Michael Jackson passed away on Thursday, June 25th, 2009, from cardiac arrest. He was 50 years old.

CNN had reported that Jackson was in a coma:

Entertainer Michael Jackson is in a coma after being taken to a hospital on Thursday after suffering cardiac arrest, sources briefed on the situation told CNN. Brian Oxman, a Jackson family attorney, said he was told by brother Randy Jackson that Michael Jackson collapsed at his home in west Los Angeles Thursday morning. Family members were told of the situation and were either at the hospital or en route, Oxman said. Fire Capt. Steve Ruda told CNN a 911 call came in from a west Los Angeles residence at 12:21 p.m. Ruda said Jackson was treated and transferred to the UCLA Medical Center. At the medical center, every entrance to the emergency room was blocked by security guards. Even hospital staffers were not permitted to enter. A few people stood inside the waiting area, some of them crying.

Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors in the afternoon.

Jackson, AKA The King of Pop, was the seventh of nine children in a well-known musical family.
He was survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince “Blanket” Michael Jackson II.

Jim Cramer’s infamous Bear Stearns segment is particularly cringe-inducing.

Escalating things, Cramer responded on his show (9-Mar-09):

Jon Stewart hits back:

It all comes culminates in Jim Cramer making an appearance on The Daily Show (Thursday, March 12th, 2009), where Cramer is pretty much eviscerated:

Rick Santelli of CNBC went on a rant while on the floor of the Chicago Exchange.

The government is promoting bad behavior… I’ll tell you what, I have an idea. The new Administration’s big on computers and technology. How about this, President and new Administration, why don’t you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the loser’s mortgages, or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people who actually carry the water instead of drink the water…

This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom, and can’t pay their bills? President Obama are you listening?

One of the floor traders says: How about we all stop paying our mortgage! It’s a moral hazard’…

Slated to appear on John Stewart’s The Daily Show, he ends up cancelling. It was a mistake, as Stewart goes off on him and CNBC:

This of course would escalate into the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer debacle, which you can read about here.

The other interesting effect of Santelli’s rant involves the rise of the tea parties.

At the DC Tea Party on Feb. 27, 2009, hundreds of taxpayers rallied in support of free markets and limited governments - and against endless bailouts. Even Michelle Malkin makes an appearance.

Obama will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on January 20th, 2009. He will also be the first African-American president.

From WikiPedia:

The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by Islamic extremists on the United States of America on September 11, 2001. Nineteen terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners (United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11) into the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane into each tower (1 WTC and 2 WTC), resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterward and irreparable damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner (American Airlines Flight 77) into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft (United Airlines Flight 93) attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers; that plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In addition to the 19 hijackers, 2,973 people died; another 24 are missing and presumed dead. The victims were predominantly civilians.

The terrorists reportedly took control of the aircraft by using knives and box-cutter knives to kill flight attendants and at least one pilot or passenger, including the captain of Flight 11, John Ogonowski.

Timeline of Events

American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767-200, crashed into the northern side of the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time
United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767-200, crashed into the South Tower at 9:02:59 a.m. EDT and was covered by live TV broadcasters.
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757-200, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37:46 a.m. EDT
United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757-200, crashed in a field in southwest Pennsylvania just outside of Shanksville, about 150 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., at 10:03:11 a.m. EDT. The crash in Pennsylvania resulted from the passengers of the airliner attempting to regain control from the hijackers.

The twin towers collapsed soon after due to structural failure.

The Terrorists

Collectively, nineteen attackers boarded the four planes. Fifteen of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.

Within 72 hours of the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to identify the 19 deceased hijackers. Mohamed Atta’s luggage, which did not make the connection from his Portland flight onto American Airlines Flight 11, contained important clues about the hijackers and their plans.

On the day of the attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies also intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden. The United States government determined that al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, bore responsibility for the attacks, with the FBI stating that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion.

Motives

Statements of motives prior to September 11, 2001

Since 1996 Osama bin Laden has stated in public proclamations (fatwas) and in interviews with journalists his common list of grievances which he cites as the reason for his declaration of war against the U.S.

According to official U.S. government sources, the September 11 attacks were consistent with the mission statement of al-Qaeda. The overarching motivation for the present al-Qaeda campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden and others.

The fatwa lists three “crimes and sins” committed by the Americans:

* U.S. military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.
* U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people.
* U.S. support of Israel.

The fatwa states that the United States:

* Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.
* Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.
* Supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people.
* Has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries.
* Intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force.
* Supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine.

Lew Rockwell puts it succinctly:

Every close observer of the events of those days knows full well that these crimes were acts of revenge for US policy in the Muslim world. The CIA and the 911 Commission said as much, the terrorists themselves proclaimed it, and Osama underscored the point by naming three issues in particular: US troops in Saudi Arabia, US sanctions against Iraq, and US funding of Israeli expansionism.

Response

Nous sommes tous Américains

The attacks were denounced by mainstream media and governments worldwide, with the headline of France’s Le Monde newspaper summing up the international mood of sympathy: “We Are All Americans” .

