You have heard of the Weather Report? Here exclusively is this week’s "Earth Report" - a short review of the "big picture" about how the dynamic changes in the Sun and the Earth are effecting our lives more and more intensely, with the latest prognostications and predictions for weathermen, farmers, investors, businessmen, and every man. This update is keyed to the Earth Changes 2003 Almanac Calendar. The framework for understanding these updates and much of the current status information is maintained in capsule form in the Almanac at the locations cited in the text of this Update.

On the geophysical front, seismic activity continued at low levels BUT MANY QUAKES NEAR THE ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC created the strongest pattern yet in the high latitudes. Volcanoes are about the same as last week, at a depressed level, and the SUN, well, it is calmer at the moment than the last two weeks but that may not last long. Sunspots at 148 yesterday with good probabilities of M Class Flares or Coronal Mass Ejections at any moment, makes this week once again subject to an unstable, unpredictable, and occasionally dangerous Sun. AS LAST WEEK, NO SIGN YET OF A NORMAL JUNE OR JULY on any front. All warnings from last week stand: the droughts are returning, expect no relief until Fall.

On the geopolitical front, NO CHANGE FOR THE MOST PART. AS PREVIOUSLY STATED, ALL CONDITIONS ARE DECAYING INTO INCREASING DISORDER. Everybody’s attention and effort is stretched too thin. What needs to be done in the Middle East is perfectly obvious and equally obvious is that the Boomer Bubbleheads of the Imperial Faction are completely unequal to the task. Beware the Earth | Mars alignment. And beware the Ides of August when the double-header planetary alignment forms up around the Mars alignment

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Most news media do not handle technical and scientific subjects like geology and earth sciences very well. They don't understand the causes and effects of activities in the Sun and Earth. Accordingly, they often do not understand if, when, how, why to report earthquakes, volcanic activity, global warming effects The treatment often sounds absent-minded, poorly qualified, and frequently contains various technical errors. Seldom is the treatment entertaining and genuinely educational.

Based on new scientific principles which have emerged during the past thirty years, many of the dynamic activities of the Sun and Earth can be linked together to see how a range of effects are linked together. This makes it possible to paint "the big picture" into a perspective which explains many diverse events and processes, especially climate and weather patterns such as global warming and El Nino. From the "big picture", long range predictions can be made for weeks and even months ahead.

The result is sophisticated cutting-edge information which is objective, balanced, astute, relevant, and can be easily seen and appreciated by lay audiences. The perspective is generally global, seldom parochial.

For the framework of concepts, terms, and current conditions which are used or described in the these Bulletins, see the Earth Changes 2003 Almanac Calendar.

To see the internet resources which are used to prepare this Update, take a look at the Earth Monitor front page

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor

HOUSEKEEPING:

If linked pages in this report require a password, you will need to subscribe to the earth changes bulletin. Those which require a password will be indicated. All such information is copyrighted, please do not copy the information on the internet. Let them subscribe. If the material does not require a password, the material is available for free and it may be freely copied on the internet.

RE: THE COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE OF 2006, which puts today, tomorrow, and the trends together into the Cayce 25 year economic cycle which will "bottom" in 2006/2007.

SPIRITUAL WATCH – AS OBSERVED LAST WEEK

The high sunspot peaks are excellent for meditation and expanding one’s consciousness of the spiritual energies. Past peaks brought forth amazing energy and power into the lives of meditaters, psychic attuners, and spiritually active healing practitioners.

You will have another chance leading up to the August 27 alignment of Earth with Mars. If you are not already meditating on a regular basis with a regular regime, take advantage of this next cycle to connect with new people in a wonderful way and to blow a lot of clinkers out of your being and headspace.

For more info: see

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/quest

I am looking for personal adventures with the spiritual realm which correlate to the sunspot peaks and planet alignments. I think there is a lot there if we but look.

POLAR MOTION

What is happening to the motion of the Earth. For the overall summary of the status of polar motion GO TO:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#polarmotion

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To see the current graph of polar motion, see

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

Scroll down the page until you get to the black and white graphs with show the x and y coordinates of the North Spin Axis on two separate graphs.

