I Don't Know If It's True, But.......

She's Come Undone

2009-07-05T19:56:00.002-06:00

She's come undone
She didn't know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
It was too late
She's come undone
She found a mountain that was far too high
And when she found out she couldn't fly
It was too late
It's too late She's gone too far She's lost the sun
She's come undone
She wanted truth but all she got was lies
Came the time to realize
And it was too late
She's come undone
She didn't know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for Mama, it was too late
It's too late She's gone too far She's lost the sun
She's come undone
Too many mountains, and not enough stairs to climb
Too many churches and not enough truth
Too many people and not enough eyes to see
Too many lives to lead and not enough time
It's too late She's gone too far She's lost the sun She's come undone
She's come undone
She didn't know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
It was too late
She's come undone
She found a mountain that was far too high
And when she found out she couldn't fly Mama,
it was too late It's too late
She's gone too far She's lost the sun
She's come undone

The Party of NO vs. the Date

2009-05-31T08:30:00.002-06:00

Obamas’ visit to New York was considered private, yet there was some criticism of the trip. In a press release with the headline “Putting on a Show,” the Republican National Committee said that the date between the President and his wife was inappropriate and that Mr. Obama was out of touch, especially given the looming bankruptcy of General Motors.

Remember when they criticised President Carter for never leaving the White House? The Party of NO strikes again.

Hopefully Something We Can All Agree On

2009-04-12T09:52:00.001-06:00

This dog is cute.

With Friends Like This..............

2009-04-08T09:05:00.000-06:00

In a recent interview with POLITICO, former Vice President Dick Cheney warned about what he said he feared was Obama’s naïve approach to the threat of terrorism and the harsh steps on interrogation, surveillance and detainment needed to stop it. Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” Cheney said. He added: “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama administration believes.”

Nuke the North.........NOT

2009-04-06T14:43:00.001-06:00

Joseph Cirincione writing at CNN said the missile test should “condemned,” but that it is “not a serious threat to the United States, nor does it justify a crash program to deploy an expensive, unproven anti-missile system.”
This small, impoverished nation would need to make three key additional breakthroughs to turn this launch vehicle into a real nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching the continental United States.
First, North Korea has to develop a bigger, longer-range missile. MIT scientist Ted Postol calculates that the failed satellite appeared to weigh 150 to 200 kilograms (330 to 440 pounds) and was intended for a low-Earth orbit about 550 kilometers (340 miles) high. It is puny by world standards. . . .
Size matters. A typical first-generation nuclear warhead weighs about 1,000 kilograms. To threaten California or New York, North Korea needs a much bigger missile that can carry more weight over a longer distance. . . .
Second, North Korea would have to miniaturize its warhead. The primitive nuclear device tested by North Korea in 2006 is estimated to weigh more than 1,500 kilograms (3,307 pounds). That means North Korea’s current nuclear weapons are simply too heavy to be launched by a vehicle similar to the one tested Sunday. . . .
Third, North Korea would have to develop a re-entry vehicle for its warheads. A warhead returning through the atmosphere to its target must survive extreme conditions. Developing the technology required for this survivability is no small task. It is one thing to test a nuclear weapon in carefully controlled conditions. It is another to build one that can survive the fierce vibrations, G-forces and high temperatures of launch and re-entry into the atmosphere.

Blue Eyes Vs. Brown Eyes

2009-03-30T15:58:00.004-06:00

Are the fair skinned, blue eyed people the cause of all our financial troubles?
Interesting suggestion.

Cherry on Top

2008-12-18T09:28:00.000-06:00

Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
The Madoff affair is the cherry on top of a national breakdown in financial propriety, regulations and common sense. Which is why we don’t just need a financial bailout; we need an ethical bailout. We need to re-establish the core balance between our markets, ethics and regulations. I don’t want to kill the animal spirits that necessarily drive capitalism — but I don’t want to be eaten by them either.

Does This Vote Count?

2008-12-17T10:39:00.001-06:00

A Persistent Phenomenon

2008-12-16T17:38:00.001-06:00

"I'm sure we'll see lots of colorfully misguided sex antics among our congressmen for many, many years to come, because it's clearly very easy for them to have a megalomaniacal delusion that causes them to think they can do whatever they want. And seeing other politicians get nabbed doesn't seem to diminish that delusion. It speaks to the power of that delusion. It's extraordinary how persistent a phenomenon it is."
Rufus Griscom, CEO of Nerve

Difference, What Difference?

2008-12-01T08:09:00.001-06:00

Equals

My Thoughts Exactly

2008-11-23T19:01:00.001-06:00

November 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Time for Him to Go
By GAIL COLLINS
Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.
Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.
Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.
As a bonus, the Pelosi presidency would put a woman in the White House this year after all. On the downside, a few right-wing talk-show hosts might succumb to apoplexy. That would, of course, be terrible, but I’m afraid we might have to take the risk in the name of a greater good.
Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?
A great many Americans have been counting the days all year on their 2008 George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown calendars. I know a lot of this has been going on because so many people congratulated me when the Feb. 1 Bush quote turned out to be from one of my old columns. (“I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth from the middle class, I think we should knock down the tollbooth.”)
This was not nearly as good as Feb. 5 (“We ought to make the pie higher”) or Feb. 21 (“I understand small business growth. I was one.”) But we do what we can.
In the past, presidents have not taken well to suggestions that they hand over the reins before the last possible minute. Senator J. William Fulbright suggested a plan along those lines when Harry Truman was coming to the end of a term in a state of deep unpopularity, and Truman called him “Halfbright” for the rest of his life. Bush might not love the idea of quitting before he has a chance to light the Christmas tree or commute the execution of one last presidential turkey. After all, he still has a couple more trips planned. And last-minute regulations to issue. (So many national parks to despoil, so many endangered species to exterminate ... .) And then there’s all the packing.
On the other hand, he might want to consider his legacy, such as it is.
In happier days, Bush may have nurtured hopes of making it into the list of America’s mediocre presidents, but somewhere between Iraq and Katrina, that goal became a mountain too high. However, he might still have a chance to avoid the absolute bottom of the barrel, a spot currently occupied by James Buchanan, at least in my opinion. Buchanan nailed down The Worst President title in the days between Abraham Lincoln’s election and inauguration, when the Southern states began seceding and Buchanan, after a little flailing about, did absolutely nothing. “Doing nothing is almost the worst thing a president can do,” said the historian Michael Beschloss.
If Bush gives up doing nothing by giving up his job, it’s possible that someday history might elevate him to the ranks of the below average. Better than Franklin Pierce! Smarter than Warren Harding! And healthier than William Henry Harrison!
The person who would like this plan least probably would be Barack Obama. Who would want to be saddled with the auto industry’s problems ahead of schedule? The heads of America’s great carmaking corporations are so dim that they couldn’t even survive hearings run by members of Congress who actually wanted to help them. Really, when somebody asks you exactly how much money you need, the answer should not be something along the line of “a whole bunch.”
An instantaneous takeover would also ruin the Obama team’s plan to have the tidiest, best-organized presidential transition in history. Cutting it short and leaping into governing would turn their measured march toward power into a mad scramble. A lot of their Cabinet picks are still working on those 62-page questionnaires.
But while there’s been no drama with Obama, we’ve been living a Technicolor version of “The Perils of Pauline.” Detroit is tied to the railroad tracks and the train is coming! California’s state government is falling into the sea! The way we’re going now, by the time the inauguration rolls around, unemployment will be at 10 percent and the Dow will be at 10.
Time for a change.

