Friday, January 23, 2004

My company collects information on every court case filed in Lucas County that can affect real estate. Proofing that data was one of the jobs I acquired after the layoffs in October. Everyday I have to look at a list of people getting divorced, being foreclosed on or recently dead. And everyday I see the list of bankruptcies filed the day before. It's an unpleasant, daily insight into the local economy. The day President Bush delivered his State of the Union, 31 new bankruptcy cases were filed. The next day, when he visited Toledo--and blamed the manufacturing slump on frivolous medical lawsuits (an Agora exclusive, by the way)--23 new cases were filed. The January total stands at 385 through yesterday. 10,300 bankruptcies were filed in Northwest Ohio in 2003, exceeding in the previous record of 8,800 by nearly 20%. So far this year, the numbers are running slightly behind last year, but still well ahead of 2002. Things aren't getting any better, at least not by much and not quickly. Though expected, the figure nonetheless was staggering. More than 10,000 people and businesses filed bankruptcy last year in northwest Ohio, smashing a record by more than 1,500 cases. With December filings up 12 percent, the year[base ']s tally released yesterday was 10,381 cases for the 21 counties covered by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Toledo. Nearly all the cases were personal bankruptcies and sought forgiveness of, not a repayment schedule for, their debts. The previous year[base ']s record filings, at 8,853, had vaulted past the prior year[base ']s by nearly 1,000. High personal spending and reduced income from lost jobs or overtime have been credited as the main reasons behind the soaring numbers. Disturbing to a bankruptcy expert was not so much last year[base ']s figure but the ever-increasing number of filings since 1999. In fact, the 2003 number is nearly double the cases filed just four years earlier. [OE][OE]What we[base ']ve seen the last five or six years disobeys the historical cyclical patterns and such,[base '][base '] said David Fickel, clerk in charge of the Toledo court. 9:59:02 PM    comment []trackback []

Giving Up on WMDs By now you know that David Kay has stepped down from his position as the head of the US hunt for Iraqi WMDs--seen as indication that even the most insistent of hawks are now realizing that no prohibited weapons existed in Iraq in the recent past. His replacement has been characterized as a "skeptic" in press reports. "Skeptic" is fairly weak term for his thoughts on the WMD issue. This is what he said on The Newshour on January 9: The prospect of finding chemical weapons, biological weapons is close to nil at this point. They're talking to a lot of Iraqi scientists, anyone who has known where they are, they've spoken to. They've had every incentive to show them where they are and they have come up with nothing. [. . .] Bear in mind, compared to the inspectors when we were in Iraq, they've had access to all the country, access to all the scientists and military people; they've been offering rewards for people to turn in people. There has been every incentive in the world for the Iraqi people and the Iraqi scientists to come forward and say this is where the weapons are. That hasn't happened. "Close to nil". And this is the guy the administration chose to lead its weapons hunt. And yet, just this week, VP Dick Cheney said on NPR, "In terms of the question what is there now, we know prior to our going in, that he spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs." 8:20:00 PM    comment []trackback []

AWOL With attention focusing on Clark--and the recent jennings interview-- questions have arisen about Bush's record with the Air National Guard. It was the Boston Globe that printed a detailed look at the facts in 2000. Their original story has vanished behind the premium wall, but it is preserved here. An excerpt: On May 24, 1972, after he moved to Alabama, Bush made a formal request to do his equivalent training at the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Two days later, that unit's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Reese H. Bricken, agreed to have Bush join his unit temporarily. In Houston, Bush's superiors approved. But a higher headquarters disapproved, noting that Bricken's unit did not have regular drills. ''We met just one weeknight a month. We were only a postal unit. We had no airplanes. We had no pilots. We had no nothing,'' Bricken said in an interview. Last week, Lloyd said he is mystified why Bush's superiors at the time approved duty at such a unit. Inexplicably, months went by with no resolution to Bush's status - and no Guard duty. Bush's evident disconnection from his Guard duties was underscored in August, when he was removed from flight status for failing to take his annual flight physical. Finally, on Sept. 5, 1972, Bush requested permission to do duty for September, October, and November at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. Permission was granted, and Bush was directed to report to Turnipseed, the unit's commander. In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at the time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting. ''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,'' Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.'' Lloyd, the retired Texas Air Guard official, said he does not know whether Bush performed duty in Alabama. ''If he did, his drill attendance should have been certified and sent to Ellington, and there would have been a record. We cannot find the records to show he fulfilled the requirements in Alabama,'' he said. Indeed, Bush's discharge papers list his service and duty station for each of his first four years in the Air Guard. But there is no record of training listed after May 1972, and no mention of any service in Alabama. On that discharge form, Lloyd said, ''there should have been an entry for the period between May 1972 and May 1973.'' Said Lloyd, ''It appeared he had a bad year. He might have lost interest, since he knew he was getting out.'' In an effort last year to solve the puzzle, Lloyd said he scoured Guard records, where he found two ''special orders'' commanding Bush to appear for active duty on nine days in May 1973. That is the same month that Lieutenant Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian effectively declared Bush missing from duty. The always-excellent Orcinus has an update on the current state of the story. It is interesting to note that a the well-known blogger John Robb--a former Air Force pilot--asked on his weblog just what the Bush AWOL story was. Apparently this is the first he has heard of it. [Since he posted, some commenters have left links to further information--pretty good stuff]. Robb has never struck me as stupid or ill-informed, and as a military pilot he would have noticed any press reports of this sort if they had received the same attention that--say, for example-- Dean's cheerleading on Monday night did. Quite the impressive press corps we have, no? 6:59:37 PM    comment []trackback []