What We Know

A Little 4 A.M. Perspective

2005-03-01T04:39:00.000-08:00

Current U.S. Population............295,571,458
Total Reported Bush Votes..........62,040,606
Total Reported Kerry Votes.........59,028,109

Percentage of U.S. population that voted for George W. Bush - 21%
Percentage of U.S. population that voted for John Kerry - 20%

Glad They've Got Their Priorities Straight

2005-02-28T17:20:00.000-08:00

Rolling Stone reveals the clearest evidence yet that we have officially entered Bizzaro world:

When the Federal Communications Commission fined Clear Channel Communications $27,500 last year for each of eighteen incidents of "indecent material" spouted by shock jock Howard Stern, it sure seemed like a lot of money. But in retrospect those fines look like chump change. On February 16th, the Bush administration won House approval for a bill that would raise the maximum FCC fine to $500,000 per violation. Under the new measure, Clear Channel -- and Stern himself -- could each have been fined a total of $9 million.

"Free expression and First Amendment rights are the real target of this legislation," declared Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind-Vt.) during the debate over the bill. "This is not what America is about."

A review of fines levied by other federal agencies suggests that the government may be taking swear words a bit too seriously. If the bill passes the Senate, Bono saying "fucking brilliant" on the air would carry the exact same penalty as illegally testing pesticides on human subjects. And for the price of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors. (Actually, you might be able to afford four "nuke malfunctions": The biggest fine levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year was only $60,000.)

If Bush has his way, Howard Stern may soon have a tough choice to make: Tell a sex joke on the air, or dump toxic waste in New York's drinking water while willfully placing an employee at risk of injury or death? No wonder the foul-mouthed host is moving to satellite radio, which falls outside the authority of the FCC.

Couldn't Have Said It Better Ourselves

2005-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

And from Pat Buchanan no less. Go figure.

A conservative knows not whether to laugh or weep, for Mr. Bush has just asserted a right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. Why? Because the “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” But this is utterly ahistorical. The world has always been afflicted with despots. Yet America has always been free. And we have remained free by following the counsel of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and staying out of foreign quarrels and foreign wars.

Who is feeding the president this interventionist nonsense?

The president now plans to hector and badger foreign leaders on the progress each is making toward attaining U.S. standards of democracy. “We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and nation—the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.” This is a formula for “Bring-it-on!” collisions with every autocratic regime on earth, including virtually every African and Arab ruler, all the “outposts of tyranny” named by Secretary Rice, most of the nations of Central Asia, China, and Russia. This is a prescription for endless war. Yet as Madison warned, “No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
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The 9/11 killers were over here because we are over there. We were not attacked because of who we are but because of what we do. It is not our principles they hate. It is our policies. U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the 9/11 terror. Bush believes it is the cure. Has he learned nothing from Iraq?

In 2003, we invaded a nation that had not attacked us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us to disarm it of weapons it did not have. Now, after plunging $200 billion and the lives of 1,400 of our best and bravest into this war and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have reaped a harvest of hatred in the Arab world and, according to officials in our own government, have created a new nesting place and training ground for terrorists to replace the one we lately eradicated in Afghanistan.
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America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy,” said John Quincy Adams, “She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” Under the tutelage of Jacobins who call themselves idealists, Bush has repudiated this wise core doctrine of U.S. foreign policy to embrace Wilsonian interventionism in the internal affairs of every autocratic regime on earth. We are going to democratize the world and abolish tyranny.

Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.

Fossils: God's Hoax

2005-02-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

How God must be laughing at this story:

Human Fossils Dated to 195, 000 Years

A new analysis of bones unearthed nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia has pushed the fossil record of modern humans back to nearly 200,000 years ago -- perhaps close to the dawn of the species.

Researchers determined that the specimens are around 195,000 years old. Previously, the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens were Ethiopian skulls dated to about 160,000 years ago.

Genetic studies estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, so the new research brings the fossil record more in line with that, said John Fleagle of Stony Brook University in New York, an author of the study.

Silly scientists, don't you know that God planted all those fossils in order to trick humans into believing in evolution.

Why?

Not a fucking clue. But wouldn't that have to be the argument used by creationists to explain them? I mean there are litterally millions of these things with more being found every day. From single cell organisms, through dinosaurs, to early man, hundreds of millions of years of history have been excavated and studied in schools and museums across the world. If you truly believe that the world was created by God 10,000 years ago, how do you possibly explain them, unless they were planted there on purpose by the All Knowing to deceive us?

If anybody's got a different justification for their existence, I'd love to hear it.

Next Stop Syria

2005-02-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

Now that we have pulled our Ambassador out, the time for "diplomacy" has officially passed. Not that these idiots would know diplomacy if it bit them on the ass. From The Dreyfuss Report:

The Bush administration’s crosshairs shifted east decisively yesterday, from Iran to Syria, and that country is now the chief target for the neocons and their friends. With Iraq now firmly in the anti-Syria camp and under U.S. tutelage, it seems like the time has come for implementation of part two of the grand design laid out in the famous “A Clean Break” memo, written by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith et al., which you can read (if you haven’t read it lately) here.

The assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Saudi-connected billionaire, could have been carried out by any number of factions—from personal, business enemies of Hariri’s, Hezbollah, other Shiite factions, Syrian intelligence, Israeli intelligence, Iran and even some factions in Iraq. To believe that Syria did it—thus making itself is the instant target of U.S. wrath—seems ludicrous. More likely, to speculate, it seems that the murder was carried out specifically as a provocation to embarrass Syria and to provide Washington with a pretext to do what it wants to do anyway: Regime Change II.

The chaos in Iraq makes chaos in Syria more likely. In Iraq, the Shiite fundamentalists, the Chalabi Iraqi National Congress, and both Kurdish parties have it in for Syria, which they blame for harboring leaders of the (mostly Sunni) Iraqi resistance. It is a no-brainer that various Iraqi factions are already plotting against Syria. Kurds and fundamentalists have been causing trouble in Damascus for two years now, and both will get support from Iraq, under its new regime.

The Bush administration—with no evidence—is already blaming Syria for Hariri’s death. It is in line with a Wall Street Journal editorial on Feb. 7, cited in this column, then, called: “Warning to Damascus.” The White House officially thundered against “the Syrian occupation” of Lebanon yesterday, and an unnamed administration official told the Times: “We’re going to turn the heat up on Syria, that’s for sure.”

Don't be surprised if subsequent military action against Syria is couched as us "assisting" Iraq (a country with about 12 fully trained soldiers).

Even His Faith Is Bullshit

2005-02-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

For a president who can't stop talking about how down he is with the J.C., stories keep trickling out that point out how much bullshit that really is. Like the fact that he rarely goes to church. And then there's this from Dubya's Deputy Director of the Faith-Based Initiative:

Four years ago, while visiting a small urban charity, President Bush launched the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He called it "one of the most important initiatives" of his administration.
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Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact. In June 2001, the promised tax incentives for charitable giving were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million during the past four years. And new programs including those for children of prisoners, at-risk youth, and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years--or approximately $6.3 billion less than the promised $6.8 billion.

Unfortunately, sometimes even the grandly-announced "new" programs aren't what they appear. Nowhere is this clearer than in the recently-announced "gang prevention initiative" totaling $50 million a year for three years. The obvious inference is that the money is new spending on an important initiative. Not quite. The money is being taken out of the already meager $100 million request for the Compassion Capital Fund. If granted, it would actually mean a $5 million reduction in the Fund from last year.

This isn't what was promised.

Amen

2005-02-13T14:40:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman asks the right questions:

By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote. Now how smart is that?

Don't Forget About Poland

2005-02-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

The President sure hasn't. And if you wonder why Poland is one of the few remaining members of the bogus Coalition of the Willing, wonder no longer.

President Bush told President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland on Wednesday that he would ask Congress for $100 million to modernize the Polish military, part of a program of support for a new NATO ally that has more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq.
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According to ABC News, President Bush is asking Congress to set up a $400 million fund to reward nations that have taken political and economic risks to join U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House announced the fund, dubbed the "solidarity initiative," after Bush's meeting Wednesday with Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, a nation that is to receive one-fourth of the money. The $400 million request is part of the $80 billion supplemental war funding request Bush will send to Congress next week.

Where I come from this is called paying people to be your friend.

Watch

2005-02-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

this.

Diplomacy - A definition

2005-02-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

From The American Heritage Dictionary

Diplomacy: di·plo·ma·cy. n.
1. The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.
2. Tact and skill in dealing with people. See Synonyms at tact.

I looked and I looked and I looked and nowhere could I find the word diplomacy used to mean "make things worse by threatening a crazy meglomaniac with invasion" as our new Secretary of State did just yesterday. And this from a woman who swore under oath that now was the time for diplomacy.

Is anyone surprised that North Korea's Dear Leader didn't take Condi's method of diplomacy lying down?

I really think somebody needs to come up with the Bush Administration Dictionary. Where War is Peace and Debt is Ownership, etc. Anybody in?

Read

2005-02-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

this

A Confederacy of Dunces

2005-02-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

Despite falling out with U.S., Chalabi still a player in the new Iraq

Aargh!

2005-02-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Didn't Condi just say that we have no plans to invade Iran at this point? It was like two days ago, right? Hell, I know that we live in a fast changing world, but even so, we went from 0-60 pretty fucking fast on this one. What am I talking about? Oh, just Rice threatening to invade Iran. The money quote:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that Iran must live up to its international obligations to halt its nuclear program or "the next steps are in the offing." "And I think everybody understands what the 'next steps' mean," Rice told reporters after a meeting with NATO foreign ministers and European Union officials.

What happens when you mix a pathological liar with a schizophrenic? You get the Bush Administration.