For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics

2008-11-11T07:39:00.003-06:00

Interesting article in the New York Times. I for one couldn't be happier. You might also be interested in reading this.

Two Campaign Slogans

2008-11-10T07:36:00.001-06:00

Two campaign slogans: "Yes WE Can" and "Country First". The former is inclusive and the latter is exclusive. Hopefully the Republicans can learn from their embrace of the exclusive and evolve.

Yes We Can

2008-11-04T22:01:00.000-06:00

House Republicans Were Right

2008-10-27T07:09:00.000-06:00

House Republicans voted down the first bailout bill because they were afraid it would become just another government boondoggle. But after it was loaded up with more pork than all the pigs in Iowa, they changed their minds. Guess what? It has become just another government boondoggle. Sec. Henry Paulson's idea was to buy up all the toxic mortgages to get them off the banks' books. He long since shelved that plan. His next idea was to buy stock in the banks so they would have fresh capital and could start making loans again. However, instead of making loans, some banks are using the money to pay dividends, give executives bonuses, and buy other banks. For example, PNC Financial Services received $7.7 billion in government money and promptly spent $5.6 billion of it to buy National City Corp. Lawmakers are protesting but they should hardly be surprised since they gave Paulson unlimited authority to spend the money any way he wanted to, with hardly any supervision and no restrictions on what the recipients did with the money. In addition, Paulson hired the Bank of New York Mellon to run the program. On the same day Bank of New York Mellon received $3 billion itself, apparently deciding that it could use some cash. Hardly anyone noticed.

What A Drag

2008-10-23T16:48:00.000-06:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Embarrassing revelations about her costly campaign wardrobe and bloopers about the vice president's job description are raising fresh fears that Sarah Palin is dragging down the Republican ticket.
New polls showed Wednesday that seven weeks after John McCain plucked the Alaska governor from political obscurity to be his running mate in the November 4 elections, Palin is seen as an increasing liability for Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Americans are less and less convinced she is worthy to serve as the country's number-two leader.
"Her numbers have plummeted in our poll ... what's more 55 percent think she's unqualified to serve as president if the need arises, which is a troublesome number given McCain's age," said NBC political director Chuck Todd.
The poll also puts the 72-year-old McCain 10 points behind his Democratic rival Barack Obama, and says that 47 percent of those surveyed viewed Palin negatively.

That's Alot of Lipstick

2008-10-22T15:16:00.001-06:00

Republican National Committee spends $150,000.00 on Governor Palin's wardrobe. What hypocrites.

Worst Ever / Maybe not

2008-10-16T20:57:00.000-06:00

Uh-Oh

2008-10-13T18:45:00.001-06:00

US Debt Clock Runs Out of Digits

2008-10-09T06:40:00.000-06:00

Until last month, the clock had enough digits to measure US debt levels
The US government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiralling figure.
The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount.

Maverick My A _ _

2008-10-09T06:28:00.000-06:00

October 5, 2008
The Nation
Who You Callin’ a Maverick?
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him “the consummate maverick.”
But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.
“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.
In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.
Sam Maverick’s grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up with the term “gobbledygook” in frustration at the convoluted language of bureaucrats.
This Maverick’s son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq.
Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”
“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”
“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

'bout says it all

2008-09-22T07:53:00.001-06:00

Five ex-secretaries of state urge talks with Iran

2008-09-15T19:06:00.000-06:00

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP

WASHINGTON - Five former secretaries of state, gathering to give their best advice to the next president, agreed Monday that the United States should talk to Iran.

The wide-ranging, 90-minute session in a packed auditorium at The George Washington University, produced exceptional unity among Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Warren Christopher, Henry A. Kissinger and James A. Baker III.

Obama's Resume

2008-09-14T18:36:00.001-06:00

*studied at Occidental College, Los Angeles, 1979-1981
*studied and graduated with Bachelor of Arts in political science with focus in international relations at Columbia University, New York City, 1983
*worked for Business International Corporation, New York City, 1983
*worked at New York Public Interest Research Group, 1984-1985
*worked as community organizer as director of Developing Communities Project, Chicago, 1985-1988
*worked as consultant and instructor for community organizing institute Glamaleil Foundation, 1985-1988
*served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, 1985
*studied and graduated magna cum laude with a Juris Doctor at Harvard Law, Boston, 1988-1991
*selected as editor of Harvard Law Review, 1989
*worked as summer associate at law firms of Sidley & Austin, Chicago, 1989
*elected president of Harvard Law Review, 1990
*worked as summer associate at law firms of Hopkins& Sutter, Chicago, 1990
*given fellowship and office at University of Chicago Law, 1991
*directed Illinois Project Vote, 1992
*was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies, 1992
*taught constitutional law as Lecturer at University of Chicago Law, 1992-1996
*worked as associate at law firms Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Chicago, 1993-1996
*served on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation, 1994–2002
*served founding president and chairman of the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, 1995-1999
*published Dreams From My Father, 1995
*taught constitutional law as Senior Lecturer at University of Chicago Law, 1996-2004
*worked as counsel at law firms of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Chicago, 1996-2004
*elected to Illinois senate, 13th district, 1996
*re-elected to State Senate, 1998
*served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1999–2002
*served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, (no dates)*lost race for US House of Representives 2000
*served as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Illinois Senate, 2001
*re-elected to State Senate, 2002
*became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee, 2003
*elected to US Senate, 2004
*Became only Senate member of Congressional Black Caucus
*held positions on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs, 2005-2006
*left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional positions with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs, 2007
*elected as US Presidential nominee for democrat party, 2008

Lipstick on a pig

2008-09-14T16:05:00.002-06:00

A Washington Post editorial on Thursday put it well: “On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Senator John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Senator Barack Obama for using the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.”

