13 July 2008 Criminals covering their tracks
NYT editorial
... We
fear we may never find out all that has gone missing in this
administration, although we urge Congressional investigators to keep
trying. What we do know is that the Bush gaps of missing e-mails run
into hundreds of thousands during some of the most sensitive political
moments. Key gaps coincide with the lead-up to the Iraq war — and the
White House’s manipulation of intelligence — as well as the destruction
of videotapes of C.I.A. interrogations and the outing of the C.I.A.
operative Valerie Plame Wilson.
Missing e-mails include entire blank days at the
offices of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Also mysteriously
wiped from the record are e-mails from Karl Rove, the president’s
political guru, and dozens of other White House workers who improperly
conducted government business on Republican Party e-mail accounts. The
White House now claims that nothing has been lost, though officials
previously acknowledged large-scale purging, claiming they were
accidental.
4 July 2008
Paul
Krugman, NYT columnist
Rove's
Third Term
Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet.
Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying
in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley
Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service.
The latest fake scandal fit the usual pattern as an
awkwardly phrased remark, lifted out of context and willfully
misinterpreted, exploded across the airwaves.
What General Clark actually said was that Mr.
McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a
qualification for the presidency. It was a blunt but truthful remark,
and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General
Clark is himself a bona fide war hero.
Yet the Clark affair did reveal something important
— not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a
McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl
Rove. [continues]
Diveroli, incompetent merchant of death
[story]
2 July 2008
"Wes Clarke told the world that McGrandpa’s POW record does not
necessarily make him qualified to be a good President." -comment on
CrooksAndLiars.com
Posted by SC at
Pharyngula
as a comment on Christopher Hitchen's allowing himself to be
waterboarded:
here are some snippets from
Steven Miles' 2006 Oath
Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror (pp.
13-18):
THE CASE AGAINST INTERROGATIONAL TORTURE
Torture Harms Intelligence Collection and Analysis
The CIA's 'Human Resources Exploitation Manual' of 1983 came to the
same conclusion [as the declassified CIA 'Counterintelligence
Interrogation Manual' resulting from the findings of MK-ULTRA]: 'Use of
force is a poor technique...However, the use of force is not to be
confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent
and non-coercive ruses'. The 'Army Interrogation Field Manual" of 1987
reiterated these same conclusions.
The governments of Nazi Germany, China, North Vietnam, Great Britain,
and Israel also found pain to be an unreliable interrogation technique.
As prisoners disintegrate, harden, or dissociate under pain, they tend
to give inaccurate, useless, or misleading information. Although
American POWs subjected to psychiatric stress by Korean, Chinese, or
Soviet captors seemed to be more willing to make anti-American
statements while in captivity than those who were tortured with pain,
there is no evidence that psychological torture improved the ability to
get the truth from a prisoner.
Advisors to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld informed him of the
research showing the inefficacy of harsh interrogation. The secretary
then authorized the same harsh techniques that had been discredited by
the research and experience of the United States.
...
False information elicited by pain floods the limited analytic capacity
of intelligence agencies...In this way, harsh interrogation can make it
more, no less, difficult for analysts to find the 'ticking time bombs'.
Torture seeks and tends to elicit information that exaggerates the size
and nature of the threat. Such false information can lead to misguided
government policies...
...
Torture alienates persons who might otherwise be recruited as
informants. As the CIA's 1983 'Human Resource Exploitation Manual' put
it, 'Use of force...may damage subsequent collection efforts'. Many FBI
reports of interrogations with prisoners in the war on terror tell of
prisoners who refused to cooperate with interrogators because of harsh,
abusive, or degrading treatment meted out to fellow prisoners or
themselves. Some prisoners even experience torture as validating their
sense of importance, the rightness of their cause, or, conversely, the
evil of their torturer. For example, some Palestinian prisoners
tortured by Israelis experienced torture as a rite of passage that
bonded them to their cause, confirmed the evil of Israel, and proved
their trustworthiness to comrades.
Abusive interrogation fosters an 'arms race' between interrogators and
prisoners. As targeted groups learn the techniques that will be used
against their members, they prepare their colleagues for what to
expect. They take measures to limit the amount of damaging information
any individual can disclose...
Effective interrogation seeks to build rapport, articulate common
interests, exploit a subject's jealousy of comrades, or offer, in
exchange for information, something that the prisoner sees as being in
his or her interest. Torture destroys the possibility of this kind of
interview. The abuse hardens the prisoner's political commitment and
perception of the interrogating authority. an interrogator who abuses a
prisoner forfeits the emotional self-control that is necessary for
effective interrogational interviewing.
Torture Is Strategically Counterproductive
Coercive interrogation is especially ineffective in asymmetrical
warfare between a regular army and guerrillas living among an
indigenous population of sympathizers who are familiar with the
insurgents' factions and social organizations. Terrorist profiling
cannot identify the key persons in such communities. Hundreds of
citizens have mere bits of knowledge. Dragnets for coercive
interrogation are expensive and ineffective. Military Intelligence
personnel estimate that from 70 percent to 90 percent of the tens of
thousands of Iraqi prisoners were either innocent or ignorant.
Proponents of interrogational torture cite the occasional tactical
success of French soldiers who used torture to learn of terrorist
attacks during Algeria's war for independence from France. However,
those same abuses alienated the Algerian population and fueled the
resistance. France lost the war.
A similar pattern is unfolding in Iraq. The revelations of abuses in
U.S. prisons are followed by a dramatic decline in international
respect for the United States and a sharp increase in anti-American
sentiment, especially in the international Muslim community. U.S.
government polls found that Iraqi support for U.S. forces fell from 63
percent to 9 percent upon the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs. It
seems probable that interrogational torture in Iraq boosted insurgency
recruitment and resulted in far more attacks than it could have
prevented.
Torture Harms the Society That Employs It
Torturing societies harm their courts, their militias, and the
officials who torture on their behalf...
Torture psychologically traumatizes the soldiers who perform it.
soldiers who passively witness atrocities, as well as those who commit
them, suffer more severe post-traumatic stress disorder than those who
kill during combat. Abu Ghraib medics were providing Prozac and
starting Alcoholics Anonymous groups for soldiers in the abusive units.
Those wounds will burden their lives, their families, our neighbors,
our society, and the Veterans Administration for years to come.
Bush's
Third Term
WSJ
p A12
We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so
vigorously against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe
he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's
running for it.
Most Presidential candidates adapt their message
after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely
"running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary
positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable
chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a
Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?
Take the surveillance of foreign terrorists. Last
October, while running with the Democratic pack, the Illinois Senator
vowed to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive
immunity for telecommunications companies" that assisted in such
eavesdropping after 9/11. As recently as February, still running as the
liberal favorite against Hillary Clinton, he was one of 29 Democrats
who voted against allowing a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee
reform of surveillance rules even to come to the floor.
Two weeks ago, however, the House passed a bill that
is essentially the same as that Senate version, and Mr. Obama now says
he supports it. [usual WSJ editorial wankery follows]
Given
"The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with Barack
Obama vowing to expand the Bush administration program that gives
federal money to religious charities. Everyone sees it as Obama's
latest effort to move to the center on certain issues to gain
Republican-leaning voters," my belief that Obama will be better than
McSame still holds, but the differences seem smaller and smaller.
1 July 2008
And Americans wonder why the rest of the world sees us as racist,
violent & reckless:
Grand Jury
Clears Texan in the Killing of 2 Burglars
By Adam B. Ellick, NYT
HOUSTON — A grand jury on Monday refused to indict a 62-year-old man
who fatally shot two burglars last November as they fled his neighbor’s
house.
In a case that raised questions of ethnic bias,
self-defense and property rights, the jury rejected charges against the
man, Joe Horn, who is white. Both victims were illegal immigrants from
Colombia.
...
Mr. Horn, a retired computer manager who testified
before the grand jury, called 911 on Nov. 14, saying two men were
burglarizing his neighbor’s house in Pasadena, a Houston suburb. He
described the men as black.
