rest easy, everyone

There is little to worry about.
Forget about the fact that the number of people without health insurance has been climbing for years.
Forget about the increasing number of children who are living in poverty.
Forget about the continual creep of prices on basic goods like gas and food.
And forget about the fact that wages are at a 40 year low, that most people are working harder today and making less than they were at any point in their lives.
Forget about the growing climate crisis and the threat of the next hurricane, forest fire, drought or flood.
Oh, and forget about the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are fighting or trying to recover from battle, not to mention their families and friends who live every day on edge.

Because the President isn't worried. In fact, he sleeps easy at night. So forget about your lack of health care - no need to lay awake at night worrying about one of the kids breaking a bone or getting sick. Forget about the bills that are piling up - no need to worry about how you'll pay the rent or mortgage, the electric bill, buy new shoes for the kids and still put food on the table. Forget about loved ones who are risking their lives for a lie - no need to worry about whether they'll be the next victim in an ever more violent civil war.

Because the President sleeps well. Take comfort in that. And rest easy, everyone.

from George & Laura Bush: The PEOPLE Interview:

[Q.] A lot of readers asked how you shut off the day's events. Do you ever take sleep aids?
THE PRESIDENT: Generally not. But occasionally when I travel, I'm expected to get on an airplane and fly eight hours and pop out and be fresh and diplomatic and on message. If I'm having trouble sleeping, I'll take a sleep aid. But I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume.

If only more Americans could say that.

"Ho Ho Ho" in Chinese is "Ha Ha Ha" - as they laugh all the way to the bank

Nothing terribly new here, except for an interesting way to revisit a growing crisis that has been ignored for too long.

from Santa Claus is Chinese or, Why China is Rising and the US is Declining:

I know Santa Claus is Chinese because each Christmas morning after all the gifts are unwrapped and things settle down I systematically go through the presents to see where they are made. The results are almost always the same: roughly 70 percent are from China. After some research, it seems that my one-family survey is representative of the country as a whole.
...
This year Americans will spend over $1 billion on Christmas ornaments from China. And in perhaps the greatest irony of all, even nativity scenes are made in China. Last year Americans spent more than $39 million buying nativity scenes shipped in from the East. China’s success in attracting foreign investment capital and mobilizing this huge workforce has made it the workshop of the world.
...
Underneath the American Christmas spirit and good cheer is a debt-laden society that appears to have lost its way, marred in the quicksand of consumerism. As a society, we seem to have forgotten how to save so we can invest in a better future. Instead of leaving our children a promising economic future, we are bequeathing them the largest debt burden of any generation in history.
...
It’s not the fact that our Christmas is made in China, but rather the mindset that has led to it that is most disturbing. We want to consume no matter what. We want to spend now and let our children pay. It is this same mindset that introduces tax cuts while waging a costly war. Economic sacrifice is no longer part of our vocabulary. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt banned the sale of private cars in order to mobilize the manufacturing capacity and engineering skills of the U.S. automobile industry to build tanks and planes. In contrast, after 9/11, President Bush urged us to go shopping.

In the United States we are so intent on consuming that personal savings have virtually disappeared. We have an average of five credit cards for every man, woman, and child. Of the 145 million cardholders, only 55 million clear their accounts each month. The other 90 million cannot seem to catch up and are paying steep interest rates on their remaining balance. Millions of people are so deeply in debt that they may remain indebted for life.

The official national debt, the product of years of fiscal deficits, now totals $8.5 trillion—some $64,000 per taxpayer. (See data at www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update62_data.htm.) By the end of the Bush administration in 2008, this figure is projected to reach a staggering $9.4 trillion. We are digging a fiscal black hole and sinking deeper and deeper into it.
...
We have lost influence in world financial markets simply because of our mounting debt, much of it held by other countries. If China’s leaders ever become convinced that the dollar is headed continuously downward and they decide to dump their dollar holdings, the dollar could collapse.

Beholden to other countries for oil and to finance our debt, the United States is fast losing its leadership role in the world. The question we are facing is not simply whether our Christmas is made in China, but more fundamentally whether we can restore the discipline and values that made us a great nation—a nation the world admired, respected, and emulated. This is not something that Santa Claus can deliver, not even a Chinese Santa Claus. This is something only we can do.

our elected dictator

Remember prior to the 2000 elections (was it during campaigning?) when then Governor Bush said, "I don't have a problem with a dictator, as long as it's me." [followed by his idiotic snicker]

He spent his first six months as President doing nothing extraordinary at all; in fact, most of his activity seemed centered around differentiating himself from his two predecessors, daddy-Bush and Bill Clinton. That wasn't going real well, so his took his first of many month-long vacations and returned to the White House just in time for 9/11. Ever since then, he's grabbed at every excuse he can when it's convenient to justify legislating from the throne. He ignores Congress - even the weak efforts at accountability the Republican controlled House have attempted are merely shrugged off. And when the Supreme Court has effectively slapped his hand for a minor offense, he just gets a law passed that makes his illegal behavior - poof - legal (and often retroactively, too).

This article in the Associate Press highlights just another in a long string of Bush's illegal, immoral actions as our elected dictator.
from Showdown Looms Over Domestic Spying:

"As a practical matter, the president can do whatever he wants as long as he has the capacity and executive branch officials to do it," said Carl Tobias, a legal scholar at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
...
"He could take the position he doesn't have to comply with whatever a new Congress says," said Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, and a former Supreme Court clerk.

Who is this Carl Tobias guy, and where did he go to law school? How on earth can he confuse the powers of an elected president with those of a hereditary king, or appointed dictator? And what Vikram Amar didn't say is that the President has alerady taken the position "that he doesn't have to comply with whatever a new Congress says," i.e. that he can break the law whenever he wants. You would think that, as with the illegal wiretapping, he'd lie about it and deceive the American people as long as he could (and often, he does act in that way). But he's actually put his intentions to break the law in writing in the form of "signing statements" - more than 100 times!

At least our dictator is term limited.

*emphasis mine

on playing grown-up

and from We Were All Children Then:

In January of 1970 the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent called a 21-year-old pre-theology student at Oberlin College, Bill Schulz, to supply our pulpit.
...
That April our young minister organized discussions of "Institutional Commitments – Yes? No? Under Some Conditions?" about war, the draft, racism, environmental concerns. On Sunday, May 3, 1970, he preached on "The Nature of Religious Commitment – Part Two: "Why Not Take Up Serpents?"