Gratitude toward uniformed public-safety workers (dubbed “first responders”), and especially toward firefighters, was widely expressed in light of both the drama of the risks taken on the scene and the high death toll among the workers. Many police officers and rescue workers elsewhere in the country took leaves of absence to travel to New York City to assist in the grim process of recovering bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations also saw a surge in the weeks after 9/11.

Approximately one month after the attacks, the United States led a broad coalition of international forces in the removal of the Taliban regime for harboring the al-Qaeda organization. Pakistan provided the U.S. a number of military airports and bases for its attack on the Taliban regime and arrested over 600 supposed al-Qaeda members, whom it handed over to the U.S. Numerous countries, including the UK, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe introduced “anti-terrorism” legislation.

Following the attacks, George W. Bush’s job approval rating soared to 86%. On September 20, 2001, the president spoke before the nation and a joint session of the United States Congress, regarding the events of that day, the intervening nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and his intent in response to those events. In this speech he gave the remembered phrase Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

In addition, the highly visible role played by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani won him high praise nationally and in New York.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration declared a war on terrorism, with the stated goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks

Effects

The effects of September 11, 2001, were multi-fold.

Economic - When the stock markets reopened on September 17, (after the longest closure since the Great Depression in 1929), the Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8920, its biggest-ever one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1369.7 points (14.3%), its largest one-week point drop in history. U.S. stocks lost $1.2 trillion in value for the week. As of 2007, Wall and Broad Streets near the New York Stock Exchange remained barricaded and guarded to prevent a physical attack upon the building. The economy of Lower Manhattan, which by itself is the third-largest business district in the United States was devastated.

Health - The toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants: 50% nonfibrous material and construction debris; 40% glass and other fibers; 9.2% cellulose; and 0.8% asbestos, lead, and mercury. There were also unprecedented levels of dioxin and PAHs from the fires which burned for three months.

Cultural - Many motion pictures at the time that featured the Twin Towers had to either reshoot scenes of digitally remove the towers from the final print. This included Zoolander, Men in Black 2, and Spiderman. Documentaries and memorials were everywhere. The American flag made a resurgence, appearing on clothing and automobiles. Air travel became more difficult as security was tightened. The War on Terrorism began and with it came the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security, and the color-coded security advisory system.

Whatever your political leaning, there can be no doubt that one cannot discuss the events of the beginning of the 21st century without discussing 9/11 and the issue of terrorism. The events of 9-11 have left an indelible mark upon the United States and the world.

2000, Zero Zero, Party Over, Oops, Outta time

Back in the 60s (er, I mean the 1960s), there was no Internet. Hard to believe, but it’s true - the Internet did not exist. In addition, there were no flat panel displays - people used these clunky monitor things that only presented output in this ugly green monochrome color. And they used - get this - punch cards! Computer memory was extremely expensive back then - so, naturally, computer programmers tried to cut as many corners as possible to save program space. These days, companies like Microsoft churn out bloated Windows code - hey, if your computer is too slow, just go to CompUSA and buy some more memory. But back then this wasn’t an option. One of the ways programmers saved space was to use two digits to represent the year, instead of four. You know, “73″ instead of “1973″, etc. In the old school programming days, people used COBOL (Completely Obsolete Boring Old Language), which processed numbers in their ASCII formats. It also used this bizarre thing called a PICTURE Clause, but really nobody in the world should ever be allowed to know about it. The C language had its issues too. A library function to retrieve the current year actually subtracted 1900 from the value, so in the year 2000 you could conceivably encounter a program that told you it was the year 100, which would really suck because they didn’t have television or microwave ovens in that year. This is the essence of what people in the late 90s called the Y2K Bug.

Bugging Out: The Y2K Problem

As Answers.com says:

Dates Are Critical
Many financial transactions match dates in database records with today’s date or with a future date. If the system does not handle dates correctly, bills do not get paid, notices do not get triggered and actions are not taken. After 2000, any system that could not recognize the millennium change caused erroneous output with applications that dealt with future dates.

What’s funny is that back in the day, programmers didn’t expect that their crappy programs would still be in use by the year 2000. What they didn’t understand is that all programmers throughout time are lazy. Why write a brand new crappy program if you can steal somebody else’s? With memory becoming cheaper, you could still have that mainframe operating awhile longer. And what about that function that returns dates? What about that customer database program? It’s dusty but it still works like a charm - no need to mess with it! And don’t forget the need for many programs to have backwards compatibility.

Alan Greenspan:

I’m one of the culprits who created this problem. I used to write those programs back in the 1960s and 1970s, and was proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space out of my program by not having to put a 19 before the year. Back then, it was very important. We used to spend a lot of time running through various mathematical exercises before we started to write our programs so that they could be very clearly delimited with respect to space and the use of capacity.It never entered our minds that those programs would have lasted for more than a few years. As a consequence, they are very poorly documented. If I were to go back and look at some of the programs I wrote 30 years ago, I would have one terribly difficult time working my way through step-by-step.

John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense

The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of the El Niño and there will be nasty surprises around the globe.

The mainstream media and pop-culture jumped all over this Y2K Problem. The issue was ubiquitous in the year 1999.