Rapid Growth Found in Oxygen-Starved 'Dead Zones'

2008-08-15T06:17:00.001-06:00

By BINA VENKATARAMAN
Published: August 14, 2008
Many coastal areas of the world’s oceans are being starved of oxygen at an alarming rate, with vast stretches along the seafloor depleted of it to the point that they can barely sustain marine life, researchers are reporting.
The main culprit, scientists say, is nitrogen-rich nutrients from crop fertilizers that spill into coastal waters by way of rivers and streams.
A study to be published Friday in the journal Science says the number of these marine “dead zones” around the world has doubled about every 10 years since the 1960s. About 400 coastal areas now have periodically or perpetually oxygen-starved bottom waters, many of them growing in size and intensity. Combined, the zones are larger than Oregon.
“What’s happened in the last 40, 50 years is that human activity has made the water quality conditions worse,” the study’s leader author, Robert J. Diaz, said in an interview.
The trend portends nothing good for many fisheries, said Dr. Diaz, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary. “Dead zones,” he said, “tend to occur in areas that are historically prime fishing grounds.”
Indeed, while the size of dead zones is small relative to the total surface of the oceans, scientists say they account for a significant part of ocean waters that support commercial fish and shellfish species.

Excessive Wealth

2008-08-14T17:53:00.000-06:00

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Honoré de Balzac

And the beat goes on

2008-07-29T08:54:00.002-06:00

EPA Managers Warned Not to Answer Inquiries
Bush's Torture Legacy
Home Price Index Down 15.8% in May
Hate for Liberals and Gay People Drove Gunman, Police Say
Thomas L. Friedman: Texas to Tel Aviv

Today's Headlines

2008-07-28T09:53:00.002-06:00

Justice Dept. Officials Broke Law in Hiring
Deficit to Grow to Record
Scores Dead in Iraq Bombings
Police: Man Shot Churchgoers for Liberal Views
U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians

How much more of this administration can America take?

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal

2008-06-14T06:26:00.001-06:00

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal

By DAMIEN CAVE

From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit.
An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

The Ex-POW is out of touch

2008-06-13T19:15:00.000-06:00

Here's John McCain, in his own words, proving exactly how out of touch he really is:

"The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." *

What???
Yesterday's powerful decision by the Court (a decision Americans should be proud of) affirmed a fundamental constitutional right -- in this case, the right of a detainee to challenge the government's grounds for confining him. What does McCain think is so bad about that?
Does he think protecting the right to be heard in court is...
...worse than locking thousands of Americans in internment camps because they had Japanese ancestry? (Korematsu v. United States -- 1944)
...worse than forcing African Americans to sit at the back of the bus? (Plessy v. Ferguson -- 1896)
...worse than slavery? (Dred Scott v. Sanford -- 1857)
Really, Senator McCain?

McCain's Pastor

2008-05-08T17:13:00.001-06:00

Blinded by Science

2008-04-25T09:00:00.001-06:00

St. Louis Post Dispatch

The problem with scientists is that they're prejudiced. They believe in objective, verifiable reality. They're biased toward facts.Politicians have been bothered by this for years. But few of them have done as much about it as the administration of President George W. Bush.A survey released this week by the nonprofit advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists quantifies the administration's effort. More than half of the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded said they personally had experienced political interference with their work.Sometimes, it was the selective use of data to justify a regulatory decision. That happened last month when Mr. Bush personally intervened to weaken a rule governing ozone emissions. His eleventh-hour interference forced EPA officials to scramble to justify the move.

Other times, interference came when political appointees made changes during "reviews" that altered the meaning of scientific reports. Philip A. Cooney, a lobbyist Mr. Bush appointed to head the White House Council on Environment Quality, testified last year that it was his job to "align" scientific reports with administration policy. He made hundreds of edits to reports on global warming that emphasized doubt and uncertainty, not science.Though this week's report focused on the EPA, there's ample evidence of political interference in other government agencies:— White House officials removed references to the public health effects of global warming from testimony that Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had prepared for a Senate committee hearing.— Dr. Richard H. Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General, testified that Bush administration appointees tried to suppress scientific information on topics from stem cell research to contraception and abstinence-only education.— The U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called morning-after pill, Plan B for Women, for two years because of political opposition to emergency contraception. It also removed all reference to the effectiveness of condoms at protecting against sexually transmitted disease and preventing pregnancy.Administration apologists say that political appointees always have interfered with government scientific research. There's a grain of truth in that statement. But the Bush administration has raised political interference in science to a new level. Some 43 percent of EPA scientists who responded to the survey released this week said political interference was greater over the past five year than it had been during the previous 10.Taxpayers spend billions each year on scientific research. That money is wasted if the results of the work are skewed toward political ends.Congress must insulate career federal scientists from the interference of political hacks. Good public policy is based on sound science.Political truth often is based on expediency. Scientific truth is based on evidence. We confuse them at our peril.

Go Directly to Jail.

2008-04-23T06:28:00.001-06:00

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost a quarter of its prisoners.

The Torture Sessions

2008-04-20T16:47:00.001-06:00

From the New York Times Editorial Board
Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality?
The answer, we have learned recently, is that — with President Bush’s clear knowledge and support — some of the very highest officials in the land not only approved the abuse of prisoners, but participated in the detailed planning of harsh interrogations and helped to create a legal structure to shield from justice those who followed the orders.
We have long known that the Justice Department tortured the law to give its Orwellian blessing to torturing people, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a list of ways to abuse prisoners. But recent accounts by ABC News and The Associated Press said that all of the president’s top national security advisers at the time participated in creating the interrogation policy: Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Rumsfeld; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Colin Powell, the secretary of state; John Ashcroft, the attorney general; and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence.
These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.
Mr. Bush told ABC News this month that he knew of these meetings and approved of the result.
Those who have followed the story of the administration’s policies on prisoners may not be shocked. We have read the memos from the Justice Department redefining torture, claiming that Mr. Bush did not have to follow the law, and offering a blueprint for avoiding criminal liability for abusing prisoners.
The amount of time and energy devoted to this furtive exercise at the very highest levels of the government reminded us how little Americans know, in fact, about the ways Mr. Bush and his team undermined, subverted and broke the law in the name of saving the American way of life.
We have questions to ask, in particular, about the involvement of Ms. Rice, who has managed to escape blame for the catastrophic decisions made while she was Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, and Mr. Powell, a career Army officer who should know that torture has little value as an interrogation method and puts captured Americans at much greater risk. Did they raise objections or warn of the disastrous effect on America’s standing in the world? Did anyone?
Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions. Congress is likely to endorse a cover-up of the extent of the illegal wiretapping he authorized after 9/11, and we are still waiting, with diminishing hopes, for a long-promised report on what the Bush team really knew before the Iraq invasion about those absent weapons of mass destruction — as opposed to what it proclaimed.
At this point it seems that getting answers will have to wait, at least, for a new Congress and a new president. Ideally, there would be both truth and accountability. At the very minimum the public needs the full truth.
Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree

2008-04-14T13:17:00.001-06:00

A Turn Left

2008-01-01T01:26:00.000-06:00

Interesting Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post. It seems our Republican friends may be in danger for a long spell. Who could ask for anything more?

Sactions Against Cuba Are Excessive, GAO Says

2007-12-20T17:31:00.000-06:00

By Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007
U.S. sanctions against Cuba are more restrictive than those imposed on any other country, including Iran and North Korea, and their rigorous enforcement risks diverting government attention from higher-priority counterterrorism tasks, a new government audit has found.