Inside Iraq

2005-02-01T19:14:00.001-08:00

Post-election wisdom from Back to Iraq:

The insurgency is not over. The Sunnis and middle-class former Ba'athists are still resentful and suspicious. An old friend of mine who was a Ba'athist, but mainly so he could get a job, is bitter and morose, feeling that now there are two occupations. “One from the Americans and one from the Iranians,” he said. The Sunnis are terrified of their old enemy, and List 169, the Sistani-blessed list, does have a number of people on it with serious ties to Iran. The country is still a mess, with deteriorating services like water and electricity. This is not to say they can't be overcome, but this is not a time to declare victory.

Be sure and mention all this to the war-boosters, who are, dorkily, coating their fingers with blue ink as a sign of solidarity “with the Iraqi people.” Hm. I don't remember them doing that for Afghanistan... Why don't they just 'fess up and say they're giving the finger to us doubters? This is not solidarity; it's a taunt along the lines of, “We were right, nyah nyah!” instead of a celebration of democracy. Make no mistake: Sunday was not a validation of Bush's policies. Most Arab states would like to have democracy, yes, but not at the barrel of a gun, which is how it came here. If the choice is being invaded, occupied and force-fed controversial elections that might lead to civil war versus working at democratic reforms at their own pace and in their own way, I suspect most Arabs would choose the latter. And who could blame them? Iraq is not an example to emulate.

The Bottom Line On Social Security

2005-02-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

From Paul Krugman:

"...any growth projection that would permit the stock returns the privatizers need to make their schemes work would put Social Security solidly in the black."

It really is that simple.

Two Tons of Dumb

2005-01-31T21:24:00.000-08:00

[P]olls consistently show that a plurality of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago, and about two-thirds believe that this belief should be taught along with evolution in public schools.

These findings set the United States apart from all other industrialized nations, said Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University, who has studied public attitudes toward science. Americans, he said, have been evenly divided for years on the question of evolution, with about 45 percent accepting it, 45 percent rejecting it and the rest undecided.

In other industrialized countries, Dr. Miller said, 80 percent or more typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure and very few people reject the idea outright.

"In Japan, something like 96 percent accept evolution," he said. Even in socially conservative, predominantly Catholic countries like Poland, perhaps 75 percent of people surveyed accept evolution, he said. "It has not been a Catholic issue or an Asian issue," he said.

Indeed, two popes, Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996, have endorsed the idea that evolution and religion can coexist. "I have yet to meet a Catholic school teacher who skips evolution," Dr. Scott said.

Repeat after me. The world was not created by God 10,000 years ago. Want proof? Go to a museum. Read a book. Stop scaring science teachers into avoiding the subject when they teach biology. Otherwise, we're going to end up with a country chock full of stupid.

Garrison Rocks

2005-01-30T23:37:00.000-08:00

Some much needed humor. Listen here. It's long but it's worth it.

In Name Only

2005-01-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

While the images of Iraqis celebrating today's vote were heartening, stories like these show how far removed from actually democracy this election was:

At the Al-Khazrajiya school in the city's old quarter, Najat Ridha, 48, was ushered into a classroom and handed two ballots, one for the national assembly and another for the local provincial council.

An election worker suggested she vote for list 285 headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and a local list headed by governor Duraid Kashmula.

She ticked the boxes obligingly and walked out - just as Zahra Ibrahim, 60, did before her.

"I really just did what they asked me to do," she said as the Iraqi national anthem crackled on a loudspeaker in the background.

Similar scenes unfolded at the Al-Fadhila school on the west side as men and women, perplexed over what the list numbers stood for, were offered suggestions and a helping hand by election workers.

"I want to vote for Allawi and Yawar," said a frustrated Fatima Hashim, 50.

Both Dr Allawi and interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, himself from Mosul, head competing lists for seats on the national assembly, but were popular choices in the city because of their high profile.

The lists, which only bear numbers and not candidate names for the most part, were published only two days before.

At a polling station in the New Mosul neighbourhood, Mahasin Ahmed, 37, a school teacher, wanted to vote for Yawar, a tribal leader, but did not know that his list number was 255 and neither did the election worker helping her.

He suggested she vote for list 188 because it had "tribes" in the title.

"I found most of the election workers unqualified and I observed many irregularities," said Guevara Yokhana, 34, a Christian running in the local elections, who visited seven of the 20 polling stations on the city's east side.

He said a lack of ballot papers sparked riots in the town of Qaraqush as thousands of furious Christians and Kurds realised they were unable to vote.

Quote of the Day

2005-01-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

The myth [of evil] encourages people to believe that they are good and will remain good no matter what, even if they perpetrate severe harm on their opponents. Thus, the myth of pure evil confers a kind of moral immunity on people who believe in it...Belief in the myth is itself one recipe for evil, because it allows people to justify violent and oppressive actions. It allows evil to masquerade as good."

~ Roy Baumeister: Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty

Remind you of anyone?

Show Me The Money

2005-01-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

I've misplaced a twenty or two in my day, but $9 billion? The Guardian has the scoop.

Inside Iraq

2005-01-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

From Baghdad Burning:

Bleak Eid...
It's the third day of Eid. Eid is the Islamic holiday and usually it’s a time for families to get together, eat, drink and celebrate. Not this Eid. This Eid is unbearable. We managed a feeble gathering on the first day and no one was in a celebratory mood. There have been several explosions- some far and some near but even those aren't as worrisome as the tension that seems to be growing on a daily basis.

There hasn’t been a drop of water in the faucets for six days. six days. Even at the beginning of the occupation, when the water would disappear in the summer, there was always a trickle that would come from one of the pipes in the garden. Now, even that is gone. We’ve been purchasing bottles of water (the price has gone up) to use for cooking and drinking. Forget about cleaning. It’s really frustrating because everyone cleans house during Eid. It’s like a part of the tradition. The days leading up to Eid are a frenzy of mops, brooms, dusting rags and disinfectant. The cleaning makes one feel like there's room for a fresh start. It's almost as if the house and its inhabitants are being reborn. Not this year. We’re managing just enough water to rinse dishes with. To bathe, we have to try to make-do with a few liters of water heated in pots on kerosene heaters.

Water is like peace- you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away. It’s maddening to walk up to the sink, turn one of the faucets and hear the pipes groan with nothing. The toilets don’t function… the dishes sit piled up until two of us can manage to do them- one scrubbing and rinsing and the other pouring the water.

Why is this happening? Is it because of the electricity? If it is, we should at least be getting water a couple of hours a day- like before. Is it some sort of collective punishment leading up to the elections? It’s unbelievable. At first, I thought it was just our area but I’ve been asking around and apparently, almost all of the areas (if not all) are suffering this drought.

I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?

Allawi’s people were passing out pamphlets a few days ago. I went out to the garden to check the low faucet, hoping to find a trickle of water and instead, I found some paper crushed under the garden gate. Upon studying it, it turned out to be some sort of “Elect Allawi” pamphlet promising security and prosperity, amongst other things, for occupied Iraq. I'd say it was a completely useless pamphlet but that isn't completely true. It fit nicely on the bottom of the cage of E.'s newly acquired pet parakeet.

They say the borders are closed with Jordan and possibly Syria. I also heard yesterday that people aren't being let into Baghdad. They have American check-points on the main roads leading into the city and they say that the cars are being turned back to wherever they came from. It's a bad situation and things are looking very bleak at this point.

It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, "Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh." Which means, "If you see death, you settle for a fever." We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water.

Bush Dollars

2005-01-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

From MSNBC:

One simple way to figure the budget impact of Bush’s first term is to look at how much new Treasury debt the government has sold to make up for the deficits since he took office. In Jan. 2001, the total Treasury debt held by the public stood at $3.9 trillion. As of Wed. Jan. 19, the figure was $4,423,975,930,565.56 (or $4.4 trillion.)So regardless of whether you attribute this increase to tax cuts or war spending (or both), the U.S. government is $500 billion further in debt after Bush's first term.

As for the second term, the outlook isn’t much better. A lot depends on whether tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the decade are made permanent -– and on when U.S. troops finally leave Iraq. Last June, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the final bill for the war could hit nearly $400 billion. The CBO figures the accumulated federal budget deficits will hit $2.3 trillion by the end of the decade. And the White House’s own estimates for the second term estimates the total Treasury debt held by the public will reach $5.5 trillion by 2008. (See Table 20, bottom of the page.) That would put the accumulated price tag for both terms at around $1.6 trillion, or a little over $200 billion a year.

That's not counting the White House plan to overhaul Social Security. Until the details of the proposal are formally unveiled, it's impossible to say what it will cost. But if some payroll taxes are diverted to individual accounts (the main idea behind the plan), Congress would have to kick in more money to pay for people who are already retired or expect to do so soon. That could easily add another $1 trillion or more to the Bush deficits.

i-toons

2005-01-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

Booh Hooh, He Lied To You, Too

2005-01-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

Folks at Redstate are up in arms about Bush and those gay people

President to Conservatives: Screw You
By: Augustine · Section: Social Issues

On the domestic front, Bush said he would not lobby the Senate to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage. -The Washington Post

In one interview, the President has effectively undercut the entire movement in favor of traditional marriage - a movement that in no small part helped re-elect him in November.
- - - -
President Bush needs to decide what kind of President he is going to be in his second term. Is he going to be the kind of President who does what he says, or is he going to be the kind of President many of us thought John Kerry would be - one who oftentimes knows what is right, but lacks the will or the basic honesty to stand by his word?

Meow. Somebody pass the popcorn. This should be fun.

Bush Lies (I Know, Like What Else Is New?)

2005-01-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

A good article on the Social Security "crisis" (cough, "bullshit") from Time Canada:

At another appearance intended to promote federal standards for testing high school students, Bush went off script to warn a group of teenagers, “The system will be bankrupt by the year 2040.”