“I’m not going to let them get away with it,” he
told the emergency operator. “I’m going to shoot.” He added, “I’m going
to kill them.”
The operator repeatedly told Mr. Horn not to shoot,
and the police had just arrived at the scene when Mr. Horn fired three
blasts of 00 buckshot from his 12-gauge, striking the men in their
backs.
The men — Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, and Diego
Ortiz, 30 — ran short distances before collapsing and dying, leaving
behind a tire iron used to break a window and a pillowcase holding
jewelry and about $2,000 from the neighbors.
Many questions went unanswered, including the events
that transpired before Mr. Horn told the operator, “I had no choice,”
adding, “Man, they came running in my yard.” [
more]
Carnival of the
Elitist Bastards
"What It's About
You can help raise the level of our public discourse
from the subgutter of stupidity in which it currently resides. All you
have to do is celebrate your own intelligence.
You don’t have to be erudite or loquacious. You
don’t have to be particularly learned or expert. Just say what you
think. What do you think about the dumbing down of the media?
Education? Politics? Why do you suppose our cultures celebrate jocks,
but not genius?
Write about what delights you. Do you read science
tomes for pleasure? Avoid Survivor in favor of Nova? What do you do
that causes the folks around you to roll their eyes and say, 'You know
too much!' ”
30 June 2008
Pentagon
Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup
By Lyndsey Layton,
Washington
Post, page A01
The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting
orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade
and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose
"imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the
environment. [continues]
28 June 2008
Seven years later, and the Bush clowns still
haven't determined which of its supporters spread anthrax around
Washington. The man they tried to lynch for it has won some money,
though not regained his reputation. Since it has been known from the
start that
this was an inside job, and they still failed to solve the supposed
mystery, how can anyone believe these buffoons can protect us from
unknown threats? Remember color-coded "threat levels", tweeked weekly
to suit Cheney's needs?
Scientist
Is Paid Millions by U.S. in Anthrax Suit
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LICHTBLAU, NYT
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Friday that it would pay
$4.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a former
Army biodefense researcher intensively investigated as a “person of
interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001.
The settlement, consisting of $2.825 million in cash
and an annuity paying Dr. Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years, brings
to an end a five-year legal battle that had recently threatened a
reporter with large fines for declining to name sources she said she
did not recall.
Dr. Hatfill, who worked at the Army’s laboratory at
Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., in the late 1990s, was the subject of a
flood of news media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television
cameras showed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in biohazard
suits searching his apartment near the Army base. He was later named a
“person of interest” in the case by then Attorney General John
Ashcroft, speaking on national television.
In a news conference in August 2002, Dr. Hatfill
tearfully denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters
and said irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks
had destroyed his reputation.
Dr. Hatfill’s lawsuit, filed in 2003, accused F.B.I.
agents and Justice Department officials involved in the criminal
investigation of the anthrax mailings of leaking information about him
to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act. In order to prove
their case, his lawyers took depositions from key F.B.I. investigators,
senior officials and a number of reporters who had covered the
investigation. [
more]
27 June 2008
Just for fun:
An
honest boss.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon
devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal
treatment from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the
other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has
the gods on his side. — Aristotle, Politics
It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of
Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for or
even against evolution, march in the army of the night with their
Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force,
impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.
- Isaac Asimov, "The Threat of Creationism":
On sale at the
Texas
Republican Convention:
24 June 2008
WOW!
June 25,
2008 NYT
Florida to Buy Sugar Maker in Bid to Restore Everglades
By DAMIEN CAVE
LOXAHATCHEE,
Fla. — The dream
of a restored Everglades, with water
flowing from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, moved a giant step closer
to reality on Tuesday when the nation’s largest sugarcane producer
agreed to sell all of its assets to the state and go out of business.
Under the proposed deal, Florida will pay $1.75
billion for United
States Sugar, which would have six years to continue farming before
turning over 187,000 acres north of Everglades National Park, along
with two sugar refineries, 200 miles of railroad and other assets.
It would be Florida’s biggest land acquisition ever,
and the magnitude
and location of the purchase left environmentalists and state officials
giddy.
Even before Gov. Charlie Crist arrived to make the
announcement against
a backdrop of water, grass and birds here, dozens of advocates gathered
in small groups, gasping with awe, as if at a wedding for a couple they
never thought would fall in love. After years of battling with United
States Sugar over water and pollution, many of them said that the
prospect of a partnership came as a shock. [
continues
... years of haggling probably lie ahead]
Everglades Explorer
23 Jun 2008
Bad
Obama: Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol
NYT
story
Making fuel ethanol from corn is stupid in several
ways. Just possibly, however, it will refocus the feeble US search for
new energy sources on valid biofuels. But I won't hold my breath.
And Obama plans to vote for Bush's domestic spying
bill, too.
Another NYT article is about InfoSpace.com, formerly
a major search engine, now a niche one, among whose specialties was
phone listings. The difficulty of finding relevant online phone
listings has long been a peeve of mine, I would much rather have had
the whole phone books put online, to browse through, than to get the
narrow listings full of ads from distant companies.
Preparations for the 2010 census are a shambles.
NYT
editorial
Congress is abdicating its duty, and the Bushies have bungled and
trashed the Commerce Dept, mostly for partisan reasons.
"The power of the Executive to cast a man
in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and
particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest
degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government,
whether Nazi or Communist. " -Winston Churchill, in a telegram to
Herbert Morrison November 21, 1943
21 Jun 2008
We appreciate the help!
Our
van broke down on the highway last night as we returned from vacation.
Fortunately, we were nearly home, it was a warm and dry night, and we
had wonderful assistance. It would have been a disaster if it had
happened far away, stranding us and ruining the vacation. The engine
was losing power for a couple of miles, lunging, then there was a
burning smell that we hoped was from the truck ahead, and then passing
cars were honking at us. I pulled over, the engine was smoking, and we
quickly got out and away. Two cars pulled over to help. One man said,
"Do you know your car is on fire?" "No!" There was a small puddle of
flame under the engine. Neither helper had a fire extinguisher, but one
decided that the sensible thing to do was for him to roll the van
forward and leave the fire behind. Worked nicely, and then he just
stepped on the fire to put it out. It was "clearly" engine oil, and
there
was general agreement among our helpers that the oil pan had cracked.
We had called AAA as soon as we were away from the van (how can any
sane driver not have AAA?!) Our volunteer helpers left when a Mass.
state trooper came up. I'm not a big fan of them, in general, but this
young man was great. He kept us informed, he called the Shrewsbury Fire
Dept, he was polite and friendly. He even took Susan and Julie home, in
what I hope will be their last ever ride in a State Police cruiser. The
firemen put sand on the oil spill, and checked the engine — we hope
they are right, that there seems to be sufficient lubricant left that
the engine is not toast. The AAA tow truck took a while to find the
van, but then quickly worked to take the van, and me, home.
[Update — the transmission is the problem, a common problem with
Windstars, we are told. What seemed at night to be motor oil was
transmission fluid. I didn't know transmission fluid was oil, and was
flammable!]
[Bush Justice - Indonesian immigrant story]
Separation of church and state - an excellent synopsis by a
Constitutional lawyer. The source is a comment on a
Café
Philos article on the firing of fundie wackaloon teacher John
Freshwater.
More
background.
Ed Darrell // June 21, 2008
Separation of church and state: It’s in the Constitution. I don’t play
a constitutional lawyer on television, I am one*, but it seems to me
anyone can read the Constitution and see. Especially if one understands
that the Constitution sets up a limited government, that is as Madison
described, one that can do only what is delegated to it. The
Constitution is a short document.
First, in the Preamble, it is made clear that the
document is a compact between citizens: “We the people . . . do ordain
and establish this Constitution . . .” The usual role of God ordaining
(in some western nations) is altered, intentionally. It is not God who
establishes this government, but you and I, together. From teh first
words of the Constitution, there is separation of church and state.