Sex Education is a Must

2007-12-20T14:17:00.001-06:00

Reuters
Teenagers who have had formal sex education are far more likely to put off having sex, contradicting earlier studies on the effectiveness of such programs, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.
Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

In the Pocket of the Auto Industry

2007-12-20T07:52:00.000-06:00

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson yesterday denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, overruling the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs.
"By refusing to grant California's waiver request for its new motor vehicle standards to control greenhouse gas emissions, the administration has ignored the clear and very limited statutory criteria upon which this decision was to be based," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents officials in 48 states. "Instead, it has issued a verdict that is legally and technically unjustified and indefensible."
EPA's lawyers and policy staff had reached the same conclusion, said several agency officials familiar with the process. In a PowerPoint presentation prepared for the administrator, aides wrote that if Johnson denied the waiver and California sued, "EPA likely to lose suit."
If he allowed California to proceed and automakers sued, the staff wrote, "EPA is almost certain to win."
"Nobody told the administration they support [a denial], and it has the most significant legal challenges associated with it," said one source, in an interview several hours before Johnson's announcement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak for the agency. "The most appropriate action is to approve the waiver."

Science vs. Faith

2007-11-20T14:28:00.000-06:00

Fear the Neo-con Approach

2007-06-04T19:39:00.000-06:00

May 2007 was the third-deadliest month for American troops in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and the casualties reported over in the past few days indicate that the insurgency shows no sign of abating.

Civilian death toll in Iraq spikes in May

2007-06-02T17:30:00.000-06:00

By Mussab Al-Khairalla Sat Jun 2, 10:06 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The number of civilians killed in Iraq jumped to nearly 2,000 in May, the highest monthly toll since the start of a U.S.-backed security crackdown in February, according to figures released on Saturday.

Another American Disgrace

2007-05-15T06:49:00.000-06:00

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (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.

Juvenile Injustice

2007-05-11T07:04:00.000-06:00

The New York Times

The United States made a disastrous miscalculation when it started automatically trying youthful offenders as adults instead of handling them through the juvenile courts. Prosecutors argued that the policy would get violent predators off the streets and deter further crime. But a new federally backed study shows that juveniles who do time as adults later commit more violent crime than those who are handled through the juvenile courts.

The study, published last month in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was produced by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent research group with close ties to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After an exhaustive survey of the literature, the group determined that the practice of transferring children into adult courts was counterproductive, actually creating more crime than it cured.

Oxfam says G8 breaks pledges on poverty

2007-05-09T19:41:00.000-06:00

BERLIN (Reuters) - Industrialised nations have broken promises to alleviate poverty and provide better health and education, leading to the deaths of millions of people in poorer nations, Oxfam International said on Thursday.

Group of Eight (G8) nations had fallen far short of meeting a $50 billion (25 billion pounds) funding pledge made at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland two years ago, said Oxfam, an independent group that works to fight poverty.

"In the past two years, overall progress has fallen far short of promises. The cost of this inaction is millions of lives lost due to poverty," Oxfam said in a report ahead of a meeting of G8 leaders in the German resort of Heiligendamm.

In this same period of time the US has spent $240,000,000 on it's illegal and unwinnable war in Iraq. Makes you wonder who the true terrorists are.

Dear Mr. President

2007-05-09T11:00:00.000-06:00

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania AvenueWashington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,
Today, in your veto message regarding the bipartisan legislation just passed on Operation Iraqi Freedom, you asserted that you so decided because you listen to your commanders on the ground.Respectfully, as your former commander on the ground, your administration did not listen to our best advice. In fact, a number of my fellow Generals were forced out of their jobs, because they did not tell you what you wanted to hear -- most notably General Eric Shinseki, whose foresight regarding troop levels was advice you rejected, at our troops' peril. The legislation you vetoed today represented a course of action that is long overdue. This war can no longer be won by the military alone. We must bring to bear the entire array of national power - military, diplomatic and economic. The situation demands a surge in diplomacy, and pressure on the Iraqi government to fix its internal affairs. Further, the Army and Marine Corps are on the verge of breaking - or have been broken already - by the length and intensity of this war. This tempo is not sustainable - and you have failed to grow the ground forces to meet national security needs. We must begin the process of bringing troops home, and repairing and growing our military, if we are ever to have a combat-ready force for the long war on terror ahead of us. The bill you rejected today sets benchmarks for success that the Iraqis would have to meet, and puts us on a course to redeploy our troops. It stresses the need for sending troops into battle only when they are rested, trained and equipped. In my view, and in the view of many others in the military that I know, that is the best course of action for our security. As someone who served this nation for decades, I have the utmost respect for the office you hold. However, as a man of conscience, I could not sit idly by as you told the American people today that your veto was based on the recommendations of military men. Your administration ignored the advice of our military's finest minds before, and I see no evidence that you are listening to them now. I urge you to reconsider your position, and work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals laid out above.

Respectfully,
Major General Paul D. Eaton, USA, Retired

Further Casualties

2007-05-08T12:06:00.000-06:00

Report: Iraq child mortality rate soars

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer

LONDON - The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.

The Question of Evil

2007-05-04T19:53:00.000-06:00

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; Or he can, but does not want to; Or he cannot and does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, then how come evil is in the world?"

Epicurus

Hint......there is no God

Mission Accomplished?

2007-05-01T18:03:00.000-06:00

Patrick Wintour, political editor Wednesday May 2, 2007 The Guardian

A catalogue of errors over planning for Iraq after the invasion, and an inability to influence key figures in the US administration, led to anarchy in Iraq from which the country has not recovered, the British defence secretary during the invasion admits today.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain disagreed with the US administration over two key decisions in May 2003, two months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and "de-Ba'athify" its civil service. Mr Hoon also said he and other senior ministers completely underestimated the role and influence of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

Interesting Bed Fellows

2007-04-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

We conservatives have got it right. Those crazy liberals are way off base. Where do they get off believing that the widespread hatred felt by the majority towards a certain group of people is not a good reason for persecuting that group and denying it the rights and freedoms that all other members of the society enjoy? Especially when our conservative position is steeped in something so important as religious belief. After all, history supports us:
I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
–Adolf Hitler

The government is committed to supporting God’s religion, the country remains a strong bulwark for religion, and the people are among the most protective of God’s religion, and the keenest to fulfill His laws.
–Osama Bin Laden

Ten Reasons Gay Marriage is Wrong

2007-04-27T16:45:00.000-06:00

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Straight marriage would be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britney Spears’s 55 hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. We could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, theservice-sector economy, or longer life spans.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all. Women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raisechildren.

10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Author unknown (but brilliant). This list appears on numerous internet sites.

Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq

2007-04-27T05:55:00.000-06:00

By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: April 27, 2007
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

How low can you go?

