MOTHER EARTH - More on Global Warming from NASA

"NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming" by BILL BLAKEMORE, ABC News

'Disastrous Effects' of Global Warming Tipping Points Near, According to New Study

Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Its lead author is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The forecast effects include "increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," according to the NASA announcement.

There's much more in the full article.

But of course the Bush Administration still hums & haws over the issue and has agencies using bureaucratic delays to regulations even though the courts have ruled that they can regulate.

It's all smoke-and-mirrors to block any action that MAY HELP mitigate Global Warming. The truth is that the knuckle-dragging Bush Administration still does NOT believe Global Warming is a real danger or that it even exists.

POLITICS - Orwell's 1984, We See You

"New police 'spy drone' takes to sky" Press Association, Guardian UK

The UK's first police "spy drone" has taken to the skies.

The remote control helicopter, fitted with CCTV cameras, will be used by officers in Merseyside to track criminals and record anti-social behavior.

Oh, no. This could never be abused by government in the future.... NOT !

POLITICS - Brave New Bush World, Cowards Does Make

"Smithsonian toned down exhibit on climate change in the Arctic" Associated Press, Herald Tribune

The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.

Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered "to show that global warming could go either way," Sullivan said.

"It just became tooth-pulling to get solid science out without toning it down," said Sullivan, who resigned last fall after 16 years at the museum. He said he left after higher-ups tried to reassign him.

Smithsonian officials denied that political concerns influenced the exhibit, saying the changes were made for reasons of objectivity. And some scientists who consulted on the project said nothing major was omitted.

Sullivan said that to his knowledge, no one in the Bush administration pressured the Smithsonian, whose $1.1 billion (€0.82 billion) budget is mostly taxpayer-funded.

Rather, he said, Smithsonian leaders acted on their own. "The obsession with getting the next allocation and appropriation was so intense that anything that might upset the Congress or the White House was being looked at very carefully," he said.

Yap, in other words the Smithsonian "leaders" have become cowards because this dictatorial Bush Administration hold the purse-strings. To hell with science and lets present a "balanced" view. Of course Bush gets to define what "balanced" is, like Global Warming is not real.

HOGWASH!

IRAQ - Another View

"A Bed of Roses, A Bed of Thorns"

If I ever get married again
..I don't want any of this white dress business. I shall wear red.

Bright red.

The color of blood, the color of roaring, erupting volcanoes, the color of a dying sun, the color of passion, the color of Resistance...The color of Iraq.

Layla Anwar
Arab Woman Blues

There's more in the full article

POLITICS - Bush World, "Supporting the Troops"

"White House opposes 3.5 percent pay raise" by Rick Maze, Army Times

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Yap. Another example of "supporting our troops" from the Bush Administration. By all means, lets keep the gap between military pay and civilian pay, it's "good" for our troops. Heaven forbid they get spoiled by paying them equal to civilians! Nah, their job is not worth more pay. Dieing for your nation is a privilege and you should not expect to be paid more.

HOGWASH!

POLITICS - Latest from Gonzo World aka Bush Empire

"Gonzales Hospital Episode Detailed" by Dan Eggen & Paul Kane, Washington Post

On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.

White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.

In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.

The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.

"I was angry," Comey testified. "I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."

The broad outlines of the hospital-room conflict have been reported previously, but without Comey's gripping detail of efforts by Card, who has left the White House, and Gonzales, now the attorney general. His account appears to present yet another challenge to the embattled Gonzales, who has strongly defended the surveillance program's legality and is embroiled in a battle with Congress over the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

It also marks the first public acknowledgment that the Justice Department found the original surveillance program illegal, more than two years after it began.

Red emphases mine

I watched the testimony and was shocked at such behavior from people sworn to uphold our Constitution and self-professed practitioners of ethical behavior (which they have never been).

ABSOLUTE, TOTAL ARROGANCE! The Bush Administration is in fact Fascist Dictatorship, or very close.

Also very childish, like a child going to pop after mom has denied or said "no" to something the child wants.

U.S. HEALTH - Best Healthcare NOT

"U.S. healthcare expensive, inefficient: report" (5/15/2007) by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters

Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Germany, Britain, Australia and Canada all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

"The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," the non-profit group which studies health care issues said in a statement.