The next day, scarcely two miles away, four Kent State students were killed. In the following weeks we did what we believed we should. In defiance of a city council ruling against gatherings of more than five people, Bill led a memorial service for the slain students. The congregation adopted resolutions censuring President Nixon and urging withdrawal of our troops from Vietnam, and we voted to withhold payment of the federal phone tax.

On Saturday December 9, 2006, as part of the church’s celebration of "140 years of Standing Witness" we invited Bill to return and speak to us. He had grown up into the Rev. William F. Schulz, retired from heading the Unitarian Universalist Association and Amnesty International. We had grown larger but were still involved with issues of war, human rights and civil rights, and had recently passed resolutions against torture and against the death penalty.

Despite the desperate world situation our reunion was full of merriment and stories – of Bill’s weakness for sequined jackets and rubber-chicken props, and of church coffee-hours with marijuana brownies. An e-mail from a former member recalled having tried, on Saturday nights, to get Bill too drunk to preach on Sunday. "It never worked," he noted, "but it was a fun game. Of course, we were all children then."

Later in the sanctuary decorated for Christmas, Bill told us how May 4 had been a transforming experience for him, his first direct encounter with government turning force on its own citizens. He also spoke about how his experience with Amnesty International taught him that our common humanity – we are more alike than different, and irreversibly connected to one another – is the one resource we have in dealing with the fundamental tragedy of creation. He reminded us that our responsibility is to take care of one another, especially the least among us, especially those damaged by poverty, sickness, hate, fear, injustice and war.

Afterward, as I read of the slaughter of three children in Palestine, of the shackling, blindfolding and muffling of a prisoner for a short walk to the dentist; of the intentional destruction of prisoners’ minds, spirits and bodies through the policies of a petulant child in the White House, my mind kept returning to the words: ‘we were all children then.’

We’re still all children. We thought we had grown up after Vietnam, after Nicaragua, after Kosovo, yet six years into the 21st century we’re still conducting real-time killing games not very different from the FPS video games we put under Christmas trees for our teenagers.

We’re still children trying to persuade ourselves that God will bestow peace on us if we just drop candy peaces into stockings, put more American soldiers under Iraq’s Christmas tree, or hang a nuclear bomb in the sky over Iran in lieu of a star.

We’re still children playing Christmas games of shopping and consuming, neglecting our adult responsibilities. We’re still little kids letting the big kids with money and power make the playground rules, letting our "Justice" Department justify torture, secret detention, and denial of due process, and providing our "Defense" Department with cluster-bombs to defend us from the children of the Iraq and Lebanon.

We’re children showing the world our expertise at murder, torture and destruction, teaching the world’s children fear, revenge and hate, and selling them bombs and deadly weapons. We talk childishly of what some bad guys are doing to other humans, but blow off our adult responsibility to care for and protect one another, to love our neighbors, and treat others as we would be treated.

This Christmas we face the reality that if we are not to destroy ourselves, we must start acting like grownups, stop killing, stop torturing, stop raping our earth, and stop thinking of humans as commodities to be marketed for profit, as partisans to be tweaked for politics, or as pawns to be sacrificed for victory. We have to take charge as adults and separate the child in the White House from his devilish games and monstrous toys of death and destruction.

The Rev. William Schulz reminded our small church anew that in our quest for human rights: "we must remember that it is our generous hearts that makes what we cherish worth guarding in the first place."

If we fail to control our childish impulses to kill and hurt each other, we not only mock the Christmas spirit, we fail our adult responsibility to conscience, to our human family, and to all creation.

She is right in what she says about our childish ways; but to say we are children is not fair to the real kids. If we are all children, we are the worst kind: we have lost our innocence and cannot cope with reality. Gone is the capacity to hope and dream - and in its place is callous indifference or passionate ignorance. The less we know, the easier it is to pretend that all is right in the world. And since (we believe the lie) we cannot make a difference, it is better to pretend that we do not know about the horrific crimes being committed, yes, in our name than to acknowledge what is really happening and be forced to do something about it. Children are lucky: they are unable to comprehend the macroscopic workings of a larger world. Adults do not have that luxury. Though we may be good at acting like children, our world needs us to stop.

*emphasis mine

praying for Peace

[it was pointed out to me that I hadn't posted in a while... well here's one to make up for lost time...]

from As Bush Loiters: A Christmas Toll:

...Those back-stories of young men’s lives [who died while fighting in Iraq] are all distinct and all the same. They’re all individuals and yet all, without exception, human beings with lives rooted in the lives of others—families, friends, enemies, companies, communities. Provincial newspaper stories capture shreds of those lives but couldn’t possibly capture them in their totality, in the true effect of a lost life’s shock to a human ecosystem that quivers down to the uncomprehending eyebrow of a four-year-old inflicted on his father’s funeral, or that intrudes an emptiness sudden and total and astonishing on an eight or nine year old, whose pain isn’t yet mature enough to feel what will come with age: sorrow that doesn’t—unlike the fortune cookies’ predictions—heal with time, but only deepens.
...
And the irony of all these lines here, these lines you’re reading now, is that they’re focused on an infinitesimally small, almost self-indulgent part of the tragedy. We write about the lives lost, the names, the high school sweethearts, the children left behind, because these are American lives. But what differentiates them from the lives being lost on the other side, the Iraqi side, if not the most puerile and ridiculous difference—a difference of geography, of culture, of nationality, differences that have nothing to do with the human loss, to say nothing of the humanity being lost. Here we are, mourning an American loss or two or three or four every day as if it were the limit of the unbearable. And yet two days ago, in a single bombing in Baghdad—one bomb, one explosion—seventy Iraqis lost their lives. The equivalent of a heavy month’s total losses for the American military. And that bombing was just one of several that day. And those bombings were just a few of the many means by which hundreds of Iraqis found their end that day. ... Who ever speaks of a shared humanity when an Arab dies anymore, the deaths—in Iraq, in Gaza or the West Bank, in Lebanon—being so routine, so disposably forgettable. (And none of this is nearly as bad as the disposability of African lives, which run in the millions.)

