As I write this, Hurricane Noel (because he's not in the tropics anymore, he's more precisely referred to as Nor'Easter Noel), is bearing down on the New York City area.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has pledged the full support of his government to help more than a million people hit by floods in Tabasco state.
Mr Calderon said on a visit to Tabasco that the entire air force was involved in shifting supplies to the region where more than 800,000 are homeless.
Some 80% of the state is under water in the worst flooding for 50 years.
This isn't "shades of Katrina," this IS Katrina, times four!
800,000 homeless. 100% of the harvest in the region is gone, just gone. Livestock, not to mention people, dead. The oil industry has been forced to shut down three major oil ports in Mexico for the past week, after the storms that caused this flooding lifted one drilling rig and slammed it into another, killing twenty one workers.
And take a look at that map: Tabasco and Chiapas are not exactly the wealthy, tony states of Mexico. Chiapans are desperately poor, mostly banana farmers, and other tropical crops. 40% of Chiapans suffer from malnutrition, despite the bountiful harvest of fruit.
Tabasco is a bit better off. The state capital, Villahermosa, is a large, thriving city, and the Grijalva River has been kind to Tabasco.
Had been kind, I should say. My God, this is horrible!
I try not to repeat artists too frequently, but I post this new Bruce Springsteen song because, even though it's the number one rock song in America, and Bruce's album is the number one album in the country, period, Clear Channel has banned this song from the airwaves.
Why?
Here:
I got a coin in my palm I can make it disappear I got a card up my sleeve Name it and I’ll pull it out your ear I got a rabbit in my hat If you wanna come and see This is what we’ll be This is what we’ll be
I got shackles on my wrists Soon I’ll slip and I’ll be gone Chain me in a box in the river And Rising in the Sun Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see This is what we’ll be This is what we’ll be
I got a shiny saw blade All I need’s a volunteer I’ll cut you in half While your smilin’ at me And the freedom that your songs Drifting like a ghost amongst the trees This is what we’ll be This is what we’ll be
Now there’s a fire down below But it’s coming up here So leave everything you know Carry only what you feel On the road the sun is sinkin’ low Sombody’s hanging in the trees This is what we’ll be This is what we’ll be
Clear Channel says it's because Springsteen is too old...but that it's OK to play his older records, like "Dancing In The Dark"!
I smell a rat...a Republican rat....John Fogerty, Annie Lennox, and santana, all of whom at some point have come out against the invasion of Iraq and President Bush and the Republican warmongers in Congress, have apparently also been included in this blacklist.
NEW YORK (AP) — An Abyssinian cat from Missouri, named Cinnamon, has just made scientific history. Researchers have largely decoded her DNA, a step that may aid the search for treatments for both feline and human diseases.
The report adds cats to the roughly two dozen mammals whose DNA has been unraveled, a list that includes dogs, chimps, rats, mice, cows and of course, people.
Why add cats? They get more than 200 diseases that resemble human illnesses, and knowing the details of their genetic makeup should help in the search for vaccines and treatments, researchers say. The list includes a cat version of AIDS, SARS, diabetes, retinal disease and spina bifida, said Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute.
OK, so how I hep?
Simpel. Dey decoded de jeans, right? So wen dadby ware hes jeans, I scartch dem up, and dass how I hepped decode de jeans!
2) I'd fly first class to Singapore just to test this rule. Of course, I'd be alone, but I've never been very quiet.
3) Here's your fucking War On Christmas, BillO! Why don't you whiiiiiiiiiiiiine about how crass and commercialized our Lord's birthday has become, instead of picking on honest people who hold different religious beliefs, you sleazy bastard?!
4) Damn! So much for my new weight-loss program: burgers, beer, and laying out on the couch watching TV!
7) I don't think it will matter much after January, however.
8) Clinton plays the 'woman' card Interesting tactic. On the one hand, I'm thoroughly repulsed by this, no less than I would be if someone...say, Barack Obama...played the race card. On the other hand, you have it, throw it down. It will inoculate her for the general election.
10) I did think Stephen Colbert's run for the Presidency was a bad idea, particularly in this election with so much at stake. That's why I am running for "NotPresident". I felt the gravitas of the 2008 election was far too great for me to run a serious campaign parody. (donations accepted here)
12) According to Rudy Giuliani, you are twice as likely to die of prostate cancer in England as you are in America. His pointed jab was at socialized medicine, naturally. However, it turns out that you are much more likely to be diagnosed prostate cancer (same study) in the US as you are in Britain. Why? Because we have in place a publicly-financed (socialized medicine isn't just about treatment) publicity campaign which causes more Americans to get tested! I should point out that prostate cancer, if your life span is long enough, is a near-100% iron-clad guarantee to hit any male human (with small exceptions that are being studied now).
13) Are you a Young Republican who supports the invasion of Iraq, but can't lift a rifle and stand a post? Now you can serve your country and not worry about accidental discharge! Except maybe propulsive diarrhea...
For my part, my position on undocumented workers has always been clear: immigrants are the single biggest economic engine this country has ever had, bigger even than the westward expansion (which was caused and created mostly by immigrants anyway...it wasn't white Anglo-Saxons saying "there goes the neighborhood").
Ergo, any unnecessary restriction on immigration in my book is stupid, nevermind unenforceable. For the record, I am first-and-a-half generation American.
Comes Tuesday's debate, where Hillary was lambasted for giving a realistic, practical answer, if clumsily worded and even more clumsily defended later on, where it appeared she flip flopped on Eliot Spitzer's licensing plan for immigrants. Under his plan, which was defeated by the state Senate, undocumented immigrant workers would be allowed to obtain driver's licenses.
There's an awful lot of sense here, even if at first blush it seems unpalatable to people who don't share such a generous view about immigration as I do: encouraging them to get legal documentation to drive means they'll be more likely to purchase insurance for their driving, and that means a smaller insurance hit to the rest of us. As it is, they can't buy insurance.
If even a small percentage of "undocumentarians" get their licenses, we've made some headway against one of the more intractable problems of this issue: the costs to society.
Since Congress has abrogated its responsibility on the issue, as Hillary took pains to point out during the debate, Spitzer's plan makes an awful lot of sense. You're not giving anything away to anyone, but you are giving something back to the people who were here first: more security.
Obviously, if Congress later decides to take a stronger anti-immigration stance, Spitzer's plan can close up shop quickly. No harm, no foul.
So what this argument really is all about is the perception that, by having a driver's license, you are making an undocumented worker more American by making him more documented.
Rubbish. A driver's license is not a replacement for a tourist visa, much less a work permit or a green card. And now that the State Department has initiated a "passports for all international travelers" policy, it's not even like a driver's license will get you back into the country at the border.
When most people think of undocumented workers, they think of the day laborers at the corner 7-11 or gas station, waiting for pick up to a menial job (that pays so little, you couldn't get an American to do it anyway).
