Truly outrageous nomination

Just when I think it can't possibly get any worse, of course, it does. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is beyond outrageous. It is cronyism at its most corrupt. Bob Kall of OpEdNews shares a open letter to his senator about his disgust. Here's how it gets started:

Dear Senator Spector

I hope you are feeling the same level of outrage as I am. You have been handed a nomination that smacks of pure cronyism, an instant replay of the vice presidential nomination—where the person delegated to help select the nominee selected herself.

We have a nominee who accepted a plum partisan appointee job as Lottery director for six years. This is not in itself, bad, but it is not good enough for a member of the supreme court. A person who takes a job like this is allowing herself to coast, unchallenged by growth opportunities, accepting an easy path to comfortable income. This is not the character we want in a member of the supreme court.

Based on this nomination, president Bush must believe we must have zero good judges who have enough experience and competence.

This woman is a purely partisan player who promises to make Michael Brown look good.

Even Chris Matthews says that this is patronage.

How partisan is she? David Frum, White house speechwriter, reports, “In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met,"

As an attorney, as someone who respects the law, you must find this nomination an obscene abomination—a total disregard for the sanctity and integrity of the supreme court.

Will Bunch, columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, reports on his blog:

"But she does know better than just about anyone else where the bodies are buried (relax, it's a just a metaphor...we hope) in President Bush's National Guard scandal. In fact, Bush's Texas gubenatorial campaign in 1998 (when he was starting to eye the White House) actually paid Miers $19,000 to run an internal pre-emptive probe of the potential scandal. Not long after, a since-settled lawsuit alleged that the Texas Lottery Commission -- while chaired by Bush appointee Miers -- played a role in a multi-million dollar cover-up of the scandal."

And it gets much worse. Bunch reports how Michael Isakoff describes Miers' "initial foray in the morass of Bush's Guard service:

The Bushies' concern began while he was running for a second term as governor. A hard-nosed Dallas lawyer named Harriet Miers was retained to investigate the issue; state records show Miers was paid $19,000 by the Bush gubernatorial campaign. She and other aides quickly identified a problem--rumors that Bush had help from his father in getting into the National Guard back in 1968. Ben Barnes, a prominent Texas Democrat and a former speaker of the House in the state legislature, told friends he used his influence to get George W a guard slot after receiving a request from Houston oilman Sid Adger. Barnes said Adger told him he was calling on behalf of the elder George Bush, then a Texas congressman. Both Bushes deny seeking any help from Barnes or Adger, who has since passed away. Concerned that Barnes might go public with his allegations, the Bush campaign sent Don Evans, a friend of W's, to hear Barnes's story. Barnes acknowledged that he hadn't actually spoken directly to Bush Sr. and had no documents to back up his story. As the Bush campaign saw it, that let both Bushes off the hook. And the National Guard question seemed under control.

Will Bunch comments, “So far, intriguing...but it gets better, and more complicated. At roughly the same time all of this was happening, Miers was also the Bush-named chair of the scandal-plagued Texas Lottery Commission. The biggest issue before Miers and the commission was whether to retain lottery operator Gtech, which had been implicated in a bribery scandal. Gtech's main lobbyist in Texas in the mid-1990s? None other than that same Ben Barnes who had the goods on how Bush got into the Guard and avoided Vietnam.

Look, you might want to click through and read the entire letter. It simply boggles my mind. Bush is engaging in cronyism with impunity. The woman isn't even a judge.

Link for post below

For some reason, the link function would not work on the post below about the Delay indictment but it will on a new post. So if you want to read the entire article I mentioned earlier, you can do so here.

Delay's indictment

This morning I heard on NPR an interview of the foreman of the grand jury that indicted Tom Delay. I was struck by how articulate he was and how clear that it was, indeed, the grand jury that brought the indictment - not Ronnie Earle. As you know, the Republicans are spinning it that Earle has partisan reasons for seeking the indictment. Needless to say, they neglect to inform us that Mr. Earle has prosecuted far more Democrats than he has Republicans.

Here's an article that explores this indictment. It's from the Dallas Morning News and is entitled, "Nailed: Grand jury foreman cites 'stacks' of evidence against DeLay". Here's part of what it says:

AUSTIN - Grand jurors were presented a load of evidence, including testimony and phone records, that led them to believe Rep. Tom DeLay should be tried on a conspiracy charge, the leader of the Travis County grand jury that indicted the congressman said Friday. "

It was not one of those sugarcoated deals that we handed to [District Attorney] Ronnie Earle," William M. Gibson said.

He added: "Mr. Earle has stacks and stacks of papers - evidence of telephone calls from Mr. DeLay and everybody."

Mr. DeLay has said that Mr. Earle has no evidence to prove that he tried to subvert Texas election laws. The Sugar Land Republican's lawyers did not return calls seeking comments on Mr. Gibson's description of the grand jury proceedings.