But President Bush wants to wait. He wants to delay. He wants to spend his holidays in peace. He wants us not to know what we’ve known all along. It isn’t indecision that’s keeping him from announcing his new strategy. It isn’t infighting among his staff, or figuring out how to navigate an opposition Congress. It is certainly not the possibility that he is incubating a Lincolnesque declaration. (He had his Lincolnesque moment, on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and look where that led us.) No. What we’ve known all along is what he’s been all along, in Iraq as elsewhere. Clueless. Pointless. And now we can safely add, heartless. His best strategy is to run out the clock on his term, to hand Iraq to the next president in the hope of making himself not be the president who lost Iraq, even as he’s been the only president, Saddam included, who managed to wreck Iraq. And the worst of it is to know that as reprehensive as the crimes committed in the name of “freedom” or “democracy” or “security” have been, they’re not nearly as horrific as the crimes being committed at the expense of Iraqis’ and Americans’ humanity, they’re not nearly as unpardonable as the crimes that will go unspoken except in grief’s inexplicable blooms, for years to come, from their little seed in that four-year-old’s eyebrow and that nine-year-old’s newborn emptiness. Here and in Iraq.

more good news for Ohio

from In Final Weeks, G.O.P. Focuses on Best Bets - New York Times:

Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.

PS - just found this, deeper in the article:

Normally, a party would be averse to scaling back its help for a senator in a state with as many as five competitive Congressional races also on the ballot. But in this case, Ohio Republicans said, Mr. DeWine and Republican Congressional candidates face the added problem of being dragged down this November by the party’s candidate for governor, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who polls show is facing a double-digit loss to the Democrat, Representative Ted Strickland.

*emphasis mine

a new low

Talk about a sore loser - the election is still several weeks away, and, in a desperate move, Ken Blackwell is already acting like he lost the race for governor of Ohio! from And the Winner Is ... Me - New York Times:

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality.

Of course, Blackwell is down by 28 points, so you can't blame him for feeling desperate. But acting like this ... well, it's yet another instance where Blackwell has proven himself unqualified for Governor.

a voice crying out in the wilderness

from an AP piece:

"As a critic of the administration, I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser," [Keith] Olbermann [of MSNBC's "Countdown"] told The Associated Press. "No one has the right to say that about any free-speaking American in this country."
...
His latest verbal attack, this past Thursday, criticized the president's campaign attacks on Democrats.

"Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?" he asked.

Read one great commentary ("A Special Comment about Lying") here. Here's a teaser, including the line from the AP piece above:

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.’”

The hell they did.

One hundred seventy-seven Democrats opposed the president’s seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.
...
No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday ... nor whatever is next.

You have dishonored your party, sir; you have dishonored your supporters; you have dishonored yourself.

But tonight the stark question we must face is — why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?

In less than one month you have gone from a flawed call to unity to this clarion call to hatred of Americans, by Americans.

Okay, one more great line:

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

*emphasis mine

peak oil? try peak Earth

from Earth's Ecological Debt Crisis: [Humankind's] 'Borrowing' from Nature Hits New Record:

Today is a bleak day for the environment, the day of the year when [humankind] over-exploits the world's resources - the day when we start living beyond our ecological means.

So much for being good stewards of God's creation. We don't need to wait around for God's Armaggedon/Rapture/whatever the world-annihilation term du jour is for evangelical Christians today; we're driving ourselves toward it at break-neck speed. Some highlights from the article:

Global Footprint estimates that the human race is over-using the Earth's resources by 23 per cent. While each individual should use up no more than the equivalent of 1.8 hectares of the Earth's surface, the actual area we use is 2.2 hectares per person.
...
Consumption is particularly profligate in the West, where individuals consume air-freighted food, buy hardwood furniture, enjoy foreign holidays and own cars. Global Footprint estimates the world would need five planet Earths to sustain a global materialistic society such as that in the US while almost three would be needed for the UK.

By contrast, developing countries such as Kenya use a fraction of the resources. Nef highlighted the energy wasted in trade. In 2004, for example, Britain exported 1,500 tons of potatoes to Germany and imported the same amount. We [Britain] sent 10,200 tons of milk and cream to France and imported 9,900 tons.

playing with nature, nature bites back

from Time to Move the Mississippi, Experts Say:

Like many major rivers, the Mississippi has tributaries, which feed water into it, and distributaries, which carry water away from it as it nears its mouth. Its tributaries include the Missouri and Ohio Rivers; one way or another, every stream, storm drain and parking lot from the Rockies to the Appalachians drains into the Mississippi.
...
Until people interfered with its flow, the Mississippi’s path to the gulf silted up naturally over time; water flow slowed and the river bed lost its capacity to carry a big flood. When next the big flood came, the river would suddenly turn one of its distributaries into its new main stem.

This kind of switching has occurred roughly every 1,500 years, geologists say, and since about 1950 the river has been ready for a change — to the Atchafalaya. The Corps of Engineers prevents that from happening with an enormous installation of locks, dams and power stations near Lettsworth, north of Baton Rouge and about 100 miles northwest of New Orleans.
...
People involved in the proposal recognize that the lower Mississippi is “a working landscape” that must continue to function, said James T. B. Tripp, a lawyer for Environmental Defense and a member of the Louisiana Governor’s Commission for Coastal Restoration.

“One of the major obstacles to doing any of this pre-Katrina was the navigation industry,” he said. “As a result of Katrina, everyone’s thinking has become more flexible. Katrina brought all that home: how vulnerable this economic infrastructure has become. So there is a greater readiness today to think more boldly about how we can manage the river in a way that will help restore and build wetlands.”
...
“Is it practical? Yes,” he said. “Will it be expensive? Yes. But when you look at the alternatives it’s very cost effective,” particularly in an era of rising sea levels.
...
But there is a growing recognition that the cost of not acting will be high as well.

Along the Louisiana coast, in the delta plain along the river and the oaky woods along Chenier Plain to the west, much of the land is only a few feet above sea level. If seas rise as expected by two or three feet, or more, in the next century, and if the muddy sediments that form this landscape continue to compact and subside, land loss will only accelerate.

Coastal erosion is not just a matter of concern for the communities that are being, bit by bit, washed out to sea. Coastal erosion is a major issue: it affects the power of storms and their ability to reach further inland; it affects entire ecosystems as salt water filters into bodies of fresh water; it affects major industries such as shrimping and the movement of oil & natural gas. The article mentions rising sea levels on several occassions as a cause for lost coast land. The fact is, thanks to the permanent diverting of the Mississippi in the first place, land is being lost at a dramatic pace simply due to coastal erosion. Rediverting the mighty Mississippi again seems like another dangerous move (as in 'two wrongs don't make a right'), but perhaps it would be enough.