But many undocumented workers have been here for decades. They own & run businesses: bars, dry cleaners, subcontractors for the construction trades, vegetable stands, restaurants, newspaper delivery services, daycare, private school buses.
In other words, they already drive with the risk of knowing that even one accident can drive them out of business, and knowing that one accident will be unrecoverable to the person or property owner that is damaged.
And they contribute to society, especially to the economy. Believe it or not, they DO pay some taxes: sales tax, for example, or gasoline taxes.
Now, I'm not proposing throwing the borders wide open to anyone who has the gumption to clamber across, or throw out the visa program and let people stay as long as they like. We need some form of bouncer standing there, deciding who can and can't come in: who's going to add to our society while tossing those who means us harm.
But lets not blame immigrants for our own paranoia.
Yes, he really did say he saw an unidentified flying object.
Democratic presidential long-shot Rep. Dennis Kucinich claimed at Tuesday night’s debate he did indeed see a UFO when he was at the house of actress and close friend Shirley MacLaine in Graham, Washington.
MacLaine described the sighting in a book to be published in November, “Sage-ing While Age-Ing.”
I have a confession to make.
I was laying in bed in one of my country estates one night, when through the skylight, I saw a pencil point of light zip across the sky, and then drop down towards me.
Terrified, I was paralyzed with fear! I could not move. I could not speak. I sensed the UFO land on the lawn near my house. A great yellow glow throbbed at my window.
I couldn't see (I couldn't move my head), but I sensed a large grey head poke into my bedroom. Although I was not alone (this was years ago), I couldn't wake up my partner, who, having travelled here from England, was dead to the world asleep. I tried to nudge her, but to no avail.
And then I woke the fuck up and realized IT WAS A FUCKING DREAM! (so was the chick from England...)
But I also received a deep insight into UFO sightings and close encounters.
You aren't helping the reality-based community, Dennis...
A-frikkin'-men, is all I have to say, whatever the reasons:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — Deborah Pryce said she was fed up with ugly politics and being separated from her 5-year-old daughter. David L. Hobson is reaching the end of his time at the top of a powerful subcommittee. Ralph Regula will turn 83 in December, and he said he wanted to pass on his political wisdom to students and drive the flashy Thunderbird he had just bought.
None of these senior Republicans from Ohio, all of whom have announced plans not to seek another term in the House next year, cite their reduced status in the minority as a major factor in deciding to join the exodus of their party members from Congress. Nor do they mention the bleak prospect that running for re-election could mean spending millions of dollars and toughing out a difficult campaign, only to lose anyway.
Yet those factors are there, just beneath the surface, and make it easier to give up a job that they acknowledge is exceedingly hard to quit despite the travel, constituent complaints, constant demands of fund-raising and the all-but-permanent campaign to remain in office.
“Obviously, I would rather be in the majority,” said Mr. Regula, who has spent almost 50 years in public service, considering his state and federal offices. “But it is just time.”
Yeeeeeeeeeeah! But it's not about being in the minority, no sir...
14 House Republicans have announced their retirement, including most recently Presidential candidate Tom "I'm not nuts, I'm right! I really am!" Tancredo.
Among the Republican Senators retiring are Wayne Allard (CO), Larry Craig (ID), Chuck Hagel (NE), Pete Domenici (NM), and John Warner (VA). Democrats stand excellent chances in three of those races, and I wouldn't count out Larry Craig's seat changing hands, either, since people in his state may be completely frustrated with the lack of moral fibre in the Republican party and will punish them the only way they can.
Ted Stevens (AK) hasn't announced that he'll retire, but he will be under enormous pressure to as the FBI ramps up an investigation that involves him.
Three Democratic Senators have announced their retirement as well, according to The Times' article, and the Cook Political Report mentions an additional 13 possible Republican retirements, including Senators Inhofe (OK), Cochran (MS), and Congresscritter Shays (CT).
The curious bit about all this was how the Republicans mentioned here were all tired of the "ugly politics," as if they were innocent bystanders.
In point of fact, if you are one of 200+ people who are committed to a platform that includes division and rancor, you have to look to yourself first and foremost as the main cause of the problem. For Pryce in particular to whinge about ugly politics is ironic, since she's prominently featured in one of Ohio's worst politic scandals, the Bob Ney controversy.
Of course, when a party features such facilitators (*snark*) as Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, and Newt Gingrich, all of whom have carefully crafted a political atmosphere poisoned with hatred and oppression, it shouldn't surprise us to find out that even Republicans got their fair share of venom and spite hurled at them.
The sense you get in 2007, a year out, is that Republicans have realized they'd better fold up tents and regroup now, that Karl Rove's dream of a Republican hegemony to run concurrent to the American empire in the Middle East, was flawed and lethal to the party's chances. A new strategy is needed.
I'm only sad at the damage the country has had to suffer while these cowboys and yahoos have had to work out their anger management issues in public.
The largest dam in Iraq is at risk of an imminent collapse that could unleash a 20m (65ft) wave of water on Mosul, a city of 1.7m people, the US has warned. In May, the US told Iraqi authorities to make Mosul Dam a national priority, as a catastrophic failure would result in a "significant loss of life".
However, a $27m (£13m) US-funded reconstruction project to help shore up the dam has made little or no progress.
This dam repair bought to you by the same people who shored up the New Orleans levees ahead of Katrina should have been the warning.
Wait...let me guess...someone skimmed money off this deal, right?
In a report published on Tuesday, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said US-funded "short-term solutions" had yet to significantly solve the dam's problems.
SIGIR found multiple failures in several of the 21 contracts awarded to repair the dam.
Among the faults were faulty construction and delivery of improper parts, as well as projects which were not completed despite full payments having been made.
A Reagan-era diplomat turned entrepreneur, Bremer had recently proven his ability to transform rubble into gold by waiting exactly one month after the September 11 attacks to launch Crisis Consulting Practice, a security company selling “terrorism risk insurance” to multinationals. Bremer had two lieutenants on the economic front: Thomas Foley and Michael Fleischer, the heads of “private sector development” for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Foley is a Greenwich, Connecticut, multimillionaire, a longtime friend of the Bush family and a Bush-Cheney campaign “pioneer” who has described Iraq as a modern California “gold rush.” Fleischer, a venture capitalist, is the brother of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Neither man had any high-level diplomatic experience and both use the term corporate “turnaround” specialist to describe what they do. According to Foley, this uniquely qualified them to manage Iraq's economy because it was “the mother of all turnarounds.”