That sounds pretty scary—except that it’s not true. What will actually happen in 2018, according to the Social Security trustees who oversee the program, is that the money paid out in benefits will begin to exceed the amount collected in taxes. And since Social Security will run a surplus until then (and has been running one for some time), it has billions available that it can tap to fill the gap. Even under conservative estimates, the system as it stands will have enough money to pay all its promised benefits until 2042 and most of its obligations for decades after.

What’s more, even if you take the President at his word—that a crisis and bankruptcy are fast approaching—the introduction of private accounts does nothing to slow that process. On the contrary, it makes things worse, by diverting payroll taxes from current retiree benefits and bringing the end of surpluses that much closer. Given all that, what is the President after?

I Hope Bush Can Swim Part XII

2005-01-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Dr Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation.

"There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me." Intrigued, he searched records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked.

Sunlight was falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles.

Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to one to two per cent globally every decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Dr Stanhill called it "global dimming", but his research, published in 2001, met a sceptical response from other scientists.

It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming.
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But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out.

This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than previously thought.

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers.

As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control.

"We're going to be in a situation unless we act where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up.

"That means we'll get reducing cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Dr Cox.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards.

That means a temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable.

Like, Duh

2005-01-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

Some Iraq Areas May Be Too Unsafe to Vote

Question of the Day

2005-01-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

From Today in Iraq:

Regular readers might recall that back on the 21st of December in our Happy Solstice Edition we took issue with a statement that Commander Bunnypants made to the effect that "...15 of Iraq's 18 provinces are relatively stable..." and we demonstrated to our entire satisfaction that he was full of it.

Now we find that he's at it again. He recently deigned to have a few words with the press and he said that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces "appear to be relatively calm." Relative to what, we might well ask, but hey. We already know he's talking out his butt.

No, the question that burns in our minds is this: Which province did he decide went bad?

After all, fifteen provinces were 'relatively stable' just two weeks ago and now only fourteen are 'relatively calm'! And for the lives of us, we can't figure out which one he decided got worse!

Help us, dear readers! If you thought like GW Bush (try slugging down a fifth of cheap vodka and whapping yourself repeatedly in the forehead with a ball peen hammer) and you were looking at the situation in Iraq, which province would you choose as being relatively less calm? And why?

Newt For President (So Buy My Book)

2005-01-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Blatant publicity stunt.

Monkey See Monkey Do

2005-01-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Allawi group slips cash to reporters. Bush must be so proud that his offspring is following in Dear Leader's footsteps.

Your Taxpayer Dollars At Work

2005-01-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

In addition to paying Armstrong Williams a quarter million to shill for NCLB -

The department already has paid [PR Firm] Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies -- including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.

President Chicken Little

2005-01-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

A damn fine article in the WPost about Bush's cynical use of crises to sell his agenda.

Pave The Earth, Baby

2005-01-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

For the first time in three decades, critics of the Endangered Species Act are building momentum to rewrite the law implemented to save America's threatened flora and fauna, from the star cactus to the grizzly bear.

Weakening the law has been a priority for Republican Western governors, and a second Bush term provides critics of the act a prime opportunity to push the U.S. Congress for changes that would help open up vast stretches of wilderness for development.

Read on.

Science Friday

2005-01-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Albert Einstein began working at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland, a little more than a century ago, with an undistinguished academic record. He had flunked the entrance exam for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and took the job evaluating inventions because it paid a regular salary.

Yet in 1905 he made discoveries that dwarfed anything passing through the patent office. Between March and September, he published five papers, any one of which would have won the Nobel Prize. They revolutionised our understanding of the cosmos. He was 26.

Read on.

Covering (Up) Iraq

2005-01-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Five Embeds Booted Out of Iraq in Recent Months

i-toons

2005-01-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

MemoGate Revisited

2005-01-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

A great analysis from Columbia Journalism Review.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does Part III

2005-01-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

It's like some Bizzaro World Hope/Crosby Road Movie:

"Who are you?" asked one slightly bemused Australian consular official as the large-girthed US stranger pumped his hand.

"I'm Jeb Bush."

"Oh, are you a relative of the president?" said the interlocuter, jokingly.

"Yes I am. I am his little brother."

"Oh," came the reply. "Good for you."
- - - - -
Jeb Bush was not the only senior US official who appeared to feel awkward.

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, came close to damaging his reputation as the Bush administration's leading diplomat when he walked into the room, strolled to the US desk, shook the hands of the people working there and then walked straight back out again. It was only when he was downstairs that an aide suggested he "might like" to meet the volunteers from some of the other countries, too. Reminded that he is part of an international relief mission, Mr Powell promptly turned on his heels once again and marched back up the stairs to belatedly press some non-American flesh.

Iraqi Elections

2005-01-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

From Baghdad Burning:

There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don't know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren't making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.

Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

All of this has given the coming elections a sort of sinister cloak. There is too much mystery involved and too little transparency. It is more than a little bit worrisome.

American politicians seem to be very confident that Iraq is going to come out of these elections with a secular government. How is that going to happen when many Shia Iraqis are being driven to vote with various fatwas from Sistani and gang? Sistani and some others of Iranian inclination came out with fatwas claiming that non-voters will burn in the hottest fires of the underworld for an eternity if they don't vote (I'm wondering- was this a fatwa borrowed from right-wing Bushies during the American elections?). So someone fuelled with a scorching fatwa like that one- how will they vote? Secular? Yeah, right.

Disaster Porn

2004-12-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

In watching the non-stop horror replayed over and over in slow motion with "experts" and survivors telling me every gruesome detail, I can't help but feel dirty. It is so obvious that these are the stories that cable news live for, that it seems they can barely contain their - well - glee. Not that I'm saying they come across in any way happy about the disaster, it's just they suddenly seem to have re-found their special purpose - missing since shock and awe.

Nowhere is this more apparent that at Fox News where I had the misfortune of seeing them discuss "celebrities" who'd been in the path of the wave. One Fox idiot said to the other Fox idiot something along the lines of "your girl" was there - meaning supermodel Petra Nemcova who Fox Idiot 2 had a hard-on for. I kid you not. Now, Fox Idiot 2 didn't indicate whether he was less attracted to her now that she had a shattered pelvis, but honestly, I didn't stick around to find out.

A final thought. I agree wholeheartedly with Juan Cole's comments that Bush has seriously dropped the ball:

As John F. Harris and Robin Wright of the Washington Post cannily note, US President George W. Bush has missed an important opportunity to reach out to the Muslims of Indonesia. The Bush administration at first pledged a paltry $15 million, a mysteriously chintzy response to what was obviously an enormous calamity. Bush himself remained on vacation, and now has reluctantly agreed to a meeting of the National Security Council by video conference. If Bush were a statesman, he would have flown to Jakarta and announced his solidarity with the Muslims of Indonesia (which has suffered at least 40,000 dead and rising).

Honestly, I can't believe history will be kind to President M.I.A.

Inauguration Day Schedule

2004-12-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Jesus' General:

My work as a GOP Team Leader has finally paid off. Halliburton's hired me to distribute tuna sandwiches during the event. Three cents a sandwich may not add up to a lot of money, but I get to be at the center of a great event. They even gave me a copy of the schedule.

Schedule of Inaugural Events

9:00 A. M. - Catholic League president William Donohue delivers the invocation, asking the Lord to smite the anal-sex loving Jews in Hollywood.

9:30 - Donald Rumsfeld uses an AT4 Light Anti-Armor Weapon to destroy a tank, thus proving his contention that armoring Humvees is not all that important. The families of any attendees killed during this demonstration will receive a thank you letter personally stamped with Sec. Rumsfeld's signature by an E-4 in the Pentagon's mail office.

10:00 - Alberto Gonzalez does an interpretive dance based on his torture memos.

10:30 - Secretary of State nominee Condoleeza Rice pays tribute to her husband by reading an original poem called, "I Guess They Weren't Kidding When They Said that Bin Laden was determined to attack inside the U.S."

10:45 - Zell Miller issues dueling challenges to anyone in the audience who he deems to be giving him "homosexual looks."

Noon - The effectiveness of the use of Clean Coal Technology to make mercury not only safer but tastier is demonstrated when mercury-tainted tuna sandwiches are served to attendees. Although this lunch is free, the fine folks at Hallibuton, the official caterer of the inaugural ceremonies, will assess each attendee $675.72 in handling fees.

12:30 - Cheney Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, betrays the names of every covert agent in the CIA and thus preempts their spouses from weakening our national resolve by embarrassing the Administration.

1:00 - Singer Toby Keith salutes Our Leader by singing a medley of songs as he takes his annual bath.

1:15 - Sen. Bill Frist explains Social Security reform by dissecting a cat.

2:30 - EPA Director and HHS Nominee Mike Leavitt pays tribute to Our Leader's "Healthy Forest" and "Clear Skies" initiatives by presiding over the chopping down and burning of every tree in the national mall.

3:00 - Vice President Richard "Dick" Cheney speaks about family values. He'll also proudly announce that his daughter, Mary, is engaged to Ken Mehlman.

3:30 - House Majority Leader Tom Delay leads the audience in a loyalty oath to Our Leader.

3:35 - Rush Limbaugh leads the audience in the loyalty oath again, but this time the name "Tom DeLay" is not substituted for "George W. Bush."

3:40 - Former First Lady Barbara Bush leads the audience in the oath yet once again. This time the name "George W. Bush" replaces the words "my hillbilly heroin dealer."

3:45 - Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar introduces Our Leader and then waits patiently while the President finishes reading My Pet Goat.

4:07 - Depending on the quality of his newly purchased 278 billion dollar Halliburton "No-Bulge" Personal Communications System, our Leader gives an address that either touts his agenda for the next four years or is the play by play broadcast for the Redskins game. He ends his speech with a rare pre-session recess appointment naming Bernard Kerik to the Washinton DC Court of Appeals. Our Leader sites Kerik's commitment to family values as the reason for the appointment. Members of the Gambino, Genovese, Luchese, Columbo, and Bonnano families are brought onto the stage to express their grattitude.