No change from last week. Steady as she goes. As previously reported, a slow acceleration in the shifting of the poles has been underway for perhaps the past 100 years and the last three decades has shown an increase in the rate of acceleration.

MAGNETIC POLES – SHIFTING

What is happening to the magnetic fields of the Earth. For the overall summary of the status of the changes in the magnetic field GO TO:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#earthfield

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No news since last report: a slow acceleration of the rate of drift towards the spin axis is underway.

PLANETS
(all time coordinates here and elsewhere are in UTC unless otherwise noted)

For background and the current information on planetary alignments GO TO:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#planets

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See Earth Changes 2003 Almanac Calendar for additional details

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/calendar2003/

The Almanac lays out the planets and the lunar phases for entire year in advance to allow you to find the best and worst periods of weather, earthquake activity, ethereal "lunar" influences, etc.

The Moon this day is in its South Node (South of the Earth’s Equator) and we just entered an extended full moon syzygy period yesterday on July 9 .

The Earth orbit just passed Apogee on July 4, which is when the Earth is as far from the Sun as it can get.

The next Lunar Perigee will be July 10 at 21:45 UTC, some 365142 km from Earth, nearly three full days in advance of the Full Moon. The next Full Moon will be July 13 at 19:21 UTC, on the same day as the Mercury | Jupiter alignment. (Perigee = the Moon’s closest approach to the Earth during its monthly orbit which increases gravitational influence of the Moon by as much as 15%; Apogee = the Moon’s greatest distance from the Earth during its monthly orbit).

July 13 is the next planetary alignment: Mercury | Jupiter. This will be followed on July 19 with a Mercury | Neptune alignment. This should keep the weather manifesting random extremes in unredictable places through July.

And August will be no slouch in the grouchy weather department. On August 1 an Earth | Neptune alignment will form up and again on August 18 a double header alignment will form between Earth | Mars | Neptune on one head and Venus | Jupiter on the other head. Since the orbital speeds of Mars and Earth are very similar (compared to the rest of the solar system), their alignment will be very close most of the month.

AS REPORTED: The Earth | Mars alignment is August 27. At 5:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, 2003, Mars will be within 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) of Earth. This will be the closest that Mars has come to our planet in nearly 60,000 years. The Almanac Calendar was corrected to reflect this date which was calculated by NASA. For general background info on Mars and the approaching alignment, see

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/mars_preview_021108.html

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PLANET WATCHING:

For background and the current information on observable planets and planetary alignments GO TO:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#planets

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ANCIENT DRAMA IN THE SKY: This time of year is a great time to catch the ancient spectacle of the Milky Way Galaxy (ours) in the middle of the vault of the skies. Best viewing time is close to midnight, when the Milky Way stretches out from horizon to horizon from nearly South to nearly North. This spectacle the Egyptians memorialized as Nun, the waters of the universe, whom they painted as a nearly naked woman stretched out across the ceilings of their temples. They conceived Nun as the mother of the planetary Gods, which was a lot closer to the truth than the cosmology the Greeks and the Romans tried to sell you. This will be a little hard to see while the Moon goes Full this next several days, but when the Moon’s light disappears, it will become quite vivid.

As you look at the sky to the South, you also can see an ancient nursery rhyme story. You can see a large cow jumping over the Milky Way, with the Milky Way flowing out North and South in a huge streak from out of the cow’s teats. That, from 5000 years ago, is how we got the name for our Galaxy. And that is also how we got the story of the Cow, Hathor, who jumps over the Moon occassionally (when it is in the right spot).

The reason why we don’t ALL know that is because of a previous, highly successful incarnation of Imperial Fascism under Constantine and his successors. They burned and murdered our connection to our Egyptian mother.

SUNSPOTS

The events in the solar atmosphere which impact weather and climate patterns, the magnetic field and auroras, including forecasts for the week, month, and year ahead. For background information, go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#sunspots

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To follow the numbers below, view the Solar Cycle 23 Chart at

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

AS REPORTED LAST WEEK: As of July, though this date is arbitrary, perhaps can be considered to be a good estimation of the beginning of the slow alignment between Earth and Mars, giving a period roughly 60 days before for a slowly heightening increase in energy from the Sun. This may mean that sunspot counts remain relatively high, perhaps close to 100 on average, slowly increasing for the Earth | Mars alignment. There will be at least three minor peaks between now and then.