2007-04-25T08:16:00.000-06:00

The times.......they are a'changin'

2007-04-24T17:03:00.000-06:00

AP

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law Saturday a measure to create domestic partnerships, giving gay and lesbian couples some of the same rights that come with marriage.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, fulfilling a campaign pledge, said he will soon introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the state, the New York Times reported.

Some Recent Events

2007-04-22T14:42:00.000-06:00

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war as deputy defense secretary, acknowledged he erred in helping a female friend he is dating to get transferred to a high-paying job at the State Department while remaining on the World Bank payroll. The revelations fueled calls from the bank's staff association for him to resign.

Matteo Fontana, a Department of Education official who oversaw the student loan industry, was put on leave after disclosure that he owned at least $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company.

Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, attended a luncheon at the agency earlier this year with other top GSA political appointees at which Scott Jennings, a top Rove aide, gave a PowerPoint demonstration on how to help Republican candidates in 2008. A congressional committee is investigating whether the remarks violated a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes.

Julie MacDonald, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but has no academic background in biology, overrode recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species and improperly leaked internal information to private groups, the Interior Department's inspector general said.

Philip Cooney, a former oil-industry lobbyist who became chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged to a House committee last month that he edited three government reports to eliminate or downplay links between greenhouse gases and global warming — and defended the changes. He left the government in 2005 to work for Exxon Mobil Corp.

Former Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun served nine months in prison in 2005 for violating conflict-of-interest rules after agreeing to lease Boeing refueling tankers for $23 billion, despite Pentagon studies showing the tankers were unnecessary. After making the deal, she quit the government to join Boeing.

Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, became the first high-level White House official to be indicted while in office in more than 100 years.

J. Steven Griles, a former oil and gas lobbyist who became deputy interior secretary, last month became the highest-ranking administration official convicted in the Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, pleading guilty to obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff. Abramoff repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.

Former White House aide, David H. Safavian, was convicted last year of lying to government investigators about his ties to Abramoff and faces an 180-month prison sentence. Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff.

Claude Allen, who was Bush's domestic policy adviser, pleaded guilty to theft in making phony returns at discount department stores. He was sentenced last summer to two years of supervised probation and fined $500.
___

Religious bias strikes out again.

2007-04-15T09:36:00.000-06:00

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 15, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 14 (AP) — Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

A small man

2007-03-15T07:47:00.000-06:00

Tom DeLay's soon to be released book will prove once again what a myopic, small minded, mean-spirited individual he is. His inablity to remove his horse blinders and accept any responsibility for his downfall is pathological. Pity he will not consider therapy.

Prediction

2007-03-14T10:21:00.000-06:00

Republicans, who have pandered to the religious right for the past 20 years will find it difficult if not impossible to bridge the difference between the more fiscal conservative and social conservative. Up to this point both have seen an advantage to a coalition. I believe they can no longer sustain this alliance and will suffer at the polls throughout the next election cycle. I predict the Democrats will take back the White House as well as maintain healthy majorities in the Senate, House, and Governorships.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

2007-01-25T16:00:00.000-06:00

By Randy Newman

I’d like to say a few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren’t bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen

Let’s turn history’s pages, shall we?
Take the Caesars for example
Why within the first few of them
They had split Gaul into three parts
Fed the Christians to the lions
And burned down the City
And one of ’em
Appointed his own horse Consul of the Empire
That’s like vice president or something
That’s not a very good example, is it?

But wait, here’s one, the Spanish Inquisition
They put people in a terrible position
I don’t even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it

Just a few words in defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don’t want their love
And respect at this point is pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend

Hitler. Stalin.Men who need no introduction
King Leopold of Belgium.
That’s right. Everyone thinks he’s so great
Well he owned The Congo
He tore it up too
He took the diamonds, he took the gold
He took the silver
Know what he left them with?
Malaria

A president once said,“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Surreal

2007-01-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

The president of Israel is indicted for rape. Bush's approval rating is down to 28%. Liz Cheney is sent out to defend her father's failed policies. Bush is going to talk about reducing our gas usage by 20% with no plan. Killing is increasing almost daily in Iraq. Republicans abandoning the President on his Iraqi policy. Can this get any more surreal.

Extian (The Verse from Atheist Nation Pt III)

2007-01-21T14:12:00.001-06:00

Terror: 'We're Going to Get Hit'

2007-01-20T19:24:00.000-06:00

Newsweek
Jan. 22, 2007 issue - Intel director John Negroponte gave Congress a sobering assessment last week of the continued threats from groups like Al Qaeda and Hizbullah. But even gloomier comments came from Henry Crumpton, the outgoing State Department terror coordinator. An ex-CIA operative, Crumpton told NEWSWEEK that a worldwide surge in Islamic radicalism has worsened recently, increasing the number of potential terrorists and setting back U.S. efforts in the terror war. "Certainly, we haven't made any progress," said Crumpton. "In fact, we've lost ground." He cites Iraq as a factor; the war has fueled resentment against the United States.

Israel and Apartheid

2007-01-20T11:12:00.000-06:00

By Jimmy Carter LA Times December 8, 2006

I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists. We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots. The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices. It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land. With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel. The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written. Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent." Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas. The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides. The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

By Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published last month.

Finally Christians and Muslims Agree

2007-01-19T18:40:00.000-06:00

Finally something Christians and Muslims can agree on...........hatred of the homosexual.

In critiquing the UN casualty report in Iraq for 2006 Ali al-Dabbagh spokesperson for the Iraq Ministry of Health is quoted saying, "There was information in the report that we cannot accept here in Iraq. The report, for example, spoke about the phenomenon of homosexuality and giving them their rights. Such statements are not suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected."

Israel and Oil

2007-01-19T16:42:00.000-06:00

As I struggle to understand the state of affairs my country finds itself in today I am confounded by how our leaders could make such poor and illogical decisions. Since September 11, 2001 it is almost unfathomable how we have come to this moment in time where we find ourselves escalating the quagmire in Iraq, loosing ground in Afghanistan, provoking Iran, and ignoring pressing national and global concerns like the environment, and human rights. My only thoughts revolve around our insatiable thirst for oil and fossil fuels, and our unquestioning allegiance with the right-wing elements in the Israeli government. Until we face each of these problems square on I cannot see how we will be able to substantially solve our own problems much less contribute to any solutions needed for the planet.

Christianity Exposed

2007-01-12T19:30:00.000-06:00

"Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them-bring them here and kill them in front of me."
-Jesus (Luke 19:27)

A man of peace?

The President Speaks and the Escalation is On

2007-01-10T20:38:00.000-06:00

Please refer to my December 20th comments.

Dancing with the Religious Right

2007-01-05T09:19:00.000-06:00

Step 1: After its victory in last year's fight over a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Virginia, the Family Foundation of Virginia announced Thursday that it will push to change the state's divorce laws to make it more difficult for parents to end their marriage.