Many of the other CPA postings were equally ideological. The Green Zone, the city within a city that houses the occupation headquarters in Saddam's former palace, was filled with Young Republicans straight out of the Heritage Foundation, all of them given responsibility they could never have dreamed of receiving at home. Jay Hallen, a twenty-four-year-old who had applied for a job at the White House, was put in charge of launching Baghdad's new stock exchange. Scott Erwin, a twenty-one-year-old former intern to Dick Cheney, reported in an email home that “I am assisting Iraqis in the management of finances and budgeting for the domestic security forces.” The college senior's favorite job before this one? “My time as an ice-cream truck driver.” In those early days, the Green Zone felt a bit like the Peace Corps, for people who think the Peace Corps is a communist plot. It was a chance to sleep on cots, wear army boots, and cry “incoming”—all while being guarded around the clock by real soldiers.
The teams of KPMG accountants, investment bankers, think-tank lifers, and Young Republicans that populate the Green Zone have much in common with the IMF missions that rearrange the economies of developing countries from the presidential suites of Sheraton hotels the world over. Except for one rather significant difference: in Iraq they were not negotiating with the government to accept their “structural adjustments” in exchange for a loan; they were the government.
Anyone want to venture a guess as to how many of the provisional administrators went on to form Iraq-based corporations that bid on the projects, thus dipping even deeper into tax payer funds?
In 2004, as the Democratic national convention closed and weeks before the Republicans opened their hate-fest in NYC, a window of opportunity opened: John Kerry was the chosen nominee. George W Bush had not been formally coronated for his second term campaign.
Which meant that John Kerry was barred from spending his general election campaign funds because he accepted public funding, but also barred from spending the residue of his primary campaign warchest in the general election period.
Naturally, this void was quickly seized upon by Karl Rove and the other Republofascists, and attacks were quickly launched: Ted Sampley, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the proto-flipflop charges were launched against Kerry.
Kerry, not having media savvy (and frankly, was boring as hell in front of a camera), didn't take the magnitude of these attacks or their repercussions seriously. The campaign wrongly calculated that this three pronged assault on Kerry's character wouldn't resonate.
And in truth, the original charges did not (except the infamous "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it"). But the image people had in their minds early on was one of a man who spoke out of both sides of his mouth.
Not good. What Kerry needed was what Bill Clinton had: a rapid response team.
Move forward to 2008. Hillary Clinton is running and now that things are reaching crunch time, people on both sides of the aisle are launching attacks:
CONCORD, N.H., Oct. 29 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton came under pointed attack Monday by her two main rivals for the Democratic nomination, who said she was not being direct on Social Security and also suggested she was too cozy with Washington lobbyists.
The rivals, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, in campaign appearances in Iowa and here, took on Mrs. Clinton by name, escalating their attacks on her a day before they were to share a stage at the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.
PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Sunday blasted Hillary Rodham Clinton for talking about what she would do on the diplomatic front between her possible election and inauguration.
Clinton has told crowds she would send "distinguished Americans of both political parties to travel around the world on my behalf with a very simple message to the governments and the people alike: The era of cowboy diplomacy is over."
Giuliani, pointing to a story in Sunday's Des Moines Register about her statements, said such comments hurt the United States and undermine the balance of President Bush's term, which ends Jan. 20, 2009.
I'm going to ignore the laughability of Rudy's claim about "credibility". That's kind of like saying Jeffrey Dahmer must be a vegetarian.
When Barack Obama confronted Hillary Clinton's vote on Lieberman-Kyl, the Clinton campaign quickly mailed a detailed explanation of her vote to Iowans.
When Barack Obama told the New York Times that he would start to challenge Clinton more aggressively and picked her refusal to detail her Social Security fix as his first target, within 10 hours the Clinton campaign was on the air in New Hampshire with an ad attempting to inoculate any perceived vulnerabilities on Social Security.
Depending on the size of the buy, more New Hampshire residents probably saw the Clinton ad before they heard too much about Obama's charge on Social Security. And notice how Clinton frames her opposition: by using George W. Bush as a foil.
The ad contains a most excellent bit of writing:"These days, it seems like every candidate on earth is coming here for You. But which candidate has been there for you all along?"
The Bill Clinton rapid response team had T shirts printed up in 1992 that said "Speed Kills", meaning the faster they could get a response out to anything Bush the Elder tried to do in the campaign, the faster they could kill his Presidency.
As Carville points out, by 1996 he had moved on. By 1998, nearly all of the team-- Carville, George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers, and others-- had moved on.
You wonder how the Lewinski affair would have played out if they had stayed?
Now it's 2008. Another Clinton is running and it appears that, yes, a rapid response team has reformed and is running the war room.
One of the big differences this year is YouTube, which did not exist in 1992 or 1996 (or really, in 2004, when you think about it), but which had an huge impact in the 2006 midterm elections. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama make generous use of this medium, so we might even see simultaneous assaults and responses launched in cyberspace and the main stream media.
Presumably, in a general election, greater use of these tactics will have to be employed, and strategies developed to deflect and deflate charges that will be made.
YouTube, as well as other Internet outlets, do not have the same level of self-regulation as even the pitiful excuse we have for news reporting does. Any slander or smear can be posted, with minimal reprisal, yet it will force a rapid response.
And that's not to say the right is without facility in this regard, although their results have been far from effective, much less as dazzling as Clinton's.
So who might make up this rapid response team for Hillary? Well, Mandy Grunwald, one of Hillary's senior advisers, has been blogging for her, so we can assume she's had some input; Crystal Patterson, who was Ted Kennedy's Internet operations manager before joining the campaign; Lee Feinstein, who worked under Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, has the foreign policy duties; and then there's Mark Penn, chief strategist for BOTH Clinton's and James Carville protege. And of course, the Big Dog himself.
So if this all seems familiar, the way the campaign is running, hitting on all cylinders with nary a hiccup, there's the team to credit. Or blame.
One recent trope of right wingers and Republicans recently is that we've seen a decline in the violence in Iraq, that things are getting better, that Sunni and Shi'ite are meeting and might be reaching agreements to cool things out.
It's possible that exhaustion has set in, and that Iraqis have had enough.
[A]t least 27 people died in a suicide bomb attack on a police headquarters in Baquba, north of Baghdad, according to police.
At least 20 people were hurt. Most victims were police recruits.
Correspondents say the attack bears the hallmarks of the al-Qaeda in Iraq militants, who often target recruits.
What most right wingers forget in their crowing about reductions in civilian deaths and civil violence is, Ramadan this year was about two weeks earlier than last year. Yes, it's true: Sunnis and Shi'ites have reached out across the table to try to get a handle on what to do with this mess, but as Joe Klein points out:
[T]here is a missing player in all this hugging and goat eating (ed. note: think of it as a barbecue). He is Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army militia and, quite possibly, the most popular Shi'ite political figure in the country. Al-Sadr is less accessible, a fuzzier figure than al-Hakim. The U.S. intelligence community has only a vague sense of how much control he has over his disparate movement, which includes everything from Iranian-trained guerrillas, referred to as "special groups," to ragtag teenage criminal street gangs who claim the Mahdi mantle. He has been spending a lot of time in Iran lately, where he is said to be receiving advanced religious training. The future of Iraq is likely to be decided by the struggle for power between the Hakim and Sadr families. That struggle could easily turn very lethal. Indeed, in recent days there have been battles between the Sadr and Hakim forces in Karbala and Basra.
