, which seem so reasonable, couched as they are in the blandness of governmenteez [emphasis added].



The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assume from aircraft operators the function of conducting pre-flight comparisons of airline passenger information to Federal Government watch lists for international and domestic flights.


[snip]



This rule proposes to allow TSA to ... receive passenger and certain non-traveler information, conduct watch list matching ... and transmit boarding pass printing instructions back to aircraft operators.


[snip]



TSA would do so in a consistent and accurate manner while minimizing false matches and protecting privacy information.


Right. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn...



We propose that, when the Secure Flight rule becomes final, aircraft operators would submit passenger information to DHS through a single DHS portal for both the Secure Flight and APIS programs. This would [result] in one DHS system responsible for watch list matching for all aviation passengers.


Don´t you feel great knowing that your government will use economies of scale to protect you?

Edward Hasbrough (http://hasbrouk.org/blog/)states that these rules are more insidious than merely complying to demands for ¨Your papers please.¨ He states,



The proposal ... require[s] that travellers display their government-issued credentials not to government agents but to airline personnel (staff or contractors), whenever the DHS orders the airline to demand them. But since the orders to demand ID of [certain passengers] will be given to the airline in secret, ... travellers will have no way to verify whether ... demands for ID are actually based on government orders.


Think about that: you will not be allowed to verify if the person demanding your papers is actually authorized to do so. In addition, the airlines or their contractors (or sub or even sub sub contractors) have the right, under the proposed rules, to do anything they like with your personal information including:



keep copies of your passport ... as long as they like, use it, publish it, broadcast it, sell it, rent it, or pass it on to whomever they please.... [T]hey would have no obligation to get your permission for any of this.


Aside from the privacy issue, this is the DHS. Their past performance is an indication of future returns and we can look forward to true travel nightmares beginning February 19, 2008. Just think about the mess that occurred when CBP demanded that travelers to Canada and Mexico have a passport. Multiply that by orders of magnitude to imagine what travelers will be facing.

If you can, please attend the TSA hearings on Thursday (Grand Hyatt Washington, 1000 H Street, N.W. beginning at 8:00am). If you can´t attend in person, you have until October 22, 2007 to submit written comments through the Docket Management System (http://dms.dot.gov). The docket number is TSA-2007-28572.

The Identity Project at Papers Please (http://www.papersplease.org/wp/) is working to prevent your government from robbing you of your right to privacy in your movements.

On Fox News they are railing against the upcoming speaking engagement of the Iranian leader at Columbia University, there first response is to curtail free speech, but what would be the correct response to a propagandizing tyrant? Wouldn't it be better to set up some form of debate where my fellow New Yorkers could teach him the meaning of a democratic check on power? Say wouldn't that work with our beloved leader too? It would be easy to debate a c- student of economics!

At the Take Back America Conference which was held this past summer in Washington D.C., a symposium on the new and 'counter' progressive media carved out a place for bloggers, Air America and progressive voices.
The question kept returning to listenership-particularly corresponding to traditional 'right-wing' media.
Isn't the truely real question one of 'variety'?
To that end, I would like to hear Thom shift more frequently, and clearly between macro issues, like nuclear proliferation, and micro issues, like penal reform.

With the UAW strike being called this morning I have mixed feelings. First I am glad they are making a stand, management was intrangient, however management also has the upper hand. They could if forced move more production out of the US and make a larger profit. Certainly we all need to make a stand in this global labor market but the question is how? How do we internationalize domestic labor struggles? WE are told that we are the most productive workers in the world. That is because of agreements that have increased the hours in the work week for meager gains in salary. How much more can we give back before we realize that we have to internationalize our demands?

There is an article in Oct 2007 Harper's Magazine titled "General Strike". It's not referring to GM but to a nationwide general strike on Nov 6, 2007 to protest the Bush regime, especially the Iraq War:

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/10/0081720

What are your thoughts?

Hi Thom-- love your show! Sadly, I can't listen to you live but I download your podcast every day.

Anyway, last Friday you mentioned the Democrats who voted against Cornyn's nonsense anti-MoveOn ad resolution as worthy of praise for standing up against it when half of their fellow Democrats inexplicably voted for it. I initially thought so too... until I realized that Barbara Boxer proposed a similar amendment that not only explicitly condemned the MoveOn ad, but then lumped it in with the smear tactics used against Max Cleland and John Kerry. Clinton voted against the Cornyn's resolution but voted FOR the Boxer resolution, which I actually find worse than the original one that passed.

Sure, it's one thing to call the GOP on their hypocrisy, but to compare what MoveOn is trying to do (telling the truth in a hard-hitting way to bring about an end to a senseless war) to what the GOP slime machine did to Cleland and the Swiftboat lies about Kerry is reprehensible.