The indictment stems from the activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee created by Mr. DeLay. The group, known as TRMPAC, is accused of trying to circumvent Texas laws that make it illegal to use corporate or union money in political campaigns.

Labeling it a money-laundering scheme, Mr. Earle says that TRMPAC took $190,000 in corporate donations and routed it - along with the names of seven Statehouse candidates - to the Republican National Committee in September 2002.

The RNC then sent out $190,000 in contributions to those same seven candidates, who couldn't legally have accepted corporate money.

At the heart of the conspiracy charge against Mr. DeLay is whether he knew about the transaction. Experts on Texas law say that knowledge alone might be all that is needed for a conviction under state law.
...
TRMPAC already has lost a lawsuit brought by losing Democratic candidates over how $600,000 raised from corporations was used against them.

In May, state District Judge Joe Hart ruled that the Democrats were damaged by TRMPAC's improper use of corporate money."

TRMPAC as a whole was an illegal entity," said Cris Feldman, a lawyer representing the Democrats.

He also pointed out that in the ruling, Judge Hart weighed the $190,000 transaction and included it as part of the improper donations, which was used to determine the damage award."

It's implicit recognition that it was money laundering," Mr. Feldman said.

This is sheer corruption. Let's hope Texas sends a message to the administration that it is not above the law. What a surprise that will be!

P.S. I'm sorry I'm not able to give you a link. For some reason, the Blogger program is not accepting links today. I hope that gets fixed soon. If you want to read the article in its entirety, it's reprinted on the Smirking Chimp website for yesterday.

Our image abroad

Yesterday I was reading through some comments on Eschaton and came across this poignant, to my mind, posting:

I just had a long chat with my brother, who lives in Dupage County near Chicago, a very, very red area, and he, of course, voted for simian president both times.

Well, he just got back from a business trip to Europe, his sixth this year. He also just called me to tell me he will never, ever vote for another Republican . . . ever. After I cleaned the coffee splatter off my screen I asked him "WTF?"

Basically he said the Europeans just hate us, and it's palpable in his business dealings, asking directions on the street, getting served in a bar, everywhere.

He also he was amazed at how sheltered and ignorant he was about the rest of the world, a trait he said he shared with at least half of Americans. It really opened his eyes to the damage we have wreaked not just here but abroad.

He said I've been right all along.

Then today, my friend, The Rev. Russ Bennett, sent me an article by Sr. Joan Chittister whom I've admired for a long time now. I don't have a link for the article so I'm going to reprint it in its entirety here:

Now they see us as we are

By Joan Chittister, OSB

Karen Hughes went to Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week to talk to women about the blessings of having a U.S. presence in their lives. To the Turkish women, she extolled American democracy in the Middle East. To the Saudi women she promised that they would soon enjoy more participation in the social system.

The implication was obvious: Thanks to the United States of America, happiness was on the way. The effect of the speeches was shattering. Silence. No applause. No celebrations. Instead, Turkish women told her, "You cannot bring in war for the sake of peace. The United States cannot interfere in the democracy problem and solve it through war." And Saudi women -- who she promised would soon be able to drive cars -- told her that they were happy, thank you, and that they didn't need America to make their lives complete and that, frankly, they would be a lot happier if she just went home. It was a hard message to misinterpret.

I, on the other hand, was at a meeting of the Peace Council, an international group of religious leaders, at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. They were talking about the problems in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. They said that thanks to America they weren't happy at all and that being like America was not an ideal to which they aspired. The Korean said that their president, who had run on a platform that promised independence from U.S. control, announced shortly after his election that his government had been extorted into being part of "the coalition of the willing" for fear that U.S. boycotts and tariffs would destroy the Korean economy.

The Taiwanese said that if it weren't for the Western model of security through force and the increasing intervention of Western arms traders Taiwan and China could develop peaceful relations.

The Indian said that it was U.S. capitalism that was destroying India: its economy, its value system, its culture. "We must revive a Gandhian system that makes us free of Western capitalism," he said, "and provides an alternative economic model to the world before this system destroys us all."

The Korean said, "Those who are the biggest criminals are known to be the great civilizers. They condemn the 'terrorists' but Blair and Bush who have killed thousands more are enshrined." It doesn't really matter at this point whether you and I and the rest of the United States believe what these people are saying or not. It doesn't make much difference whether we agree with them or not. It's not even very important whether they are right or not. What counts is that this is their perception of us.

As far as the poor of the world are concerned, we are at the base of their problems. We have become the American Empire, which like the Roman Empire of old, is simply living off their resources, their slave labor, their tribute in cash crops and their future. We are the new economic colonialists who are sucking the economic blood out of them and destroying their cultures.

The problem is that perception is more powerful than fact. More than that, perceptions such as these are spawning small anti-U.S. movements all over the world.