So we have Sadr forces and Hakim forces tearing the Shi'ites apart, a renewed front opened up by Al Qaeda, and now Turkey is crossing over into Kurdish Iraq to rout out Kurdish rebels, triggering suicide bombings.
Much like the recent forest fires in Southern California, this civil war is not going to go away easily, and is not easily contained. Clearly, the surge has some small effect in pushing the violence out of the Baghdad region (particularly the Green Zone, but hey! Who cares if Iraqis end up dead, right? *snark*) and other places where the troops were deployed, but in truth, it may only have been a lull.
Quietly, almost unnoticed in America save for the occasion commercial about Darfur, Africa is slipping away. Despite Dumbya's assertions that Africa wll live "in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity," it doesn't look promising:
By my count, that's three wars (four if you count the nascent violence in Sierra Leone), economies in shambles in the DR Congo, Nigeria, and Somalia, and the prince who might ride in and save the continent is...Muammar Ghaddafi?!?!?!?!?
Heck of a job, Bushie!
In fairness, Ghaddafi, when oil prices have been firm, has been generous to his African neighbors and now that oil is reaching record prices, I'm sure he sees an opportunity to engage in a little economic hegemony of his own.
The Bush administration was so desperate for any good news in the wake of September 11 and the bungled Iraq invasion that it embraced Ghaddafi's offer to surrender his weapons programs to inspectors, a move he had originally committed to under the Clinton administration, which rightly laughed at the offer. Ghaddafi? WMDs?
Ghaddafi had a strategy, of course: Al Qaeda would eventually target Libya and Ghaddafi himself, so by ingratiating with the US, he could ask for military assistance. And of course, the Bushies were forced to embrace it, even if it made but a ripple in the news.
And it turned out that Ghaddafi did have a (very) small scale weapons program going on, mostly chemical and biological, but an embryonic attempt to develop nukes was in the works. Whether he would have seriously pursued these, or if this all was an elaborate shell game to try to wring some concessions from the West in terms of sanctions, we may never know. He did, however, get the concessions. But not the lifting of sanctions, since he had threatened to kill anyone who wanted regime change, shortly after the US offered to lift the sanctions for basically, errrr, just that.
Ghaddafi had tried to unify OPEC and the Arab world behind him, and failed (and then oil tanked). He'd have more success in Africa, to be sure.
Add to Africa's manmade struggles the growing environmental crises: extreme drought in Darfur and Nigeria caused by global warming, as well as flooding in DR Congo...put it this way: when the good news of an entire continent can be summed up with a story about a rugby team defeating an English side in a preliminary tournament game, you have a deeply troubled continent.
I guess this is a fitting post for a Sunday. A new image of The Last Supper, comprised of 16 billion pixels, has been posted. You can see it in amazing detail at the link in the above picture.
This is really bad news, because carbon sequestration was one possible way to prevent a worsening global warming crisis:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000, says a study. International scientists found that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO2 by 17%.
The other 18% came from a decline in the natural ability of land and oceans to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere.
About half of emissions from human activity are absorbed by natural "sinks" but the efficiency of these sinks has fallen, the study suggests.
Imagine a sponge. Drip water on the sponge when it's dry and not much of it gets out. The sponge absorbs a lot of the water.
Now imagine that sponge is as full as it's going to get. The water basically just rolls off the sponge.
That's what we've done with our carbon sinks. What are those sinks? Well, the oceans, for one. Remember, carbon isn't only created in the form of carbon dioxide. We've been dumping megatons of carbon in other forms into our oceans in industrial and human wastes.
Yup. You crap carbon.
Carbon has an unique ability to bond with other elements. In a balanced system, this can work miracles.
For example, take one atom of carbon and one of calcium, and you have the building blocks of a coral reef.
But, take TWO carbon atoms and one calcium atom and you get calcium bicarbonate, which works great on your stomach acid, but actually destroys coral.
Too, the oceans do a massive job of scrubbing the atmosphere. Plankton, which are probably the simplest form of vegetation on the planet, commit photosynthesis, taking carbon dioxide out of the air, and converting it to oxygen, absoring the carbon for use in their calcium carbonate skeletons. Thus starts the oceanic carbon cycle, ultimately sequestering massive amounts of carbon at the bottom of the ocean in decaying dead fish.
But look what has happened: as global warming has intensified the weather patterns over the oceans, winds have picked up. There's still plenty of carbon dioxide to go around, but it's harder for plankton to get at...after all, do you find it easier to eat when the boat is rocking?
Too, increasing carbon levels, particularly in the form of carbon dioxide, makes the oceans more acidic, which kills off the plankton. So you have fewer plankton, more carbon, and it's harder to get at.
Worse. Right now, the carbon that is sequestered deep in the ocean stays deep in the ocean because of temperature and density differences between the top and bottom waters, effectively forming a wall that mostly prevents mixing except where the oceans upwell and then over geologic time scales. If temperatures begin to rise higher in the ocean, the forces that created this halocline will cease functioning, which means that the oceanic waters will start mixing up more, bringing more carbon up to the ocean surfaces.
Which sinks (pardon the pun) any chance of using the deep oceans to store carbon that we might scrub out of our wastes.
Another sink, of course, is vegetation, which absorbs carbon dioxide as well as carbon in the soil (this is partially how burned forests bounce back so quickly). Any vegetation will do this, but trees are particularly efficient at scrubbing carbon out of the air and ground: extensive canopies, root systems, and large energy needs combine to make them oxygen factories.
Here, too, weather has played a prominent part, because as the earth warms...well, let's take a quick look at the hydrological cycle: temperatures rise, water evaporates, clouds form, rain falls. Basic physics tells us that warmer air can absorb more moisture, so literally, evaporation starts to suck the moisture out of the ground, parching the land. Now you have plants dying of thirst. Too, you have a higher risk of wildfires (we've seen that this week), which destroy vegetation outright.
Remove vegetation, either through clearing land or burning it out or simply creating a new desert, and you remove a major carbon sink.
We've reached, and passed, a tipping point in global warming, and I think there are some problems man cannot solve.
1) Unnecessary admission of the year. While it's nice that Rowling made that admission, I sense (maybe I read it in my crystal ball) there's a certain amount of pandering here. After all, she's written all seven books now, she has nothing to lose, and perhaps she is merely extending here fifteen minutes?
3) It won't make a whit of difference, since Bush has all but disavowed the World Court, but it's nice to see someone with balls out there, even if they have to be French to have them.