Sunspots climbed to 160 on June 30 for the Mercury | Venus alignment, nearly dead on the center of the alignment. The count then fell to 87 on July 5 and then spiked sharply upwards July 6, 7, to stand at 148 on July 8. The solar flux was 131 solar flux on July 8 and headed lazily down.

This was probably the sunspot peak for the Mercury | Jupiter alignment. As actually predicted, it was a fairly mild peak. The sunspots will probably now decline sharply tomorrow and then peak again on July 16 for the Mercury | Neptune alignment on July 19. This next peak should be considerably weaker, perhaps under 100 for just a couple of days and thereafter sunspot counts should plunge quite low until about July 26,when they should form up another 100 plus peak for the Earth | Neptune alignment

Thereafter all bets are off. There are a lot of close connections and several alignments during August. August should be an even bigger rockem and sockem solar month than July.

MONTHLY AVERAGES IN SOLAR CYCLE 23: Over all, the sunspot average count (ISSN) for February was 46.4 and for March it rose to 61.5. The number for April was 60. May’s average was 55. The average sunspot count (ISSN) for June, was 77.4 up nearly 50 percent over May. That is a highly significant deviation from the projected curve. There is not a good explanation for this huge up-surge in solar activity. (These numbers are reported by Jan Alvestad).

AS REPORTED LAST WEEK: July and August may likewise be similar or even higher than June. If so, this will provide Solar Cycle 23 with a "third peak", though this will PROBABLY be under the average monthly count of 100, which constitutes the main part of most solar cycle "peaks". (These monthly average counts use ISSN counts, which are lower than the NASA numbers we use from week to week)

As of this moment, the Solar Wind Speed is a modest 413.4 km/s but at this hour (about 2 PM, AZ time) it is pushing a very high density of 8.9 protons/cm3 from an obviously strong current in the solar wind flowing from a coronal hole (a hole in the Sun’s magnetic field). These momentary fluctuations continue to mean little during these times. Currently the Fluxgate Charts at the University of Alaska (which measures magnetic disturbances in the Earth’s atmosphere) shows nearly a flat line, confirming that we are in a very calm "solar sea". To see the Fluxgate, go to

http://137.229.36.30/cgi-bin/magnetometer/plotstations.cgi?

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Sunspot group 375 still persists but it is disappearing as the Sun rotates it now to the opposite side of the Sun. NASA believes it may reappear again in two weeks as the Sun rotates it back into view. ("Consisting of nearly 30 individual spots, the entire group stretches 10 Earth-diameters from end to end. The large leading spot alone is about the size of the planet Neptune.")

NASA PREDICTS: "AURORA OUTLOOK: Sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall on July 10th and 11th. That's when Earth is expected to encounter a solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. The best observing sites will be at high latitudes: e.g., southern parts of Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and northern US states like Wisconsin and Michigan."

NASA also predicts that another coronal hole in the Sun’s atmosphere is lining up with the Earth and we should enter into its "solar wind" as of July 10.

Jan Alvestad reports: "A recurrent trans equatorial coronal hole (CH47) was in a geoeffective position on July 8-9. Another coronal hole (CH48) mainly in the northern hemisphere but with a trans equatorial extension, will rotate into a geoeffective position on July 13-14."

Jan Alvestad predicts: "The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet to unsettled on July 9-10. There is a minor chance that a CME associated with a filament eruption early on July 6 could reach Earth on July 9 and cause unsettled to active conditions. A high speed stream from coronal hole CH47 will cause unsettled to active conditions on July 11-13." See http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

EARTH WEATHER PREDICTION FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS:

So far all weather predictions have been fairly well confirmed. The normal monsoon is not forming up and it may never quite appear though it may "threaten" to appear or actually give us a brief overnight fling once and a while.

Expect another round of chaotic extremes to form up about this time next week for a few days but until then conditions should moderate during the next few days.

This will be followed with the Mercury | Neptune alignment on July 19. This should keep the weather manifesting random extremes in unpredictable places from about July 25^th through to the first week of August, when the another round of alignments will take up the slack and continue to drive high sunspot numbers which will drive the atmosphere at times into exceptional frenzy all the way through to about the middle of September.