Canada rates second worst out of the five overall. Germany scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

"The United States is not getting value for the money that is spent on health care," Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis said in a telephone interview.

The group has consistently found that the United States, the only one of the six nations that does not provide universal health care, scores more poorly than the others on many measures of health care.

The current system leaves about 45 million people with no insurance at all, according to U.S. government estimates from 2005, and many studies have shown most of these people do not receive preventive services that not only keep them healthier, but reduce long-term costs.

Per capita health spending in the United States in 2004 was $6,102, twice that of Germany, which spent $3,005. Canada spent $3,165, New Zealand $2,083 and Australia $2,876, while Britain spent $2,546 per person.

There's more in the full article.

Of course the Bust Administration will pooh-pooh this report because it did not come from them and "they are not Americans" (the publishers of the report). We have to remember that in Bush World only they are the fount of truth and integrity.

Meanwhile, the American consumers of healthcare will pay, and pay, and pay, ad infinitum.

POLITICS - GOP "Elites"

Yea, who needs them "elites" anyway?
May 12, 2007

IRAQ - Impractical Solution

"Iraq Withdrawal Plan" by Scott Adams, Dilbert.Blog

One of my hobbies is thinking up impractical solutions to world problems. Lately, my favorite problem is how to withdraw from Iraq without allowing a huge increase in civilian deaths. I have a solution. I call my plan the Ironic Peace by Stealing Oil Plan, or IPSOP.

The way this works is that the US informs the fledgling Iraqi government that we are going to withdraw from the population centers of Iraq, but we’re going to keep our military bases and take control of key Iraqi oil fields. The oil fields would be heavily guarded, of course, with wide perimeters.

Here’s the genius part. We ask the UN to form a commission to oversee the Iraqi government’s performance and the inevitable civil war. When that commission certifies that the Iraqis have worked out a solution for oil sharing, and power sharing, and when the civil war subsides, America agrees in advance to return the oil fields and phase out the military bases in five years. Until the UN certification comes, if it ever does, we just pump the Iraqi oil and use the revenue to help, for example, Palestinian children.

The beauty of this plan is that the Iraqis can choose to fight the civil war forever, or they can choose to get America out of their country. The longer the Iraqis kill each other, the more financial help the struggling Palestinians will get. Tragedy-wise, it’s a breakeven scenario. It’s morally neutral. And in the meantime, fewer Americans will die fighting in Iraq.

Would IPSOP work?

Updates:

• If insurgents attack the pipeline, they'd be attacking Palestinian interests. And we wouldn't need to protect all oil facilities, just whatever ones are easiest to control and protect.
• As for funding Palestinians, I'm sure there's a way to limit the aid to something useful that can't get into the terrorists' hands. It could be shipments of medicine, for example. Obviously sending cash would be a bad idea. If funding Palestinians doesn't work for you, pick some starving Muslims in Africa.

And yes, Scott Adams is the originator of the syndicated Dilbert Comic strips

IRAQ - Fixing It Up?

"Nation Building- When To Hand Over The House Keys" by Ken Grandlund, Common Sense

In the second paragraph there is this telling sentence/question....

So we’re in the nation building game, and since we’re the ones who blew the hell out of the place, I suppose that we have some responsibility to at least get the place fixed up a bit before we go home. Or do we?

The other question is, can we? Fix Iraq that is. Is it possible or is it too late?

POLITICS - Fixing All Our That Ails Us

"Fears, Peers, Smoke And Mirrors" by Daniel DiRito, Bring IT ON!

Even though there's much more to this article, the opening sentence says it all....

In our never ending quest to have the government or some other entity fix all that ails our society, we continue to look under every rock except the one that really counts…our own.

POLITICS - CBS Fires Gen. Batiste Over VoteVets Ad

Major General John Batiste (ret) Talks to Keith Olbermann
May 10, 2007

POLITICS - The Administration Without a Conscience

"U.S. Aims to Weaken G-8 Climate Change Statement" by Juliet Dilperin, Washington Post

Article ends with.....

The U.S. representatives in Bonn, however, are trying to soften the message of the 18-page climate change document by deleting sections that would call on the industrialized world to modify activities linked to recent warming. They also proposed striking one of the document's opening phrases, which says, "We underline that tackling climate change is an imperative, not a choice. We firmly agree that resolute and concerted international action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and sustain our common basis of living."