4:30 - Our Leader is sworn into the office by Judge Bernard Kerik.

Nothing to Fear But....

2004-12-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

Michael Moore.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

2004-12-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

A great deal has been written about the failure of military strategy in Iraq, but an even more important reason for the failure of the occupation has barely been discussed: the coalition's economic strategy. Following the Second World War, the Allied forces understood that fascism arose in conditions of unemployment, poverty and desperation. That's why there was a massive effort to reflate the German economy; by early 1947, unemployment was down to 10 per cent. In Iraq today, unemployment stands at an incredible 60 per cent. For young Sunni men - the main recruiting pool for the insurgency - it has soared to 80 per cent. This is a recipe for rage and rebellion.

It would be bad enough if the coalition had simply done nothing to reflate and re-energize the Iraqi economy. Incredibly, the truth is even worse: they have imposed on Iraq a program of ultra-neoliberal reforms that have brought economic collapse to every country they have been inflicted upon. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist and dissident former chief economist at the World Bank, describes the economic policies of the coalition as "a proven and predictable catastrophe". They imposed a form of capitalism more extreme than anything tried in a democratic country: immediate privatization of almost all services (without any debate), non-competitive contracts, and a 15 per cent flat tax. This is not democracy. It is market fundamentalism.

Not A Member of The Reality Based Community - Ukraine Edition

2004-12-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

KIEV - Viktor Yushchenko swept to election victory in Ukraine yesterday, while his bitter rival, the Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, refused to accept the outcome of the presidential rerun and vowed to challenge the result. With less than 1 per cent of the vote left to count, Mr Yushchenko had an impregnable 52 to 44 per cent advantage.

Holy Shit

2004-12-27T16:28:00.000-08:00

"What was coming towards us was a wall of foam, sand and white water."

New Zealander Michael Clark was on a cruise ship off a small low-lying island in the Maldives on Sunday morning when a powerful tsunami rocked southeast Asia. "It hit the island and went literally over the island and into the lagoon. Then it decided to come towards us."
- - - - - -
"There was a wall of water, only about two-feet tall, but there was an incredible amount of water behind it surging forward," he told National Radio via satellite telephone.

"It literally sucked all the water inside the atoll out to sea again and then it came back in again about three times."

The wave washed over the tiny island, which was about 120m by 40m and used by resorts as a picnic spot, he said.

"There was a lot of furniture on the island and it all got washed out so there were tables and chairs and people's personal effects. Things were washed around all over the place."

Shooting Off His Mouth

2004-12-27T16:26:00.000-08:00

In either a gargantuan slip of the tongue or a momentous gaffe departing from the Bush Administration-approved timeline, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told troops in Iraq that the Sept. 11 flight over Pennsylvania was “shot down,” RAW STORY has discovered.

i-toons

2004-12-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

Kerik

2004-12-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

Josh Marshall is leading the charge in the whole Bernie Kerik debacle, but Rude Pundit sums it up best:

Bernard Kerik Is a Fuckwad:
Goddamn, that must've been some hot fucking: Bernard Kerik, Police Commissioner of New York City, and Judith Regan, whore of bookdom, balling like crazed weasels in that $6000 a month condo in lower Manahttan, the fin-de-siecle glow of the still burning rubble of the twin towers turning one of the bedrooms a tawdry red. Aw, shit, how goddamn sizzling it must've been, with the odor of burnt corpses and free-floating asbestos in the air, nothing compared to the musk of Kerik's balls tea-bagged in Regan's mouth, Kerik's bare ass pressed against the window that faced the Pit where his officers scoured the ruins for body parts they could send off in a baggie so some family could have something to bury. Maybe Kerik came, ejaculating all over Regan's tits, just as some cop or firefighter picked up a tooth. And the best part? That the married Kerik was also cheating on his mistress, a corrections officer. Man, you can't make that shit up.

Bernard Kerik is a motherfucking thug, a lump of steaming shit who got where he is from tough guy looks, a G. Gordon Liddy moustache, and an oath of fealty to that other wad of fuck, Rudy Giuliani (who hopefully has been forever tarnished). And it's all, all falling out now. All the dirty connections, the acceptance of unreported cash "gifts" (didn't we used to call that a "bribe," "extortion," or at least "graft"?), and more, so much more, going back to his time as "cleaning up" Riker's Island. Let's not forget about the ties to Taser, so enriched by selling to the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense. And Kerik claimed a "nanny" problem? Man, that's like a syphilitic hooker with crabs and genital warts telling you she can't fuck you because she has a cracked fingernail.

Back in October 2003, when Kerik was just back from his time in Iraq (time which may have just been an excuse to stay away while his house was being renovated - really), Bush couldn't praise Kerik enough: apparently, in just three months, "Because of his leadership, his knowledge and his experience, he was able to stand up a police force in Baghdad in a very quick period of time. I think he told me opened up 37 different precinct stations -- 35 different precinct stations. They activated and trained 35,000 Iraqi police force." And look at the difference it's made in the last year in Iraq. When Kerik spoke, oh, how pissy he was with the media and the sayers of nay: "Well, try to stand up 35 police stations in New York City. It would take you about 11 years, depending on who is in the city council. It takes a while. You only have 24 hours in a day. But they have made tremendous progress." He shook his finger at those who thought David Kay's report on the lack of WMDs was significant: "There was one weapon of mass destruction -- he's no longer in power." And then, the money quote, bringin' it on home to 9/11: "I understand, probably more than anyone, what a threat Iraq was and the people that threatened Iraq was. I was beneath the towers on September 11th when they fell. And I -- again, I just -- I want to thank the President for the honor in allowing me to go there, because I lost 23 people. I wear this -- this memorial band for the 23 I lost."

It must have been so devastating for Kerik to take off that memorial band when he was stripping off his clothes so he could fuck Regan or Jeanette Pinero in that apartment that was originally donated so that rescuers might have a resting place while digging up bodies. How carefully he must have placed that band on the bedside table before he shoved his penis in his book editor's ass. When Kerik said, as he did when he was nominated to head the DHS, "There isn't a day that has passed since the morning of September 11th that I haven't thought of the sacrifices of those heroes and the losses we all suffered," do you think that thinking was done on the way to the apartment to fuck one of his former employees? The rescue effort was a noisy one. One can imagine that the music in the apartment was turned up loud so Kerik and Pinero wouldn't be interrupted by the sounds of the cranes and bulldozers. Maybe they didn't even change the sheets. Maybe it was even more exciting to fuck on the same sheets that stunk of the sweat of those working in the fallen buildings, some of them Kerik's own men, sifting for bits and pieces of their dead comrades for whom Kerik so grimly wore that band.

Somewhere, Andy Sipowicz is sneering in disgust.

And what of our President, mighty leader that he is. How he just wanted some of that tough guy glow, his own fuckin' J. Edgar Hoover, a man unafraid of using homicide detectives to search for his mistress's missing cell phone. How the White House just wanted to continue to bask in that 9/11 glow, like the pumping asses of Kerik and Regan in that apartment. Oh, my, some pundits say, how could the White House vetting process have missed anything that a solid Lexis-Nexis search would have picked up. But that misses the point.

It's not that Bush's vetting failed or that Alberto Gonzales is an incompetent piece of shit. The point here is that they just didn't care. The Bush administration thought it could do whatever it wanted in the wake of the election and that nobody would fucking care. And the other point is that it doesn't matter. Bush could have a cabinet made up of deaf-mute quadriplegics who shit themselves on a regular basis, and they'd be as effective as whoever Bush appoints. But the Kerik nomination, among so many other things, lays bare the arrogance and contempt the Bush administration feels for the American public. We just happened to catch this one. How many others get by us?

How Can I Be Broke? I Still Have Checks Left (Part VII)

2004-12-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that it is critical to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent during his second term, while achieving broader reforms in the tax code and bolstering Social Security.

And The Death's Just Keep On Coming

2004-12-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

US admits more Afghan jail deaths

Freedom's Just Another Word For Failure

2004-12-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

US President George W Bush has given America's highest civilian award to three men closely involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Former CIA director George Tenet, Gen Tommy Franks and Iraq overseer Paul Bremer were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

A Nation's Shame

2004-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

Evidence of more prisoner abuse in Iraq has come to light after the US military was forced to release it by the courts.

So What If I Can't Afford To Retire, At Least Those Gays Can't Marry

2004-12-14T20:34:00.000-08:00

Many companies are dropping their promise of health benefits for future retirees, who now might have to stay on the job longer and rely on government health care in their old age.

Given a clear choice between a challenger promising to increase the number of people with affordable health care in this country by twenty odd million and an incumbent promising medical savings accounts for those who could actually manage to save a few dollars in this crappy economy, 60 million people chose the latter. Well, you certainly get what you pay for. Expect stories like these to increase over the next four years as Bush does jack shit about lowering health care costs for lower and middle class Americans.

The Wheels Are Coming Off In Ohio

2004-12-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

It seems apparent to us that it's only a matter of time before the Ohio vote fraud scandal explodes. The only question is whether the issue can be forced before Shrubby is offically coronated by the Electoral College.

For how desperately the forces of "W"rong are trying to close Pandora's box we link to today's hearing in Ohio in which it was revealed by one David Cobb that a representative of Triad Systems came to an Ohio Board of Elections office last Friday to "see if they had any questions". He quickly moved to the back room where the Triad vote tabulator was located. Before you can say "Vote fraud" he had "found" a battery problem with the machine and proceeded to take it apart, swapping out parts and who knows what else.

But wait, it gets worse.

The Triad rep. then asked which county would be selected in the upcoming 3% recount. When he was told, he went back in to do something else to the tabulator.

But wait, it gets even worse.