To get a sense of which Democrats are true political warriors, you'd need to see who voted against both the Cornyn AND the Boxer resolutions. Clinton does not make that cut.

When are our Democratic leaders going to get it?!? Whether or not we agree 100% with all the elements of progressive movement, we need to all stick together -- or at least NOT join in attacks by the GOP -- in order to stop the far right-wing from dominating the national conversation.

Something else has happened with the switch from a demand based economy to a supply based economy. Business culture has changed. While working I see it and it urks me beyond belief. The goal is to make a customer want a product, not to make a product that customers need. There's been a whole cultural shift to something I somewhat despise. The problem is I can't quite put a finger on what that something is and what specifically has caused it. I'd like to know Thom's perspective on the cultural impact of the economic switch being discussed today. Perhaps he can provide some facts that will help me understand that something that I can't identify.

I heard a new Democratic Party talking point the other day on the Rachel Maddow show from a progressive pundit attempting to explain away the democrats' spineless behavior in funding Iraq at a tune of $124 bn and possibly more to come. The explanation is that the pres. has an obscure backdoor the 1861 Feed and Forage act to continue funding the war and if Congress refuses to do it republicans will still be able to fund their war plus they can paint the dems as not funding the troops.

This is a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
A) $124 bn is far more than the funds necessary to sustain military operations in Iraq for the rest of the year let alone for shorter time: the surge cost $8.7bn and according to the DOD they needed to restore the $1.6bn for the Navy and Air Force personnel funds before the end of the year. $124bn is WAAAAY more that this. It looks more like funding for another war.

B) The 1861 law can be used to force the president to start withdrawals because it still requires Congressional oversight and appropriations after the fact and it limits the scope and the amount available. It is certainly unprecedented to take hundreds of billions under the Feed and Forage law. There is Supreme Court precedence and CBO opinion about the scope of the monies that can be spent under this law and the pres cannot claim that the troops have no money for day to day operations.

Please discuss this on your show to make sure dems cannot hide behind it! Thanks.

For Brunch with Bernie: Shouldn't it be a priority to effect immediate reforms in the federal administration of our Constitution, given the lack of full credibility of U.S. elections at present? To do their jobs, our soldiers need energy and sufficient rotations, and enthusiasm and enough equipment.

Thank you. AP newservice reported on September 27 that brain-injured vets are slipping into economic hardship. I feel that the tone of the article means they don't get what the brain is for or about in a person-it was cold and un-compassionate! My question is: what 'goes' first about our brain, that makes us unique?

I've recently read a book called "'They take our jobs' and 20 other myths about immigration" by Noam Chomsky's daughter professor Aviva Chomsky. After reading this heavily researched book I recognized a few of the arguments I heard from Roy Beck in the past and frankly on Thom's show as well, as incorrect. Perhaps it would be interesting if Thom took her on, or just admit that he's a human being and as such even he makes a mistake every now and then

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6B216254B1CE45BA

Increasing numbers of folks are adding to sites on the internet-or blogging. What credentials are necessary, and what might be a tried and true career path for writers who want to become part of this 'new media'?? tx.

Thom- Really did not understand your response to the question of Israeli nukes. You told the caller it was a false analogy to compare Israel and Iran's nuclear programs. In what sense is the analogy false? You seemed to imply that because Israel had a better democracy and does not use threatening verbage. To me these points seem less significant than those of a country that will not even admitt to having weapons, refuses to enter international agreements on having them, and has a much longer list of violations of international law.

Thom, today you were talking about the rights of First Nations people (ie native Americans) in the United States. Does that mean that you are going to have Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) on your show soon? Phil Fontaine speaks out on both national and international issues. Or are you doing the warm up to have Ron Allen or Joe Garcia on your show?

Phil Fontaine
http://www.afn.ca/article.asp?id=487

"The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, and the President of the National Congress of American Indians, Ron Allen, today signed an historic political accord which will allow both organizations to work together and develop closer relationships in areas of mutual interest and concern." - Assembly of First Nations and the National Congress of American Indians

A question about trains in the US, either to ask Rbt Poole (knowlegeable guy), or Thom might know himself:

I once heard a story about passengers from Maine to NYC being obliged to get off in north Boston to continue their commute from South Station, ostensibly because Cambridge would not allow diesel trains to pass through. I do not know if it's true. I also heard that the Europeans laugh at us over such anomalies. Seemingly they would not allow local jurisdictions to intefere with national tranport policy like that. Curious, if true.
Any ideas?

I would like to hear Thom's opinion on the EU Charter on Minority Languages (1992) and the fact that most multicultural countries recognize more than 1 co-equal official language. In Finland for ex Swedish is an official language because swedes lived in the territory of that country from the very beginning. Switzerland has 4 official languages, reto-romansh is spoken by 35,000 people only, yet there is federal money available for their language needs in government buildings in southeastern cantons, as well as their education and cultural needs such as radio/tv stations etc.