Second, in Article 1, the legislative branch is
given no role in religion; neither is any religion given any role in
the legislature. In Article 2, the executive branch gets no role in
religion, and religion gets no role in the executive branch. In Article
3, the judicial branch gets no role in religion, and religion gets no
role in the judicial branch. In Article 4, the people get a guarantee
of a republican form of government in the states, but the states get no
role in religion, and religion gets no role in state government. This
is, by design, a perfect separation of church and state.
Third, in Article VI, the hard and fast rule that no
religious test can be used for any office in government, federal, state
or local, means that no official will have a formal, governmental role
in religion, and no religion can insist on a role in any official’s
duties.
Fourth, Amendment 1 closes the door to weasling
around it: Congress is prohibited from even considering any legislation
that might grant a new bureaucracy or a new power to get around the
other bans on state and church marriage, plus the peoples’ rights in
religion are enumerated.
Fifth: In 1801 the Baptists (!) in Danbury,
Connecticut, grew concerned that Connecticut would act to infringe on
their church services, or teachings, or right to exist. So they wrote
to President Jefferson. Jefferson responded with an official
declaration of government policy on what the First Amendment and
Constitution mean in such cases. Jefferson carefully constructed the
form of the device as well as the content with his Attorney General,
Levi Lincoln, to be sure that it would state what the law was. This
“letter” is the proclamation. It’s an official statement of the U.S.
government, collected in the president’s official papers and not in his
personal papers. Make no mistake: Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury
Baptists was an official act, an official statement of the law of the
United States. Jefferson intended it to assuage the Baptists in
Danbury, to inform and warn the Connecticut legislatures, and to be a
touchstone to which future Americans could turn for information. It was
only fitting and proper for the Supreme Court to use the letter in this
capacity as it has done several times.
Sixth: The phrase, “separation of church and state”
dates back another 100 years and more, to the founding of Rhode Island.
It is the religion/state facet of the idea of government by consent of
the governed without interference from religious entities, expressed so
well in the Mayflower Compact, in the first paragraphs of the
Declaration of Independence, and carried through in the Constitution
(see especially the Preamble, above).
No, the phrase “separation of church and state”
never appears in the Constitution. The principles are part of the warp
and woof, and history, of the document, however. The law is clear, was
clear, and denying the Constitution says what it says won’t change it
or make it go away.
Consequently, John Freshwater, an agent of the
government, had no right, duty, privilege, instruction, nor any other
legal foundation for his actions. Speaking as a Christian, I would say
he has no Biblical foundation, either. Whether there is any other moral
foundation, I doubt.
It’s sad to see a teacher licensed to teach who
doesn’t understand the legal duties of the job, who acts
insubordinately to place his employer in legal jeopardy, and who shirks
the duties he signed an oath to perform. It’s sad to see a teacher so
completely unfamiliar with the content of what he is supposed to teach.
Darwin saw the appearance of design in nature, too.
He studied nature to see what causes that appearance of design, and
discovered evolution. Evolution is one of the best documented, most
thoroughly understood of the chief theories of science. Additionally,
evolution is one of the outstanding ideas of western civilization,
leading to scientific advances in medicine and agriculture that allow
us to have a human population so large as this planet has now. Students
need to understand the great ideas of western civilization, both
scientifically and culturally.
I cannot think of a good religious reason to teach
garbage to children and shock them with a device that warns it should
never be used in contact with humans. By most international law, that
would be deemed torture.
When I got my teaching license, torture was not one
of the prescribed methods of teaching.
Reading assignments: The Constitution of the United
States of America (try Findlaw.com, NARA.gov, there are lots of sites);
Darwin, On the Origin of Species and chapter 5 (development of
morality) of Descent of Man (both available online at several
sources); The Boy Scout Law (here’s a good
source:); Ohio’s
science standards (hope this fits):
* I’m also a licensed, certified teacher — of
history, government, and other social studies, if you’re curious.
from
DemocracyNow
VINCENT BUGLIOSI: Well, in my book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush
for Murder, I set forth an airtight legal case against George Bush that
proves beyond all reasonable doubt that George Bush took this nation to
war under false pretenses, on a lie, in Iraq, and therefore, under the
law, he is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American
soldiers in Iraq fighting his war, not your war or my war or America’s
war, but his war.
Interestingly enough, there have been billions of
very harsh critical
words written and said about George Bush, none of which he could
possibly care less about. So the words are absolutely meaningless. But
up until now, other than words, no one has done anything at all to
George Bush. No impeachment, no investigation of him.
But this book here, The Prosecution of George W.
Bush for Murder, in
it, I put together a case against George Bush that could result—it
absolutely could result in his being prosecuted for first-degree murder
in an American courtroom. I set forth the legal architecture against
him, the overwhelming evidence of his guilt and the jurisdiction to
prosecute him. And I say that if justice means anything at all in
America, and if we’re not going to forget about these 4,000 young
American soldiers who are in their cold graves right now as I am
talking to you and who came back from George Bush’s war in a box or a
jar of ashes, I say we have no choice but to bring murder charges
against the son of privilege from Crawford, Texas.
20 Jun 2008
Bush Gives Dems STDs
Marty Kaplan, HuffingtonPost
The least popular, most lawless president in American history took to
the Rose Garden today to thank congressional Democrats for having
unprotected political sex with him. For caving — not compromising, but
totally capitulating — on war funding and and telecom immunity, Nancy
Pelosi, Stenny Hoyer and the blue dogs they lie down with have been
rewarded with the same herpetic embrace that is turning John McCain
into a Republican cootie incubator.
continues
The
Daily Doubter: "We have a president with extremely low popularity
levels. He is arguably the worst president in American history. His
party suffered an historic defeat in the last election. He has broken
law after law, promise after promise, told lie after lie. His
presidency is a disaster and a disgrace. As he approaches the lameduck
stage of his presidency, it can honestly be said that the world is a
worse place as a consequence of his presidency. And yet a Democratic
majority Congress - a Congress which was voted in because the public
was sick of the inability of Republicans loyalists to do anything other
than defer to the will of their Leader - is about to give this
President (and future presidents) more of our liberty. They are about
to set into precedent that lawbreaking deserves immunity if the
president ordered it - a principle rejected by the United States at
Nuremberg. They are about to give the president telecom amnesty even
though he could not get that from a Republican Congress two years ago
... and the Democratic candidate for president who has campaigned on a
promise to restore our Constitutional order is going to vote for it!"
"After
years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and
reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt
as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The
only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered
the use of torture will be held to account." -
Army
Major General Antonio Taguba
On 22 May 2008 there was a major fire aboard the
aircraft carrier
USS
George Washington, CVN-73, off the coast of Peru. The
military
press release minimized its significance, but the fire took 16
hours to put out, and nearly sank the ship, according to a crew member.
Commercial news media just
repeated that press release. Despite the press release, the GW suffered
such heavy damage that it is unfit for its scheduled relief of USS
Kitty Hawk, which must extend its tour "as the forward deployed
aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific this summer."
7 Jun 2008
John McCain says, "The Constitution
established America as a Christian nation," in a Sept 2007 interview at
Beliefnet:
Youtube.
What a scary, ignorant asshole!
Atheist
Media,
DailyKos
and
Talk2Action
have good comments. Even one of Beliefnet's bloggers, David Kuo,
thought this was unsupportable: "It appears that Sen. McCain has gone
over the religious edge. In [the] inteview with Beliefnet, McCain
reveals ... a remarkably sectarian view of America."
"I don't understand why republicans are suddenly so
concerned about experience. They put Bush in office twice. The only
business experience had was experience in failing. Then he was the
governor of that great liberal, progressive state...Oh wait, no, it was
Texas. No legislative experience. Bad business experience. Bad
executive experience." - wrpd @ Pharyngula
John McCain wrote the foreward to an edition of David Halberstam's
The
Best and the Brightest, 2001:
It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die,
to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the
dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause
that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so
wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was
prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much
unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that
resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.
(via Digby
and CrooksandLiars)
McCain is cited by
some
as being directly responsible for a fire aboard USS Forrestal in 1967
that killed 132 sailors and wounded many more. True or false? Sources
are highly suspect (far right-wing and conspiracy sites).