My personal favorite is the Simpsons Halloween episode, where Homer forgot to check for the Y2K bug at the Springfield nuclear power plant.

Not everybody thought this was a problem, of course.

Computer programmers create actual, brilliant programs out of mere ideas in their heads. For them to go through millions of lines of old code (many armed with rapid, automated testing tools) to find every date-field is child’s play, not to mention damn dull. Oh-oh! — don’t forget about the million/billion/zillion embedded chips and embedded systems. These cannot be re-programmed or upgraded. These are molded into solid cement and are unchangeable. You cannot get out of bed without them. Examine how many are actually date-aware… You’ll find that most aren’t.

No matter… old timer COBOL programmers were overjoyed that their services were needed once again (talk about ensuring job security!).

Wiki:

Special committees were set up by governments to monitor remedial work and contingency planning, particularly by crucial infrastructures such as telecommunications, utilities and the like, to ensure that the most critical services had fixed their own problems and were prepared for problems with others. It was only the safe passing of the main “event horizon” itself, January 1, 2000, that fully quelled public fears.

What happened on January 1st, 2000?

Well, it seems Japan had the most issues:

• Ishikawa, Japan: radiation-monitoring equipment failed at midnight, but officials said there was no risk to the public.
• Onagawa, Japan: an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant at two minutes after midnight.
• Japan: at two minutes past midnight, Osaka Media Port, a telecommunications carrier, found errors in the date management part of the company’s network. The problem was fixed by 2:43 a.m. and no services were disrupted.
• Japan: NTT Mobile Communications Network reported on January 1 that some models of mobile telephones were deleting new messages received, rather than the older messages, as the memory filled up.
• Australia: bus-ticket-validation machines in two states failed to operate.
• USA: 150 slot machines at race tracks in Delaware stopped working.
• USA: the web site of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which runs the master clock that keeps the country’s official time, reported that the date was Jan. 1, 19100.
• France: the web site of the national weather forecasting service, Meteo France, displayed a map of Saturday’s weather forecast with the date 01/01/19100.

Otherwise, life went on as usual.

As Y2KHoax says:

Planes did not fall out of the sky, elevators did not drop, governments did not collapse. The Year 2000 arrived with a yawn.

The total cost of the work done in preparation for Y2K was 300 billion US dollars. Whether it was worth it is a contested issue. Many people saw the Y2K bug as hype and fear-mongering, one of many end-of-the-world scenarios that was bound to crop up the closer the world got to 2000. Others felt justified, since not much happened on January 1st (because we fixed the problem, see!). We may never know what effect the upgrades may have had or didn’t have, but one thing’s for certain - COBOL still sucks.

(full version can be read here, here, here, and here)

You can listen to the speech by clicking these links:

au
format
rm format
mp3 format

Coverage of the speech at PBS is here.
CNN coverage.

Editor Note:

Bill Clinton had a tendency to be long-winded in his speeches, so I wanted to try to edit down his 2000 address to be more accessible. However, due to the sheer number of proposals in the speech, I find that I can only edit it down so much. (This must be a record for the number of “We will”’s, “I ask you”’s, and “I propose”’s this speech contains). As the Washington Post observed: Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address marked a return to the activist agenda he outlined in his first speeches to Congress, before the GOP took over Congress in the 1994 elections and the president declared in his 1996 State of the Union that the "era of big government is over."

CNN commented that Clinton was interrupted 128 times for applause during his 89-minute address — his longest yet, beating his 1995 address by eight minutes.

I have taken the liberty of bolding passages I found particularly interesting.

Bill Gordon

***

We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has
our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with
so little internal crisis and so few external threats. Never before
have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound
obligation to build the more perfect union of our founders’ dreams.

We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic
growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years;
the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African American and Hispanic
unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back budget surpluses in
42 years. And next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic
growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. And our economic
revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: crime
down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years; teen births down seven
years in a row; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half to
their lowest levels in 30 years.

Eight years ago, it was not so clear to most Americans there would be much to
celebrate in the year 2000. Then our nation was gripped by economic distress,
social decline, political gridlock. The title of a best-selling book asked:
“America: What Went Wrong?” In the best traditions of our nation, Americans
determined to set things right. We restored the vital center, replacing
outmoded ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values:
opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a community of all Americans.
We reinvented government, transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas
that stress both opportunity and responsibility, and give our people the
tools they need to solve their own problems. With the smallest federal
work force in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record surpluses,
and doubled our investment in education. We cut crime, with 100,000 community
police and the Brady law, which has kept guns out of the hands of half
a million criminals. We ended welfare as we knew it, requiring work while
protecting health care and nutrition for children, and investing more in
child care, transportation, and housing to help their parents go to work.
We’ve helped parents to succeed at home and at work, with family leave,
which 20 millions Americans have now used to care for a newborn child or
a sick loved one. We’ve engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service
through AmeriCorps, while helping them earn money for college. In 1992,
we just had a road map; today, we have results.