Little Girl, 3 Million Years Old, Offers New Hints on Evolution - New York Times

from Little Girl, 3 Million Years Old, Offers New Hints on Evolution:

If the fossil Lucy, the most famous woman from out of the deep human past, had a child, it might have looked a lot like the bundle of skull and bones uncovered by scientists digging in the badlands of Ethiopia.

The paleontologists who are announcing the discovery in the journal Nature today said the 3.3-million-year-old fossils were of the earliest well-preserved child ever found in the human lineage. It was estimated to be about 3 years old at death, probably female and a member of the Australopithecus afarensis species, the same as Lucy’s.

An analysis of the skeleton revealed evidence of a species in transition, the scientists said in interviews yesterday.

On the 6 & 1/2 day of Creation, God created Australopithecus afarensis.

iran 'n iraq

This is for those who think that US troops must stay in Iraq to keep it stable and out of the grasp of Iran's influence.

from Juan Cole's Informed Comment (09/13/06):

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had something of a lovefest at their press conference on Tuesday. Ahmadinejad expressed his complete support for the Iraqi parliament, political process and government. The Iranians always sound just like the Bush administration when they talk about political progress in Iraq. Ahmadinejad also offered help with security affairs.

Al-Maliki declined to associate himself with American charges that Iran is fomenting turmoil in Iraq, saying that there were no obstacles to security cooperation between the two countries.

Iran and Iraq will cooperate in pumping petroleum from oil fields traversed by their common border, and in its refining. One such project could be online within a year. These fields are far from the Sunni Arab areas, and Iran would help with security, so that they could help the government escape the economic blockade the guerrilla movement has placed on the northern Kirkuk fields, which generally cannot export through Turkey because of pipeline sabotage.

So let's see, Iran is cooperating, helping, or supportive when it comes to Iraq's: parliament, government, political process, security affairs, pumping of petroleum, and securing oil feilds. Oh, and in a Sept. 14 post, Cole notes that "Iran and Iraq have announced cooperation in agricultural projects."

Remind me again, why are we in Iraq?

*emphasis mine

The Real Link Between 9/11 and Iraq (Finally) Revealed

from The Real Link Between 9/11 and Iraq (Finally) Revealed, a good look at where things stand including these sad facts:

*At least 3,438 Iraqis died by violent means during July (roughly similar numbers died in June and August), significantly more than the 2,973 people who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
...
*By the beginning of September, 2,974 U.S. military service members had died in Iraq and in the Bush administration's Global War on Terror, more than died in the attacks of 9/11.
...
*Last week, the U.S. Senate agreed to appropriate another $63 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where costs have been averaging $10 billion a month so far this year. This brings the (taxpayer) cost for Bush's wars so far to about $469 billion and climbing.
...
While the various New York memorial constructions can't get off (or into) the ground, due to disputes and cost estimate overruns, what could be thought of as the real American memorial to Ground Zero is going up in the very heart of Baghdad; and unlike the prospective structures in Manhattan or seemingly just about any other construction project in Iraq, it's on schedule. According to [Australian journalist] Paul McGeough, the $787 million "embassy," a 21-building, heavily fortified complex (not reliant on the capital's hopeless electricity or water systems) will pack significant bang for the bucks -- its own built-in surface-to-air missile emplacements as well as Starbucks and Krispy Kreme outlets, a beauty parlor, a swimming pool, and a sports center. As essentially a "suburb of Washington," with a predicted modest staff of 3,500, it is a project that says, with all the hubris the Bush administration can muster: We're not leaving. Never.
...
*A sideline record in the War on Terror: Afghanistan's already sizeable opium crop is projected to increase by at least 50% this year and would then make up a startling 92% of the global supply. ... (Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, the investigation into the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden has hit a record low. His trail has gone "stone cold… U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years.")

*emphasis mine

push back

from Subverting Democracy with the Big Lie:

If representative government were alive and well in America, President Bush would not have dared to give the speech he made Monday on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. In a blatantly partisan screed, the president ripped off a nation’s mourning for the 9/11 victims in order to justify his totally unrelated and disastrous invasion of Iraq.

The president’s shameless remarks on this solemn occasion were so rife with egregious distortions of fact and logic as to beg ridicule, let alone refutation by a free press, a sturdy political opposition party and an informed public. Sadly, those three essential pillars of a free society have been subverted by five years of willful presidential exploitation of our fears, mocking the Founding Fathers’ historic dream of a government accountable to the public.

The model for this administration is the opposite of Jeffersonian democracy, and instead increasingly invites comparison with the madness that destroyed Rome, Germany and the Soviet Union: Authoritarianism that thrives on stoking paralyzing fear of the barbarians at the gate. “We are in a war that will set the course for this new century and determine the destiny of millions across the world,” Bush said, justifying his Iraq quagmire while sidestepping the fact that Islamic extremism, as well as 15 of the 19 hijackers, was most clearly nurtured by Saudi Arabia, the bizarre oil theocracy with intimate ties to the Bush dynasty, but not former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
...
Peel back the lies and hyperbole from Bush’s speech and you are left with one pressing concern: If this “war on terror” is really so important to the worldwide battle for freedom, why have we allowed this democracy-mocking demagogue to lead us through it?

more bad news

from Alarmed Scientists Warn: Even in Winter, Arctic Ice Melting:

The vast expanses of ice floating in the Arctic Sea are melting in winter as well as in the summer, likely because of global warming, NASA scientists said Wednesday.
...
And if the ice continued to melt at the current rate, Comiso said, it could have profound effects on all life in the Arctic and other consequences around the world.

Particularly hard hit would be the polar bears, which live on the ice, he said. Sea ice also provides oxygen-rich cold water needed for the growth of phytoplankton. A decline in the number of the tiny plants could have a cascading effect on the food supply of fish and crustaceans, seals and the other marine mammals.
...
It's not impossible that the sea ice could recover in coming years, [NASA researcher Claire] Parkinson said.

"The possibility is there that the Arctic will recover, but that is not as likely as that it will continue to decrease," she said.
...
The loss of Arctic sea ice has global effects, scientists say.

Sea ice is made of frozen ocean water, and when it melts, it doesn't raise the ocean's level as do melting glaciers and ice sheets. But less sea ice means a smaller area of ice to reflect radiation away from Earth, and the dark, open water absorbs heat. Both phenomena could accelerate the world's warming, scientists say.
...
"If you asked me five years ago if it was human activity (causing global warming) versus natural variability, I was a fence-sitter," [Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.] said.