5) I'm pondering whether to attend a fund raiser for an upstate Congresswoman that I've been invited to. The reason I'm on the horns (normally, I'd just donate a couple bucks and leave it at that) is that Nancy Pelosi will be there. If I went, what should I ask her, assuming I can ask just one question? I have some ideas, but I'm open to suggestion. (I'll post my ideas in comments)
6) Once more, Bush shows his vicious side. It was a smart move by Democrats to add the LHEAP to the SCHIP bill, but now that Bush will have vetoed it twice, what are they going to do now, especially since...
Paul Wellstone died 5 years ago today. I still get tears in my eyes thinking of him.
Because it has turned out to be so prophetic, I thought I would post his Senate floor speech regarding military action in Iraq on October 3, 2002, just before he died. He was in the middle of a tough re-election campaign. His numbers went up after his vote against authorization. People who said Paul was "too far left for me" always add that they still voted for him because they trusted him. If you have the chance to ever hear the speech, at the end he thanks his staff and makes it clear that they in no way tried to influence his decision to oppose the Iraq war resolution, shouldering the responsibility alone.
(Ed. Note: I added the video for your convenience)
Regarding Military Action Against Iraq: October 3, 2002
Mr. President, as we turn later today to address our policy on Iraq, I want to take a few minutes to outline my views. The situation remains fluid, and Administration officials are engaged in negotiations at the United Nations over what approach we ought to take, with our allies, to disarm the brutal and dictatorial Iraqi regime.
Our debate here is critical because the administration seeks our authorization now for military action including possibly unprecedented, pre-emptive, go-it-alone military action in Iraq, even as it seeks to garner support from our allies on a tough new UN disarmament resolution.
Let me be clear: Saddam Hussein is a brutal, ruthless dictator who has repressed his own people, attacked his neighbors, and remains an international outlaw. The world would be a much better place if he were gone and the regime in Iraq were changed. That's why the U.S. should unite the world against Saddam, and not allow him to unite forces against us.
A go-it-alone approach, allowing for a ground invasion of Iraq without the support of other countries, could give Saddam exactly that chance. A pre-emptive go-it-alone strategy towards Iraq is wrong. I oppose it.
I support ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction through unfettered U.N. inspections, which should begin as soon as possible. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, is likely to succeed. Our primary focus now must be on Iraq's verifiable disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. This will help maintain international support, and could even eventually result in Saddam's loss of power.
Of course, I would welcome this, as would most of our allies. The president has helped to direct intense new multilateral pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors back in to Iraq to conduct their assessment of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Saddam clearly has felt that heat, and it suggests what might be accomplished through collective action. I am not naive about this process, and much work lies ahead. But we cannot dismiss out-of-hand Saddam's late and reluctant commitment to comply with U.N. disarmament arrangements, or the agreement struck Tuesday to begin to implement it. We should use the gathering international resolve to collectively confront his regime by building on these efforts through a new U.N. disarmament resolution.
This debate must include all Americans, because our decisions finally must have the informed consent of the American people, who will be asked to bear the costs, in blood and treasure, of our decisions. When the lives of the sons and daughters of average Americans could be risked and lost, their voices must be heard by Congress before we make decisions about military action.
Right now, despite a desire to support our president, I believe many Americans still have profound questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on a pre-emptive, go-it-alone military approach.
Acting now on our own might be a sign of our power. Acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies, with bipartisan Congressional support, would be a sign of our strength.
It would also be a sign of the wisdom of our founders, who lodged in the President the power to command U.S. armed forces, and in Congress the power to make war, ensuring a balance of powers between co-equal branches of government. Our Constitution lodges the power to weigh the causes for war and the ability to declare war in Congress precisely to ensure that the American people and those who represent them will be consulted before military action is taken.
The Senate has a grave duty to insist on a full debate that examines for all Americans the full range of options before us, and weighs those options, together with their risks and costs. Such a debate should be energized by the real spirit of September 11: a debate which places a priority not on unanimity, but on the unity of a people determined to forcefully confront and defeat terrorism and to defend our values.
I have supported internationally sanctioned coalition military action in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Serbia, and in Afghanistan. Even so, in recent weeks, I and others including major Republican policymakers like former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Hagel, Bush Mideast Envoy General Anthony Zinni and other leading US military leaders have raised serious questions about the approach the Administration is taking on Iraq.
There have been questions raised about the nature and urgency of Iraq's threat, our response to that threat, and against whom, exactly that threat is directed. What is the best course of action that the U.S. could take to address the threat? What are the economic, political, and national security consequences of possible U.S. or U.S.-British invasion of Iraq? There have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions abroad, including its effects on the continuing war on terrorism, our ongoing efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, and efforts to calm the intensifying Middle East crisis, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions here at home.
Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. The resolution we will be debating today would explicitly authorize a go-it-alone approach.
I believe an international approach is essential. In my view, our policy should have four key elements. First and foremost, the United States must work with our allies to deal with Iraq. We should not go it alone or virtually alone with a pre-emptive ground invasion. Most critically, acting alone could jeopardize our top national security priority, the continuing war on terror. The intense cooperation of other nations in matters related to intelligence-sharing, security, political and economic cooperation, law enforcement and financial surveillance, and other areas has been crucial to this fight, and enables us to wage it effectively with our allies. Over the past year, this cooperation has been our most successful weapon against terror networks. That -- not attacking Iraq should be the main focus of our efforts in the war on terror.
We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq "would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida."
Second, our efforts should have the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein of all of his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to destroy its weapons of mass destruction at the end of the Persian Gulf War and to verification by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that this had been done. According to the U.N. and IAEA, and undisputed by the administration, inspections during the 1990's neutralized a substantial portion of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and getting inspectors back in to finish the job is critical. The prompt resumption of inspections and disarmament, under an expedited timetable and with unfettered access in Iraq, is imperative.
Third, weapons inspections should be enforceable. If efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors are tried and fail, a range of potential U.N.-sanctioned means, including proportionate military force, should be considered. I have no doubt that Congress would act swiftly to authorize force in such circumstances. This does not mean giving the U.N. a veto over U.S. actions. No one wants to do that. It simply means, as Chairman Levin has observed, that Saddam is a world problem and should be addressed in the world arena.
Finally, our approach toward Iraq must be consistent with international law and the framework of collective security developed over the last 50 years or more. It should be sanctioned by the Security Council under the U.N. Charter, to which we are a party and by which we are legally bound. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, can succeed. Our response will be far more effective if Saddam sees the whole world arrayed against him.
We should act forcefully, resolutely, sensibly with our allies, and not alone, to disarm Saddam. Authorizing the pre-emptive, go-it-alone use of force now, right in the midst of continuing efforts to enlist the world community to back a tough new disarmament resolution on Iraq, could be a costly mistake for our country.