June 6, 2008
Proof positive that Hate + religious dogma makes you
stupid
The Deputy Minister of Religious Endowment for Hamas thinks that
"Darwinism" (I'm assuming he means evolutionary theory) is really part
of the Jewish plot for world domination which was outlined in The
Protocols of Zion.
The
Daily Doubter
Bush Overstated Evidence on Iraq, Senators [Finally] Report
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE, NYT
WASHINGTON — A long-delayed Senate committee report endorsed by
Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his
aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating
available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies
about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda.
...
That some [most] Bush administration claims about
the Iraqi threat turned out to be false is hardly new. But the report,
based on a detailed review of public statements by Mr. Bush and other
officials, was the most comprehensive effort to date to assess whether
policy makers systematically painted a more dire picture about Iraq
than was justified by the available intelligence.
The 170-page report accuses Mr. Bush, Vice President
Dick Cheney and other top officials of repeatedly overstating the Iraqi
threat in the emotional aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its
findings were endorsed by all eight committee Democrats and two
Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of
Nebraska.
In a statement accompanying the report, Senator John
D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the
intelligence panel, said, “The president and his advisers undertook a
relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the
war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam
Hussein.” [
continues]
June 6, 2008
Editorial, NYT
The Truth About the War
It took just a few months after the United States’ invasion of Iraq for
the world to find out that Saddam Hussein had long abandoned his
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. He was not training
terrorists or colluding with Al Qaeda. The only real threat he posed
was to his own countrymen.
It has taken five years to finally come to a
reckoning over how much the Bush administration knowingly twisted and
hyped intelligence to justify that invasion. On Thursday — after years
of Republican stonewalling — a report by the Senate Intelligence
Committee gave us as good a set of answers as we’re likely to get.
The report shows clearly that President Bush should
have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform
with intelligence reports. [
continues]
June 6, 2008
Justice Dept. Investigating Deportation to Syria
By SCOTT SHANE, NYT
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office is reviewing a
decision in 2002 by department officials to send a Canadian citizen to
Syria, where he was tortured, American officials said Thursday.
A Justice Department spokesman, Peter A. Carr, said
that its inquiry, by the department’s Office of Professional
Responsibility, was begun in March 2007 and was examining the role of
department lawyers in expelling Maher Arar to Syria, which has long
been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture on
prisoners.
Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general of
the Department of Homeland Security, ... told two House subcommittees
that the Arar case involved “very questionable” actions by United
States government officials and that he “could not rule out” that Mr.
Arar was sent to Syria with the intention of having him questioned
under torture about possible connections to terrorists. [you think?]
The testimony, along with a heavily redacted report
of a separate investigation by Mr. Skinner, was the fullest accounting
to date from the government on the case, which has become a symbol of
American excesses in the campaign against terrorism. Mr. Skinner also
said his office had recently reopened its four-year inquiry into the
Arar matter after receiving new information. He said that the new
information was classified and that he could not discuss it.
Mr. Arar, a telecommunications engineer who had
immigrated to Canada from his native Syria as a teenager, was detained
in September 2002 as he tried to change planes at Kennedy International
Airport. He had been flying back to Canada from Switzerland. [
continues]
June 6, 2008
Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, NYT
WASHINGTON — A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain
believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants
was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment
with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush
administration legal team.
In a letter posted online by National Review this
week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that
the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National
Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and
e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required
court oversight of surveillance. [
continues]
22 May 2008
Evolution: worse than atheism
by Josh Rosenau, at Thought from Kansas
Coral Ridge Ministries asked their members a question:
How dangerous are the following to the spiritual health of America?
|
Very |
Somewhat |
Not very |
| The ACLU and similar groups |
96
|
3
|
1
|
| Pro-homosexual indoctrination |
95
|
4
|
1
|
| Abortion |
93
|
6
|
1
|
| Islamic terrorism |
91
|
8
|
1
|
| Hollywood |
89
|
10
|
1
|
| News Media |
87
|
12
|
1
|
| Darwinism/evolution |
85
|
14
|
1
|
| Cults and false religion |
82
|
16
|
2
|
| Atheism |
82
|
16
|
2
|
| Courts |
81
|
18
|
1
|
| Apathetic/uninformed Christians |
79
|
20
|
1
|
| Colleges and Universities |
78
|
21
|
1
|
| Public education (K-12) |
69
|
29
|
2
|
| Congress |
63
|
35
|
2
|
C'mon atheists, get on the stick! You haven't even overtaken cults, let
alone the evils of Darwinism (whatever that is). Heck, the Coral Ridge
gang dislikes their fellow Christians about as much as they dislike you.
A comment by John McKay:
They could have simplified the list into:
What Do We Fear Most
Education
Democracy
People Who Don't Think Exactly the Same As We Do
May 2008 (ongoing idiocy)
A ridiculous piece of PC idiocy: The
Nauset School Committee wants to change the school logo.
I graduated from Nauset Regional High School, North
Eastham, Mass.,
many years ago. Nauset was the original name for the town in 1646, and
named for the native tribe. The natives always got along with the
English settlers reasonably well, but gradually died off, assimilated
or
moved. The logo for the school, since its establishment in 1959, has
been the head of a Nauset warror, and Nauset Warriors is the name for
the sports teams. It has never been a cartoon or disrespectful
caricature. In fact, the latest version is based on the profile of
Frank James, who spent his career as a music teacher in the Nauset
system, and on his own time was a major figure in Wampanoag tribal
affairs. He was an original organizer of the annual Plymouth protests
by Indians at Thanksgiving. We remember his Corvette, with the "Custer
had it coming" bumper-sticker.
[I'm looking for a digital image of the Nauset logo. Does anyone have
one? I have permission from the school to use it on this web site.]
9 May 2008
Received a response from my congressman, Rep. Jim McGovern, to my note
a few weeks ago advocating the impeachment of Cheney. He agrees that
Cheney is a delusional criminal (my interpretation), but notes that the
Smirking Chimp would still be president, still pursuing his disastous,
deceitful war. McGovern would prefer to work on ending the war. I see
his point, but think impeachment of both Bush and Cheney would help end
their war and restore some US credibility.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a
revolutionary act." — George Orwell
"Whenever
xians complain about filth, I point them to
Judges 19 and ask
them to
explain why it is ok to read the bible when there are stories about
women being gang raped to death" - comment at MotherJones.com, about
nutters
boycotting Starbucks example1
example 2
7 May 2008
Platypus genome decoded
(
Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
AFP,
Sciencedaily
Arguably the oddest beast in Nature's menagerie, the platypus looks as
if were assembled from spare parts left over after the animal kingdom
was otherwise complete.
Now scientists know why. According to a study
released Wednesday, the egg-laying critter is a genetic potpourri —
part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal.
The task of laying bare the platypus genome of 2.2
billion base pairs spread across 18,500 genes has taken several years,
but will do far more than satisfy the curiosity of just biologists, say
the researchers.
The animal has 52 chromosomes, including an unusual
number of sex chromosomes: 10. The platypus X chromosome bears
resemblance to the sex chromosome of a bird, known as Z.
Sequencing and assembling the platypus genome proved
far more daunting than sequencing any other mammalian genome to date.
About 50 percent of the genome is composed of repetitive elements of
DNA, which makes it a challenge to assemble properly.
The platypus is classified as a mammal because it
produces milk and is covered in coat of thick fur, once prized by
hunters. Lacking teats, the female nurses pups through the skin
covering its abdomen.
But there are reptile-like attributes too: females
lay eggs, and males can stab aggressors with a snake-like venom that
flows from a spur tucked under its hind feet. When they analyzed the
genetic sequences responsible for venom production in the male
platypus, they found it arose from duplications in a group of genes
that evolved from ancestral reptile genomes.
The animal also possesses a feature unique to
monotremes — an order including a handful of egg-laying mammals —
called electroreception.