"The magnitude of the changes is starting to rise above the noise of natural variability. There is a continuing trend. What we see in the Arctic is part of a much larger picture. We hate to say, 'We told you so.' But we told you so."

10 ... 9 ... 8 ...

from World has 10-Year Window to Act on Climate Warming - NASA Expert:

A leading U.S. climate researcher said on Wednesday the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert a weather catastrophe.
...
"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most," [NASA scientist James] Hansen said at the Climate Change Research Conference in California's state capital.

If the world continues with a "business as usual" scenario, Hansen said temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and "we will be producing a different planet".

On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and the likely extinction of 50 percent of species.
...
"We cannot burn off all the fossil fuels that are readily available without causing dramatic climate change," Hansen said. "This is not something that is a theory. We understand the carbon cycle well enough to say that."

can they do anything right?

from Average Slice of Prosperity is Thin:

Read all about it. The numbers say the U.S. economy has been robust over the last two years. The only problem is that the numbers don't equate to Herbert Hoover's 'a chicken in every pot.'

Your chicken is most likely a McNugget.

Since 2003, despite an economic expansion fueled by increasing worker productivity (longer hours), median pay for American workers has declined 2 percent relative to inflation.

So, who's doing well?

Reports The New York Times, "Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960s."

I care

from Even a Bag-Lady Can Teach Bush About Human Rights:

At the last count, Bush has discreetly claimed the authority to disobey 740 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the constitution.

This state of affairs has gradually developed since the days of the Depression, when Roosevelt used the economic crisis to gain more power for the executive branch. Before the Thirties, legislation had been precisely drafted so as to minimise interpretations by the executive branch. Now the executive branch can ignore anything it wants and only consults Congress when it needs a law to bypass the remaining obstacle to total and unfettered power - the Supreme Court.

You may think I exaggerate, but the facts speak for themselves. The majority of Americans cares not one jot for the constitution and lawyers and politicians are content to set aside any of the revered articles whenever it suits them. Nobody complains. There are no demonstrations on Massachusetts Avenue, no mass rallies in Central Park in defence of the constitution.

"It is paradoxical," says American author Paul Craig Roberts, "that American democracy is the likely casualty of the 'war on terror' that is being justified in the name of expansion of democracy." Quite.

I care. I vote. I speak my mind and try to inform others of the Truth. I give money to people and organizations who believe that the Constitution is not an antiquated impediment to the consolidation of money and power but, rather, a flawed but vital foundation for a nation that values its citizens and the public good. I do this because I believe - in the face of the lies and fear-mongering, torture, terror, and aggressive war of Bush and his administration - I still believe in human decency, in treating others as I wish to be treated, and in loving God and loving my neighbors, all of them, as I love myself.

*emphasis mine

about sums it up

from Why Are We Suddenly At War With "Islamic Fascists"?:

The Administration is aware that Americans are not sufficiently afraid, and that clear thinking will be its demise.

and the beat goes on

from A Civil War, but Not Ours:

With each passing day this week, the death toll has mounted - more Iraqi deaths, more American deaths.

The only people, inside Iraq or out, who are seriously suggesting that circumstances are improving - or that they might improve anytime soon - are members of the administration and their dwindling circle of apologists.

Do the president and his aides really believe what they are saying?

If so, they are fools.

Windows Live Mail

A look at U.S. Senator John Kyl, Arizona (from an e-mail I received):

Worst anti-choice votes
- Twice co-sponsored amendments to the Constitution to outlaw abortion in almost all circumstances, including rape and incest.
- Voted to deny women in the military the right to use their own private funds for abortion care at their base hospital.

Home state facts
- Arizona has not repealed its pre-Roe abortion ban, which is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
- 80% of Arizona counties have no abortion provider.
- Arizona has the 2nd-highest teenage pregnancy rate of any state.

Why is it that the people who take the most extremist positions have the most worst record when it comes to educating, providing for, and protecting those most at risk ... like underage girls? Sen. Kyl could do far more good by working to address the teenage pregnancy crisis his state faces. But why would he do that? There's no electoral edge in it, no easy money generated for future campaigns. And whose fault is that? Ours. Because we voters don't pay enough attention. After all, 'hot button issues' are so named because they are singular issues that do get our attention and, more importantly, generate a response. If voters were not so emotionally driven, we would see through the facade of people like Sen. Kyl and demand that they actually do something substantive to help, not just wail and bluster. Come on people! Take a minute and think things through - then demand real action aimed at building consensus and doing the most good.

a contrast of visions

From Yes! Magazine:

By what name will future generations know our time?

Will they speak in anger and frustration of the time of the Great Unraveling, when profligate consumption exceeded Earth’s capacity to sustain and led to an accelerating wave of collapsing environmental systems, violent competition for what remained of the planet’s resources, and a dramatic dieback of the human population? Or will they look back in joyful celebration on the time of the Great Turning, when their forebears embraced the higher-order potential of their human nature, turned crisis into opportunity, and learned to live in creative partnership with one another and Earth?

I love that opening question. Of course, one could even make the case that there will be no future generations if we do not act to save humanity from the double threat, as suggested, of Global War and Environmental Collapse... Will this generation be remembered as the one which blindly pursued a path of not just self- but global-destruction? Or will it be remembered as the one which courageously found a better way?

Bush blocked probe into spying

What a surprise! From MSNBC.com:

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors AmericansÂ’ international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.

The departmentÂ’s Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval.

At the time, the office said it could not obtain security clearance to examine the classified program.

Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that the president would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward. "It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?" asked Specter, R-Pa., referring to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

"“The president of the United States makes the decision,"” Gonzales told the committee hearing, during which he was strongly criticized on a range of national security issues by Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panelÂ’s senior Democrat.

In a book I recently read by Dan Brown (not The Davinci Code), the question is asked several times that can paraphrased slightly: "Who will guard the guardians?" ... "Who will watch the watchers?" ... "Who will spy on the spies?" Most of what the current administration does is secret. When they get caught, they lie about it. The NSA spying is a perfect case in point: there was outrage, and rightly so, when it was first exposed. To which Bush said, Trust me: We're only spying on international terrorists and their national contacts. Then it came out that he was spying on calls that were not international in nature. To which Bush said, Trust me: We're only spying on terrorists wherever they are hiding. Then it came out that he was spying on peace groups and religious organizations, unions and political opponents. To which Bush said, Trust me: We're only spying to protect you.

