on the independent line, richard from laurel, maryland. caller: i am a very idealistic best thinking person but also been around longer enough to know -- idealistic-a thinking person but also been around longer enough to know that nothing can change in this country overnight, as far as getting out of afghanistan. yes, i would like to see it happen, but i know it won't simply because it is about the only thing going in our economy right now that is keeping things afloat. there is a tremendous military industrial complex that is being more of less catered to at this time. and the other issue is that, as long as the war is going on, the president has a more stringent set of powers that he is not willing to give up. those are my comments. thank you. host: "the new york times" -- more congressional action. the next call, south dakota on our republican line. gerry, you are on the air. caller: good morning. my history is one of unique -- i was in the marine corps back when carter sent us into the indian ocean for the first time, when tehran had o

host: dean for democrats from laurel, maryland. caller: good morning. my question is framed from a point of view that china has a long history of a lack of respect for individual rights. we hear recently workers committing suicide and plants that are largely producing american companies' goods. what does china need to do to begin to provide mature rights to workers? and is china willing and able to take those steps being a dictatorship? guest: well, i think that the premise of the question is correct. china does not provide workers the same rights that we would expect to find in most industrial economies. they have a single union that is controlled completely by the government. they don't negotiate on wages and working conditions. and companies tend to be in the driver's seat. having said that, the company that has a lot of attention recently for suicide has a fairly good record. they have better living conditions, higher wages, more amenities provided to their workers than in many other facilities. the big down side is workers are required to work sign

how to restructure a mechanism so the legitimate claims that are going to be presented not just to laurel as not just the fifi but over the coming months are dealt with -- not just bp but over the coming months have been dealt with. i hope by the time the chairman and i meet on wednesday that we have made sufficient progress so we can start seeing a structure that would be in place. it is too early at this point for me to make an announcement. by wednesday my hope is that we have made progress on this. all right? >> [inaudible] >> i am going to that had alan -- ted allen addresses, because we talked about it during our meeting of first, we have a number of different types of skimming -- during our meeting. >> first, we have a number of different types of c.m.e. = mystery of we have shallow water skimmers that are employed. they become the major reason for us to try to fight this battle of shore. we know what we're doing near the well head. we have to push the enemy offshore. we have over 400 skimming vessels that are actually for gannett. our goal is to take the smaller equipment that is