But even more important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams.
But we must not let this confidence drift into complacency. For we, all
of us, will be judged by the dreams and deeds we pass on to our children.
And on that score, we will be held to a high standard, indeed, because
our chance to do good is so great. My fellow Americans, we have crossed
the bridge we built to the 21st century. Now, we must shape a 21st century
American revolution of opportunity, responsibility and community. We
must be now, as we were in the beginning, a new nation.

To 21st century America, let us pledge these things:

Every child will begin school ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed.

Every family will be able to succeed at home and at work, and no child will be
raised in poverty.

We will assure quality, affordable health care, at last, for all Americans.

We will pay off our national debt for the first time since 1835.

We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a safer, cleaner planet.

America will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity, and the far frontiers
of science and technology. And we will become at last what our founders pledged us
to be so long ago - one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all. These are great goals, worthy of a great nation.
We will not reach them all this year. Not even in this decade. But we
will reach them. Let us remember that the first American Revolution was
not won with a single shot; the continent was not settled in a single
year. The lesson of our history and the lesson of the last seven years
is that great goals are reached step by step, always building on our
progress, always gaining ground.

I ask you to pass a real patients’ bill of rights.

I ask you to pass common-sense gun safety legislation.

I ask you to pass campaign finance reform.

I ask you to vote up or down on judicial nominations and other important appointees.

I ask you - I implore you - to raise the minimum wage.

Now, two years ago - let me try to balance the seesaw here - two years ago,
as we reached across party lines to reach our first balanced budget, I
asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining
our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are
doing something that would have seemed unimaginable seven years ago. We
are actually paying down the national debt. Now, if we stay on this path,
we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 just years now and make America
debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. Beyond
paying off the debt, we must ensure that the benefits of debt reduction
go to preserving two of the most important guarantees we make to every
American - Social Security and Medicare. Tonight, I ask you to work
with me to make a bipartisan down payment on Social Security reform by
crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security
Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years.

…we need a 21st century revolution in education, guided by our faith that every single
child can learn. … That means quality pre-school and after-school,
the best trained teachers in the classroom, and college opportunities
for all our children. For seven years now, we’ve worked hard to improve
our schools, with opportunity and responsibility - investing more, but
demanding more in turn. Reading, math, college entrance scores are up.
Some of the most impressive gains are in schools in very poor neighborhoods.
But all successful schools have followed the same proven formula: higher
standards, more accountability, and extra help so children who need it
can get it to reach those standards. I have sent Congress a reform plan
based on that formula. It holds states and school districts accountable
for progress, and rewards them for results. Each year, our national government
invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It is time to support what
works and stop supporting what doesn’t.

…Let’s double our investment to help states and districts turn around their
worst-performing schools, or shut them down.

Let’s double our investments in after-school and summer school programs, which
boost achievement and keep people off the streets and out of trouble.

Since 1993, we’ve nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its
quality.

I ask you for another $1 billion for Head Start, the largest increase in
the history of the program.

We know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers. For
two years in a row, Congress has supported my plan to hire 100,000 new
qualified teachers to lower class size in the early grades. I thank you
for that, and I ask you to make it three in a row. And to make sure all
teachers know the subjects they teach, tonight I propose a new teacher
quality initiative - to recruit more talented people into the classroom,
reward good teachers for staying there, and give all teachers the training
they need.

We know charter schools provide real public school choice. When I became President,
there was just one independent public charter school in all America. Today,
thanks to you, there are 1,700.

I ask you now to help us meet our goal of 3,000 charter schools by next
year.

We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet, and we’re getting
there. In 1994, only 3 percent of our classrooms were connected. Today,
with the help of the Vice President’s E-rate program, more than half of
them are. And 90 percent of our schools have at least one Internet connection.

But we cannot finish the job when a third of all our schools are in serious
disrepair. Many of them have walls and wires so old, they’re too old for
the Internet. So tonight, I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make
immediate and urgent repairs; and again, to help build or modernize 6,000
more, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms. I
ask all of you to help me double our bipartisan Gear-Up program, which
provides mentors for disadvantaged young people. If we double it, we can
provide mentors for 1.4 million of them. Let’s also offer these kids from
disadvantaged backgrounds the same chance to take the same college test-prep
courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores.

To make the American Dream achievable for all, we must make college affordable
for all. For seven years, on a bipartisan basis, we have taken action toward
that goal: larger Pell grants, more affordable student loans, education
IRAs, and our HOPE scholarships, which have already benefitted 5 million
young people.

…I propose a landmark $30-billion college opportunity tax cut - a middle
class tax deduction for up to $10,000 in college tuition costs.

We need a 21st century revolution to reward work and strengthen families,
by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important
work of all - raising children. That means making sure every family has
health care and the support to care for aging parents, the tools to bring
their children up right, and that no child grows up in poverty.

From my first days as President, we’ve worked to give families better access
to better health care. In 1997, we passed the Children’s Health Insurance
Program - CHIP - so that workers who don’t have coverage through their
employers at least can get it for their children. So far, we’ve enrolled
2 million children; we’re well on our way to our goal of 5 million. But
there are still more than 40 million of our fellow Americans without health
insurance - more than there were in 1993. Tonight I propose that we
follow Vice President Gore’s suggestion to make low income parents eligible
for the insurance that covers their children.