He then told them that since the hand recount had to match the machine count exactly, and that it would be hard for them to memorize the number sequence needed to get the machine to give them that number, that they should post these series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers. The counters could then report these numbers NO MATTER WHAT THEY ACTUALLY COUNTED IN THE BALLOT. This would then "match" what the precinct reported exactly.

At this point in his testimony, Rep. Conyers told Mr. Cobb to arrange an immediate meeting with his staff regarding this issue. To listen to the audio of David Cobb's testimony on this, click here.

More to come...

If At First You Don't Succeed, Go Work For Bush

2004-12-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

Rewarding EPA Secretary Mike Leavitt for his work paving the Earth, Shrubby is nominating him to replace Tommy Thompson at HHS.

Brother Can You Spare a Fed?

2004-12-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

From today's LA Times:

The rapid turnover of top-level managers and highly trained specialists since Sept. 11 is causing disorder within the FBI and undercutting its efforts to meet the mandate of Congress to dramatically expand its intelligence and counter-terrorism capabilities.

Its new intelligence arm, which is to form the core of a transformed FBI, is losing dozens of analysts who are supposed to connect the dots to protect the country from another terrorist attack. All four members of the top management team announced by Director Robert S. Mueller III shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks have left their jobs — as have their successors. Some other officials have had three or even four jobs since the attacks.

Since Sept. 11, five people have held the bureau's top counter-terrorism job. Five others filled the top computer job within a 24-month period.

Feel safer yet?

Worst. Defense Secretary. Ever.

2004-12-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

The headline says it all:

Armor Holdings Could Boost Humvee Armor Output 22%.

So apparently the current shortage isn't "a matter of physics" after all. Nobody fucking asked them to do it.

Why Does Bush Hate Liberty?

2004-12-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

As we've previously quoted here at What We Know, Thomas Jefferson once said "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither". Time and again, though, Shrubby and his gang have succeeded in scaring the American people into giving up their hard won freedoms.

First we had the Patriot Act which (besides winning the George Orwell award of 2002) chipped away at many our liberties. Now we have the troubling, recently passed Intelligence Bill. USA Today explains:

"Overall, it's another threat to civil liberties in this country," said Charlie Mitchell, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's just a continuation of what the administration's been doing."

Under the bill, a legal presumption would be established denying bail for anyone indicted by a grand jury on terrorism charges. Although the suspect could appeal to a judge, the burden of proof would be on the defendant to show release would be prudent.

Now before you get all up in arms that terrorists deserve whatever they get:

Skeptics say the provision has the potential to be abused, possibly resulting in long detentions for people ultimately found innocent.

"Unfortunately, this Justice Department has a record of abusing its detention powers post-9/11 and of making terrorism allegations that turn out to have no merit," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

Don't believe him. Look at the record number of terrorism convictions since 9/11. What's that? There haven't been any?

Bottom line, it's understandable to want to live your life in safety, but at what cost? They say it's for our own good, but haven't they lied to us about enough that we should no longer trust them?

Another Critic Forced To Walk The Plank

2004-12-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

The man who has issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security was told Wednesday night that he was out of a job.

Clark Ervin made himself very unpopular by issuing a series of stinging reports on security programs that he said had failed, officials he called inept, and fraud that he suspected. His year-end report, out today, alleges that millions of dollars have been wasted or are unaccounted for by the department.

Dancing On Their Graves

2004-12-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Even at a time of war when more than 138,000 American troops are serving in Iraq, the organizers say that the inaugural celebration at the end of the January will not be marked by any noticeable restraint and will cost more than any other in history.

But organizers also say that the prodigious Republican fund-raising will pay for a celebration that is to have a "solemnity" missing from other inaugurals.

What We Know has heard rumors that to commerate the sacrifice being made by the nation's soldiers, all checks will be written in their blood. Neat, hunh?

Beware The Tsunami of Bullshit

2004-12-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

Or so says the WP (although not in quite the same way):

Convinced his leadership style and policy vision were vindicated by the election results, Bush is aggressively targeting these domestic programs for the second term by essentially replicating the formula he used to reshape foreign policy in the first. This includes creating a small, loyal and trustworthy team to press for sweeping changes largely dictated by the White House.

To build public support and circumvent critics in Congress and the media, the president will travel the country and warn of the disastrous consequences of inaction, as he did to sell his Iraq and terrorism policies during the first term, White House officials said. He is also enlisting well-funded conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation to help build the case for change -- or "reform," in the words of the White House -- through ads and commentary on television and in targeted publications, the aides said.

Get your shovels ready boys and girls. And be prepared for a fight, because if they win on the "ownership society" crap, you can say goodbye to your healthcare and pensions (and forget about Social Security.)

The BradBlog Too

2004-12-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Brad's new site is up. You can find it and the original "Whistleblower Affidavit" story at BradBlogToo.

This is a fascinating and terrifying story that bears a thorough and public investigation.

2+2=? (Part IV) - The BradBlog Edition Part II

2004-12-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

The BradBlog is currently breaking all kinds of stories regarding Clint Curtis, Cong. Tom Feeney, Yang (YEI) and the FDOT. Because of this, his site is being overrun. He is currently setting up a second blog to try and handle the traffic. (Because he's got even more white hot info to break.)

More to come very shortly.

Fin

Quagmire

2004-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about Iraq (at least not in this post). I'm talking about our economy. From today's CNN Money:

Hit by rising health care and energy costs, employers announced more than 100,000 job cuts last month, capping the worst three months of cutbacks since early 2002, an outplacement firm said Tuesday.

i-quote

2004-12-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

"A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society."

~ Thomas Jefferson

Knock Knock

2004-12-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

A group of election activists called Transparent Democracy - including civil rights attorney Michael Sussman, Greenburgh town supervisor Paul Feiner, and four others - attempted to present the complaint at noon today while dozens of protestors carried signs outside supporting the call for an investigation.

The smaller group was denied access to the FBI's Westchester offices at 222 Bloomingdale Road in White Plains. Organizer Nicholas Mottern had previously arranged with the office to present the complaint. However, when they arrived in the building's lobby, he and the others were informed by building security that the FBI had instructed management not to allow them access to the Bureau's offices, and that the FBI would not send a representative down to the desk to accept the complaint. In response to the Bureau's action, Sussman, Feiner and Mottern signed into the building register and left the document with the desk clerk for delivery to the Bureau.

A local cable news station later reported that the FBI refused to accept delivery of it. In response to the Bureau's actions, the group called another rally for Wednesday, December 8 at noon to demand that the Bureau accept the complaint and investigate the allegations of fraud in time to prevent a possible theft of the election. Wednesday's rally will likewise take place at 222 Bloomingdale Road in White Plains. Video of the attempted presentation of the complaint, and some footage of the rally, is available at www.debar2004.com/video/120304fbi1.rm and more footage will be posted over the weekend.

What Are Friends For? (No Really, Bush Wants To Know)

2004-12-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

After calling Musharraf his best bud, this is the thanks Bush gets:

Iraq war has made world 'less safe'

i-toons

2004-12-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

McCain Runs Interference for Bush

2004-12-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

Rather than spending Sunday morning talking about life and death matters, such as the cluster fuck that is Iraq or the economy, John McCain hit the airwaves to talk about steroids.

We at What We Know are not sure what the big deal is. After all, the Governator/Gropenator took them and he's a Republican - the paragons of moral virtues.

Duh

2004-12-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

As President Bush lays the groundwork for a possible overhaul of the U.S. tax code, one option under consideration would deal its biggest financial blow to citizens of blue states such as California and New York.

Bizzaro World Part III

2004-12-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

Thump. Thump.

Is this thing on?

Testing 1, 2, 3.

All right, let's see if this shit works.

In another clear indication that we descended through a massive irony wormhole when the Supreme Court appointed Shrubby president in 2000, Bush is now praising Pakistan and president Musharraf for their work in this whole "war on terra". We here at What We Know are not surprised given the outstanding job Musharraf and his soldiers have done rounding up Osama Bin Laden--

Wait a second...we've just been handed an update...Osama remains at large.

And what's this?

The global investigation into Abdul Qadeer Khan's black market trade in nuclear technology has stalled in a clash of national interests that threatens a full accounting of his secret partners and clients, according to interviews with diplomats and officials from several countries.

International authorities fear the full scope of the Pakistani scientist's ring may never be known. Senior investigators said they were especially worried that dangerous elements of the illicit network of manufacturers and suppliers would remain undetected and capable of resuming operations once international pressures eased.

Investigators also said that records obtained in Libya and elsewhere showed that some nuclear equipment purchased or manufactured by the network had yet to be found, raising the possibility that it was diverted to still unidentified customers.

"We are far from knowing everything," a senior European diplomat involved in the inquiry said. "I'm frustrated by the lack of cooperation. We are losing a lot of time."
- - - - - -
Pakistan has not permitted investigators to interview Khan, and his closest confidant is being held in Malaysia under that country's restrictive security act. Investigators also are concerned about the level of cooperation of former Soviet republics and China.
- - - - - -
Not everyone is eager for full disclosure, however.

Amid speculation that Khan may have operated with the knowledge or assistance of other high-ranking military officials in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan early this year and has refused to permit investigators from the IAEA or the United States to interview the scientist.

Is there any doubt why Bush publicly praised this committed partner in our fight against all things terror-ible? So from all of us at What We Know:

THANK YOU MUSHARRAF.

You're the best.

How Can I Be Broke? I Still Have Checks Left (Part VI)

2004-12-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

With a firmly Republican Executive and Legislative Branch, surely there's no one to blame for the recent bloated tick of a spending bill just passed, right? Wrong:

Arizona's junior senator, Republican Jon Kyl, also voted against the bill, but in a more low-key and partisan manner, placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of congressional Democrats.