Doubtless, weather extremes during August will be no slouch. On August 1 an Earth | Neptune alignment will form up and again on August 18 a double header alignment will form between Earth | Mars | Neptune on one head and Venus | Jupiter on the other head.

Since the speeds of Mars and Earth will be very similar, their alignment will be very close most of the month, tending to keep sunspots counts high. The approaching Earth | Mars alignment may keep the solar flux index high, magnetic index high, sunspot counts high, and thus the Earth’s atmosphere expanded with the jet streams tending to flow through the high latitudes. This will tend to drive the monsoon moisture into higher latitudes, where summer floods will occasionally form up.

GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD WATCH

Stories and assessments about drought and flood conditions around the world; global information which provides the ability to assess the impacts to agriculture and the natural environment. For additional details, see http://www.michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/calendar2003

PRETTY MUCH FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SUMMER:

HELLO DROUGHT & HEAT CONDITIONS IN THE USUAL PLACES

FLOODS IN HIGH LATITUDES

CLOSE TO NO MONSOON AT ALL IN THE PACIFIC SOUTHWEST

Drought conditions are not likely to disappear until October or November of this year.

AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED: Ethiopia, East Africa, and Northern India are in dire straits. Severe damage is destroying the eco-system and the human cultures. Nothing here is likely to improve during the next four months.

Southwest Conditions: extremely bad

for details see http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports.htm/#weather

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LA NINA WATCH

For information, go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/ecbulletins/statusreports.htm#chemtrails

EARTHQUAKES

Around the world to see the current and potential patterns of seismic activity, with coverage of the windows of danger. I prepared this section by pulling out the Earth Changes 2003 Calendar which has everything plotted on it. You should too. Check out the Almanac as well, it discusses all of the windows for the year and even spotlights the two most dangerous windows.

The Full Moon - Perigee Syzygy period began yesterday but seismic activity has not yet picked up significantly. There were no major quakes and little or no damage from quakes this past week. July 7 had the largest number of quakes, 16, all other days were normal with typical scattered quakes in all zones ranging from 3 to 5.5 for the most part.

There were some significant patterns. At least 4 quakes in the range of 4 to 5.6 struck the margins of the Antarctic Tectonic Plate and the Arctic zone, mainly near Iceland, was struck by four quakes in the range of 5 to 5.7. For these we will attempt another Cayce Watch to see if volcanic activity surges up in the tropical zones.

As well, at least two quakes struck the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in similar sizes, while Greece and Turkey, on the Eastern edge of the Peloponesian Peninsula, were hammered with at least 13 modest sized quakes during the past week. Fortunately little damage occurred as these quakes were out to sea and conditions were quiet the past two days.

Two quakes struck in Arizona, a 3.2 and a 3.3 quake very close to the Utah border in the middle of Grand Canyon country, revealing the simple truth that much of the Colorado River flows through rifts which began as earthquake faults. These struck very close to the "weak zone" which runs through Utah up to Yellowstone. Nearby, geologically speaking, another 5.0 plus quake struck last week in the Southern tip of Baja California along the Baja Plate Margin, Many more quakes stuck in scattered locations in Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, and Central Asia, with the Philippines (as is typical) serving as a kind of center of the activity zone.

It is difficult to tell which Tectonic Plate was most active this past week. The West Pacific from Japan down through Indonesia saw a lot of action but there was also a lot of action this week along the oceanic rifts, especially through the Atlantic ocean from Antarctic to the Arctic.

THERE WERE NO MAJOR SEISMIC EVENTS OF REAL INTEREST THIS PAST FEW DAYS

Overall North American activity was in the groove of the Syzygy Window Principle. Since we were not in a window most of the time, quake activity should have been down during the past seven days. The USGS charts (such charts show all quakes 1.0 and above) for the U.S. and Alaska show 303 quakes for the past seven days (down from last week’s 353) with the USGS chart for California/Nevada showing 222 quakes in California/Nevada during the past seven days (down from last week’s 286

Activity in California in proportion to activity in the remainder of North America remains disproportionately high.

The trends for Western North America were only partly in the syzygy groove.