I want to ask you to let people between the ages of 55 and 65 - the fastest
growing group of uninsured - buy into Medicare. And this year I propose
to give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one.

When the baby boomers retire, Medicare will be faced with caring for twice as
many of our citizens; yet, it is far from ready to do so. My generation
must not ask our children’s generation to shoulder our burden. We simply
must act now to strengthen and modernize Medicare. My budget includes a
comprehensive plan to reform Medicare, to make it more efficient and competitive.
And it dedicates nearly $400 billion of our budget surplus to keep Medicare
solvent past 2025.

And, at long last, it also provides funds to give every senior a voluntary choice
of affordable coverage for prescription drugs. Lifesaving drugs are an
indispensable part of modern medicine. No one creating a Medicare program
today would even think of excluding coverage for prescription drugs. Yet
more than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage
which can lengthen and enrich their lives. Millions of older Americans
who need prescription drugs the most pay the highest prices for them. In
good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all
our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs.

Record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home.
It’s a loving, but a difficult and often very expensive choice. Last year,
I proposed a $1,000 tax credit for long-term care. Frankly, it wasn’t enough.
This year, let’s triple it, to $3,000. But this year, let’s pass it.

We also have to make needed investments to expand access to mental health
care. Taken together, these proposals would mark the largest investment
in health care in the 35 years since Medicare was created - the largest
investment in 35 years.

We must also make investments that reward work and support families. Nothing
does that better than the Earned Income Tax Credit - the EITC.

In my very first address to you, I asked Congress to greatly expand this credit;
and you did. As a result, in 1998 alone, the EITC helped more than 4.3
million Americans work their way out of poverty toward the middle class.
That’s double the number in 1993.

I propose another major expansion of the EITC: to reduce the marriage penalty,
to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work and also, to expand
the tax credit for families that have more than two children. It punishes people
with more than two children today. Our proposal would allow families
with three or more children to get up to $1,100 more in tax relief.

Today, the female unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 46 years. Yet,
women still only earn about 75 cents for every dollar men earn. We must
do better, by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws;
training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs; and passing the Paycheck
Fairness Act.

Many working parents spend up to a quarter - a quarter - of their income on
child care. Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about 2
million children. My child care initiative, before you now, along with
funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better,
safer and more affordable for another 400,000 children. For hard-pressed
middle-income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit.
And I believe strongly we should take the next big step and make that tax
credit refundable for low-income families. For people making under $30,000
a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child care costs.

We should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth.
That’s the idea behind the Individual Development Accounts, the IDAs. I
ask you to take that idea to a new level, with new Retirement Savings Accounts
that enable every low- and moderate-income family in America to save for
retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education. I
propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar,
every year they save. And I propose to give a major new tax credit to any
small business that will provide a meaningful pension to its workers.

Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting
all children out of poverty. We’ve doubled child support collections since
1992. And I’m proposing to you tough new measures to hold still more fathers
responsible.

If we take the steps I’ve just discussed, we can go a long, long way toward
empowering parents to succeed at home and at work, and ensuring that
no child is raised in poverty. We can make these vital investments in
health care, education, support for working families, and still offer
tax cuts to help pay for college, for retirement, to care for aging parents,
to reduce the marriage penalty. We can do these things without forsaking
the path of fiscal discipline that got us to this point here tonight. Indeed, we must make these investments and
these tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and
extends the life of Social Security and Medicare and pays down the national
debt.

Crime in America has dropped for the past seven years - that’s the longest decline
on record - thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community
police, sensible gun safety laws, and effective prevention. But nobody
- nobody here, nobody in America - believes we’re safe enough.

So again, I ask you to set a higher goal.

Last fall, Congress supported my plan to hire, in addition to the 100,000 community
police we’ve already funded, 50,000 more, concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods.
I ask your continued support for that.

Soon after the Columbine tragedy, Congress considered common-sense gun legislation,
to require Brady background checks at the gun shows, child safety locks
for new handguns, and a ban on the importation of large-capacity ammunition
clips. With courage and a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President, the
Senate faced down the gun lobby, stood up for the American people, and
passed this legislation. But the House failed to follow suit.

We must strengthen our gun laws and enforce those already on the books better. Federal gun crime
prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But we must do more.

I propose to hire more federal and local gun prosecutors and more ATF agents
to crack down on illegal gun traffickers and bad-apple dealers.

Every state in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to
have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases.

Now, specifically, I propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers
must first have a photo license from their state showing they passed
the Brady background check and a gun safety course, before they get the
gun.

the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is
nine times higher than in the other 25 industrialized countries combined.
Now, technologies now exist that could lead to guns that can only be fired
by the adults who own them.

I ask Congress to fund research into smart gun technology, to save these children’s
lives.

You know, every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media
on their children. I want to begin by thanking the entertainment industry
for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and
video and Internet games. But, frankly, the ratings are too numerous, diverse
and confusing to be really useful to parents.

