Warning on Warming

Good lord, many of us have been having various fits about this since the 70s.

Carter was on the road to doing something about it and, then, along came Reagan/Bush and it has been downhill from there, including the Clinton years.

Warning on Warming:

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its latest report in early February, it was greeted with shock: 'World Wakes to Climate Catastrophe,' reported an Australian paper. But global warming is by now a scientific field with a fairly extensive history, and that history helps set the new findings in context -- a context that makes the new report no less terrifying but much more telling for its unstated political implications.

Although atmospheric scientists had studied the problem for decades, global warming first emerged as a public issue in 1988 when James Hansen, a NASA scientist, told Congress that his research, and the work of a handful of other scientists, indicated that human beings were dangerously heating the planet, particularly through the use of fossil fuels. This bold announcement set off a scientific and political furor: many physicists and chemists played down the possibility of serious harm, and many governments, though feeling pressure to react, did little to restrain the use of fossil fuel. 'More research' was the mantra everyone adopted, and funding for it flowed freely from governments and foundations. Under the auspices of the United Nations, scientists and governments set up a curious hybrid, the IPCC, to track and report on the progress of that research.

First, the US Deluded Itself About the War, Then About the Source of the Weapons

Those Crazy Irish IEDs are blowing up our soldiers, in Iraq!


First, the US Deluded Itself About the War, Then About the Source of the Weapons:

There is something ludicrous about the attempt by the US military in Iraq to persuade the world that the simple but devastating roadside bomb or IED (improvised explosive device) is a highly developed weapon requiring Iranian expertise.

Here is the official police report of one IED attack. It reads: 'At about 8.25am, 100 men of the X Regt with their colonel in charge, marched with their band from the military barracks at Y to their rifle range via fixed route. When they got to place Z a land mine exploded, killing three outright and wounding 22 others, three of these died shortly afterwards. The mine was connected to an electric battery by about 150 yards of cable. It is believed that there were only two men involved in carrying out this outrage.'

This is fairly typical of a roadside bomb. It might have happened in Iraq yesterday - except it didn't. The IED in question exploded in the town of Youghal in County Cork on 21 June 1921. I happen to have read the Royal Irish Constabulary report on the incident, because I was born 29 years later about two miles away from the site.

Justices to Revisit Thorny Issue of Sentencing Guidelines in First Cases After Recess - New York Times

The guidelines should be thrown out, but if not, should certainly should be only advisory.

Judges should not be treated as punishment-bots

Justices to Revisit Thorny Issue of Sentencing Guidelines in First Cases After Recess - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — The Supreme Court returns on Tuesday from a month-long recess to face a daunting and urgent task: explaining what it meant two years ago when it ruled that the federal sentencing guidelines were to be treated as “advisory,” no longer binding on federal judges.

The decision that dropped that bombshell on the criminal justice system, United States v. Booker, has not penetrated public consciousness in the way that, say, the Miranda decision on the right against self-incrimination did a generation ago. But in its own way, it has been no less revolutionary, creating turmoil in criminal sentencing.

The justices will hear arguments on Tuesday morning in two cases that will provide the latest chapter, although almost certainly not the final one, in the court’s continuing and, to many, profoundly unsettling reappraisal of the roles of juries and judges in criminal sentencing.

Leaving Iraq: Apocalypse Not

We concur.

The Bushites have not been right about anything so far.

What, in the name of goodness, makes anyone believe they have it right on this?

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Leaving Iraq: Apocalypse Not:

Much of Washington assumes that withdrawing from Iraq will lead to a bigger bloodbath. We need to question that assumption."

Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter

.....and a bungler.

Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — A picture taking shape from hours of testimony and reams of documents in the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. shatters any notion that the White House was operating as a model of cohesion throughout President Bush’s first term.

The trial against Mr. Libby has centered on a narrow case of perjury, with days of sparring between the defense and prosecution lawyers over the numbing details of three-year-old conversations between White House officials and journalists. But a close reading of the testimony and evidence in the case is more revelatory, bringing into bolder relief a portrait of a vice president with free rein to operate inside the White House as he saw fit in order to debunk the charges of a critic of the war in Iraq.

The evidence in the trial shows Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Libby, his former chief of staff, countermanding and even occasionally misleading colleagues at the highest levels of Mr. Bush’s inner circle as the two pursued their own goal of clearing the vice president’s name in connection with flawed intelligence used in the case for war.