Step 2: "People were saying, 'It is not the homosexuals wrecking marriage, it's the heterosexuals,' so we are saying, 'Is there any truth to that?' " said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William).

Step 3: You pick
Mothers are not allowed to work outside the home.
Use of contraception is banned.
Abortion is criminalized in all cases.

A More Dignified Way

2007-01-04T23:56:00.000-06:00

``My personal reaction is that Saddam Hussein was given a trial that he was unwilling to give the thousands of people he killed,'' Bush said. ``I wish, obviously, that the proceedings had gone on in a more dignified way.''

A more dignified way? Who is this man we call president? My only source of comfort is the new Democratic control of the Legislature. Still we will have to see how the Democrats behave. My hope is they stand up to this war monger of a president and at least slow him down. It would seem the president has learned nothing from last November's election and plans on doing more of the same. It's time to cut the purse strings.

Chicken Little

2007-01-02T21:43:00.000-06:00

Twenty-five percent of Americans think that Jesus will return within 2007. Who are these rubes? On the surface this just seems like another silly statistic. However if you consider that the return of Jesus is to be in conjunction with the end of the world you really have to question how this 25% views the secular world. Why should they care about the environment? Why should they care about diplomatic solutions to world conflicts? Overpopulation certainly wouldn't be of concern. One wonders if they are running up their credit cards, taking out second and third mortgages on their homes, and cashing in their IRA's. Though I have no proof I would think that a vast majority of this 25% voted for Republicans. How odd.

Just A Thought

2006-12-28T09:26:00.000-06:00

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Pascal

Define Faith Based Politics

2006-12-26T09:50:00.000-06:00

Faith-firm or unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof.
Based-to make or form a foundation for.
Politics-the relations between people concerned with governing or with influencing or winning and holding control over a government.

So let me get this right. Faith based politics is wanting to influence or hold control over others based upon ideas which have no proof. Does this seem like a good way to govern?

Revisiting "Mission Accomplished"

2006-12-26T09:11:00.000-06:00

More Americans dead in Iraq than killed on 9/11. Involvement in Iraq War longer than involvement in WWII, with no end in sight I might add. No weapons of mass destruction found. Iraq never tied to Al-Qadea. Democracy building replaced by civil war. Now President Bush wants to be compared to President Truman. Fat chance.

Of Couse It's Not A War On Terror

2006-12-21T22:27:00.000-06:00

"I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, 12/12/06

Also from Rumsfeld, the following:
(T)here has been comment in the press of late about whether or not we’re even engaged in a war on terror, or whether our purpose might be better explained in a different manner. Let there be no mistake, we are a nation at war, against terrorist enemies who are seeking our surrender or our retreat. It is a war." 8/2/05

"I would like to say that Iraq is really one of the battle grounds in the global war on terror." 4/24/06

"Iraq is the central front of the global war on terror." 12/16/05

Q: My argument is that we are fighting the war on terror in Iraq. Back me up a little bit on that, Mr. Secretary.RUMSFELD: Well, you're absolutely right. 8/3/04

"(Iraq is) part of the global war on terror; let there be no doubt." 9/10/03

Q: Do you feel that the Administration by turning its attention onto Iraq would be leaving the job undone a bit too soon?RUMSFELD: Oh, no. Indeed that’s part of the global war on terrorism, Iraq. 12/4/02

As Bad As It Gets

2006-12-21T21:53:00.000-06:00

Bush conceded this week for the first time that the U.S. is not winning the conflict in Iraq.
This is almost as bad as President Reagan not mentioning the word AIDS for more than six years in office. I'm coming to the conclusion that the House Democrats may need to use not only the power of the purse but the threat of impeachment to stop this man who seems by all accounts completely out of touch along with those in his administration.

The Definition of Mental Illness

2006-12-20T20:55:00.000-06:00

Doing the same thing over and over and thinking you are going to get different results.

Bush wants to send more troops into Iraq. 'Nuff said.

Atheist = Evil?

2006-12-18T20:34:00.000-06:00

Had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine last night where I was less than reticent about my views on Christianity in particular and religion in general. He was aghast to find out that I did not believe in a god to the point that he was sure I was doomed to hell. I'm not talking about a "religious-right" nut case here, rather an ordinary working class guy.

I never know where to go with these conversations because those holding other beliefs are unable to understand that outside of faith their arguments are rather silly from a scientific viewpoint not to mention the fear they have for my everlasting soul. Yet I'm not going to be as quiet about this topic any more. I believe too many of the Christian faith are attempting to legislate and make policy from a belief system that has as its foundation a man-god who like a zombie rose from the dead and while alive walked on water, changed water into wine, single handedly calmed ocean storms, raised people from the dead, with some help from spit and dirt made a blind man see and had direct conversations with the devil amongst other things. Not to mention the fact as the great CSN once sang, "Too many people have died in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call". No, I think I'll speak up and challenge more often.

“It is a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot.” —Vladimir Nabokov

Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007

2006-12-17T23:39:00.000-06:00

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year.

Who are these neo-cons and hyper-Christians who continue to support this debacle?

Is That Working For You?

2006-12-16T09:23:00.000-06:00

Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are losing ground. The Taliban are back in force. Iraq and the Palestinians are in or moving toward civil war. The government of Lebanon is being co-opted by Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia funds the Sunnis in Iraq. Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Now President Bush is studying new options. Of course he is already ruling out anything that might change or improve the situation. Good work Bush.

Nurses Top List of Most Honest and Ethical Professions

2006-12-14T09:15:00.000-06:00

As a nurse and a college professor who was once in the clergy and an engineer I had to post this latest Gallup Poll on honesty and ethical standards. Pardon my gloating.

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- Someone seeking a job that commands high respect need look no further than nursing. For the eighth consecutive year, nurses top Gallup's annual list of occupations rated for their honesty and ethical standards, earning high marks from more than four in five Americans. A combined 84% of Americans describe nurses' ethics as "very high" or "high." What's more, only 2% of Americans say nurses have low ethical standards. The worst any sizeable proportion (14%) says about the integrity of nurses is that it is "average."

The clergy, engineers, and college professors are also all in the top eight of this poll.

Silence is George Bush

2006-12-13T12:45:00.000-06:00

The American people have repudiated him, the Iraq Study Group has repudiated him, the Secretary General of the UN has repudiated him, and his own party now sees him more as a liability than an asset. This is what it took to silence GWB. Is he being reflective? Let's hope. Is he running scared? I can't imagine. Or is he just taking cover thinking he can wait this out and resume the same old same old? Sadly I think this is more in line with his thinking. I truly believe the man does not have the capacity to change. Probably all a part of his evangelical, literal bible believing born-again Christian self. I will continue to count the days to the end of this debacle of a presidency.