With their eyes, ears and nostrils closed,
platypuses rely on sensitive electrosensory receptors tucked inside
their bills to track prey underwater, detecting electrical fields
generated by muscular contraction.
scientific publication: Warren WC, Mardis ER, Wilson RK, et al. Genome
analysis of the platypus reveals unique signatures of evolution.
Nature.
May 8, 2008.
6 May 2008
Geoffrey
R. Stone, HuffingtonPost
McCain's
Justice
John McCain's May 6 statement on the role of judges in our
constitutional system might very well qualify as one of the most
ignorant statements ever made by a presidential candidate on this most
important subject.
At one point, McCain complained that sitting judges and justices
systematically "abuse" the federal judicial power by issuing "rulings
and opinions on policy questions that should be decided
democratically." McCain is apparently blissfully unaware that the vast
majority of current federal judges were appointed by Republican
presidents and that seven of the nine sitting Supreme Court Justices
and twelve of the last fourteen Supreme Court Justices were appointed
by Republicans. As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy, and he is
us." ...
30 Apr 2008
Technology Review
111(2) Mar/Apr 2008
pp. 42-49 "Vizualization, Between Friends," Erica Naone — social
interactions can be graphed, and the examples used are interesting:
blogs, Myspace, Twitter, viral marketing. The blogosphere has 2 major
foci, politics and technology, with the political blogs being much more
reciprocal.
52-3 Cellulolytic enzymes for biofuels
56-7 Connectomics. - brain research using cells that randomly express
different fluorescent colors
64-5 nanotube radios
65-66 probabalistic chips - to save energy when extreme accuracy is not
important
76-80 Photosynth - Microsoft's new toy - fascinating concept
90-92 "The Mess of Mandated Markets," David Rothman. The US govt
continues to screw up alternative energy, wasting zillions - focus on
ethanol fiasco.
96-98 "Ethanol from garbage and old tires," Kevin Bulllis. Coskata, of
Warrenville, IL, is a startup with an innovative way of turning syngas
into ethanol. The process uses bacteria (
Clostridium, so far) to
make the ethanol, and vapor permeation to purify the ethanol from water.
TPM
The
latest contribution to good government from Vice President Dick Cheney:
preventing the implementation of rules to protect the endangered right
whale. The Vice President's office has been quietly doing
its own research on ship collisions with whales in the North
Atlantic in an effort to overrule government scientists seeking to
restrict the speed of ships near American ports.
Mental
asylum allowed to advertise for inmates
April 30, 2008 Cape Cod Times
The proposed bell tower at the Community of Jesus can increase 25 feet
in height to 100 feet, a Cape Cod Commission subcommittee recommended
unanimously last night.
...
Increasing the height of the proposed freestanding
bell tower requires commission review as a change in a 1993 court
settlement on the religious group's new church and related buildings at
Rock Harbor. At the time of the court settlement, the commission wanted
to reduce the project's visibility from public places by keeping
buildings below the tree line, commission planner Sarah Korjeff said.
...
29 Apr 2008
Once in a while I check my Verizon spam folder. It's working fairly
well, for now, sequestering about 40 spam/day for penis enlargement,
Nigerian scams, phishing for banks and credit cards, watches, porn,
drugs, illegal software, loans, stock tips (fewer of those lately), and
the odd ones of nonsense phrases. Yet, still, several spam/day get
through. I also get spam that purports to be annoucements of
scientific/medical conferences, from fake companies — why? Is someone
selling fake link traffic?
Rethuglican myths
debunked:
example: "Jimmy Carter cut the military budget." Actually, he increased
the military budget beyond the rate of inflation. This followed several
years of post-Vietnam budget cuts in the Nixon and Ford
administrations. Reagan just accelerated what Carter already started.
David
Kurtz at TalkingPointsMemo:
Snake Oil
We go through the same routine every few years when oil prices rise.
Republicans and their big oil benefactors assure us that opening the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production will cure
whatever ails us: dependence on foreign oil, high oil prices, soaring
gasoline prices.
The drumbeat has started again as gasoline prices have pushed toward $4
per gallon. Here's the President in his Rose Garden press conference
this morning, where he made ANWR the centerpiece of his political and
policy arguments for our energy dilemma: [video clip] So in the
interest of once again knocking down this bamboozlement, here's a
decent Reuters
rundown on why, independent of any environmental protection
considerations, the President's arguments don't add up.
from Reuters' article:
The Energy Information Administration, which is the Energy Department's
independent analytical arm, estimated that if Congress had cleared
Bush's ANWR drilling plan the oil would have been available to refiners
in 2011, but only at a small volume of 40,000 barrels a day — a drop
in the bucket compared with the 20.6 million barrels the U.S. consumes
daily.
At peak production, ANWR could have potentially
added 780,000 barrels a day to U.S. crude oil output by 2020, according
to the EIA.
The extra supplies would have cut dependence on
foreign oil, but only slightly. With ANWR crude, imports would have met
60 percent of U.S. oil demand in 2020, down from 62 percent without the
refuge's supplies.
All three leading presidential candidates, Democrats
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain, are
against oil drilling in the refuge.
...
Opening ANWR could have made current prices worse
because Saudi Arabia may have delayed increasing its oil production
capacity, making world supplies tighter and prices higher.
27 Apr 2008, from
Humbug!
Online
I only
believe it is
cromulent
to accept a new word in the English language if there is no equivalent
word that expresses the same meaning as well. New words such as beclown
embiggen
our language. From the Urban Dictionary,
beclown means:
To make a complete idiot of oneself in public. To
behave or speak in such a way, or to make a comment or express an
opinion that is so profoundly witless, senseless and obtuse, that you
have forever after defined yourself as a person of comical value only.
Never to be taken seriously again. Of worth only as an object of
ridicule and derision.
Just as to befoul yourself is to make yourself foul, to beclown
yourself is to turn yourself into a clown. Beclown is therefore
perfectly cromulent. One example given by the Urban Dictionary:
Former Reagan staffer Doug Bandow has also beclowned
himself by claiming that the Bali terrorist bombing was in response to
Australia's Iraq involvement. Even though the Bali bombing was before
the Iraq war.
[continues]
26 Apr 2008
I've been wondering for years about how undesirable animals get from
from one place to another, and suspect they have human help. Examples:
possums and coyotes on Cape Cod. Possums are too weak, stupid and slow
to cross the Canal, because it is 600 feet wide, cold and with strong
currents, and the idea of a pair (or pregnant one) crossing on their
own via the bridges seems ridiculous. Coyotes on the bridges are
somewhat more plausible. But I think it just amused some jerks to bring
them in.
On the other hand, I've been thinking about
endangered animals, and about the niches left by extinct ones.
Polar bears are at
risk from global warming, but not threatened with extinction, according
to a
Canadian
report today. But if they were endangered, what would be the result
of moving some to Antarctica, as an emergency measure? They usually eat
seals, waiting for them to come to holes in the ice to breathe, but are
opportunistic scavengers. Do seals have the same habits in the
Antarctic? Would the bears learn to eat penguin? Probably. What would
it do to penguin populations?
And the flip side: Great Auks (
Pinguinus impennis,
the original penguin) were widely hunted on the North Atlantic shore,
the last ones killed in Iceland in 1844.. Would some Antarctic or
sub-Antactic penguins fill the same niche? "Their main food was fish,
usually between 12 and 20 cm, but occasionally up to half the bird's
own length; based on remains associated with Great Auk bones on Funk
Island and ecological and morphological considerations, it seems that
Atlantic menhaden and capelin were favored prey items "
The Atlantic sea mink,
Neovison macrodon,
has been extinct since c 1860. Could the Pacific sea otter take its
niche? Probably not - otters eat shellfish, minks eat vertebrates.
Also the North-West Atlantic population of Atlantic
walrus (formerly
ranging from Cape Cod to Labrador) is extirpated,
though there are several other populations. I'd love to see them in
action.