Karen Hughes and I were both hearing the same thing: Whatever we like to think, the whole world does not really want to be American. They want to be themselves. The only difference between what Karen Hughes heard and what I heard is, that for some reason unknown to the finest minds in captivity, I was not surprised to hear it. The Bush administration, apparently is.

As the kids say, "They just don't get it."

There is no such thing as exporting democracy at the end of gun, no matter how much it is "for their own good."

The list of problems the delegates defined is a long one but an Indian swami put it most succinctly. The problem, the swami said, is 'the seduction of materialism." What he meant is that poor people around the world see American three-car garages on the television sets bolted to poles in the middle of their barrios and they, too, want one of the cars.

But the price of the car, they are coming to understand, is steeper for them than it is for us. It means that to get the car, it will be necessary for them to give up their culture. They will see their value system slip away. They will find themselves simply one more powerless piece in the economic-military empire that is the United States.

The question is: How could these concerns have become implanted in so many places around the world at one time - when our own image of ourselves is so different, so messianic? Maybe it was the imam from Sudan who explained it best. He looked at me with a kind of holy sadness in his eyes. "It was such a sad moment," he said. "Such a wasted opportunity. After 9/11, the United States could have said, 'We will not destroy others as they have destroyed. We will seek to understand why this happened so that it can never happen to anyone again.' "

He paused. "Instead," he said, "you became what you said you were not. And now we see you as you are. It is so disappointing; so frightening. In you we had hoped."

From where I stand, I figure we can stop claiming that force is democracy and forget about pushing international drivers' licenses for women and do what the women said: We can come home and take care of our own flagging cities, our deprived and uninsured poor, our overtaxed middle class and our declining school systems. Maybe then, if being American is such a good thing, people will want more than our cars. They might really want to be like America again.

It grieves me more than I can say that we are so hated. I think the only solution is to show the world that we disapprove of what George Bush has done to our image by removing the Republicans from power. If we keep on voting them in (assuming we are doing that -- that the elections aren't rigged) we are just telling the world that we're fine with what Bush has done. And we will continue to be hated.

Another great Leno quote

Former FEMA Director Mike Brown testified before Congress. He rejected criticism that he was inexperienced. He said, 'I've overseen over 150 presidential-declared disasters.' So, it turns out he wasn't inexperienced, he was just incompetent. What a relief that is!

-- Jay Leno

Friday Cat Blogging!

Henry holding down the bed!


Photo by Ellie Finlay

Bird flu

The Guardian is reporting on the bird flu pandemic that is said to be imminent. The article is entitled, "Bird flu pandemic 'could kill 150m'" and is by James Sturcke. Here's some of what it says:

A global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people, the UN official in charge of coordinating the worldwide response to an outbreak has warned.

David Nabarro, one of the most senior public health experts at the World Health Organisation, said outbreaks of bird flu, which have killed at least 65 people in Asia, could mutate into a form transmittable between people.

"The consequences in terms of human life when the pandemic does start are going to be extraordinary and very damaging," he said.

He told the BBC that the "range of deaths could be anything between five and 150 million".

A highly pathogenic form of bird flu, known as the H5N1, has led to the culling of tens of millions of birds in south-east Asia, but efforts to contain it have not prevented it spreading as far as the Ural mountains in Russia.
...
Last week, veterinary and medical chiefs from the European Union held talks aimed at drawing up an EU-wide action plan to prevent the spread of bird flu. Experts say spotting any outbreak immediately and treating local people with anti-viral drugs and vaccines will be the key to containing any outbreak.
...
"A flu outbreak is imminent but no one knows if it will be next week or in three years' time," a WHO spokeswoman said. "It is really difficult to know how many people will be infected but we know we have to get prepared."

Okay. Do you really trust the Federal government we have now to do what it takes to be prepared? Right. I didn't think so. Call your doctor and ask for a prescription for Tamiflu. Then build your immune system. Take plenty of vitamin C and other anti-oxidants. Go to the health food store and get an immune system building supplement that has echinacea and goldenseal in it. Be pro-active. This bug is nothing to fool around with. And good luck.

UPDATE: It seems bird flu is resistant to Tamiflu. See article here.

UPDATE #2: CNN published an article today entitled, "U.N. backs off 150m flu deaths". Here's part of what it says:

GENEVA, Switzerland -- The U.N. health agency has distanced itself from a top official's prediction that a global influenza pandemic could kill as many as 150 million people.

On Thursday, Dr. David Nabarro said a pandemic could come at any time and claim anywhere between 5 million and 150 million lives depending on the world's response to bird flu.

However on Friday, a spokesman for the U.N.'s World Health Organization said it was impossible to estimate how many people could die from a possible new pandemic triggered by bird flu.