In Germany romani, the gypsy language is an official minority language, yet Thom's example of Germany is disturbing to me given the historical differences between a homogenous country like Germany with its history of nationalism going back centuries and a diverse society like the US, Switzerland (federal democracy since 1291!) or Finland.

For instance why couldn't spanish speaking people have the same rights english speaking people enjoy given the fact they were in Texas, California etc from the very beginning?!

I also think it's foolish to undermine social cohesion with unnecessary nationalism or nativism, given the fact that English is the de-facto worldwide official language of science, business and technology anyway; people will learn english if they are given the chance and economic means.

I think it's far more important to have a country where people want to live regardless of their language, than 1 which creates refugees worldwide like Germany did 50 years ago and the US is starting to do today. Please don't make the right wing's job easier!

Hi,
I'm brand new at message boards and I think the "folder" I added for a request for someone to talk on the show about Calif Secretary of State Debra Bowen's research into voting machines ended up elsewhere instead of here - so, I'm repeating my suggestion that Thom interview someone from UC Berkeley or Irvine or another knowledgable person (preferably not a Calif govt. employee?) to discuss what was done and what was observed and what is happening in other states.

Thanks - Sorry for my mixup

Randi Rhodes just had a "caller" who questioned the "Democrats" view of capitalism and (obviously a Republican) said, paraphrased, "Democrats are Against Capitalism." I am old enough to have taken Economics classes before Reagan virtually threw out words like Oligopoly that used to imply that government regulation was indicated/needed. Randi had no specific book to suggest to the caller that states a realistic economic view in keeping with Democratic values.

Could Thom come up with (suggest to us) a non-intimidating "economics" book(s) that teaches our high school and college kids (and older adult listeners) TRUE economics (i.e. Demand-side driven....) like we used to read?
Maybe an interview with someone who can explain economics theories in simple terms to the less economics-educated viewers might be nice, too. Here in California, our Democratic legislators obviously had not learned of Oligopolies when they de-regulated the energy industry, precipitating the "crisis" that overthrew Davis.

One percent of gun shops sold 57% of the guns used in crimes.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/firestar/video.html

Thom - I didn't really state everything the way I wanted to this morning with my call on 9-11. So to go back to my experience with talk shows and others regarding 9-11. When debates arise on 9-11 information, most talk shows and other venues in this country identify only one important fact. And that fact is to question the story is to be a 9-11 truth nut, and therefore now longer worthy of a conversation. Your veracity to hold a serious conversation is guilty by association with those "conspiratorial types". This in the movement is referred to as "psychopathologizing". This meaning that there are people that are predisposed to a condition that causes them to be paranoid and irrational towards their government and whose opinions are therefore invalid (an apparent result of the condition). To what degree this might be the case is only part of the question here, another point is that arguments of this type belong to a certain epistemological category. It is a category of knowledge that must make an inference about human behavior, and a guess at human intentionality. Worse yet, these are the type of estimates of human behavior that are extremely broad in their scope. They do not make estimates about probable intentions of humans in a definable case, but rather sweep away millions of people's opinions with a broad stroke of a generalization.

There is another epistemological category,to look at the events, and that is "empiricism". Clearly events at the crash sites lend themselves to an empirical analysis of facts, and this a quantitatively superior to broad inferences on human intentionality. So what I am saying is,if there is still an objective standard for reasoned analysis left from my philosophy classes, those standards told us empirical facts take precedence over judgement on the character of an individual. If we are in a court case, we do not take estimates about character over forensic evidence, so why would we change our standards regarding 9-11. Reasoned analysis first looks at facts with the highest probability of being true, and estimations of human intentionality are usuallly not high on this list. Yet that is completely backwards from the attitude of those who wish limit discussion on 9-11 before it ever starts.

Second, where are those that adhere to the principle of investigative relevance and principle in the search for truth?? In other words why aren't we hearing from some segment of our population that believes in looking at the evidence is a primary responsibility towards having an opinion on the subject, reaches a conclusion that the official story is believable enough, but will still protest against the limiting of debate. Why is no one out there saying "yes more more discussion because these 9-11 truth people are dead wrong" After the History Channel's most recent production on 9-11, I posted on your boards this exact question- Isn't any one concerned who has dug into the facts of 9-11 and conclude the official story is believable, not going to complain about the fact that the real questions aren't being talked about by H.C?

I think the conclusion to be drawn is that there are few such people in our society Thom, and this suggests that we have an extreme polarization of those who will look at the evidence versus those who feel to look at the evidence is to admitt mental pathology. Perhaps this is an extreme characterization, but to call what is going on as anything short of a "treason of rationality" is inappropriate. This does not mean I recommend any sort of lasting contempt towards those who restrict discussion, and in fact I support that we strive for the least amount of destructive contempt in our attempts to open the discussion.