So tonight, I ask the industry to accept the First Lady’s challenge to develop
a single voluntary rating system for all children’s entertainment that
is easier for parents to understand and enforce.

Now, to keep our historic economic expansion going - the subject of a lot of
discussion in this community and others - I believe we need a 21st century
revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, hire new workers
right here in America - in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and Native
American reservations. … I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives
to invest in America’s new markets they now have to invest in markets overseas.

I propose a large New Markets tax credit and other incentives to spur $22 billion in
private-sector capital to create new businesses and new investments in
our inner cities and rural areas.

I also ask you to make special efforts to address the areas of our nation
with the highest rates of poverty - our Native American reservations and
the Mississippi Delta. My budget includes $110-million initiative to
promote economic development in the Delta, and a billion dollars to increase
economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for our
Native American communities. In this new century - we should begin
this new century by honoring our historic responsibility to empower the
first Americans.

There’s another part of our American community in trouble tonight - our family
farmers. When I signed the Farm Bill in 1996, I said there was great danger
it would work well in good times, but not in bad. Well, droughts, floods,
and historically low prices have made these times very bad for the farmers.
We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land
conservation, and create some new markets for them by expanding our programs
for bio-based fuels and products.

Opportunity for all requires something else today - having access to a computer and
knowing how to use it My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st century
skills, and it creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve
adults.

To realize the full possibilities of this economy, we must reach beyond
our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers
and building new networks among nations and individuals, and economies
and cultures: globalization.

It’s the central reality of our time. Of course, change this profound is both
liberating and threatening to people. But there’s no turning back. And
our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other - if we
understand, and act on, the realities of interdependence. We have to be
at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and a good
partner. We have to recognize that we cannot build our future without helping
others to build theirs.

those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade, we have to ensure
that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating
abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker
protection. But others must recognize that open markets and rule-based
trade are the best engines we know of for raising living standards, reducing
global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow
of ideas.

We have to make developing economies our partners in prosperity. That’s
why I would like to ask you again to finalize our groundbreaking African
and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives. But globalization is about more
than economics. Our purpose must be to bring together the world around
freedom and democracy and peace, and to oppose those who would tear it
apart. Here are the fundamental challenges I believe America must meet
to shape the 21st century world.

we must continue to encourage our former adversaries, Russia and China,
to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being
held back today from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy
of communism, an economy in turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in
Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense
of freedom. But think how much has changed in the past decade: 5,000
former Soviet nuclear weapons taken out of commission; Russian soldiers
actually serving with ours in the Balkans; Russian people electing their
leaders for the first time in a thousand years; and in China, an economy
more open to the world than ever before.

…we should support those Russians who are struggling for a democratic, prosperous
future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help Russia to
safeguard weapons and materials that remain. …I believe Congress should
support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing
Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China as soon as possible this year. I
think you ought to do it for two reasons. First of all, our markets are
already open to China; this agreement will open China’s markets to us.
And, second, it will plainly advance the cause of peace in Asia and promote
the cause of change in China.

We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting
peace; building peace in Northern Ireland; working for peace in East Timor
and Africa; promoting reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and in Cyprus;
working to defuse these crises between India and Pakistan; in defending
human rights and religious freedom.

we should be proud of the men and women of our Armed Forces and those of
our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, enabling a million
people to return to their homes.

A third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology
from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine
our defenses. Keep in mind, the same technological advances that have shrunk cell phones
to fit in the palms of our hands can also make weapons of terror easier
to conceal and easier to use. We must meet this threat by making
effective agreements to restrain nuclear and missile programs in North
Korea; curbing the flow of lethal technology to Iran; preventing Iraq
from threatening its neighbors; increasing our preparedness against chemical
and biological attack; protecting our vital computer systems from hackers
and criminals; and developing a system to defend against new missile
threats - while working to preserve our ABM missile treaty with Russia. I
predict to you, when most of us are long gone, but some time in the next
10 to 20 years, the major security threat this country will face will
come from the enemies of the nation state: the narco-traffickers
and the terrorists and the organized criminals, who will be organized
together, working together, with increasing access to ever-more sophisticated
chemical and biological weapons. I also want to ask you for a constructive
bipartisan dialogue this year to work to build a consensus which I hope
will eventually lead to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty.

I hope we can also have a constructive effort to meet the challenge that
is presented to our planet by the huge gulf between rich and poor. We cannot accept a
world in which part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy,
and the rest live on the bare edge of survival.

This is interesting - from Nigeria to Indonesia, more people got the right to
choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. We’ve
got to stand by these democracies - including, and especially tonight,
Colombia, which is fighting narco-traffickers, for its own people’s lives
and our children’s lives. I have proposed a strong two-year package
to help Colombia win this fight.

I’m going to send you new legislation to go after what these drug barons value
the most - their money.

In a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we
also have got to do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts
of the poorest countries, so they can invest in education, health care
and economic growth.

I also want to say that America must help more nations to break the bonds
of disease. Last year in Africa, 10 times as many people died from AIDS
as were killed in wars - 10 times. The budget I give you invests $150 million
more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. And today,
I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for diseases
like malaria, TB and AIDS.