Philip Clapp, who heads the advocacy group National Environmental Trust and has read the document, said U.S. opposition to the draft declaration could strain the country's relationship with its allies and jeopardize the world's ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decade.

"The administration is proposing to eliminate any statement that acting on global warming is urgent and all measures that will begin to reduce global warming pollution, including any proposal to improve the energy efficiency of our economy," Clapp said in an telephone interview yesterday. "A continued U.S. refusal to take a lead in combating global warming will set back progress for years."

Bush administration officials are also resisting calls for efficiency targets in the declaration, in particular a sentence that reads, "Therefore we will increase the energy efficiency of our economies so that energy consumption by 2020 will be at least 30 percent lower compared to a business-as-usual scenario."

....Ah, yes. An Administration beholding to big bu$ine$$. (read as GOP big money contributers)

POLITICS - Reminiscent of Rome?

"The Bush Calamity So Reminiscent of Rome" by Bill Hare, Political Cortex

This article ends with a very pertinent quote:

When asked what form of government the new nation of America had wrought following its historic constitutional convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin famously answered, "A Republic if you can keep it."

Currently the answer to that same question must be, "A Republic if you can reclaim it."

Well readers, what's your answer?

POLITICS - Today's news from Bushworld and Gonzoland

"New Documents Show Republican Involvement in U.S. Attorney Firings" WorldNow and KRNV Ch 4, Reno Nevada

Newly released documents are shedding light on the dismissal of U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden.

According to the documents, Bogden was told he was being dismissed because the Bush administration had a short window to get others into prosecutor jobs to bolster their resumes.

Bogden said Associate Attorney General William Mercer told him in December that the firings were being carried out so, in his words, "the Republican Party would have more future candidates for the federal bench and future political positions."

POLITICS - The Spy Wars

"Spying on Americans" New York Times Editorial

For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.

To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did not apply to him.

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans. That’s an all-too-familiar dodge. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is familiar with the president’s spying program, has said that it could have been conducted legally. She even offered some sensible changes for FISA, but the administration and the Republican majority in the last Congress buried her bill.

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it. Before making any new laws, Congress has to get to the truth about Mr. Bush’s spying program. (When asked at a Senate hearing yesterday if Mr. Bush still claims to have the power to ignore FISA when he thinks it is necessary, Mr. McConnell refused to answer.)

Another example of the warped thinking of the Bush Administration. Just because the President is Commander and Chief, when it comes to protecting America (which they get to define just what that is), Presidents can ignore the other articles of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress. Well.... BS! In NO WAY does any President, or elected/appointed official, get to ignore the Constitution or law in the execution of their jobs!

BIO-WARS - Genetic Engineering

"Judge prohibits planting of genetically engineered alfalfa" by Paul Elias, Associated Press

In most areas I am pro-science, but when it comes to genetic engineering I have major concerns. They have to do with "do we really know what we are doing?" Consequences could be disastrous. This judge has very pertinent concerns.

A federal judge on Thursday barred the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa nationwide, ruling that the government didn't adequately study the biotechnology crop's potential to mix with organic and conventional varieties.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer made permanent a temporary ban he ordered in March on alfalfa with genetic material from bacteria that makes the crop resistant to a popular weed killer.

Breyer said the U.S. Department of Agriculture must conduct a detailed scientific study of the crop's effect on the environment and other alfalfa varieties before deciding whether to approve it.

USDA spokeswoman Rachel Iadicicco said the agency would conduct such a study.

POLITICS - King George Speaks

"Bush: Iraq Supplemental Unconstitutional" by Big Tent Democrat, TalkLeft

In his veto message to Congress, President Bush claims the Iraq Supplemental is unconstitutional:

• [T]his legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of the operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the Presidency by the Constitution, including as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Nonsense. Here is the Iraq language in the bill. Nothing contained therein "purports to direct the conduct of the operations of the war." It purports to condition the deployment of troops in the conduct of the war by requiring the President certify that certain conditions are being met.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution provides among Congress' powers, the power:

• To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years

This appropriation is a direct and express exercise of that power. It clearly is constitutional.