A final point on rational frameworks or "principals" if you like, is the irrational or unprincipled involvement of the progressive media towards the restriction discussion of this issue. The suggestion being that the progressive media would have a core principal to discuss "any issue" that was being raised by a significant amount of its audience. Anything short of that would be a censorship of progressive principals. The only exception might be that if the "issue" held by a fair percentage of the audience held was in violation of some other objective standard or principle. For example, if a percentage began to espouse violence in gaining political ends, we could assume violence is a violation of principals and may choose not to air the views of such a group on this principle. But in the case of 9-11, we seem to be breaking the principle that you can't believe too nasty of things about your government. I don't believe that one should be in the playbook.

So Thom my point is that you and others will look not only about the facts about the events of 9-11, but also look at the facts of how this discussion is being handled. I think the answer is absolutely clear that something dangerous happening to our rational sensibilities. Even if it turns out 9-11 was just like they said, there is still separte issues of the way information was held by the government, and how we as a society did not talk about it in a rational way.

Thanks
Matt Grantham
Napa

The draft Gore website has the transcript of the video you showed today 10/12/07 at
http://draftgore.com/exec_power.htm
You may want to share this with your listeners who have downloads that are too slow for videos.

Thom, yesterday I heard you say something, to the affect, that after the bushes get out of office, the American people would need to reconcile and forgive. Did I hear you right? Did you say forgive?

If they are not prosecuted, they will simply come back. We forgave after Nixon was caught. We forgave after Reagan was exposed. What was the result? We got all the same criminals and more with the bush coupe. The bushes will come out of all this more powerful and more wealthy then every before. What makes you think that they are going to stop their criminal activities, simply because they are temporarily out of power? We can NOT afford to forgive because if we do, and they suffer minimal repercussions, as they did after Nixon and Reagan, they will come back in an even more destructive and powerful form.

The only way to deal with these sociopaths is to punish them. If they are not punished, they will return.

Thom you can NOT advocate simply forgiving these criminals without the punishment, from fair and legal processes, they deserve.

They will return repeatedly, each time escalating their behavior, until they are corrected and held accountable for their crimes.

Thom -Regarding your discussion on religion and atheism. I believe my thoughts are similar to yours. As a Philosophy major I often found myself siding with the Christians on the discussions on mind/body discussions, or what might be called agency. Usually referred to as the "ghost in the machine" from Descartes. The arguments are lengthy, but in some ways it has been defined by how well science can predict perceived reality. In other words things like brain-mapping are considered valuable proofs against the idea of immaterial agency. In my opinion this framework is fraught with problems.

Perhaps the biggest problem for what might be called realist, mechanist, or determinist viewpoints is that of free will. For if we posit a Laplacian metaphysical reality, it precludes any standard conception of an active agency that has "free will." This can be an even bigger problem for conservatives who wish to "punish" an agency that has shown either poor moral values, or has made an immoral "choice". Both require an "agency".

I think this relates to what you are talking about because this is the primary philosophical question that considers an afterlife. Other science related to the topic of subjective reality,regards agency, mind, or soul, would be that of quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity. Quantum physics posits it likely the possibility of parallel universes or multiverses. Relativity poses real questions about whether time itself can be comprehended as a separate entity from matter which seems to be a subjective experience. Dark matter also poses such a fundamental problem in explaining the universe that again it fails to support a clear mechanist model.

Those who wish to support mechanist models fail to recognize that subjective experience is fundamental, or primary in relationship towards scientific observation. While it may be that there are many common denominators in subjective experience, this commonality does not reduce it's primacy in the formation of scientific analysis.

The idea of why an organism "feels" anything is really outside of scientific explanation. Mechanists can make estimates about how certain stimuli will result in corresponding mental states, but this argument misses the point. It stresses that stimuli will result in a mental state, but it really says NOTHING about how the mental state is realized. There is no sense of location to experience. Many in this culture suppose that it must be located in the brain since that is the relay center of the nervous system, yet any connections in this area can only be made by reports of subjective experience and then trying to place a coresponding brain state to match this experience. There seems to be a fundamental difference between the physical world and experience itself, and it is my opinion that all the advancement of science will never break through this divide. Your reference this morning of the idea of not knowing the color red is a famous example of this idea.

Since I mentioned Color and I heard you mention the idea in your comment this morning about the properties of waves, a little more on the subject. With color we seem to have two contradictory conceptions of color at the same time. We have the experience of color, and at the same time we have the scientific construction of the properties of light waves that seem to have no necessary relation to the experience of color. Science cannot prove that the experience color is the same. Negations are not proof, but examples of areas where science is powerless is an powerful explanatory force in and of itself