23 Apr 2008
Artist Cleared After 4 Years Waiting, Victim of Bush's amateur Gestapo
Posted
by Alla Katsnelson at The Scientist
An
artist who was charged with mail and wire fraud for receiving postal
packages of [harmless] bacteria to be used in his artwork has been
cleared.
A federal judge on Monday (April 21) dismissed the case against Steven
Kurtz, an art professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo,
saying that the government indictment against him "is insufficient on
its face," The Buffalo News reported.
Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University, wrote in an
E-mail to The Scientist: "Dismissal was the correct action. The
case had no substance. None."
Kurtz was indicted in 2004 along with University of Pittsburgh
geneticist Robert Ferrell, who had purchased the bacterial cultures for
Kurtz and sent them to him. That charge carries a maximum penalty of 20
years in prison under the Patriot Act, and both Kurtz and Ferrell
originally pled not guilty. ...
24 April 2008
Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S.
Americans Insist No Deal Made on Settlement Growth
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2008; A14
A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant
obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the
Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office.
Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that
Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank
settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though
Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements
across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this
week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement
reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005,
just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.
U.S. officials say no such agreement exists, and in recent months Rice
has publicly criticized even settlement expansion on the outskirts of
Jerusalem, which Israel does not officially count as settlements. But
as peace negotiations have stepped up in recent months, so has the pace
of settlement construction, infuriating Palestinian officials, and
Washington has taken no punitive action against Israel for its
settlement efforts. [
continues]
Politics is like driving. To go backward, put it in R.
To go forward, put it in D. — via DailyKos
"They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. [...] That was
when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary."
— Margaret Atwood, Handmaid's Tale
The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people
do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots. — Elbridge
Gerry
"When they kick down your front door
How you gonna come?
With you hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun"
The Guns of Brixton, The Clash
22 Apr 2008
I'm job hunting, and trying to use Monster.com, because the
Worcester
Telegram and
Boston Globe are too __ to do it themselves
anymore. What an awful site to use! There seems to be no way to just
take my already-filed criteria and do a search! Apparently I'm supposed
to wait for it's emailed matches, which miss all sorts of stuff.
"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent
whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching? — Terry
Pratchett, Mort
from
Bob
Herbert, NYT
...
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds.
That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these
largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is
crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the
country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive
every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A
recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core
found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not
know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion,
and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and
1900. [True?]
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the
nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete”
and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m
traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken,
flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of
those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re
working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to
know today.”...
21 Apr 2008
David
Corn at Mother Jones
Campaigning in New Hampshire on
the night of the Iowa primary, while most of the campaign press pack
was in Iowa, John McCain told a gathering of 200 people in Derry, New
Hampshire, that it "would be fine with me" if American troops stayed in
Iraq for "a hundred years." Mother Jones' David Corn was there to
record McCain's remarks that cold January evening, and in his MoJoBlog
item that appeared online just minutes after the event, here's how
David described what happened next:
After the event ended, I asked McCain about his "hundred years"
comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S.
troops could be in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," as
far as he was concerned... [A] reporter sitting next to me quipped,
"There's the general election campaign ad."
He meant the Democratic ad: "John McCain thinks it would be okay
if U.S. troops stayed in Iraq for another hundred years..."
The next day David's post on McCain's comments went viral all
over the Internet, and now everyone knows what McCain said.
“When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a
psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead.” — Ronald de
Sousa,
Why Think? Evolution and the Rational Mind
sucking up to the walrus
18 Apr 2008
The Westell modem that we bought from Bell-Atlantic died, at about 9
years old. It's replacement, a 4-port/wireless Zoom ASDL modem,
cost $100. It was fairly easy to set up, but we still can't figure out
how to let the 4 connected PCs see each others' files, or, more
importantly, the 2 printers. That is, the printers are only visible to
their directly-connected PCs. I had a fantasy that a new wireless modem
might provide a better signal than the previous system, where the
Westell connected to a Dell wireless modem, but no.
16 Apr 2008
Mother
Jones
The Bush
administration wants to open 5.6 million acres in the Bering Sea off
Alaska to oil and gas leasing, including an area north of the Aleutian
Islands near Bristol Bay designated critical habitat for the North
Pacific right whale. The proposal was published in Tuesday's Federal
Register by the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management
Service (MMS), as reported by the Center for Biological Diversity.
North Pacific right whales once ranged from California to Alaska and
across the North Pacific to Russia and Japan. They were decimated by
commercial whaling and remain the most endangered large whale in the
world. Fewer than 50 individuals remain in the Bering Sea population.
"Drilling in Bristol Bay would be drilling through the heart of the
most important habitat of the most endangered whale on the planet,"
said Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity. “If the
North Pacific right whale is to have any chance of survival, we must
protect its critical habitat, not auction it off to oil
companies." ...
15 Apr 2008
My atheist overlords have issued a command concerning the
IDiot wankfest Expelled.
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY
APPARATUS DIRECTIVE
• I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY
• I OBEY • I OBEY • I OBEY •
[D]ishonestly, Stein
employs the common dodge of enumerating all the admittedly unanswered
questions in evolutionary theory and using this to refute the whole
idea. But all scientific knowledge is built this way. A fishnet is made
up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can’t therefore argue that
the net doesn’t exist. Just ask the fish. — at Panda's Thumb, about the
wankfest
"There
is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot
face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost
inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he
believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face
this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his
opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed." —
Bertrand Russell,
Human Society in Ethics and Politics
13 Apr 2008
Could lead to goose-stepping
Posted by Avram Grumer at
Making
Light
"Radley
Balko reports that a group of his friends — young libertarians from
the Washington DC area — met at the Jefferson Memorial last night to
silently (wearing iPods) dance for a few minutes at midnight in
celebration of Jefferson’s birthday. The Park Police showed up and
ordered the dancers to disperse. When one young woman asked them why,
they shoved her up against a pillar, handcuffed her, and arrested her.
(Update: Here’s
video.)
We probably couldn’t ask for a purer example of the principle that the
primary mission of authority is to preserve authority. Even today,
knowing that almost anyone could be holding a video camera and their
actions could wind up on YouTube, cops will still bully and assault
people for refusing to instantly defer to arbitrary authority. (That
first video is a classic of the genre. The cop is a tubby man in a
ridiculous uniform, riding around in a tiny vehicle that may as well be
a clown car. His life as a cop isn’t turning out like it does in the
movie and on TV, and he’s taking it out on anyone he can push around.)
Megan McArdle, another DC libertarian, picks
up the story, and her comments section quickly fills with
forelock-tuggers and knee-benders justifying the actions of the Park
Police, even if they have to make up facts to do it. It’s practically a
catalog of dishonest argumentation and propaganda. ..."
9 Apr 2008
We’re
spending $3 trillion as our own economy goes off a cliff so that
Iran can have a dysfunctional little friend. — Maureen Dowd, NYT
Never lose sight of the connection between supermarket tabloids,
professional wrestling, evangelism and supply side economics. —
Rack Jite
6 Apr 2008
By David Barboza, NYT
SHANGHAI, China — A year ago, investors like Guan Ling were ebullient.
Chinese share prices had climbed over 500 percent in the span of two
years, setting off a nationwide stock buying frenzy.
When experts periodically warned about the possibility of a
bubble, prices would dip temporarily then soar even higher, breaking
records and inciting another mad dash to snap up equities.
"The market was going wild," says Guan, 49, who a few years ago
closed his real estate company to invest in stocks full time.
"Everybody was talking about how much they had earned, how much more
they would invest, and which stocks had jumped 20 times, or even 30
times."
That was last year. The Shanghai composite index has plunged 45
percent from its high, reached last October. The first quarter of this
year, which ended on Monday with a huge sell-off, was the worst ever
for the market.
Suddenly, millions of small investors who were crowding into
brokerage houses, spending the entire day there playing cards, trading
stocks, eating noodles and cheering on the markets with other day
traders and retirees, are feeling depressed and angry. ...