"Obstructionist tactics by the Democratic minority prevented much of the federal government's discretionary spending from even being legitimately debated, by grinding the budget bill and individual appropriations bills to a halt with endless amendments and other parliamentary delaying tactics," observed Kyl.

The end result, he added, "is a lousy way to legislate."

Anyone understand what the fuck he's even talking about? Or how Democrats just bending and spreading would have somehow kept the pork (no pun intended) to a minimum?

Feel Safer Yet?

2004-12-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

Bush is purging the CIA of critics and calling for the hiring of a whole new crop. A move that's sure to leave the country safer. What? It won't?? What the fuck?

"Let’s just start with the ‘hire more case officers’ stuff," says a highly respected and decorated veteran intelligence officer who spoke with the Phoenix on condition of anonymity (necessitated by the turmoil at Langley) in mid and late November. "Let’s first note that the president’s memo doesn’t say where the money to hire all these people is coming from, and that what it in fact orders Goss to do is draw up a plan with a budget and get it to the White House three months from now. So when you’re going to see the actual process begin to get this new 50 percent recruited is God knows when.

"Next, once you begin that process, for new DO officers you’re looking at the expenditure of at least half a million dollars and at least one year of training. And then you really need three to four years to figure out if someone is, in fact, good at being a DO officer. So they can talk all they want about increasing levels, but the devil is in the ‘as soon as is feasible’ part of the memo. ‘As soon as feasible,’ when it comes to training and fielding a new officer, is not the same as ‘immediately.’ "

It’s even more complicated for non-official cover officers, or NOCs — CIA officers who, unlike most DO officers, operate under corporate or non-governmental cover without benefit of diplomatic immunity. Another seemingly bold move, this one by Goss, was revealed in the November 17 edition of USA Today, which reported that Goss had instructed his new deputy director for operations, Jose Rodriguez, to "launch a much more aggressive espionage campaign that would use undercover officers to penetrate terrorist groups and hostile governments." This "risky new strategy" would call for a radical increase in the number and use of NOCs, and would be a "sharp departure from the CIA’s traditional style of human intelligence, in which field officers under flimsy cover as diplomats in US embassies try to recruit foreign spies and gather tips from allied intelligence services."

Innovative as this sounds, according to another veteran intelligence officer intimately familiar with the NOC program, it’s going to take even longer for this new "aggressive" campaign to come to realization. Furthermore, if history is any indicator, it may not yield much except grief.

"Goss could very well be long gone before the first NOC hired under this new effort ever sets foot on the field," the veteran officer says. "First is the issue of actually resuscitating the NOC program — there have never been that many NOCs, and the number is very, very low right now. Then there’s time and money. For your average case-officer trainee, it’s an investment of about half a million dollars and a year of time. For a NOC, it’s more like a million dollars and two years. While the training itself isn’t that different, everything with a NOC has to be done away from the formal CIA environment, which means you have to set up a mobile training process, which is costly and takes more time."

And, he says, after all the costly training, NOCs generally don’t last all that long. "A lot of them end up quitting the agency earlier than most for one of two reasons. The first is because it’s really one of the most thankless, frustrating jobs there is. You can’t keep all the salary you’re paid in your cover job — you have to return anything beyond your GS salary, which makes it effectively impossible to maintain your cover if you’re supposed to be in a $200,000-a-year job and you have only $57,000. People have actually quit and gone to work for the companies that were providing their cover, and who can blame them? More money, less stress.

"The second reason," the officer continues, "is that the counterintelligence capabilities of most local intelligence services have gotten much better in recent years due to technology, and it’s much easier to crack someone’s cover now. You can’t just send people out there with the highest-quality forged identification when a CI officer in some other country can go online and oh, what does he find? There’s nothing in public records you can pull off the Web that backs up the guy’s identity. These days, it takes a lot more in time and other expenses to just adequately backstop a NOC."

The Vision Thing

2004-12-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

From Thomas Friedman:

If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, he would dry up revenue for terrorism; force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to take the path of reform - which they will never do with $45-a-barrel oil - strengthen the dollar; and improve his own standing in Europe, by doing something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a magnet to inspire young people to contribute to the war on terrorism and America's future by becoming scientists, engineers and mathematicians. "This is not just a win-win," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. "This is a win-win-win-win-win."

Or, Mr. Bush can ignore this challenge and spend the next four years in an utterly futile effort to persuade Russia to be restrained, Saudi Arabia to be moderate, Iran to be cautious and Europe to be nice.

2+2=? (Part IV) - The BradBlog Edition

2004-12-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

It's hard to know where to start. The last few days have seen a flurry of activity concerning voting irregularities on and around the November 2nd presidential election. The biggest event has got to be the announced hearings in the House of Representatives. Their fifteen page letter (and supplemental letter) to SoS Blackwell, laying out the truly extraordinary volume of questionable practices and events in Ohio, is worth the price of admission alone.

Rather than trying to condense it all, we recommend that you go directly to BradBlog. Brad has been leading the charge into all things irregular and, I truly believe, helped to get these hearings off the ground. So if you can, while you're over there, kick in a little monetary support, cause unlike a reporter he's not getting paid to do this.

(Psst. Don't tell anybody, but we have it on good authority that all this is just the tip of the iceberg.)

Insult to Injury

2004-12-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

From the Chicago Tribune:

Even worse, because the bulk of their replacements will be in Iraq within weeks, there will be a shortage of living space. As a result, the soldiers of the 2nd Brigade are to be kicked out of the comfortable two-person trailers where they have been living and sent to cots in crowded tents, just as the cold, wet winter settles into this region of Iraq.

"It's an insult," one soldier complained as the news spread through the base Thursday.

If You Teach Them, They Will Cum

2004-12-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

in a rubber and prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies. If you don't:

Kate is now a statistic - a pregnant teenager. In Dimmitt, 80 miles north of Lubbock, she is one of 12 pregnant girls at a school of 330 students, a Dimmitt school official said. Now she's living in Lubbock, which doesn't fare much better. According to local lore, this dusty town eight hours from Austin boasts more churches per capita than any other in the nation. But it also boasts some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state, with 36.4 percent in 2002, compared to the statewide rate of 28.5 percent, according to the Texas Department of Health's Vital Statistics from 2002. Lubbock County also has one of the highest STD numbers in the state, with 1,725 STD cases in 2003. Texas has the fifth-highest rate in the nation for teen pregnancy for girls aged 15 to 17.

Yet, since 1995, Texas has taught its teens that the only safe sex is no sex when then-Gov. George W. Bush signed into law a bill that made Texas the third state requiring abstinence-only sex education. Now, of course, Bush as president has taken that philosophy nationwide, putting millions of dollars into abstinence-only programs.

The War On Science (Part II)

2004-12-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

AmericaBlog joins the Resistance:

Here's one thought: the next time someone tries to shove their religious beliefs into your local public school's science class, make a counter proposal. Demand that the school teach that the pyramids in Egypt were built by aliens. You could quickly print out lists of hundreds -- if not thousands -- of books, movies and TV specials that bolster this claim and prove it's a valid "scientific theory" that your kids should not be denied hearing in the interest of fairness.

Also propose that your kids be taught humans were put on earth by aliens, the truth about UFO abductions, time travel, how we didn't really travel to the moon (it was faked, you know) and you name it. There are plenty of quack "scientists" with actual degrees who will argue for this bunk. Once your school board has to deal with a whole bunch of junk "science," they might be more willing to dismiss it ALL in favor of accepted scientific fact. Point out that not ONE public university teaches Creationism as a valid scientific fact and ask why you want to teach your children something that every reputable college in the country will tell them is idiotic and wrong.

Next week: how to defend your geography class from fundamentalists who insist the world is flat.

Oops

2004-11-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that investigators believe much more oil spilled from a ruptured tanker in the Delaware River near Philadelphia than the 30,000 gallons initially reported. Coast Guard Lt. Buddy Dye said 473,500 gallons from the tanker Athos I are unaccounted for, but called a leak of that size a "worst-case scenario."

2+2=? (Part III)

2004-11-30T20:20:00.000-08:00

Bradblog has been doing a fantastic job tracking the myriad of voting irregularity, fraud and recount stories (no not from the Ukraine, from the good old US of A). Risking blogging ettiquete I'm just going to link to his site rather than the individual story pages for the following items:

- a Delaware County, Ohio judge has issued a temporary restraining order "attempting to prevent Cobb from seeking a recount of the presidential ballots cast in that county."

The order, according to the statement, was issued "without contacting or seeking any input from the candidates or their attorneys."

I'm no legal eagle myself, but if true, that fact alone is certainly curious.

The Cobb-Lamarche media director, Blair Bobier, was more direct in a comment included in the release: "It makes you wonder if Delaware County has something to hide. Why else would they try to prevent a recount and issue an injunction without giving the candidates any notice to participate?"

- Black Box Voting files lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida for failure to provide public records.

- Yes, it's true! Two reporters from a major American, Corporate-Owned, Mainstream Newspaper are actually investigating the results of Election 2004!

Gonzalez reports this morning, in a piece titled "Ohio tally fit for Ukraine"(!), that he and reporter Larry Cohler-Esses have discovered yet more anomalies in the Ohio vote count! (All by themselves! And they're not even "disgruntled loony left-wing blogger conspiracy theorists!)

Specifically, Gonzalez reports that he and Cohler-Esses have uncovered unusual vote totals in several of Cleveland's black neighborhoods. They studied the precinct-by-precinct totals released by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (see the previous story about them) and found that third party candidates has surprisingly high vote totals! In several cases, candidates such as Constitutional Party's Michael Peroutka mysteriously received tallies as much as 600% higher than even George W. Bush's!

- Kerry's Lead Grows 9,242 from Cuyahoga County, OH Provisionals
...Even after 34% of Such Ballots Were Rejected.