The USGS Chart for the Pacific Northwest reveals 48 quakes (two week sum, up from 47 last week) the greater portion along the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. Hood had two quakes and the USGS chart for Long Valley Cauldera (Area) showed a running total of 16 (down from 27 last week).

The Rocky Mountain Cordillera was definitely contrarian. The USGS Chart of Yellowstone Cauldera Area shows 11 microquakes during the last week (up from 7 last week) and 20 quakes scattered throughout Utah (up from 8 from last week).

EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY SHOULD INCREASE DURING THE NEXT FIVE DAYS in both frequency and magnitude.

FOR MORE QUAKE INFO RELATED TO SYZYGY WINDOWS

Jim Berkland calculates syzygy windows with considerably more sophistication than I do. See http://syzygyjob.com

Berkland’s July predictions are up on his website, running from July 10 through to July 17.

VOLCANOES

Around the world with the most interesting and relevant volcano stories; briefs on the likely eruptions as well as coverage of on-going activity. For information on current eruptions, see the Southwest Volcano Centre at:

http://www.swvrc.org/cerupt.htm

or see "Breaking Volcano Eruption News" at

http://www.volcanolive.com/volcanolive.html

El Popo continues to spritz with a HIGH 62 puff day. Centrapred reports for July 9 (16:00 GMT) that "In the last 24 hours the monitoring system of the Popocatepetl volcano recorded 62 low to moderate intensity exhalations, mainly accompanied by steam, gas and sometimes small quantities of ash.The most important exhalation ocurred today at 9:00h (local), and was accompanied by ash and steam column about 1 km height. Also isolated episodes of low amplitude high frequency tremor were recorded accumulating about 1 hour. The other monitored parameters remain without important changes. At this moment we can see the volcano with a light steam and gas emission."

Activity this past seven days has remained at a constant level. The Southwest Volcano Centre reports 34 volcanoes on the alert status list (same as last week), 4 volcanoes on the restless list (same as last week), and 23 on the active eruption list (same as last week).

ECONOMIC WATCH

For background information, use password to go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/
statusreports/statusreports.htm#economics

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FORECAST THIS WEEK

use password to go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/
statusreports/statusreports.htm#forecastweek

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No change this week

use password to go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/statusreports/statusreports.htm#intuitive

slightly Up but spooky

use password to go to:

http://michaelmandeville.com/ebooks/statusreports/statusreports.htm#euro

dollar is up again slightly

for discussions and predictions, go to the URL above

JOB WATCH

The job situation was bleak and just got bleaker. Unemployment at the end of June stood at a ten year high of 6.4%. The Imperial Faction has just wiped out ALL the gains of the Clinton Feelgood Years. The job situation will probably remain bleak throughout this year unless you have a clean background and are willing to work for less than $10/hr. in the burgeoning security industry or for $7.00 at Wallie World.

HEALTH WATCH

– No new status-changing alerts

Take a good look today at the solar sunspot count chart on the Earthmonitor page

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

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Each of those peaks for the past several months, even the smaller peaks, most likely (VERY LIKELY) can be correlated with peaks in random human violence in crime sprees, madman mass shootings, suicides, etc. I had not looked at the sunspot counts since the 4th of July but last night, after listening to the news and hearing about the shootings, I knew that sunspots were up. Today, before I started checking the numbers to do the monitor update, I heard about more shootings in Mississippi and Bakersfield and the planned teen-ager shootings in New Jersey. This news made me feel pretty certain that sunspots were up quite a bit. Indeed they were, from 80 to 147.

This would make an excellent high school science project, even a notable college project, even a serious academic paper. One could graph sunspot numbers along with violent crime stats for the past six months. Anybody know where to get good crime stats?

SIGN OF THE TIMES: it looks like, America’s hot adventure "reality" show, "The Empire Strikes Back" HAS successfully keep much of the corporate scandals under the rug. Ken Lay, just a good ole boy Texan, the Presiding Officer of the rape of California Consumers, otherwise known as Enron, is still scott free with his crooked billions…LOU DOBBS’ scoreboard: After nearly two years, 57 indicted crooks, 16 of them from Enron, 1 indicted crook is in jail, none of them is Ken Lay.