Rock And A Hard Place

2006-12-11T17:29:00.000-06:00

The Republican Party is caught between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side is the beast they have fed for so many years, the religious right. On the other is the more traditional libertarian, Rockefeller/Goldwater sort who continue in their fiscal conservativism yet are not so keen on conservative social issues.

This great divide will not be easily forded. It would seem the Party is headed for what was always considered a Democratic predicament, that of infighting. Oh to be sure this does not signal a united opposition from the Democrats, but maybe now the Republicans will finally get a taste of the more unseemly public battles once reserved only for the Democrats. I hope I can contain my glee.

Progress Marches On

2006-12-06T17:50:00.000-06:00

Conservative Jews as well as the Episcopal Church of the US have moved toward greater acceptance of gays and lesbians. Though controversial it is important to remember that most decisions relating to greater acceptance of the other within religious organizations began on a small scale, were controversial, created schism, and eventually became de rigueur. I believe we shall see the same in this case within the next 100 years.

If It Sounds Like A Nazi.......

2006-12-02T13:53:00.000-06:00

In U.S., fear and distrust of Muslims runs deep.

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.

The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland

"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting.

"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

Boy This System is Working........NOT.

2006-12-01T08:43:00.000-06:00

U.S. Prison Population Sets Record

Associated Press

A record 7 million people -- one in every 32 U.S. adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, a Justice Department report released yesterday shows. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to the report.

"Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails," Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that supports criminal justice reform, said in a statement. From 1995 to 2003, inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.

Security Of Electronic Voting Is Condemned

2006-12-01T08:37:00.000-06:00

Paper Systems Should Be Included, Agency Says.

By Cameron W. Barr Washington Post Staff Writer

Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency.

In the wake of the stolen presidential elections of 2000 I hope this is a wakeup call.

Free Sex Zone? I Think Not.

2006-12-01T08:19:00.000-06:00

Pakistani Islamists protest as new rape law signed.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Religious party activists held small protests on Friday in several cities around Pakistan as President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill curtailing the scope of Islamic laws on rape.

Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue, but protests held after the National Assembly passed the Women's Protection Bill earlier this month have failed to generate much public support.

The passage of the bill was seen as a test of Musharraf's commitment to his vision of "enlightened moderation," and a major battle in a long struggle between progressives and religious conservatives to set the course for this mainly Muslim nation.

The act takes the crime of rape out of the sphere of the religious laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, and puts it under the penal code. Under the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced by a military ruler in 1979, a rape victim had to produce four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face the possibility of prosecution for adultery. The change does away with that requirement and will allow convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence.

An Islamist opposition leader said it would turn conservative Pakistan into a "free sex zone."
Liberal groups and human rights activities have hailed the amendment, although they want a complete abolition of the Hudood Ordinances.

None So Blind As He Who Will Not See

2006-11-30T20:13:00.000-06:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The dramatic declines in teenage pregnancy rates noted in the United States between 1995 and 2002 were largely due to improved contraceptive use, not to abstinence, a new study shows.

"The current emphasis of U.S. domestic and global policies, which stress abstinence-only sex education to the exclusion of accurate information on contraception, is misguided," warn doctors in a report just released online by the American Journal of Public Health.

Dr. John S. Santelli from Columbia University, New York, and colleagues examined the relative contribution of declining sexual activity and improved contraceptive use to the recent decline in pregnancy rates among U.S. women between the ages of 15 to 19 years. The data were derived from interviews with nearly 1400 women in 1995 and 1150 in 2002.

The investigators estimate that the likelihood of pregnancy in this age group declined 34 percent between 1995 and 2002, and that 86 percent of the decline in pregnancy risk was attributable to improved use of contraception. Reduced sexual activity explained only 14 percent of the decline in teen pregnancy.

So Many Gods, So Little Thought

2006-11-29T11:34:00.000-06:00

From Sam Harris.

“Atheist” is a term that should not even exist. We do not, after all, have a name for a person who does not believe in Zeus or Thor. In fact, we are all “atheists” with respect to Zeus and Thor and the thousands of other dead gods that now lie upon the scrapheap of mythology. A politician who seriously invokes Poseidon in a campaign speech will have thereby announced the end of his political career. Why is this so? Did someone around the time of Constantine discover that the pagan gods do not actually exist, while the biblical God does? Of course not. There are thousands of gods that were once worshipped with absolute conviction by men and women like ourselves, and yet we all now agree that they are rightly dead. An “atheist” is simply someone who thinks that the God of Abraham should be buried with the rest of these imaginary friends. I am quite sure that we need only use words like “reason,” “common sense,” “evidence,” and “intellectual honesty” to do the job. So many gods have passed into oblivion, and yet the sky-god of Abraham demands fresh sacrifices. Wars are still waged, crimes committed, and science undone out of deference to an invisible being who is believed to have created the entire cosmos, fine-tuned the constants of nature, blanketed the earth with 20,000 distinct species of grasshopper, and yet still remains so provincial a creature as to concern himself with what consenting adults do for pleasure in the privacy of their bedrooms. Incompatible beliefs about this God long ago shattered our world into separate moral communities—Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc.—and these divisions remain a continuous source of human violence. And yet, while the religious divisions in our world are self-evident, many people still imagine that religious conflict is always caused by a lack of education, by poverty, or by politics. Yet the September 11th hijackers were college-educated, middle-class, and had no discernible experience of political oppression. They did, however, spend a remarkable amount of time at their local mosques talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise. How many more architects and mechanical engineers must hit the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that jihadist violence is not merely a matter of education, poverty, or politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is that in the year 2006 a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: They don’t know what it is like to really believe in God. The United States now stands alone in the developed world as a country that conducts its national discourse under the shadow of religious literalism. Eighty-three percent of the U.S. population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead; 53% believe that the universe is 6,000 years old. This is embarrassing. Add to this comedy of false certainties the fact that 44% of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years and you will glimpse the terrible liability of this sort of thinking. Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewy-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe. Some of them can actually get Karl Rove on the phone whenever they want. While Muslim extremists now fly planes into our buildings, saw the heads off journalists and aid-workers, and riot by the tens of thousands over cartoons, several recent polls reveal that atheists are now the most reviled minority in the United States. A majority of Americans say they would refuse to vote for an atheist even if he were a “well-qualified candidate” from their own political party. Atheism, therefore, is a perfect impediment to holding elected office in this country (while being a woman, black, Muslim, Jewish, or gay is not). Most Americans also say that of all the unsavory alternatives on offer, they would be least likely to allow their child to marry an atheist. These declarations of prejudice might be enough to make some atheists angry. But they are not what makes me angry. As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population. The plain truth is this: There is no good reason to believe in a personal God; there is no good reason to believe that the Bible, the Koran, or any other book was dictated by an omniscient being; we do not, in any important sense, get our morality from religion; the Bible and the Koran are not, even remotely, the best sources of guidance we have for living in the 21st century; and the belief in God and in the divine provenance of scripture is getting a lot of people killed unnecessarily. Against these plain truths religious people have erected a grotesque edifice of myths, obfuscations, half-truths, and wishful thinking.