4 Apr 2008, via
Making
Light
April 4, 1967
... The only change came from America as we
increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were
singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while
the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and
democracy—and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and
consider us—not their fellow Vietnamese—the real enemy. They move sadly
and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into
concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They
know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go—primarily
women and children and the aged.
They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of
their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas
preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the
hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for
one “Vietcong”-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of
them—mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of
the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the
streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers
as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to
our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the
landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words
concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest
weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new
tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of
the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these
voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and
the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have
cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only non-Communist
revolutionary political force—the unified Buddhist church. We have
supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted
their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?
Now there is little left to build on—save bitterness. ... — Martin Luther
King, Jr, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned, at Riverside
Church in New York City
1 Apr 2008
Long Past Time
U.S. to Require States to Use a Single School
Dropout Formula
By Sam Dillon, NYT
Moving to sweep away the tangle of inaccurate state data that has
obscured the severity of the nation’s high school dropout crisis,
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will require all states to
use one federal formula to calculate graduation and dropout rates, Bush
administration officials said on Monday.
The requirement would be one of the most far-reaching regulatory
actions taken by any education secretary, experts said, because it
would affect the official statistics issued by all 50 states and each
of the nation’s 14,000 public high schools.
Ms. Spellings will announce her action at a so-called dropout
prevention summit in Washington on Tuesday, the officials said. The
summit is organized by a group beginning a national campaign intended
to reduce dropout rates.
“In the coming weeks, I will take administrative steps to ensure
that all states use the same formula to calculate how many students
graduate from high school on time — and how many drop out,” Ms.
Spellings said in remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday and made
available to The New York Times.
Ms. Spellings’s statements underline the rising urgency among
policymakers and corporate leaders to address the nation’s dropout
epidemic, as well as the administration’s growing sense that efforts in
Congress to rewrite the law this year may not succeed.
The adoption of a federal graduation formula would correct one of
the most glaring weaknesses of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Although the law requires states and high schools to report their
graduation rates to the federal government, it allows states to set
their own formulas for calculating them. As a result, most states have
used formulas that understate the number of dropouts, and official
graduation rates are not comparable from state to state. The No Child
law establishes no national school completion goal.
Michael Cohen, who was an assistant secretary of education under
President Clinton, said the proposed measure would be considerably more
important than most Department of Education regulations.
“This is a huge deal, in terms of its impact, because it will
basically affect every high school in the country,” Mr. Cohen said.
Senior Education Department officials said Ms. Spellings would
publish the proposed graduation formula requirement in the Federal
Register, opening a period of public comment that often lasts several
months, before issuing the final regulation later this year.
On Tuesday, Ms. Spellings is not expected to outline the specific
graduation rate formula that she intends to require states to adopt.
28 Feb 2008
How
Dangerous Is the Internet for Children?
By David Pogue, NYT
A few years ago, a parenting magazine asked me to write an article
about the dangers that children face when they go online. As it turns
out, I was the wrong author for the article they had in mind.
The editor was deeply disappointed by my initial draft. Its chief
message was this: “Sure, there are dangers. But they’re hugely
overhyped by the media. The tales of pedophiles luring children out of
their homes are like plane crashes: they happen extremely rarely, but
when they do, they make headlines everywhere. The Internet is just
another facet of socialization for the new generation; as always,
common sense and a level head are the best safeguards.”
My editor, however, was looking for something more sensational. He
asked, for example, if I could dig up an opening anecdote about, say,
an eight-year-old getting killed by a chat-room stalker. But after days
of research—and yes, I actually looked at the Google results past the
first page—I could not find a single example of a preteen getting
abducted and murdered by an Internet predator. continues
28
Feb 2008
Driving today, I saw a car with one of those corkscrew antennas that
were ubiquitous on upscale cars 10 years ago. I hadn't noticed them
fading away. And I got to remininisce to my youngest about the weird
old days of CB radios, half a generation earlier.
25
Feb 2008
By TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune
A pair of agriculture groups has temporarily suspended about $1.5
million in grants to the University of Minnesota to protest a
controversial study by U scientists earlier this month about biofuels
and global warming.
The Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and the Minnesota Soybean
Research and Promotion Council decided to stop paying additional
research money until they meet with Allen Levine, dean of the College
of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, and other
officials.
"The university hurt the farmers' feelings, OK? That's probably the
best way to say it," said Jim Palmer, executive director of the two
groups.
University officials said the meeting will occur soon, and that they
have a long history of positive relationships with soybean farmers.
"The funding is still in place and we will work this out," said Bev
Durgan, dean of University Extension and director of the Minnesota
Agricultural Experiment Station.
The study, by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman and
others, said that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn,
soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically
change the landscape and worsen global warming. Farmers in the U.S.,
Brazil, Indonesia and other countries will need to clear forests,
grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale to grow more of those
crops, according to the research, unleashing far more carbon dioxide
from natural vegetation than is saved by the lower emissions of the
biofuels.
Ethanol industry officials criticized the study as a simplistic
analysis that doesn't include the economic benefits for those who grow
biofuel crops or the environmental cost of continuing to rely on
petroleum.
Don't want a whitewash of stupid ideas? Don't hire competent scientists.
20 Feb 2008
The
Bushies plan to shoot down a failed spy satellite, and have flooded
the media with a campaign raft of stupidity to justify it. The rest of
the world, more reasonably, sees this as testing a satellite shoot-down
project, like the one the US screamed about when the Chinese did it
last year. A danger from a thousand pounds of hydrazine fuel? Bullshit.
How many tons of more deadly fuel has the military and NASA dumped into
the ground, water and air every week for the past 60 years? Can't they
ever be honest, about anything?
A day later — it apparently worked. And Raytheon has
been crowing about it.
Feb 2008
I've
been looking for tutoring/teaching work, a frustrating experience.
Offers on Craigslist get 1 email response/week, with no followup. "Axia
College of the University of Phoenix," an online school, had me go
through a long application without ever indicating what they were
looking for or how their program works, then turned me down. Tutor.com,
an online tutoring business, also had me fill out a long application,
only to say they have plenty of tutors in all fields anyway.
US Constitution swirls lower into the
toilet:
February
13, 2008
Senate Votes to Expand Spy Powers
By ERIC
LICHTBLAU, NYT
WASHINGTON — After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the
White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the
government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies
that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without
warrants.
One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that
would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s
surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve
legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush
hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the
Senate’s lead.
The outcome in the Senate amounted, in effect, to a
broader proxy vote in support of Mr. Bush’s wiretapping program...
10
Feb 2008
Computer problems that have been bugging me for
years: downloadable update files that give no clue what they are for,
and update lists that are generic, so most of the files are irrelevant
(that's the Dell model), leading to installed files and folders
that give no clue what they are for, repair and restoration programs
that do nothing, ...
I have thousands of image and music files that froze up at some point,
perhaps all at once, a couple of years ago (the files cannot be opened,
moved, renamed or deleted.) No one has been able to successfully advise
how to fix that - several downloaded applications said to be useful did
nothing - Microsoft of course is the monolith that doesn't deign to be
useful to typical users.
9
Feb 2008
A bit of the DuPont's Winterthur Museum collection is
on exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, reminding me that the real
museum should have a high position on my life list. There is a range of
material - furniture, ceramics, paintings, metalware and fabrics
- from the late 17th to late 19th centuries. Some is monstrous,
over decorated, elite furniture and metalware; some is nicely made
upper middle class furniture; some interestingly decorated Penn Dutch
things; some very modern looking splatter-ware ceramics; some excellent
Indian and English fabrics. There are portraits by Sargent, Copley,
Peale and others - including some famous ones, such as the American
members of
the peace treaty delegation in 1783 (where the Brits wouldn't sit for
it) - but not enough background on the subjects. There is an expensive
($35) catalog that gives more details.
8
Feb 2008
BBC
Polaroid snaps out of making film
Polaroid, the company behind the instant camera, is
to stop making the film used in its iconic technology.
The firm is to close factories in Massachusetts in
the US, Mexico and the Netherlands after the digital age left almost no
market for the film.