I also want to mention our final challenge, which, as always, is the most
important. I ask you to pass a national security budget that keeps our
military the best-trained and best-equipped in the world, with heightened
readiness and 21st century weapons; which raises salaries for our servicemen
and women; which protects our veterans; which fully funds the diplomacy
that keeps our soldiers out of war; which makes good on our commitment
to pay our U.N. dues and arrears.

…one of the things I’m grateful for is the opportunity that the Vice President
and I have had to finally put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot
grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time.

As our economy has grown, we’ve rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste,
ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people. In the past three
months alone, we’ve helped preserve 40 million acres of roadless lands
in the national forests, created three new national monuments. But as our
communities grow, our commitment to conservation must continue to grow.

Tonight, I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife,
protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California redwoods
to the Florida Everglades. This
Lands Legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment
in land preservation ever proposed in this House.

Last year, the Vice President launched a new effort to make communities more
liberal - livable - liberal, I know. Wait a minute, I’ve got a punchline
now. That’s this year’s agenda; last year was livable, right? That’s what
Senator Lott is going to say in the commentary afterwards. To make our
communities more livable. This is big business. This is a big issue. What
does that mean? You ask anybody that lives in an unlivable community, and
they’ll tell you. They want their kids to grow up next to parks, not parking
lots; the parents don’t have to spend all their time stalled in traffic
when they could be home with their children. Tonight, I ask you to support
new funding for the following things, to make American communities for
liberal - livable. I’ve done pretty well with this speech, but I can’t
say that.

We need more funding for advanced transit systems.

We need more funding for saving open spaces in places of heavy development.

We need more funding for helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect
their waterways and enhance their quality of life.

The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming. The scientists tell
us the 1990s were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. If we
fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, deadly heat waves and
droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood, and economies
will be disrupted.

Many people in the United States - some people in this chamber - and lots of
folks around the world still believe you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions
without slowing economic growth. In the Industrial Age that may well have
been true. But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore.

New technologies make it possible to cut harmful emissions and provide even
more growth.

For example, just last week, automakers unveiled cars that get 70 to 80 miles
a gallon - the fruits of a unique research partnership between government
and industry. And before you know it, efficient production of bio-fuels
will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline.

To speed innovation in these kind of technologies, I think we should give
a major tax incentive to business for the production of clean energy,
and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the
next generation of super-efficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also ask the auto
industry to use the available technologies to make all new cars more
fuel-efficient right away.

In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be the key
not only to the health of the environment, but to miraculous improvements
in the quality of our lives and advances in the economy. Later this year, researchers will complete
the first draft of the entire human genome, the very blueprint of life.
It is important for all our fellow Americans to recognize that federal
tax dollars have funded much of this research, and that this and other
wise investments in science are leading to a revolution in our ability
to detect, treat, and prevent disease.

For example, researchers have identified genes that cause Parkinson’s, diabetes,
and certain kinds of cancer - they are designed precision therapies that
will block the harmful effect of these genes for good. Researchers already
are using this new technique to target and destroy cells that cause breast
cancer. Soon, we may be able to use it to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind
people to see - and listen to this - microchips that would actually directly
stimulate damaged spinal cords in a way that could allow people now paralyzed
to stand up and walk.

Information technology only includes 8 percent of our employment, but now it counts
for a third of our economic growth - along with jobs that pay, by the
way, about 80 percent above the private sector average. Again, we ought
to keep in mind, government-funded research brought supercomputers, the
Internet, and communications satellites into being.

Soon researchers will bring us devices that can translate foreign languages
as fast as you can talk; materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction
of the weight; and - this is unbelievable to me - molecular computers the
size of a tear drop with the power of today’s fastest supercomputers.

To accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science
and technology, I ask you to support my recommendation of an unprecedented
$3 billion in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest increase in
civilian research in a generation.

Now, these new breakthroughs have to be used in ways that reflect our values.
First and foremost, we have to safeguard our citizens’ privacy. Last year,
we proposed to protect every citizen’s medical record. This year, we will
finalize those rules. We’ve also taken the first steps to protect the privacy
of bank and credit card records and other financial statements. Soon I
will send legislation to you to finish that job. We must also act to prevent
any genetic discrimination whatever by employers or insurers.

No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There’s a new
spirit of service in America - a movement we’ve tried to support with AmeriCorps,
expanded Peace Corps, unprecedented new partnerships with businesses, foundations,
community groups. Partnerships, for example, like the one that enlisted
12,000 companies which have now moved 650,000 of our fellow citizens from
welfare to work. Partnerships to battle drug abuse, AIDS, teach young people
to read, save America’s treasures, strengthen the arts, fight teen pregnancy,
prevent violence among young people, promote racial healing.

But we should do more to help Americans help each other.

First, we should help faith-based organizations to do more to fight poverty and
drug abuse, and help people get back on the right track, with initiatives
like Second Chance Homes that do so much to help unwed teen mothers.

Second, we should support Americans who tithe and contribute to charities, but
don’t earn enough to claim a tax deduction for it. Tonight, I propose new
tax incentives that would allow low- and middle-income citizens who don’t
itemize to get that deduction.