It should come as no surprise that the Administration, and President Bush himself, has constantly worked to keep secret what they are actually doing. We need to wake up to the fact that Bush is simply a handy abbreviation for BUllSHit, because that describes perfectly the lies that Administration officials, again, including the President, continue to feed the American people.

Who will guard the guardians? The open secret that is key to the USA's success, identity, and, yes, even security is that the public are the best guardians of all; that the people deserve to and ought to know the truth; that the citizens should be entrusted with the right and benefit of having all the information possible before them and then deciding for themselves. Are there matters of national security that should be kept from the general public? Absolutely. Are the details of this or any President's personal war on the Constitution an example of privileged information? Hell no!

Happy Birthday to Us

Okay, so I'm a week late. I just came across this thought, from Douglas McBain and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

America, in its heart and soul, is little more than an idea. Any state, of whatever stripe, can have defined borders, an army, a currency and the machinery of government -- but America was born of something more than this sort of prosaic chemistry of nations. At its beginning, America was a dream made by dreamers -- that man can govern himself and order his affairs according to an ethos that recognizes the fundamental dignity of his fellow man and entrusts to each of its citizens the responsibility to see that such dignity is ensured to all.

It's ironic that the government that should be serving this great purpose is instead working, at the hands of those who have no learning or regard for their own origins, to dismantle and destroy, under the guise of national security and ownership society, so much that was so painstakingly created over a span of more than 200 years.

When the commonweal is so threatened, when our form of government is so assaulted from within, what responsibility do we have to act? This is a question to ask ourselves, not in the abstract but in the most concrete and immediate terms. The threat to our democracy, to our way of life, and to the simple human values on which this country was so courageously founded, is not hypothetical -- it is all too real -- read about it in the headlines of this newspaper.

What has happened to our sense of moral right, our sense of public responsibility, our commitment to human dignity? What has happened to our own self-respect?

Why are we waging war in Iraq?

1) Because Saddam was the mastermind behind 9/11 - No, that's not right.
2) Because Saddam had links to Al Qaeda - No wait, he had nothing to do with them.
3) Because Saddam was an evil dictator in possession of weapons of mass destruction that would eventually be unleashed on America, or at least Israel - No, actually Saddam's arsenal of chemical & biological (he never had nuclear) weapons was effectively depleted by sanctions and political efforts.
4) Because the people of Iraq long to be free, and a free and democratic Iraq (and, eventually, Middle East) is Pres. Bush's top priority - No, no, no - once again, it appears, we need more false pretenses to continue the occupation; the President just couldn't stick to the latest and greatest excuse.

from the Washington Post:

"The commitment to what the president of the United States will say every single day of the week is his number one priority in Iraq, when it's translated into action, looks very tiny," said Les Campbell, who runs programs in the Middle East for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, known as NDI.

NDI and its sister, the International Republican Institute (IRI), will see their grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development dry up at the end of this month, according to a government document, leaving them only special funds earmarked by Congress last year. Similarly, the U.S. Institute of Peace has had its funding for Iraq democracy promotion cut by 60 percent. And the National Endowment for Democracy expects to run out of money for Iraqi programs by September.

"Money keeps getting transferred away to security training. Democracy's one of the things that's been transferred," said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's project on democracy and the rule of law.
...
For Bush, developing democracy in Iraq has become perhaps the signature of his presidency, and he takes special pride in the three elections held since sovereignty was transferred by U.S. authorities. Veterans of past democracy-building efforts, however, have complained that having elections is not enough -- an argument the president has embraced lately, both in his speeches and in his newly released National Security Strategy.

Unfortunately, Bush is talking the talk but not walking the walk.

At current spending rates, the earmark [for funding pro-democracy initiatives] will run out this year. After that, the Bush administration has included just $15 million for the two party institutes as part of the $63 million for Iraqi democracy in next year's budget, which would require most programs to be cut.

The U.S. Institute of Peace faces similar cutbacks to its program. "It's just vital," said Daniel P. Serwer, an institute vice president. All the democracy programs in Iraq combined, he noted, cost less than one day of the U.S. military mission. "Am I absolutely sure that we will shorten the deployment time of American troops enough to justify the cost of the program? Yes," he said.

they're at it again...

from truthdig:

The convener of a "War on Christians" conference held in the nation'’s capital outrageously depicted [Tom Delay] the former House majority leader'’s political plight as the unwarranted crucifixion of a Christ-like leader by God-haters. And, with his trademark gall, the infamously ethically challenged DeLay eagerly embraced this explanation when it was his turn to speak to the adoring crowd.

"We have been chosen to live as Christians at a time when our culture is being poisoned and our world is being threatened," thundered the Texan pest-control entrepreneur who rose to become one of AmericaÂ’s most powerful politicians. "The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won."

Let'’s leave aside for a moment the absurdity of right-wing Christians' persecution complex at a time when their adherents effectively control all three branches of the federal government. What's even more confusing is how so many enemies of virtue seem to have had a field day operating under poor DeLay's auspices...

To be fair to DeLay, it should be noted that as absurd as his religious posturing may appear, it comes at a time when he has been denied the services of his onetime spiritual adviser and former chief of staff. Edwin Buckham, an evangelical minister who turned lobbyist after leaving DeLay's staff, is himself now mired in potential legal problems stemming from Rudy's plea bargain. A devastating article by R. Jeffrey Smith in the Washington Post last week reported that Buckham and his wife received a total of nearly a million bucks from the "nonprofit" U.S. Family Network, which he created as a front group largely funded by clients of Abramoff.

This is a great piece of reporting that uncovers the lies of Abramoff and his ilk (see also Ralph Reed), and exposes his faith-posturing as nothing more than a charade. One of my favorite biblical quotes is Jesus' admonition to "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Delay got it backwards, choosing to be innocent as a serpent, instead.

Actually, the entire passage in which that line is located further implicates Delay. Here, in the tenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus has selected the twelve disciples and now gives them directions for going out to proclaim the good news. In contrast to Tom "the Martyr" Delay, the disciples are told, "You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food." Not only did Delay and his staff (including his spiritual advisor - it's in the article!) receive money, free travel, vacations, and more, they actively sought these things as the price of their service. Funny, I thought serving as an elected official was in itself a privilege, and the only reward one should expect was re-election for a job well done.

The disciples are also warned, "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Delay not only mixed up the serpents and doves part, but also the sheep and wolves. Before making his meteoric rise (and, let's hope, fall) from public, um, bilking, Delay was a taxidermist. The phrase that seems better to fit Delay is "wolf in sheep's clothing," and who better to dress himself in sheep's clothing than a taxidermist?