From out of the west in supoport of these theme comes Rosa Brooks, riding from the fires of Malibu and San Diego like Carter Slade in Ghost Rider:
Forget impeachment.
Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.
That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."
By the way...is that "Old Europe" or "New Europe", Mr. President? You know, like how there was New Coke and Coke Classic and everyone turned on New Coke so that Coke Classic ended up dominating our palates for decades beyond?
Of course, New Coke didn't have your marketing genius behind it, now, did it?
But I digress:
Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.
I want to take a few paragraphs here to delve a bit more into the probable cause of this psychosis, at least in my mind opinion.
Here we have a man of whom it was once famously quipped, "He was born on third base, thinking he'd hit a triple."
Life should have been easy for him, and it was, until he went to school. Suddenly, learnin' became hard werk. Dodging the draft became hard werk. Skipping out on the Champagne Squadron of the TANG became hard werk. Runnin' a bidness became hard werk.
And all this time, Poppy and Bar were right there to hold his little hand and march him along past all these obstacles like the good l'il soldier he was (say that in a Shirley Temple voice. It's a lot funnier.)
So here, in his immortal hubris, he's locked himself into his own worst nightmare: a job that he so desperately needs his father's help with....gee...did you ever imagine looking back at Bush the Elder nostalgically?...but who he has pushed away publicly in favor of men who would exploit his power at the drop of a hat to advance an agenda that is not only unacceptable to a free society, but is antithetical to that very foundation of freedom.
They say the Presidency is the loneliest job in the world, and given Bush's "attaboy" cheerleader attitude about his socializations, one can only imagine the depths of his soul that are aflame with fear and even terror.
But there is no Al Qaeda there. There is only a mirror and when Bush looks into it, all he sees is his own reflection and hovering over him like a wraith, Dick Cheney.
Too, Cheney himself has his own reality to deal with. This is a man who's ignorance and ego prevent him from taking even the simplest steps to preserve his own health (after all, with all those stents in his bloodstream, we should probably start thinking of him as more an Erector set and less as a human). This is a man who wouldn't consider an opposing opinion if Jesus himself came down, shook him by the shoulders and said "Listen, man!"
We all know people like Dick. He's as officious as a DMV clerk (a job more suited to his talents, anyway). It's nearly OCD how compartmentalized his thinking has become: no matter what, he must cause a war. My daughter's a lesbian mommy? Threaten war. My wife wrote a lesbian porn novel? Threaten war. I had a heart attack? Threaten war.
I can't imagine that the Founding Fathers ever had it in their heads that a small cadre of completely psychotic wackjobs would ever occupy the highest levels of government (remember, our earliest elections saw the second place finished in the Presidential election become Vice President, which forced a tamping down of ambitions. That was changed in 1803).
Since clearly both men are physically able to execute their offices, there is no recourse beyond impeachment to bring sanity back to the White House (and you'd need to impeach both and then deal with Condi Rice, about whose sanity I have some reservations.)
Ah, but our Ms. Brooks has an out:
In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization."
A 15-page "memorandum for the record," prepared by a commission counsel and dated April 20, 2004, quotes Giuliani conceding that it wasn't until "after 9/11" that "we brought in people to brief us on al Qaeda." According to the memorandum, Giuliani told two commission members and five staffers: "But we had nothing like this pre 9/11, which was a mistake, because if experts share a lot of info," there would be a "better chance of someone making heads and tails" of the "situation." (Such memoranda are not verbatim transcripts of the confidential commission interviews, but are described on the cover page as "100 percent accurate" notes taken by staffers, stamped "commission sensitive/unclassified" on the top of each page.)
Asked about the “flow of information about al Qaeda threats from 1998-2001,” Giuliani said: “At the time, I wasn’t told it was al Qaeda, but now that I look back at it, I think it was al Qaeda.” He also said that as part of one of his post-9/11 briefings, “we had in Bodansky, who had written a book on bin Laden.” Giuliani was referring to Yossef Bodanksy, the author of Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, which was published in 1999 and predicted “spectacular terrorist strikes in Washington and/or New York.” Giuliani wrote in his own book, Leadership, that Judi Nathan got him a copy of Bodansky’s prophetic work “shortly after 9/11,” and that he covered it in “highlighter and notes,” citing his study of it as an example of how he “mastered a subject.” Apparently, he also invited Bodansky to address key members of his staff.
Giuliani attributed his pre-9/11 shortcomings in part to the FBI, which was run by his close friend (and current endorser) Louis Freeh, and to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, an FBI-directed partnership with the NYPD. "We already had JTTF, and got flow information no one else got," he explained. "But did we get the flow of information we wanted? No. We would be told about a threat, but not about the underlying nature of the threat. I wanted all the same information the FBI had, and we didn't get that until after 9/11. Immediately after 9/11, we were made a complete partner." He added: "Without 9/11, I never would have been able to send an adviser to FBI briefings."
Why is this important?
Well, because you might have heard in his stump speech...wait, let Barrett tell it...
Rudy Giuliani told an audience at Pat Robertson's Regent University: "Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it. I thought it was pretty clear at the time, but a lot of people didn't see it, couldn't see it." Other tenets of his standard stump speech include the assertion that he's been "studying terrorism" for more than 30 years, and that "the thing that distinguishes me on terrorism is that I have more experience in dealing with it" than the other presidential candidates.
"Clear at the time"? What "time", Rudy? September 12th, when the rest of us had been sitting with that knowledge for 24 hours? Was this before or after you asked for the briefing on Al Qaeda, Rudy?
Turns out, his secret testimony was corroborated by then-fire chief Thomas van Essen and disgraced then-police commissioner Bernard Kerik: NO BRIEFINGS ON AL QAEDA PRIOR TO 9/11!
Four words -- "We close at 5" -- enforced by Texas judge Sharon Keller led to the almost immediate execution of convicted murderer Michael Richard.
Three hours after Keller refused to keep her courthouse open past closing time to receive the condemned killer's request to stay his execution, Richard was executed.
You know, it's not like Michael Richard was late with his homework, or had an appointment to renew his driver's license...his life was on the line!
OK, so why was Richard's appeal late?
Richard's attorney's computer broke down, and when they called the courthouse asking for a little more time, just 20 minutes more, Judge Keller ordered the court clerk not to wait for the appeal that could have at least temporarily stopped his execution.
Twenty minutes. Just twenty minutes. Pizza delivery time.
I'm sure Judge Keller had to rush home to watch...Judge Judy? Re-runs of Law and Order? Bob The Builder?
Fortunately, it seems cooler heads are, well, getting fired up:
After the execution, prominent defense attorneys from across Texas signed an official complaint against Keller, asking the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct to disciplined or fire her.