Ah, yes. Rule by decree. As the King speaks let it be done! NOT!
And it's approved by Gonzo the official non-guardian of our Constitution.

POLITICS - Bush World (aka Fantasy Land)

No, NO!

There's no such thing as Global Warming.

The GOP is on track to win 2008 hands down.
Gonzo IS the best United States Attorney General America has ever had.

IRAQ - Again, Insiders View

"The Great Wall of Segregation..." Baghdad Burning, Girl Blog from Iraq

…Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans). It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad- let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protect' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis.

The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!" And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.

The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently- Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer- like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of "Shia areas" and Shia out of "Sunni areas".

I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict. They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there.

I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.

There more in the full article.

POLITICS - Cutting Poverty in Half

"Twelve Steps to Cutting Poverty in Half" by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation 4/30/2007

Last Wednesday, at the Center for American Progress (CAP) in Washington, the CAP Task Force on Poverty released the results of fourteen months of work in its report, From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half.

The report offers twelve concrete recommendations to reduce over the next ten years, creating a stronger middle class and setting our country on a course to end American poverty in a generation.

Sen. Edward Kennedy and Ways and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, were both on hand to pledge their leadership on what Task Force co-chair Peter B. Edelman, professor of Law at Georgetown University, called "a national shame…. There should be no one [in this country] who's poor."

This is one of the great scandals of our times. In the richest industrialized nation in the world, 37 million Americans--one in eight citizens--live below the official poverty line (just $19,971 income for a family of four); in 2005, more than 90 million Americans had incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold (less than $40,000 for a family of four); the United States ranks 24th out of 25 developed nations in the share of the population with an income below 50 percent of the national median income--and the US is dead last among 24 rich nations when the same measurement is used to assess child poverty. Nearly 20 percent of American children are poor, and it's estimated that allowing children to grow up in persistent poverty costs our economy $500 billion per year. Lastly, income inequality has reached record highs and is getting worse.

"From 1947 to 1973, we saw every economic quintile growing together, and those at the lowest level were growing the fastest," Kennedy said. "In 1980, with President Reagan, you see the beginning of growing apart...And now, those at the lowest end of the ladder are not even keeping up while there is an explosion at the highest level."

In fact, the post-tax income of the top 1 percent rose $145,500 between 2003 and 2004; it rose just $200 for the bottom fifth during that same period.

Of course, there's more in the full article including the 12 steps, and at the end of the list....

The Urban Institute studied the impact of just four of the Task Force recommendations--the minimum wage, EITC, child tax credit, and child care assistance expansion--and found that together they would reduce poverty by 26 percent, more than halfway toward the ten year goal.

No matter what super-conservative GOP attack dogs say about those of us who have a problem with the "rich" in today's America, we are not against being rich. Our problem is with the disparity between being "rich" and the rest of American society. The "rich" people we have problems with are the greedy ones, they have more than enough for themselves but want even more even if they have to stiff the rest of America to get it.

There are examples that "rich" people can act responsibly, prime example being the Malden Mills fire in 1995 and what CEO Aaron Feuerstein did....

Aaron Feuerstein spent millions keeping all 3,000 employees on the payroll with full benefits for 3 months. Why? What did he get for his money? Is he a fool? Did he have some dark motive? Here is Aaron Feuerstein’s answer: “‘The fundamental difference is that I consider our workers an asset, not an expense.’ Indeed, he believes his job goes beyond just making money for shareholders, even though the only shareholders of Malden Mills are Feuerstein and his family. ‘I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar,’ Feuerstein added, his voice taking an edge of steely conviction. ‘I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3,000 people on the streets and deliver a death blow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen. Maybe on paper our company is worth less to Wall Street, but I can tell you it’s worth more. We’re doing fine.’"

We all need to remember that greed is a sin. To bad the GOP worships at the Shrine of Greed.

POLITICS - From General William Odom

"Bush Has Gone AWOL" by General William Odom

The following is a transcript of the Democratic Radio Address delivered by Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.) on Saturday April 28, 2007:

I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party. I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency. I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

....and this is for starters, there's more.

POLITICS - Quote of the Week

This entire administration has been one long ridiculous P.R. stunt.

By EarlG, Democratic Underground