In all seriousness, Delay and his staff make a mockery of the Christian faith by their deeds and, worse, help create the alleged "war on Christians" with their words. They create such a "war," and the associated cultural divisions, and then act as war-profiteers, scamming well meaning faithful in the ensuing chaos.

the masses stir

More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights

What an amazing image!

"500,000+"
(Bob Chamberlin / LAT)

Former Top Judge Says US Risks Edging Near to Dictatorship

from Former the Guardian:

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

Yes, I've been busy for a while. A lot has happened. But this is too important to pass without notice. My favorite part:

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

Granted, the part where she singles out DeLay for some well deserved criticism is good, too.

*emphasis mine

What Really Happened

from Cindy Sheehan, What Really Happened:

...I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shrit that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing...

*emphasis mine

the deception continues

from the Los Angeles Times:

Asked about Abramoff on the Sunday talk shows, [three] Republican lawmakers said the White House should release all records of its contacts with the now-disgraced lobbyist.

"I'm one who believes that more is better … when it comes to disclosure and transparency, so I'd be a big advocate for making records that are out there available," Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told Fox News Sunday.

The photos should not be released, he said, "but I do think it's important that everybody understand what this guy's level of involvement was."

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, appearing on the same program, agreed on the need for the White House to release its records related to Abramoff.

"Absolutely. I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity," Pence said. "The American people have profound confidence in him. And as Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts and republican governance, perhaps, will be saved."

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said it was "silly" to think that a lobbyist and his campaign contributions would influence the president. But full disclosure is the best policy, he said.

"My personal opinion on these things is to just get it out. If you've got pictures, get the pictures out," Hagel said on ABC's This Week. "Disclosure is the real issue. Whether it's campaign finance issues, whether it's ethics issues, whether it's lobbying issues, disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things."

Is it really so silly, Mr. Hagel, to think the President could be swayed by promises of political or capital gain and influence? Let's remember that this is the President who allowed oil companies to rewrite - and therefore undercut - our environmental protections to fatten their own wallets. This is the President who has allowed waste, fraud, and abuse to continue unchecked in handouts to friends of the Administration supposedly overseeing the rebuilding of Iraq. This is the President who has trumpeted his compassionate side and his faith even while turning his back on working Americans.

And it's a bitter irony - or a sad state of ignorance - for you, Mr. Pence, to use the word "unimpeachable" in describing anything about the President. Or were you merely bragging that this is the case because Republicans control the mechanisms for impeachment? At any rate, here is an appropriate use of the word "silly" (Hagel, take note): praising the President's integrity. Why the need to lie, obfuscate, and dissemble?

One who has nothing to hide need hide nothing. Oh Mr. President...come out, come out, wherever you are. On one point, at least, I agree with these men: the President should give full disclosure of the access that Abramoff had to anyone within the Administration. Surely the President has heard the saying, "The truth shall set you free?" Or is he afraid that the truth is actually too damning?

thanks, Ms. Ivins

from the Columbus Free Press:

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

*emphasis hers

"Bigotry Conquers All"

from OneWorld.net:

"It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran, and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic," [said Scott] Long [director of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people].

When the final history of the NewCon / Republican attempt at creating a dictatorship is written, it is up to us to prevent the first line from being: "First they came for the homosexuals..." Things will only snowball from there. We know that Muslims will quickly follow, along with liberals of various stripes, and then peace lovers and union members and on and on ...

Evil is evil, yet Bush shows no qualms about mixing it up with terrorists when signing on with such an alignment will earn him a few more bucks and a little more political capital. Disgusting. He has no interest in doing anything decent for humanity; there is no compassion in this man. His careless actions and cold attitude toward so many - be they working poor or victims of natural disaster - almost beg the question, does Bush even have a soul?

debate shifts to ‘tipping point’

from washingtonpost.com / MSNBC.com:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

Finally, the conversation is turning an important corner! We're at the point where we need to squabbling with those unconvinved that there's a problem and start figuring out just how big the problem is. Some people may have good reason to be unconvinced; regardless, by the time society waits for everyone to come around, for some to pull their heads out of the sand, and for a few to find a way to make a buck off solutions and therefore stop contributing to the misinformation, it may already be too late. Not to be alarmist, but global warming is an immediate problem that requires immediate attention. Stewardship of resources, care for God's creation, not to mention maintaining a decent environmental for health & quality of life type issues - all of these are reasons to be attentive to what's happening to the environment as a result of humanity and to be pro-active in protecting the environment.

Or else we all might wind up like this poor Kenyan woman, stuck in a famine stricken country with nothing left to do but curse God and die.

READ THIS

I can't even begin to summarize this article by John Pilger, appearing in the New Statesman:

The Death of Freedom
The rights of ordinary people to speak out against an unjust war and atrocities unleashed in their name are being crushed. Fascism is at the door. Who else will fight it?

nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, ...

from the AP:

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among House Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said.
...
DeLay is battling campaign finance charges in Texas and was forced to step aside temporarily as majority leader last fall after he was charged in his home state. He has consistently maintained his innocence and said he intended to resume his leadership post once cleared.

His about-face came amid growing pressure from fellow Republicans who were concerned about their own political futures in the wake of this week's guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
...
DeLay acted hours after a small vanguard of Republicans circulated a petition calling for leadership elections and citing DeLay's legal problems as well as his long ties to Abramoff.

This is good for the country, I don't care what party you support. We do not need money launderers running Congress. I don't think this will, in the short term, shed anyone's image of Congress as being a brood of vipers or a den of thieves, but it's a step in the right direction.

stop the press!

from the Observer/UK

Paul Bremer, who led the US civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted that the Americans "didn't really see" the threat coming from insurgents in the country.

He also criticized President George Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying they had not listened to his concerns about the quality of Iraq's army, and that ultimately the White House bore responsibility for decisions that had led to the current violence.
...
Bremer's comments ... join a lengthening list of Iraqi hawks turned critics of policy in the country. Bremer launched his attack in an interview with the American television network NBC that is to be broadcast tonight. His attack also comes on the eve of the publication of Bremer's book on Iraq, called My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope, which is to be released tomorrow.