Neocons Revive Cold War Group

Oh Fine!

That's just what we need.

Can't anyone do something about these foolish, delusuional people?

Neocons Revive Cold War Group - by Jim Lobe: "A bipartisan group of 41 mainly neoconservative foreign-policy hawks has launched the third Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) whose previous two incarnations mobilized public support for rolling back Soviet-led communism but whose new enemy will be 'global terrorism.'

The new group, announced at a Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday, said its 'single mission' will be to 'advocate policies intended to win the war on global terrorism – terrorism carried out by radical Islamists opposed to freedom and democracy.'

'The committee intends to remain active until the present danger is no longer a threat, however long that takes,' said CPD chairman R. James Woolsey, who served briefly as former President Bill Clinton's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and has often referred to the battle against radical Islam as 'World War IV.'

Woolsey appeared with senators Joseph Lieberman, a neoconservative Democrat who was former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in 2000, and Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona with strong connections to the Christian Right."

The Neocon Dog That Isn't Barking - by Jim Lobe

Here's our thinking:

He will wait until just before the 2008 election, blow Iran back to the stone ages, put every nuclear power on red alert, if not full nuclear battle mode, and leave the next president with even a bigger mess than we have now, provided there is anything left, at all.


The Neocon Dog That Isn't Barking - by Jim Lobe:

For several weeks now, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that U.S. President George W. Bush is preparing to attack nuclear and other sites in Iran this spring – rumors deemed sufficiently credible that lawmakers from both parties are hastily preparing legislation precisely to prevent such an eventuality.

The evidence cannot be ignored.

As cited by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi in the most recent edition of American Conservative, Bush's charges that Iran is supplying bombs to Shi'ite militias to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq; the seizure by U.S. forces of Iranian diplomatic and intelligence officials there; the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups with a flotilla of minesweepers to the Gulf; the supply of Patriot antimissile batteries to Washington's allies in the region; the unprecedented appointment of a navy admiral and former combat pilot as the head of Central Command; the 'surge' of as many as 40,000 troops into Iraq; persistent reports of U.S. covert operations inside Iran – all suggest that Washington is preparing for a military confrontation, and soon.

No one doubts that the administration has developed detailed plans for attacking Iran and is certainly putting in place a formidable armada that, if so ordered, has the means to carry out those plans without delay.

Will Bush Destroy the Planet Before He Destroys the GOP

I know which one I'm hoping for, but that will take a lot of work on our part

Vicious Cycle (2/20/07) Government Executive:

It's not hard to see that the Republican Party has problems -- and to understand why.

Just over three months ago, the GOP took a beating in the midterm elections, losing the majorities it had held for 12 years in the House and 11 of the past 12 years in the Senate. President Bush's approval ratings are abysmal, locked in the low 30s. If his numbers drop much lower, they will rival those of President Nixon just before he was forced from office.

Making matters even worse for the Republicans, a recent Gallup report, based on an aggregation of the firm's 2006 polls, found a larger percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats than in any year since 1999, and a smaller percentage calling themselves Republicans than in any year since 2000.

The Brits Are Leaving Iraq

Bush and his NeoCons are all alone now.

Blair to announce Iraq withdrawal plan - Yahoo! News:

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from

Iraq, with 1,500 to return home in several weeks, the BBC reported.

Blair will also tell the House of Commons during his regular weekly appearance that a total of about 3,000 British soldiers will have left southern Iraq by the end of 2007, if the security there is sufficient, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, quoting government officials who weren't further identified.

The announcement comes even as
President Bush implements an increase of 21,000 more troops for Iraq.

But Blair said Sunday that Washington had not put pressure on London to maintain its troop numbers. The BBC said Blair was not expected to say when the rest of Britain's forces would leave Iraq. Britain currently has about 7,100 soldiers there.

Blair's Downing Street office refused to comment on the BBC report.

So You Still Think Major Government Conspiracies Don’t Exist?

Me thinks we will here from an expert soon!

Funny, isn't it, that the JFK assassination is coming up, in the blogosphere, more and more?

As Jessie would say, "think about it."