Polaroid stopped making the instant cameras
themselves about a year ago.
It now focuses on other ventures which include a
portable printer for mobile phone images, and Polaroid-branded digital
cameras.
"We're trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on
for the next 30 to 40 years," the firm's president, Tom Beaudoin, told
the Associated Press.
The firm was founded in 1937, making polarised
lenses for the science world, introducing its first instant camera in
1948.
Polaroid's peaked in popularity in 1991 when its
sales - mainly instant cameras and film - hit close to $3bn. [Continues]
February
8th, 2008
Bush: Peace and Prosperity at Stake
By Robert
Borosage
President Bush addressed the Conservative Political
Action Committee gathering in Washington today, and, according to the
White House, he told the group that our "peace and prosperity" are at
stake in the upcoming election.
Eerily Orwellian, Mr. President.
For a country at war and in a recession, "peace and
prosperity" aren't at stake; they have already been squandered. Even
Bush isn't so delusional as to see Iraq as "mission accomplished," and
the economy as "strong."
But with McCain promising to sustain Bush's war and
his economic policies, perhaps the president is right.
Peace and prosperity is at stake.
Not the peace and prosperity Bush destroyed, but the peace and
prosperity we won't get back if we stay on the same course.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
indistinguishable from malice — unknown
February
7, 2008
Speakers at Academy Said to Make
False Claims
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, NYT
The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom
organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who
critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former
Muslim terrorists. continues
5 Feb 2008
I
voted for Obama in the primary, but I could live with Clinton as
President, because she'd have to be better than the corrupt and insane
competition.
2 Feb 2008
I finally
recycled nearly all of the background papers for my PhD thesis, a
shopping
bag full of photocopied articles. Getting the data published has been
one of those nagging little things on my List, but after 24 years and
no actual effort, it's time to let go of the idea of a "real"
publication. I haven't kept up with the literature on cell-cell binding
on sea urchins (or any other animals) for at least 20 years. I haven't
spoken to my so-called thesis advisor and supposed co-author since
1983. Yet, I
still have the thesis graphs, photos and copies of the data. So, just
because I spent years working on it, putting the data online is still
on the List:
Sea Urchin Embryo Epithelial and Mesenchymal Differentiation,
1984, Wesleyan University.
Dimwitted
censorship in Boston:
NOV.09.2007
," NOOSE ON SALE", IN FRONT OF "BANK OF AMERICA"
(Opposing the balcony where The Declaration of Independence was red in
1776),
BOSTON, USA, "TREMOR" FESTIVAL
In the past several days the
Down Jones point have significantly dropped on NY stock exchange which
can be a symptom of a coming crisis of capitalistic economy. This loss
was initiated by the faulty and extremely greedy American mortgage bank
industry. Standing in front of the main branch of "Bank of America" in
Boston, I offered a sale on nooses. This sale reflects the cynicism of
the banking market which is willing to sell everything for the sake of
profit include human life and suicide. As a practical illustration of
the contemporary US "police state" it took only 3 minutes for the first
policeman to appear on the scene and start to interrogate me. He was
followed by another two policeman in a patrol car two minutes later. I
was asked what country I was from and what language I spoke. I replied
that I was from The USA and as they could hear spoke English. I
followed by asking them if they were "racially profiling" me. The
policeman answered "YES". The nooses and a sign were confiscated as
material evidence and I was told I would receive a court summons for
breaking a law for not having a peddler's license. Witness of the piece
was overheard on his cell phone saying:" You should come down here and
see this! There is a guy selling nooses. I think he wants to kill
Americans" Link to Tremor festival
THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE (TWO MONTHS LATER): I
received a notice requiring me to attend a hearing related to an
application for criminal complaint. It was scheduled on January
16,2008. At that time, I reported to the criminal clerk's office at the
courthouse in Boston accompanied by my lawyer. The criminal clerk was
to decide whether or not I would be sued for the criminal offense of
being a "Transient Vendor, Unlicensed c101:008." [continues]
27 Jan 2008
The minor annoyances of democracy: several phone calls today for the
primary election. No, so far I'm not voting for Hillary, because I
think she panders as much as her husband did.
Procrastination pays off - Richardson and Kucinich
are out of the
running before I have to decide (and I just don't like Edwards +/or his
populism.)
This actually reminds of a problem with primary
elections scattered over several months - voters in the later ones
have limited choices, or even none.
11 Jan 2008
Ron Paul is a hideous cross between white power
authoritarianism, fundamentalist dominionism, libertarian deregulation
fantasies and survivalist gold standard gibbering.
That this monstrous amalgamation of fear and
hatred has come to the same conclusion about the Iraq occupation as us
Dirty Fucking Hippies says volumes about the sheer and utter wrongness
of invading Iraq in the first place. Posted by: stogoe at Pharyngula
10 Jan 2008
Our rather crappy daily paper, the
Worcester
Telegram & Gazette, apparently invites right-wing nutters to
rant on its pages. Today, Roderick P. Murphy, chair of Problem
Pregnancy of Worcester, had the nerve to invoke James Madison as he
whined about the modest buffer zone around abortion clinics.
Dec 2007
All
of the presidential candidates I'm aware of are proudly
superstitious, and actively pandering to the 80-90 % of the voters who
are superstitious. The Rethuglicans, of course, pander to the most
ignorant and and bigoted of the lot. Or maybe they mean it, which is
worse.
All the Rethuglicans except Ron Paul basically support Bush's war (and
Paul is batshit crazy, and supported by neo-Confederate, racist and
militia groups.) Hillary rolled over, too. Others?
Bush gutting civil liberties? The thugs go along. Any real noise from
Democrats? Obama's ideas on the war and erosion of civil rights? I
should know more about these things.
I
was surprised to see hundreds of page hits coming from Freerepublic, a
ranting post for a dim-witted group of Rethuglicans, a "tireless
bastion of right-wing paranoia and fascist fantasy". (If there's
anything between their ears, it's shit.) Turns out the links were to an
image I had posted sarcastically, but they take seriously. It was fun
to change some file names, so this:
 |
was replaced with this: |
|
Several blogs have had links to pieces
about David Barton. He's the
so-called historian who has made
a fortune fabricating quotes, and taking quotes out of context, to make
the Founding Fathers sound like fundie Christians. The process is known
as "Lying for Jebus."
Barton
1 Barton
2 Barton
3 Barton
4 Barton 5
|
support
the troops
impeach Bush |
Operation Yellow Elephant |
Bush
& Cheney:
terrorist recruiters |
Oct 2007, Fark headline: China, India, Georgia, Canada, New Mexico and
Belgium join map of world's wine-producing regions, producing plonk
that only makes you wonder how they got the cat to sit on the bottle
I'm looking for more work, but every place I try wants someone less educated. (I see no openings for which my education is valued.) I get email from bottom-feeding recruiters who obviously haven't even glanced at my resume, asking me to apply for positions through them, then won't talk to me.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced yesterday it will independently investigate declaring the Atlantic wolffish an endangered species. The Conservation Law Foundation of Boston originally filed the petition with the federal agency asking for the review.
Nov 2008 - A fun activity this fall was picking wild cranberries on the shore of Wachusett Reservoir in Boylston. Half an hour to gather a gallon. I'd forgotten how extensive the old roads are through the surrounding lands, too. The woods were beautiful, and there were few people.
The problem with "teaching all sides" is that it can give fringe ideas a credibility they have not earned. Excessive concern for "balance" leads to presenting the speculations of cranks and crackpots as if they were on equal footing with the positions defended by vast majorities of qualified experts. (The media has a [sic] similar problem.) And this is very useful to advocates of pseudoscience, who often do not need to win the rhetorical battle outright; they can triumph merely by muddying the waters and preventing a consensus from forming around the truth.
Once the takeover of Anheuser-Busch by InBev is completed, a curious thing will happen to the landscape of American brewing. It’s certainly something I never expected to be writing in my lifetime, but it’s true. The Boston Beer Co., who brew the Samuel Adams line of beers, will be the biggest brewer in America.