In the TV interview Bremer admits the insurgency was a surprise. "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," he said, adding that he was worried about US plans, formulated in 2004, to begin reducing their troop numbers in favour of relying on Iraqis. He said he raised concerns with Bush and Rumsfeld, but they were ignored. "There was a tendency by the Pentagon to exaggerate the capability of the Iraqi forces," he said.

Bremer's critics say that he is trying to shift the blame away from himself for the violence in Iraq. Many experts have attacked his decision to disband the Iraqi army just after the invasion was complete as one of the main factors behind the insurgency.

However, Bremer said the ultimate responsibility for the situation in Iraq lay at the door of the White House. "I believe I did everything I could do. ... The President, in the end, is responsible for making decisions," he said.

it's recess! time to appoint some cronies

from InterPress Service:

WASHINGTON - Resorting once more to controversial "recess" appointments, U.S. President George W. Bush has named two political cronies to key administration positions without Senate approval.
...
Bush appointed half a dozen other officials Tuesday whose nominations had been held up in the Senate, but most, such as that of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, were less controversial or politically charged than those of Sauerbrey and Smith.

Recess appointments, historically very unusual, have become far more common under Bush, who has generally resorted to them for nominees whose right-wing ideological tendencies have made it unlikely or impossible for them to be confirmed by the Senate as a whole.
...
Sauerbrey's nomination has been particularly controversial. It was opposed by three of the nation's most important newspapers, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, both because of her far-right ideological views and her almost total lack of relevant experience, particularly in emergency relief operations, which her office oversees.

In that respect, the timing of her nomination was particularly unfortunate, coinciding with the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), then headed by another political appointee with no relevant experience, Michael Brown.
...
After Bush's 2000 election, Sauerbrey, who served as chair of his campaign in Maryland, was appointed to a low-profile State Department post, eventually becoming U.S. representative to the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women.

As ambassador, she has pushed her ideological views, including her staunch opposition to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women -- a position which the Bush administration shares with Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia -- and to any form of abortion rights.

Shouldn't be a single thing in here that's surprising. The "up or down vote, let the process work" Republican party that throws tantrums when things don't go their way has no problem monkeying with it themselves when it suits their needs. Oh, and isn't it nice to know that when it comes to human rights, Pres. Bush is pushing the agenda of the most inhuman despots in the world?

*emphasis mine

Alito Spies China

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year ...
There, that about catches me up to date.
Except so much has been going on!
Unfortunately, major life changes (many!) are keeping me busy.
So I'll be posting sporadically for a while.
However, there are a couple thoughts I want to share right now...

ALITO
Here are a few good reasons to oppose the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court (and to contact your Senator!):

With respect to personal liberty, Alito takes an extremely narrow view of what the Constitution protects, as reflected in his opinion sanctioning the strip search without a warrant of a ten-year old girl. With respect to religious freedom, he has not insisted upon the separation of church and state, as required by the First Amendment. With respect to the regulation of dangerous industries, he ruled that Congress does not have the authority to make the possession of machine guns illegal. With respect to labor, he ruled that despite a Congressional statute authorizing it, state workers had no ability to sue for unpaid sick leave. With respect to the environment, he made it more difficult to sue polluters under the Clean Water Act. With respect to employment discrimination, Alito favors rules that make it more difficult for women and minorities to sue. With respect to corporate power, he has ruled against anti-trust remedies. With respect to one person – one vote, Alito has said that he disagrees with Reynolds v. Sims, a leading case establishing this principle.

SPYING
I can't believe President Bush actually admitted to a crime on live television! His attitude on this whole spying thing reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character's damning over reaction in A Few Good Men. I mean, come on! When the law allows the President to order a wiretap on anyone without court approval and gives him 3 whole days to ask for approval after the fact there can only be three excuses: ignorance, laziness, or questionable intent. The first two are terrible, and don't apply. We know the President was not ignorant of the law because he had his lawyers work up grand-sounding logic around the law just in case; we know that he wasn't lazy because he sure spent an awful lot of energy on the spying itself, going after grannies and Catholics and people who like peace. Why wouldn't the President ask for approval for wiretaps from a court that has approved something like 300,000 out of 300,040 asked for in the last 30 years? Requests for such wiretaps are not public, so it couldn't have even been that he feared word of his actions would get out. No, the only plausible scenario is that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that it probably wouldn't get court approval, and that it definitely wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny. So, he kept it secret, operated outside a very fluid law, and violated the US Constitution. You tell me, is this worse than a lie about an extra-marital, consensual sexual affair? Shame on anyone that says No!

CHINA
As the pieces of the always murky 'what will the future look like' puzzle begin to fall into place, a few things are apparently clear: the environment will be a wreck and natural resources in shrinking supply; the world in general and the US in particular will continue to be addicted to oil because oil will continue to drive market, consumer, and capital power; China will grow as a competitor to the "world's sole super-power" (the U.S.) on many, many fronts - including political, military, commercial (which makes the whole world go 'round, don't you know?), and consumption. Connect the dots: oil drives world economies - greater access means greater dominance; oil will be in increasingly tight supply; oil will be in increasingly high demand; the US and China will be in fierce competition for oil to keep their markets chugging. Two possibilities are readily apparent: 1) we can learn to get along, to share, to do all those things parents try to teach their kids; or 2) we can go to war (again!) over oil. Of course, we won't really go to war over oil. No, instead China will be painted as some kind of monster bully instigating a fight with peaceful, freedom loving America. Attempts will be made to scare the American public silly with what might happen should we lose out - communism spreads, the masses are unemployed, censorship reigns and rights are revoked. Fight for your Rights! we'll be told. Meanwhile, we're already losing our rights to an increasingly dictatorial presidency and cabal of cronies intent on perverting power for their own agenda. Don't believe me? Consider the President's push for the right to torture, despite a just passed law specifically banning it; his push to hold people in prison forever without charge or trial despite habeas corpus and the essential moral principles of liberty and freedom; his Orwellian subversion of environmental protections and control on corporate power; and the latest, spying on his own people and subverting dissenters while pretending to 'protect them' (see above). This President, and those who would continue the process he has begun, will one day have us fighting a monster they paint China as being (or some other foreign power) while they quietly remake us into exactly that image. We are already on a path that leads to the possibility of the torture, imprisonment, and 'disappearance' of anyone who dares speak against the will of power. We must resist all efforts to strengthen the executive branch; we must maintain checks and balances and the spread of power; we must not allow the unitary executive theory to become reality. No one person (and no group of con-men) can be trusted with so much power. George W. Bush has proved this once again.