TvNewsLIES.org » Archive » So You Still Think Major Government Conspiracies Don’t Exist?:

Yesterday new footage of JFK was released to the public. This footage is yet another indication that the US government was most likely involved in the assassination. This film shows, as does many others, a Secret Service agent riding on the back of JFK’s limo and it shows two motorcycle police escorts riding along side the car, just behind JFK. Other films clearly show the head of the Secret Service calling back the agent just as the car was turning into the plaza where the fatal shots were fired. One of the agents called back shrugged his arms in disbelief three times when he was told to leave JFK’s car and retreat to the next car in the convoy. The rest of us should be shrugging our arms in disbelief that this happened.

Has this action by the head of the Secret Service ever been explained to the public? Is there an explanation that would account for this action?

Alert, Alert ! ! !

Look out, anyone who has ever voted Democrat!

Get rid of your kitchen sink!

Daily Breeze - Associated Press: "QUANTICO, Va. (AP) -- Kirk Yeager makes bombs from the stuff found under kitchen sinks. He does it to help the FBI defend against what officials say is the next frontier for terrorists in the United States.

Ten years ago, peroxide-based bombs were mostly the work of young pranksters. But the easy-to-make yet deadly chemical cocktails were embraced in the late 1990s by Palestinian militants and suicide bombers bent on killing large groups of people.

Now, Yeager says, the 'Mother of Satan' explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S., more so than a nuclear or radiological 'dirty' bomb."

More Edwards......

I have been trying to figure out for months, of whom Edwards reminds me.

I think I just figured it out.

He reminds of a cross between John and Bobby Kennedy.
He has JfK's humor and class, as well as the image of vigor, which, as a nation we desperately need.

He has Bobby's since of justice and fairness, and way of seeing the people as valuable.

He seems totally authentic in his passion for an egalitarian culture.

I am beginning to think that John and Elizabeth Edwards are the team that will bring us unity through "repentance."

Repentance = Metanoia, which means, "change your mind, think differently."


Opelika-Auburn News | AP News: "Edwards also discussed the Senate's failure Saturday to pass a resolution opposing Bush's plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq. He said it was up to Congress to find other ways to curtail America's involvement.

'That means using its appropriations authority in the Constitution to put a cap on the number of troops in Iraq so they can force (Bush) to start drawing down the number of troops,' he said. The reality is the Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate and such a move would require Republican votes, and any such legislation would face a certain veto by President Bush.

Edwards also addressed criticism aimed at his campaign pledge to fight poverty in America. In recent weeks, Edwards has taken heat for his new multimillion-dollar home in North Carolina, which features a handball court, swimming pool and basketball court.

Edwards: Not engaging Iran; a serious mistake.

Nail on the head, John.

We're listening.

Opelika-Auburn News | AP News:

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards criticized the Bush administration on Sunday for failing to engage directly with Iran to resolve problems with the Iraq war and Iran's effort to develop nuclear weapons.

'It's a huge strategic mistake not to be dealing directly with Iran,' Edwards told the Associated Press in an interview before a campaign event in Dubuque.

'What we should be doing with Iran, both on the Iraq issue and the nuclear issue, is being much smarter than we're being now. We have tools available to us to engage them.'

America's relationship with Iran emerged as a hot topic last week amid reports the Iranian government was shipping armor-piercing weapons to militias in Iraq.

Some intelligence reports suggested the shipments were being authorized by top Iranian officials. President Bush accused Iran of providing weapons to hostile Shiite groups, but stopped short of blaming top Iranian leaders.

Frank Rich Hits Claims on Iranian Weapons in Iraq -- Which His Own Paper Hyped

Rich can't help what the news division does.

Besides, they look sillier and sillier, with everyone of the new Bush-lies they print. They are hanging themselves and so are their Rethug pals in D.C.

Give greedy fools enough rope....

Frank Rich Hits Claims on Iranian Weapons in Iraq -- Which His Own Paper Hyped:

Maybe the Bush White House can’t conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.

Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn’t know about the briefing and couldn’t endorse its contention that the Iranian government’s highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week’s frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.

Making Martial Law Easier

Of course, this is not news to us. We have known it since Katrina, but the news is, that the News is reporting it.

I wonder, are we going to have elections in 2008, or will we all be in lock-down, for one silly-ass reason or the other?

An even more interesting question: Will the people of America allow themselves to be herded into cattle pens, like the Jews, and others, in Germany did?

Making Martial Law Easier - New York Times:

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.

The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights.

In Majority, Democrats Run Hill Much as GOP Did

In case no one has noticed, we are in a national crisis, thanks to 6 years of one party rule!