What is fascinating to us here at What We Know is the sheer volume of irregularities. Every new story seems to pick up a completely separate incident from the last. When is the mainstream media going to wake up and realize that this isn't tin foil hat time? Something very wrong happened across this country on November 2nd. You don't have to go all the way to the Ukraine to find the fraud. It seems to have happened right here, under all our noses.

Again, this isn't about Bush/Kerry (although anyone who reads this site will know where my allegiances lie). This is about the sanctity of our democratic process. Would I like the recount in Ohio to swing the state to Kerry? Of course. But even those who wouldn't should be terrified at how easily this election was manipulated. Just because your guy "won" doesn't mean you should turn a blind eye from how it happened. If we let this stand, then mark my words it will happen again. And next time they'll get better at it.

A Confederacy of Dunces

2004-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States took control of all of the Iraqi government’s bank accounts, including the income from oil sales. The United Nations approved the financial takeover, and President Bush vowed to spend Iraq’s money wisely. But now critics are raising serious questions about how well the United States handled billions of dollars in Iraqi oil funds.

Now, Frank Willis, a former senior American official in Iraq, tells NBC News the United States failed to safeguard the oil money known as the Development Fund for Iraq.
- - - - -
"A lot of money did get to the Iraqi people at the grass-roots level, and a lot of it got into the wrong hands," he says. In one photograph, Willis and colleagues showed off a $2 million payment to a security contractor.

"It was time for payment," he remembers. "We told them to come in and bring in a bag. It reminded me of the Wild West."
- - - - -
Iraq’s U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, pledged last year to hire a certified public accounting firm to ensure proper controls. But the United States gave the contract not to an accounting firm but to a tiny consulting company, Northstar — which NBC News found is headquartered at a private home near San Diego.

"They violated the rules. They picked a contractor who didn’t meet their requirements," says Paul Light, a government contracting expert and professor at New York University.

Northstar’s president says the Pentagon knew Northstar was not a certified public accounting firm and that four experienced employees went to Iraq and did a good job. However, one audit notes that a single Northstar employee maintained spreadsheets tracking billions of dollars.

Add this to the teenagers Bremer hired to run the reconstruction and you get a sense of why the last year and half has been such a cluster-fuck.

Casualties of War Part III

2004-11-30T19:45:00.000-08:00

A serviceman, apparently distraught over the prospect of being sent back to the war in Iraq, threatened to kill himself as he stood naked and screaming outside his house.
- - - - -
After struggling with officers, the man told police that he was scheduled to be sent back to Iraq in January, but didn't want to because he would be forced to kill more people, police said.

In this day and age of uber violent video games, a lot of these kid soldiers have years of experience "killing" which makes it a lot easier for them to pull the trigger than it was for their parents and great grandparents. Men who grew up being taught "thou shalt not kill."

But the up close reality of what a .50 caliber bullet (or a dozen of them) does to the human body, or the soul destroying image of a child with half a head or napalm burns is something these soldiers are ill equipped to deal and which, frankly, the armed forces doesn't want to acknowledge. After all, their job is to turn these kids into machines, to do whatever they can to help them dehumanize their enemy.

Because of this, I fear we will see a lot more of these kind of stories in the coming years.

I'm Singing in the Rain - AH, IT BURNS!!! IT BURNS!!!!!

2004-11-30T19:40:00.000-08:00

Acid rain fell on more than 250 cities [in China] and caused direct annual economic losses of 110 billion yuan ($13.3 billion), equal to nearly three percent of the country's gross domestic product, the state-run newspaper said.

By Any Means Necessary

2004-11-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

In response to a Mathew Gross article equating Democrats to victims of domestic abuse, Steve Gilliard does us proud:

"I guess Gross doesn't know any abused women. I do. The GOP didn't come into my home and say "I love you" and knock me up. I didn't decide that I needed a strong, aggressive man in my home, or that I didn't mind being lied to. I never trusted the GOP and I worked for them. So did my family. I always knew that they never had my best interests at heart.

This sort of pathetic appeal to victimhood is revolting on it's face and innaccurate as hell.

No, we're not victims, any more than when you play football and one side cheats their asses off. Having seen this for real, you're first stunned, then you appeal to the refs, then you figure out, one, they ARE going to cheat, two, the refs will NEVER call it, and three, you better protect your own ass and get your shots in.
- - - - - -
Now, you can go along with Gross and feel sorry about the mean ol' GOP smacking the shit out of innocent little us, people who just want to do good, or you can say "fine, you wanna cheat? Fuck you. If those are the rules, then they're the rules and we'll play by them too."

It takes time to realize that you're playing dirty. You don't get it at first, or even second, It takes a while, because you think everyone is like you and has your values. You don't do cheap shots. You don't lie to the refs. But when you wake up and realize, well, this is football, then you start to find ways to win. Because once you know the rules, especially the unwritten ones, things become a lot easier.

You're no goddamn victim. You've just been in a game with people who will cheat to win."

A Grim Anniversary

2004-11-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

On the night of 2 December 1984, poisonous methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal. Thousands were killed immediately. Thousands more were to die from the effects of that night in the months and years that followed.

Now, Amnesty International has claimed that neither the Indian government nor Union Carbide have done enough to provide proper redress for the victims or to clean up the site. "The disaster shocked the world and raised fundamental questions about corporate and government responsibility for industrial accidents that devastate human life and local environments," the report reads.

"Yet 20 years on, the survivors still await just compensation, adequate medical assistance and treatment, and comprehensive economic and social rehabilitation. The plant site has still not been cleaned up so toxic wastes still pollute the environment and contaminate water that surrounding communities rely on. And, astonishingly, no one has been held to account for the leak and its appalling consequences."

2+2=? (Part II)

2004-11-28T20:52:00.002-08:00

Jesse Jackson visited Ohio today to talk about the recount.

Immediately after the election, there were reports that the number of voting machines brought to the state’s urban, Democratic-leaning precincts was deliberately shorted. There were numerous sworn statements from voters in urban areas that the voter rolls were old and out-of-date, forcing voters, many registered for years, to use provisional ballots – which get counted last or do not get counted at all unless the voter was in the right precinct. Voters also testified under oath about machines malfunctioning and recording votes for Bush when people believed they had selected Kerry.

All of these trends – plus the fact that the Bush victory did not jibe with at least two non-partisan exit polls taken on Election Day in Ohio – are behind Jesse Jackson’s trip to the state today, Sunday, Nov. 28.

2+2=? (Part II)

2004-11-28T20:52:00.001-08:00

Jesse Jackson visited Ohio today to talk about the recount.

Immediately after the election, there were reports that the number of voting machines brought to the state’s urban, Democratic-leaning precincts was deliberately shorted. There were numerous sworn statements from voters in urban areas that the voter rolls were old and out-of-date, forcing voters, many registered for years, to use provisional ballots – which get counted last or do not get counted at all unless the voter was in the right precinct. Voters also testified under oath about machines malfunctioning and recording votes for Bush when people believed they had selected Kerry.

All of these trends – plus the fact that the Bush victory did not jibe with at least two non-partisan exit polls taken on Election Day in Ohio – are behind Jesse Jackson’s trip to the state today, Sunday, Nov. 28.

The War On Science

2004-11-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
god who has endowed us with sense, reason and
intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
—Galileo

With the self-described mandate of Bush and the Religious Right, we are witnessing a revival of good old fashioned religious persecution of science; the most famous example of which is the father of modern astronomy, Galileo:

"In 1615 Galileo was summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the mine which had been so long preparing was sprung. Sundry theologians of the Inquisition having been ordered to examine two propositions which had been extracted from Galileo's letters on the solar spots, solemnly considered these points during ahout a month and rendered their unanimous decision as follows: "The first proposition, that the sun is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture"; and "the second proposition, that the earth is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view at least, opposed to the true faith."

Centuries later it has been well proven that the Earth revolves around the Sun and that it is not flat. Of course, it has also been well proven that evolution happened and continues to happen all around us. The very notion that we are still forced to have this conversation eighty years after the Scopes Monkey trial is ludicrous.

These religious facists remind me of nothing more than the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, the monster from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who is so mind-bogglingly stupid it believes that if you can't see it, it can't see you.

There are Natural History Museums in almost every big city in the world. Inside them are tens of millions of fossils that date back hundreds of millions of years ago (and carbon dating is not a theory). These fossils are real. You can hold them in your hand. They weren't planted there as a gynormous hoax by the Almighty. The world was not created ten thousand years ago.

So why are we even talking about this?

Because we live under an Administration that's sole message is don't believe your lying eyes. On the economy. On Iraq. On healthcare. On the environment. As a result, the enlightened majority are forced to do battle with the intellectual equivalent of a urine sample.

And while we're forced to beat our heads against the brick wall of voodoo ignorance, other, more important battles aren't being fought. Millions of children and pregnant women are in danger from skyrocketing mercury levels. Thanks to budget cuts and "No Child Left Behind" our public schools have been forced to adhere to curriculums that discourage independent thinking in favor of regurgitating textbook answers (and forget about the Arts and Physical Education). We are raising a generation of fat, lazy, unimaginative children. who would rather play Grand Theft Auto than read a book or play outside. Something needs to be done or we will no longer lead the world, it will lead us.

So to those on the far right who want to de-educate our children with fundamentalist mumbo jumbo, I say get your ass to Saudi Arabia where you can open up your own Madrassa. The rock we're pushing up this hill is heavy enough without you sitting on top of it.

Click here for a further look at Science, Truth and the Church

i-toons

2004-11-28T17:58:00.000-08:00

Bush's Bitch - Part I

2004-11-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

And I'm not talking about Condi.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the urging of the White House, a key Senate panel will put off consideration of the nomination of Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of state, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Sunday.

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, said he had suggested "a very early time" for his committee to take up the nomination, which must be approved afterward by the full U.S. Senate.