[...]It's not just the attorneys complaining. In a rare development, other judges on the appeals court -- three of whom stayed late in the courthouse waiting to rule on Richard's motion -- have criticized Keller's decision.
Judge Cheryl Johnson, who was expecting to rule on the case, told the Austin American-Statesman she was dismayed by Keller's decision. "And I was angry," she told the paper. "If I'm in charge of the execution, I ought to have known about those things … I mean this is a death."
• Keller was in the court majority that allowed the 2003 execution of Leonard Rojas to go forward despite a showing that his lawyer had just two years of experience, had his law license suspended three times and had missed a deadline for federal appeals because of bipolar disorder...saying the lawyer only needed to be competent when appointed. She said the fact the Bar had probated the lawyer's suspensions showed that the Bar "still found counsel to be competent to practice law."
• Prior to the Richard execution, the biggest controversy of her tenure on the court came when Keller wrote an opinion saying DNA evidence did not prove convicted rapist Roy Criner was innocent even though the semen in his alleged victim was not his. Keller said Criner could have worn a condom during the rape, a theory that was not raised by the prosecution in his trial.
On the PBS program Frontline, Keller was asked how Criner could prove his innocence. She replied: "I don't know."
• In 1996, Keller wrote an opinion that death row inmate Cesar Fierro received a fair trial despite the fact his confession was coerced by threats that Mexican police would torture his parents. After learning of the coerced confession, the prosecutor and judge in the case called for Fierro to receive a new trial.
"We conclude that the applicant's due process rights were violated," Keller wrote for the court. "But, because we conclude that the error was harmless, we deny relief."
In that last case, Keller decided that Fierro could have been convicted on the basis of a co-defendant's testimony.
You read that correctly: a man died based on hearsay evidence.
A few days ago, at the end of their Fall pledge drive, Free Speech TV broadcast a recent "Keynote" with author Michael Parenti (Real Player only, sorry folks), in which he lays out a case for an imperial America...not just abroad, but internally, where an elite ruling (not governing) class grabs all available resources, leaving the working and middle classes in virtual serfdom, unable to capture any significant property or power for themselves, all in the name of the US Constitution.
There is, undoubtedly, in this country a growing and burgeoning elite who believe that privilege and rank grant access to power above and beyond what you might attain. They have theirs, its up to you to get yours, Jack.
Power and wealth are not a zero sum game, however. Never are. When one person grabs power, someone else must give it up. Same with wealth, despite the economic theory that capital creates more capital. It doesn't. It merely converts resources and labor into more capital, but that depletes resources and-- dare I say it?-- exploits labor.
Now, as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, I don't have that big a problem with that provided there's an equality or at least an equivalence in the dynamic.
This is supposed to be the role of government: a counter-balance to the predations and exploitations of corporations, run by human beings who are as flawed and id-driven as the local serial killer. They just wear a white collar.
However, the most successful con in American history has been perpetrated upon us in the past sixty years: government's role as protector of innocents has been warped into this bizarre dual-exploitative tag-team match, with citizens on one side, and government and corporations on the other.
Think about the way the Bush administration has emasculated any regulatory oversight in the Federal government by installing corporate lobbyists into positions of power over the industries they lobbied for, and you'll see my point.
It's safe to say the first to pick up on this new paradigm were the Republicans, specifically the Reagan administration, who apparently never met a lobbyist with a checkbook it didn't like. After all, the removal of the Fairness Doctrine paved the way for millions and millions of dollars to flow from corporate coffers into politicians' pockets, with no responsible opposing viewpoint to be found...because they couldn't afford commercial air time.
Our last hope, short of revolution in the streets, is the Democratic party, but even there, the taint of corporate money and greed fills the air, and asking the Democrats to govern without the power of business behind them is like asking you or I to only see out of one eye, despite having two perfectly good ones at our disposal.
Still, we have to insist. We have to start holding feet to the fire. We have to start making sure that, at all levels of government, people come first. Starting with local judges like Sharon Keller.
UPDATE: Tell Texas what you think about this outrageous judge.
TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - The Muggle, or non-wizard, world is agog at author J.K. Rowling's bombshell announcement that one of the main characters in the Harry Potter books was gay.
By Monday afternoon, after a weekend of gossip about Rowling's "outing" of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, there were almost 6,000 comments on the issue on two popular Harry Potter Web sites, www.leakynews.com and www.mugglenet.com.
"Mostly people are happy that she has done this," said Melissa Anelli, webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron site, admitting that the site has seen a small subset of vocal readers unhappy at the revelation.
"I think it's great, I think the way she handled it was that this was just another fact about him, the same way that he's a teacher, he likes bowling, chamber music. And if more people were like that, we'd have less of a problem today."
Take heart, progressives!
I make this admission: I've not read a Harry Potter book. I started to, but thought Rowling's writings to be too cute by half to focus on the story (I mean, come on..."Diagon Alley"????) and so got quickly bored with wordplay that I've seen done better in Mad Magazine.
I have, however, seen the movies. I suspect this is how most adults were exposed to HP.
Albus Dumbeldore always struck me as a kindly old schoolmaster, involved in the schooling of the children and their protection, but not uncomfortably engaged in their lives...like some Republicans we might mention (koffkoffMARKFOLEYkoffkoffTEDHAGGARD koffkoffSTROMTHURMOND). His sexuality was never in question in my mind: he simply had none because it wasn't relevant to the story.
Why would people applaud? Why would it be necessary to have this as a back story? Maybe the final paragraph in the AP story explains it: “Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.”
Yes, knock the Christians. That will sell books.
One presumes Surber is near-hysterical because he was going to wear a Dumbeldore costume for Halloween, but now has to go for a more overtly butch character...say, Myra Breckenridge.
One wonders why Surber feels the need to spin the facts. After all, Christiangroupsall across this country have railed long and hard against Harry Potter novels for introducing a sympathetic witchcraft into polite society (like "Bell Book and Candle" didn't???). She spoke a fact, Donbo, yet you bridle at this?
Or are you saying that Christians are more tolerant of gays than they are of fantasy withcraft? I'm sure Matthew Shepard would disagree with you, respectfully of course (and probably in more tasteful clothing), if he could.
One can only imagine the furor in certain pulpits this weekend over this. In fact, I'm surprised to see that Focus On Family is still silent on this, but maybe they're trying to find a way to spin facts as well.
Unsurprisingly, Focus On family remained stone cold silent when the Roman Catholic Church was under assault for harboring pedophiles. One would think that an organization that has toiled long and hard to equate homosexuality with pedophilia would have said something about celibate authority figures molesting children.
In fairness, FOF did have something to say about Ted Haggard. Curiously, it was supportive...in its own weird hatemongering way.
The books, she said, were "a plea for an end to hatred, to bigotry" as well as a lesson for kids "to question authority.... You should not assume the establishment tells you the truth."