For more SIGNS OF THE TIMES: see

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports_political.htm#SIGNS

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AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED: PALESTINE AREA MAY BE CHANGING TO A POSITIVE CYCLE BUT I SUSPECT THAT WE ARE MERELY SEEING A CYNICAL PLAY. The players are not on the same page. For instance, it is very clear that Arafat is very much in the center of the intrigues, though the negotiators from the U.S. and Europe are trying to pretend that he is not involved. Bush expects Hamas to dismantle. Hamas expects to be one of the major Palestinian parties and expects to be able to veto the peace accords if it feels that conditions are unjust in its eyes. This suggests a complex set of intrigues behind the media illusions which play in the U.S. The thing to watch for is an unresolvable issue or demand which finally ignites a response and counter-response during late August or early September. At some point, possibly, one or more of the armed Palestinian guerilla groups may feel it needs to demonstrate that something is non-negotiable and affairs literally blow up again.

If they can get through the middle of September, at least two weeks past the Earth | Mars alignment, we may in fact be witnessing something wonderfully positive in Palestine. Expect little to be solidly accomplished during July and August, these are the dog days and all of Europe is on vacation for a good portion of the time, not to mention the U.S. and the Middle East.

WATCH MID to LATE AUGUST. Various intuitive impressions are flowing from many sources about August and the Earth | Mars alignment. This may be related to Palestine, it may be related to something else.

THE STRATEGIC SITUATION: For predictions related to the mess in Palestine, the Middle East, and the Bush political era, check out

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/
ecbulletins/statusreports_political.htm#strategic

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VERY LITTLE CHANGE as of July 9, 2003

The situation in LIBERIA remains fascinating: As reported last week, we can see this week at least three notably undeniable correlations. One is that the conflict spilled over into international attention during a sunspot peak. Second is that order began to return with the slide down from the peak. Third is, OH WHAT A DIFFERENCE OIL MAKES IN HOW AMERICA RESPONDS TO INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS. N’est pas? Is there anyone left or right in the U.S. who is still trying to argue that OIL had NOTHING to do with the invasion of Iraq?

The situation with CENTCOM may get interesting now that Franks has retired. The strategy he executed over Afghanistan and Iraq clearly failed in killing the enemy commands. Osama Bin Laden is now clearly advocating that his Jihadist forces cooperate with Saddam as he organizes a guerilla war. Neither area can be considered to be successfully conquered and occupied. Franks never deployed enough troops to do the job properly and the troops on the ground do not know how to occupy a country. Perhaps the same thing can be said for the U.S. military in general.

As things stand, the Vietnam analogy should be operative in your mind. Things are sinking into a protracted international guerilla war stretching across millions of square miles. Remember, like Ho Chi Minh, Osama and Saddam do not have to defeat the U.S. militarily to win this war. They need to bankrupt our confidence and fatigue our wallets to point where we simply quit.

This points clearly to American incompetence in dealing with foreign social systems and real enemies. For all of the technical virtuosity at their command, American leaders are weirdly inadequate to the challenge of real leadership.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SOCIAL POLICY WHICH ENGAGES PEOPLE AND LEADS THEM TO SOLUTIONS FOR THEIR LIVES. For this you need to dare to have vision. That’s leadership.

I believe it was Boss Tweed, a real American politician of the 19^th century who ran a first class political machine which won every election for a generation, who once remarked about the real secret to all politics. (If it wasn’t him who made this comment it was one of the other political machine managers). You make real loyal citizens, he observed, when you hire people off the street and make sure they have enough money to take care of their families. They will go anything for you, including voting as many times as you need. Boss Tweed’s political machine was essentially an urban employment agency of last resort.

What needs to be done in Iraq immediately is to commission a civic work force of about 1 million Iraqis who are paid relatively high wages (for that area of the world) with the promise to commission another one million during the next two years. Then you sit them down and begin to sort out who is going to do what, including how to monitor every road and intersection in the country to get rid of the Baathist guerillas. There is no rocket science here, in six months time you would have such a ripple of prosperity flowing through Iraq that even the Baathists would dump Saddam. But as things stand, the only entrepreneurial opportunity for the man on the street in Baghdad are Saddam’s rewards for sniping Americans.

THAT’S WHY SADDAM’S POWER PERSISTS.

Ditto Afghanistan.

Ditto Palestine.