We should do more to help new immigrants to fully participate in our community.
That’s why I recommend spending more to teach them civics and English.

And since everybody in our community counts, we’ve got to make sure everyone
is counted in this year’s census.

Within 10 years there will be no majority race in our largest state of California.
In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in America.
In a more interconnected world, this diversity can be our greatest strength.

Just in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a man dragged to death in Texas
just because he was black. We saw a young man murdered in Wyoming just
because he was gay. Last year, we saw the shootings of African Americans,
Asian Americans, and Jewish children just because of who they were. This
is not the American way, and we must draw the line.

I ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the Hate Crimes Prevention
Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And I ask you to reauthorize
the Violence Against Women Act.

Finally tonight, I propose the largest-ever investment in our civil rights laws
for enforcement,
because no American should be subjected to discrimination in finding
a home, getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan.

This fall, at the White House, Hillary had one of her millennium dinners, and
we had this very distinguished scientist there, who is an expert in this
whole work in the human genome. And he said that we are all, regardless
of race, genetically 99.9 percent the same. Now, you may find that uncomfortable
when you look around here. But it is worth remembering. We can laugh about
this, but you think about it. Modern science has confirmed what ancient
faiths has always taught: the most important fact of life is our common
humanity. Therefore, we should do more than just tolerate our diversity
- we should honor it and celebrate it.

My fellow Americans, every time I prepare for the State of the Union, I approach
it with hope and expectation and excitement for our nation. But tonight
is very special, because we stand on the mountain top of a new millennium.
Behind us we can look back and see the great expanse of American achievement;
and before us we can see even greater, grander frontiers of possibility.
We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present
progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies
over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to
make the most of it.

You know, when the framers finished crafting our Constitution in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Franklin stood in Independence Hall and he reflected on the carving
of the sun that was on the back of a chair he saw. The sun was low on the
horizon. So he said this - he said, “I’ve often wondered whether that sun
was rising or setting. Today, Franklin said, “I have the happiness to
know it’s a rising sun. Today, because each succeeding generation of Americans
has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers
of possibility, we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of Mr. Franklin’s
rising sun.

After 224 years, the American revolution continues. We remain a new nation. And
as long as our dreams outweigh our memories, America will be forever young.
That is our destiny. And this is our moment.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Daniel Powter’s Bad Day made it to the top of the year-end charts.

The 2006 top songs are compiled from various sources in no particular order:
Daniel Powter - Bad Day
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
James Blunt - You’re Beautiful
Nickelback - Photograph
Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous
Pussycat Dolls - Buttons
Cassie - Me&U
Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same
Sean Paul - Temperature
Shakira Featuring Wyclef Jean - Hips Don’t Lie
Justin Timberlake - SexyBack

Other 2006 Top Songs:

ZeroZeros Personal List of Top Urban Tunes of 2006

These are the R&B/hip-hop/urban tracks we liked in 2006:

Gnarls Barkley - Music*Plus

1. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Danger Mouse with Cee-Lo Green. Can’t go wrong now, can you?

*

Lady Sovereign - Fling on an ADIDAS hoodie and just boogie woogie

2. Lady Sovereign - Hoodie / Love Me or Hate Me [tie]
It’s a tie. We also like Public Warning, Random..look, just get the whole album Public Warning. Lady Soverign, M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal… U.K. is where it’s at.

*

3. Mr. Nogatco - Bionic Fuse / Dr. Octagon - Aliens (Subfocus Remix) [tie]
Kool Keith is back to rap about Space and Mars. (Spell Nogatco backwards, duh!). Get the whole album Nogatco Rd.. The Aliens tune in its original form is fine but the Subfocus mix is wonderful drum’n'bass. We might also suggest the album Project Polaroid.

*

4. T.I. - What You Know
Produced by some dude named Toomp(!). This is Dirty South at its finest. What you know about that?

*

5. Yung Joc - Goin’ Down / I Know You See It [tie]
Another tie. The first time we heard Yung Joc we knew right away he was from Hotlanta. Just try not to sing along with “I Know You See It”. Throw some D’s on the Caddy and meet us at the mall.

*

6. DJ Unk - Walk It Out
Another huge Atlanta tune. Man, we don’t even live in Atlanta… honest!

*

7. Young Dro - Shoulda Lean
More big-bass dirty south music. We’re starting to see a pattern here.

*

8. Chamillionaire featuring Krayzie Bone - Ridin’
Cops always tryin’ to catch us ridin’ dirty, too! Haters!

*

9. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
He brought it back and we can’t believe it. A DJ friend of ours said “Watch what happens when I throw this on.” She threw it on the decks and the whole dance floor blew up. There are some good mixes of the song out there as well.

*

10. Lil Jon featuring E-40 and Sean Paul - Snap Yo Fingers
More laid back beats and simple synthesizers. We are positive this stuff is bad for us. Damn you, Lil Jon.

2006 Top Songs: Honorable Mentions:

Jibbs - Chain Hang Low

*

D4L - Laffy Taffy