Keith Olbermann admitted on his show last night that, in a private conversation with Rowling prior to this signal event, she revealed that in fact, she intended a metaphor to the Bush and Blair administrations and how the United States and Britain were hoodwinked into war and sheepdogged into place by their authoritarian proxies.
UPDATE: Needless to say, The Borowitz Report has the perfect antidote to all this "outting"...
There's this kiddie trope going around (you'll know this is if you parent a "tween" adolescent): a television program called "Hannah Montana" on the Disney channel.(WARNING: TREACLY TEEN POP IS PLAYED LOUD AT THAT LINK!)
The series focuses on Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cyrus, daughter of regrettable country music "star" Billy Ray "Mullethead" Cyrus), who lives a double life as an average teenage girl at school during the day and a famous pop singer, Hannah Montana, at night, concealing her real identity from the public other than her close friends and family.
Republicans, always seizing on the latest marketing gimmick that Madison Avenue and Hollywood (liberals!!) can develop, have adapted this to their own Presidential race.
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - The top Republican White House contenders battled on Sunday over who was the better conservative, with Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney defending their records and views on social issues from strong attacks.
In a debate in the election swing state of Florida, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson accused Giuliani of being out of step with the conservative values of the Republican Party and Arizona Sen. John McCain attacked Romney's conservative credentials.
"Governor Romney, you've been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don't want you to start fooling them about mine," McCain said. "I stand on my record of a conservative."
Thompson, a latecomer to the race who is chasing Giuliani in national opinion polls, said the former New York mayor's support for abortion rights and gun control put him in a league with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, a New York senator.
"I simply disagree with him on those issues, and he sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues I just mentioned," he said.
Thompson, of course, is the ultimate GOP-Hollywood nexus, outdoing even Ronald "I missed World War II to make forgettable B movies in liberal Hollywood" Reagan with such classic conservative roles as DA Arthur Branch (Law & Order), Rear Admiral Joshua Painter (The Hunt For Red October), and Knox Pooley, the neo-Nazi Jew-killer in Wiseguy.
Oh, and we should probably mention the role most dear to the hearts of Republicans and conservative Christians everywhere, lobbyist for a pro-choice group.
Dude, you really can't make this stuff up!
So between Rudy and Romney's former liberal positions (can you say "flip flop"?), Fred Thompson's questionable commitment to Christian values, and John McCain's "Now you see it, now you don't" position on campaign finance reform or Baghdad's safety, we're looking at men who have, to put it mildly, ambiguous moral compasses.
Which brings us back to the Hannah Montana thing: it's OK, I guess, for Disney to show a girl who's so terrified of who she is that she has to hide herself from the world (metaphor: she's a lesbian), but the Republican party?
What I find so funny about all this is any one of the four men could easily have "outted" themselves, "outted" their pasts, and probably not lost a whole lot of standing in the Republican community (and indeed, might have attracted normally uninvolved voters frustrated with the whole Bush administration/christofascist regime thing), but chose instead to narrow their base to the tiniest sliver of scraps on the floor.
Contrast that with the Democratic primary where, for the most part, the candidates have been pretty forthright about who they are, and not running from their history (save Hillary and to a degree, Obama and Edwards regarding their positions on the Iraq invasion...in some ways, I'm not convinced that Iraq won't be the third rail of the 2008 elections the way Social Security reform has long been that same electrified iron).
I don't think it's any secret why the Republican primary, which should be generating enormous interest for a party that's controlled all three branches of government for the past eight years or so, is so bloody boring: no one is willing to take a stance, to chance a roll of the dice and speak what is on his mind.
Without attacking Hillary. That would probably be an added bonus.
It's almost as if these guys are positioning themselves for the 2012 race, when they stand a chance after four years of Hillary-dom, should she screw it up.
Which I wouldn't bet on.
McCain and Thompson all but have to win in this go-round. They'd be too old in 2012 (if indeed they aren't already). Too, Giuliani has to win in this go-round because "9/11 Tourette's" (h/t Jon Stewart) only gets you so far and he's milked that cow.
Leaving Romney, but even he has a shelf life: how much money can he afford to lend his campaign in 2012 if he has to eat tens of millions of dollars this time around?
No, I think this is the only shot for all four of the front runners and I think they've all realized they're going to be sacrificial lambs.
UPDATE:More evidence the GOP may have jumped the couch in this election cycle.
By now, long time readers of "Simply Left Behind" have probably grown tired of the seemingly endless pledge drives run by Free Speech TV and LinkTV, which take about a month and are run about three times a year.
Well...it's that time again. And it seems that these two channels, available on DISH Network (stop paying good money to a corporate oligopoly or a mad Australian fascist and sign up today. Tell them I sent you.) exclusively together and seperately on various cable outlets across the nation for portions of the broadcast week, have begun to make a difference in the political dialogue of the nation.
LinkTV covers the world from a European perspective, and brings that sensibility to domestic stories it covers. Here, you'll see retrospectives of Tianamen Square followed by South African killer whales followed by indigenous Peruvians and their struggles to reclaim water rights, capped off by Greg Palast covering the United States political theatre.
Free Speech TV is more focused on domestic issues, and is unafraid to present both sides of a story, particularly since the mainstream media, including NPR and PBS seem to shy away from showing the unvarnished truth. Here, you can see the KPFA forum on alternative 9/11 scenarios (including the really bizarre theories) followed by Gay USA, capped off by discussions of maintaining capitalism in America but fixing it, or why we shouldn't even bother.
This is gold for any thinking progressive who wants to get a better understanding of the complexities of the world around us. Too often, we rely on the proclamations of someone who specializes in one field or other and ignore the influences that everything has on everything else, from art and politics to the environment and farming.
Please. Go give now, and then make sure you go to the DISH Network website and order your service today.
Sheesh. When I was a lad, if a kid brought his mom to school we all called him a pussy (or worse. This was before we understood bigotry).
I can't believe that the notion that dragging along an admittedly spry 95 year old mother that makes a 71 year old candidate seem young outweighs the "ick" factor enough to make it worth his while.
Particularly in a party that as patriarchal and testosterone driven as the GOP.
All week long, I'd heard stories about how McCain was coming back with an improved persona, that he was going back to his maverick roots.
Errr, dragging your mommy is hardly being a maverick, Senator. If anything, it speaks to a man too afraid to take on a challenge as large as the one you've created for yourself: to make your candidacy more relevant than the lamest of lame ducks in the White House.
There is one small constituency this stunt might work with and in states like Iowa, it might hold a key to an improved showing: the elderly. After all, that nice young man, Senator McCain, brought that lovely mother of his along to talk to us, so we should vote for him.
In a state like Iowa, that might actually pick up a point or two worth of votes.
If you can hear them among all the laughter.
This speaks of a desperate move by a desperate man who woke up at 8:15 to catch an 8:17 bus...
"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing
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