Is He Gone Yet?

2006-11-28T22:23:00.000-06:00

Judge strikes down Bush on terror groups.
A federal judge struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutionally vague, according to a ruling released Tuesday.

Do you think all the knee-jerk conservatives are waiting for a day when we are struck by another terrorist attack so they can carry-on in their pathological attraction to such a President who continues in his attempts to dismantle our civil rights? Let's hear it for checks and balances.

There He Goes Again

2006-11-28T12:24:00.000-06:00

Only the myopic President Bush could still contend that Iraq is not in civil war. Either he is that obtuse or as usual he is unable to tell the truth.

Reflection on Religion

2006-11-21T17:18:00.000-06:00

From the notable Nobel laureate in physics Dr. Stephen Weinberg. "Religion is like a crazy old aunt. She tells lies, and she stirs up all sorts of mischief and she’s getting on, and she may not have that much life left in her, but she was beautiful once. When she’s gone, we may miss her.”

Here We Go Again

2006-11-20T16:50:00.000-06:00

White House brushes off CIA draft on Iran: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House dismissed a classified CIA draft assessment that found no conclusive evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, The New Yorker magazine reported. The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the CIA's analysis was based on technical intelligence collected by satellites and on other evidence like measurements of the radioactivity of water samples.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency according to the article. "A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it," it said.
The United States has accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian energy program.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino did not respond directly to Hersh's assertions, but said the article was another "error-filled piece" in a "series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration." "The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views," she said on Monday.

The article, in the current issue of the magazine, discussed how Vice President
Dick Cheney believed the Bush administration would deal with Iran if the Republicans lost control of Congress -- as they did in the November 7 election. "If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing an unidentified source familiar with the discussion.
________________________________________________________________

Who are these people in the White House? I believe even a cursory reading of Ms. Perino's response from the White House reveals a level of paranoia usually seen in mental hospitals.

Republican Civil War

2006-11-20T16:13:00.000-06:00

Forget the civil war in Iraq, we have our own civil war going on in the Republican party. In the last couple of days the Republicans have been able to do to themselves what the Democrats have been trying to do since 1994. This was predicted before the election. Not the midterm elections of 2006 but that of the Presidential election of 2004. Below is an excerpt from a New York Times Magazine article by Ron Suskind. I hope you have time to read the entire article.

Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
By RON SUSKIND Published: October 17, 2004

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.
''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

Kissinger: Iraq Military Win Impossible

2006-11-19T18:10:00.000-06:00

The man who once allegedly contemplated dropping nuclear bombs on Vietnam even sees the writing on the wall. When will President Bush?

By TARIQ PANJA, Associated Press Writer

Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday. Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors — including Iran if progress is to be made in the region. "If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict. "A dramatic collapse of Iraq — whatever we think about how the situation was created — would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region," he said.
Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III, called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq's neighbors — including Iran — and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the region.

"I think we have to redefine the course, but I don't think that the alternative is between military victory, as defined previously, or total withdrawal," he said.

Only in Bush's Christian America

2006-11-18T19:46:00.000-06:00

Government censured on family planning policies

By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressional report has criticized the Bush administration for failing to check if federally funded abstinence-only programs actually work to curb teen sex.

Advocacy groups joined the criticism, and also attacked the appointment of a top family planning official who they say opposes any use of contraceptives. The advocates said both developments showed the government of President George W. Bush was determined to impose a deeply conservative Christian agenda onto federal programs.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the Health and Human Services Department was funding controversial abstinence-only programs without checking to see whether they reduced teen pregnancy rates. The GAO report focused on three abstinence programs that received $158 million in federal funding last year. "Efforts by HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in abstinence-until-marriage education programs have been limited," the GAO report reads.

Several studies have suggested that abstinence-only education does not reduce teen pregnancy rates. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds high rates of teen sex even after several years of government-funded abstinence education programs. "In 2005, 46.8 percent of high school students reported that they have ever had sexual intercourse, with 14.3 percent of students reporting that they had had sexual intercourse with four or more persons," the GAO report reads.

HHS said it does review whether its programs work.

WOW

99.5 Percent Like a Neanderthal

2006-11-18T10:16:00.000-06:00

New York Times Editorial

Scientists are tantalizingly close to learning just what genetic changes distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals, who went extinct some 30,000 years ago. The issue is important to experts who want to understand evolution, but also to people who deem themselves a cut above these early cousins, whose name we have turned into an insult.

Two research teams announced this week that they have assembled parts of a Neanderthal man’s genetic code from a fossil bone and teased out some preliminary information. Two experts called it the most significant advance in the field since the first Neanderthal fossils were discovered 150 years ago.

As it turns out, the genome of this particular Neanderthal — who lived some 38,000 years ago — is more than 99.5 percent identical to the genome of modern humans. The great similarity is yet more proof that Charles Darwin had it right when he viewed all life as descended from common ancestry whose genes, we now know, were passed down and modified through the ages. The new studies deduce that modern humans and Neanderthals were descended from a common forebear but parted on separate evolutionary paths at least 450,000 years ago.

Think Tank Will Promote Thinking

2006-11-15T20:48:00.000-06:00

Advocates Want Science, Not Faith, at Core of Public Policy

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff WriterWednesday, November 15, 2006

Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in culture, a group of prominent scientists and advocates of strict church-state separation yesterday announced formation of a Washington think tank designed to promote "rationalism" as the basis of public policy.
The brainchild of Paul Kurtz, founder of the Center for Inquiry-Transnational, the small public policy office will lobby and sometimes litigate on behalf of science-based decision making and against religion in government affairs.
"This disdain for science is aggravated by the excessive influence of religious doctrine on our public policies," the declaration says. "We cannot hope to convince those in other countries of the dangers of religious fundamentalism when religious fundamentalists influence our policies at home."
While the speakers at the National Press Club unveiling were highly critical of Bush administration policies regarding stem cell research, global warming, abstinence-only sex education and the teaching of "intelligent design," they said that their group was nonpartisan and that many Democrats were hostile to keeping religion out of public policy.
"Unfortunately, not only do too many well-meaning people base their conceptions of the universe on ancient books -- such as the Bible and the Koran -- rather than scientific inquiry, but politicians of all parties encourage and abet this scientific ignorance," reads the declaration, which was signed by, among others, three Nobel Prize winners.

Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) Chosen as New Head of RNC

2006-11-13T17:02:00.000-06:00

It was Martinez's office that sent around the hideous memo about Terri Schiavo in which they bragged what a great opportunity Schiavo's near-death status was for the Republican party.

But even more interesting is that a top staffer on Martinez's Senate campaign, Kirk Fordham, was also the former chief of staff to child sex predator ex-congressman Mark Foley.