As an independent, I did not vote for Democrats, so they could be nice. I voted for them, to go to Washington and kick some corrupt, criminal ass!

If they don't, I can only draw the conclusion that they, too, are corrupt.

Nuff said.

In Majority, Democrats Run Hill Much as GOP Did - washingtonpost.com:

Democrats pledged to bring courtesy to the Capitol when they assumed control of Congress last month. But from the start, the new majority used its muscle to force through its agenda in the House and sideline Republicans.

And after an initial burst of lawmaking, the Democratic juggernaut has kept on rolling.

Of nine major bills passed by the House since the 110th Congress began, Republicans have been allowed to make amendments to just one, a measure directing federal research into additives to biofuels. In the arcane world of Capitol Hill, where the majority dictates which legislation comes before the House and which dies on a shelf, the ability to offer amendments from the floor is one of the minority's few tools.

Last week, the strong-arming continued during the most important debate the Congress has faced yet -- the discussion about the Iraq war. Democrats initially said they would allow Republicans to propose one alternative to the resolution denouncing a troop buildup but, days later, they thought better of it.

The Fierce Urgency of Impeachment

We have said it before and we will say it again; there must be accountability this time!

Congress needs to stop effing around and get at it!

The Fierce Urgency of Impeachment:

I got up at 2 a.m. this morning in Charlottesville, Va., my town and the town of Thomas Jefferson, the man whose greatest fear for our republic was of elected despotism. Jefferson and Madison and Mason and the others who drafted the most influential Constitution the world has seen, created a system of elections, but devoted much more attention and many more words to creating a system for maintaining our democracy in between elections. They gave this essential power to the House of Representatives, as the branch most subject to popular control, and they called this power impeachment.

The founders knew that democracy could only be maintained through eternal vigilance. But we – or perhaps more G.E. and Disney than we – have substituted for eternal vigilance an eternal election season. I don't know if the founders could have imagined the way in which elections are killing our democracy, but they certainly imagined that the loss of the power of impeachment would mean a return to tyranny.

Hume: Murtha Is Senile, Doesn’t Have ‘The Foggiest Awareness’ Of What’s Going On In The World

Have you ever wondered what the Faux News guys would do, if their studio was surrounded by a furious mass of humanity, calling their cowardly asses out?

Now, there is a vision I enjoy!

Think Progress » Hume: Murtha Is Senile, Doesn’t Have ‘The Foggiest Awareness’ Of What’s Going On In The World:

This morning on Fox News, Brit Hume launched a scathing diatribe against Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) character. “It’s time a few things be said about him,” Hume said. “This guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.” Hume called Murtha an “absolute fountain” of “naivete.” Watch it: ( Link ^)

Why Did Rove Receive A Copy Of A Secret Iranian Proposal For Negotiations In 2003?

....and from a former congressman who is now in prison, no less?

Why was this important proposal given to a political operative, not a cabinet member or the president?


Think Progress » Why Did Rove Receive A Copy Of A Secret Iranian Proposal For Negotiations In 2003?:

Inter Press Service reports that, in early May 2003, Karl Rove received a copy of a secret Iranian proposal for negotiations with the United States from former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) — who is now serving 30 months in prison for his role in a corruption scandal.

Former Ney aide, Trita Parsi — who now works at the National Iranian-American Council — said that Ney was chosen by the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann to carry the Iranian proposal to the White House because he believed Ney to be the only Farsi-speaking member of Congress and particularly interested in Iran. According to IPS: (Read On ^)

....and the truth will set us free.

Think Progress » Snow: Politicians Warning Of Iran War ‘May Be Trying To Protect Iran’

Number 1 : Somebody ought to knock this guys block off!

I guess it never enters the mind of this fool, that some of us are appalled at being made unwitting war criminals and do not trust this administration not to make it worse, before we can try to fix things. (I say "try," because we can never bring back the lives lost or altered forever by a senseless war for profits)

Furthermore, when Snow talks about Iran, is he not aware that that country is just like any other, in that it is a country made up of innocent people, not just a government he doesn't like?

Snow-job is an idiot, extraordinaire!

Think Progress » Snow: Politicians Warning Of Iran War ‘May Be Trying To Protect Iran’:

Today on CNN, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow claimed that members of Congress who have warned about the possibility of a military strike against Iran may be “trying to protect Iran.