"The White House suggested that that would not be appropriate -- that is, in December," Lugar said on "Fox News Sunday." "So we'll not be having hearings in December. But we'll have hearings as soon as possible in January."

Wanted Dead or Alive (Or Not)

2004-11-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

Pakistani soldiers abandon search for bin Laden.

How Can I Be Broke? I Still Have Checks Left (Part V)

2004-11-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

What a great idea. Borrow a lot of money in order to give it to a few big Republican donors like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. From tomorrow's NYTimes:

The White House and Republicans in Congress are all but certain to embrace large-scale government borrowing to help finance President Bush's plan to create personal investment accounts in Social Security, according to administration officials, members of Congress and independent analysts.

Casualties of War

2004-11-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

A truly incredible article about the battle in Falluja from KnightRidder:

Ward said he'd ferried at least 10 injured soldiers the night before.

"It's been very intense," he said. "For a lot of our younger soldiers, it's overwhelming." He wore a bracelet with the name "Marvin Sprayberry III" etched on it, just above "KIA" and "True Friend."

Sprayberry was Ward's best friend. He was a good man. He was killed on May 3 when the vehicle he was in rolled over during a firefight. That was all Ward had to say on the matter.
- - - - -
When they got bored or scared of being on the rooftop, some of the men - young and with an awkward day's stubble on their upper lips - went outside and around the corner to see the Fat Man. "Hey dude, we're going to see the Fat Man, wanna come?" they said.

Their boots crunched hurriedly across the rubble outside the house and then slid down a muddy hill of trash and feces.

The Fat Man lay in his own blood. He was an Iraqi insurgent who'd hidden in an alley next to a garbage dump waiting for the Army to come by. A couple 25 mm high explosive rounds, shot from a Bradley, blew off his left leg, leaving a stump of bone, and, from the looks of it, punched a hole through his midsection. Two or three others died with him. A group of insurgents managed to drag the others away, but the Fat Man was too big. His arms were still splayed back from where his comrades tried to pull him through the narrow alley.

Some of his guts - perhaps an intestinal tract - were splattered on the wall. His eyes were open, peering out from his dirty face and scraggly beard, staring at the heavens. A traditional red-and-white checked Arab keffiyah headdress was wrapped around his waist, and a bag with slots for RPG rounds - all empty - lay on the ground next to him.

The Fat Man was the first dead person that many soldiers had seen. They grew solemn as they leaned over his body and peered into his eyes, but never too close, never close enough to touch his skin or take in too deep a whiff of death.
- - - - -
"When people say that war is the most terrible thing, they ain't wrong," Bowden said. "The things it does to people. You think that killing people for your country is cool, but when you do, it just numbs you."
- - - - -
The streets outside were littered with dead men, their corpses left for cats and dogs to gnaw on after the sun set. The sight of bearded insurgents, eyes open, lying in gutters was no longer a novelty.

Walking through the house, Ofori turned his gun toward a doorway. Shots rang out. A fighter in the room had been waiting with a grenade in hand. He'd probably been listening the entire time as the men sat on the sofa next door, their voices wafting through the holes in the wall.

When he jumped forward, he didn't scream "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great - as insurgents often did. He moved in silence, until Ofori's fire blew him back. Ofori looked down for a few seconds and walked out of the room. The soldiers behind him went inside to ogle. "Damn, look at Hajji," one said.

Walking into the garage, Ofori found a dead fighter lying on the ground next to a pickup truck outfitted with a machine gun.

Having heard of the incident, the New York Post wrote a headline calling Ofori a "Coney Island Hero."

His mother told the newspaper, "he doesn't like that Army food."

Later in the day, an RPG tore through the torso of Lt. Iwan, the company's executive officer, ripping his body apart. He was 28.

A Conspiracy of Dunces

2004-11-26T21:12:00.000-08:00

A third or more of the government property Halliburton Co. was paid to manage for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not be located by auditors, investigative reports to Congress show.

Halliburton's KBR subsidiary "did not effectively manage government property" and auditors could not locate hundreds of CPA items worth millions of dollars in Iraq and Kuwait this summer and fall, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen reported to Congress in two reports.

Bowen's findings mark the latest bad news for Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, which is the focus of both a criminal investigation into alleged fuel price gouging and an FBI inquiry into possible favoritism from the Bush administration.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that FBI agents have extensively interviewed an Army contracting officer who last month went public with allegations that the Bush administration was improperly awarding contracts to Halliburton without competitive bidding.

How Can I Be Broke? I Still Have Checks Left (Part IV)

2004-11-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

The fact that Bush owns this will be of little consolation when we're all a colony of China.

Investors and market analysts are increasingly worried that the last big source of support for the American dollar - heavy buying by foreign central banks - is fading.

The anxiety was on full display Friday, when the dollar abruptly slid to a record low against the euro after a report suggesting that the Chinese central bank might start to reduce its holdings in the American currency.

Grampa's Going To War

2004-11-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

More than three decades after he was last in combat, a Vietnam veteran has been called to active duty in Iraq.

Paul Dunlap, 53, of Pleasant Unity, will leave for Fort Bliss, Texas, on Monday after being called up as part of Operation Dragoon. Dunlap, a first sergeant in the Army National Guard Company C 28th Signal Battalion out of Torrance, Westmoreland County, hasn't been in combat since he was a 19-year-old Marine and served 11 months in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971.

"I'm thinking I'm going to be away for at least a year from my family and my grandchildren (and) friends," Dunlap told the Tribune-Review of Greensburg in a story published Wednesday. "I'm thinking it's been a long time since I've been in war."

No Shit

2004-11-24T19:50:00.000-08:00

THE US is losing the war of ideas in the Islamic world, failing to elucidate its policies to Muslims wary of American intentions and "self-serving hypocrisy", a Pentagon advisory panel has found.

My Savior Is Bigger Than Yours

2004-11-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

In a move that's sure to have escalating repercussions, a church in Ohio has erected a 62 foot paper mache statue of Jesus signaling a field goal. In a land where neighbors battle to outdo each other's Christmas decorations every year, Ohio has fired the first shot, but surely not the last, in this war of Religious Idols.

Already, neighboring West Virginia, suffering from severe Jesus Envy, is hurrying construction of a 100 foot interactive statue of Jesus' on the cross. According to Reverend Alwaysright at the Church of Our God Could Kick Your God's Ass Any Day of the Week, visitors will be able to ride an elevator built inside the cross and into Jesus' head. Inside, they will find a gift shop carrying everything from autographed bibles to the hottest seller in Christiandom: Passion nails.

When asked whether the tens of thousands of dollars spent on construction of idols like these wouldn't be better spent on the poor and hungry - especially now that the harsh winter months are here - Reverend Alwaysright replied "it's honestly more important that the poor know that we love Jesus more than anybody else. After all, Jesus preached at his Sermon on the Mount that blessed are the idol makers for they shall inherit the Earth."

Why Does Rumsfeld Hate Our Troops?

2004-11-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week won his fight to install his man, Francis J. Harvey, as secretary of the Army.

In the midst of two and a half wars, at a time when the Army is struggling to transform itself and must use extraordinary methods to find enough soldiers to fill the rotations to Iraq, Rumsfeld selected a man who's never served in the military or in government to be the Army's CEO.

Rumsfeld told the man he's passing over for the job - acting Army secretary Les Brownlee, a retired Army infantry colonel and a highly decorated combat veteran - that he "wanted a businessman" to run the Army. Harvey, a longtime Westinghouse executive, was Rumsfeld's second choice in 18 months of bitter wrangling with some powerful senators.
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Rumsfeld told the man he's passing over for the job - acting Army secretary Les Brownlee, a retired Army infantry colonel and a highly decorated combat veteran - that he "wanted a businessman" to run the Army. Harvey, a longtime Westinghouse executive, was Rumsfeld's second choice in 18 months of bitter wrangling with some powerful senators.

Rumsfeld's long fight with the senators began in May 2003 when he fired Army Secretary Tom White, a retired Army brigadier general, over White's support of then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki (who angered Rumsfeld by saying that several hundred thousand American troops would be needed to occupy Iraq).

When the defense secretary tapped Air Force Secretary James Roche, another defense industry exec and a Navy and government veteran, to take over the Army job, he ran afoul of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain was demanding that the Air Force and Roche hand over internal e-mails on its plan to lease new airborne tankers from Boeing, and when they weren't forthcoming he blocked Roche and all Defense Department civilian nominees.

While all of this was dragging on, the Army was left in the hands of acting secretary Brownlee, who'd spent 18 years on the Hill working for Sen. John Warner and the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Brownlee, who was awarded two Silver Stars for heroism in Vietnam, spent the last three Christmases with American troops in war zones. Although Brownlee may have been the ideal candidate for the job he was already doing, there was no way Rumsfeld would nominate him. He was angry at how McCain, and more recently Warner, had thwarted his appointment of Roche to run the Army. This time he'd have his way and his man in that job.

Put Your Money Where Your God Is.

2004-11-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

From Kristoff:

Now we have the hugely profitable "Left Behind" financial empire, whose Web site flatly says that the authors "think this generation will witness the end of history." The site sells every "Left Behind" spinoff imaginable, including screen savers, regular prophecies sent to your mobile phone, children's versions of the books, audiobooks, graphic novels, videos, calendars, music and a $6.50-a-month prophesy club. This isn't religion, this is brand management.

If Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins honestly believe that the end of the world may be imminent, why not waive royalties? Why don't they use the millions of dollars in profits to help the poor - and increase their own chances of getting into heaven?

Mr. Jenkins told me that he gives 20 to 40 percent of his income to charity, and that's commendable. But there are millions more where that came from. Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins might spend less time puzzling over obscure passages in the Book of Revelation and more time with the straightforward language of Matthew 6:19, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth." Or Matthew 19:21, where Jesus advises a rich man: "Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. . . . It will be hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."