"There is obvious confusion, and I think that has to be straightened out. I don't think you will hear Dr. Nabarro say the same sort of thing again," Reuters quoted WHO influenza spokesman Dick Thompson as telling reporters.

Nabarro was named Thursday as the U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza.

Thompson referred to WHO's long-standing forecast of 2 million to 7.4 million deaths, which comes from a study by the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC), according to Reuters. "We think that this is the most reasoned position," Thompson said, because the last two flu pandemics have been relatively mild.

Well, personally I think 2 million is a horrible number and I wouldn't call that "mild". Either way the pandemic will be a terrible thing, in my opinion.

Arctic ice melting

It's time for another climate change article. This one is from the Guardian and is entitled, "Fears over climate as Arctic ice melts at record level". Here's how it gets started:

* Coverage is 20% below average for time of year
* Destructive cycle could affect Earth's weather

Global warming in the Arctic could be soaring out of control, scientists warned yesterday as new figures revealed that melting of sea ice in the region has accelerated to record levels.

Experts at the US National Snow and Data Centre in Colorado fear the region is locked into a destructive cycle with warmer air melting more ice, which in turn warms the air further. Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September - melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century.

Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. "Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weather."

The Arctic sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent each September at the end of the summer melting season. On September 21 the mean sea ice extent dropped to 2.05m square miles, the lowest on record. This is the fourth consecutive year that melting has been greater than average and it pushed the overall decline in sea ice per decade to 8%, up from 6.5% in 2001.

Walt Meier, also at the Colorado centre, said: "Having four years in a row with such low ice extents has never been seen before in the satellite record. It clearly indicates a downward trend, not just a short term anomaly."

I shudder to think what this means for humanity. We could well be sowing the seeds of our own extinction. Certainly we are in for massive displacements and undoubtedly more wars due to drought, famine and parts of the earth where people now live simply becoming uninhabitable.

Practice what you preach, Mr. President

In an announcement today President Bush said all federal workers should travel less to save fuel. He decided on this in Texas, right before he flew to Colorado then back to Washington to prepare for tomorrow's trip back to Texas.

--Jay Leno

Let's not forget about the torture

With Lynndie England's conviction we really need to remember that torture is what we do these days. Here's an article entitled, "Torture is US policy, not aberration" by Jennifer K. Harbury.

As the United Nations intensifies its scrutiny of torture practices in Iraq, many Americans feel outrage and confusion.

How could this have happened?

The truth lies in the realities that led to the Katrina disaster. The horrors are not new, but long-term and deep-rooted.

The photographs of Abu Ghraib torture practices left many of us with a chilling sense of deja vu. Anyone who survived torture in Latin America or lost a loved one to death squads there, remembers these techniques.

We also remember the U.S. participants. Although our government leaders insist that the recent abuses were acts of a few "bad apples"--young MPs out of control--we can only shake our heads. We have heard it all before. While our young soldiers face prison time for following orders, those who authorized and ordered the torture continue to violate our laws with full impunity. Why?

Given the extraordinary flow of disclosures, confirming the use of identical U.S. torture practices throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, the "bad apple" defense is coy at best. It is impossible for so many soldiers to dream up identical techniques by coincidence. We are dealing with official policy, not individual excess. Legal responsibility goes all the way to the top.

We must also remember that these horrific practices were not invented during the war against terror. Throughout Latin America, secretly held prisoners were subjected to raging dogs, excruciating positions, simulated drownings, long-term sleep and food deprivation, blasting noises and terrifying threats.

U.S. responsibility was hardly limited to funding and training military death squads. In many cases, U.S. intelligence agents visited cells, observed battered prisoners and gave advice or asked questions. Instead of insisting on humane treatment, these agents simply left the detainees to their fates.
...
We are repeatedly told that we must permit torture to maintain our national security. True? Experts agree that torture does not yield reliable intelligence because the victims will say anything to stop the pain. Tried-and-true police methods yield far better results. Worse yet, as military people like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell have said, we greatly endanger our own servicemen and women by discarding anti-torture protections.

I have to confess that I just don't let myself think very much about the fact that we are regularly torturing people. Probably because I feel so helpless and hopeless about the issue. But I'm glad this article showed up on Smirking Chimp this morning because it's important not to forget. We need to make our voices heard and say in what ever way we can, "Not in my name!"

A rant I agree with

My friend, the photographer Walter P. Calahan, and I go way back. I hear from him every now and then and that's really nice. Fortunately we're pretty compatible politically speaking. Today he sent me his commentary on the president's latest shenanigans and I reproduce it for you in full here:

To Conserve Gas, President Calls for Less Driving

A New York Times Web Headline.

Asking American's to drive less amounts to asking Americans to fart less!

Then yesterday President Bush calls for the military to come to the aid of national disasters. What is this guy smoking? Talk about diluting our military's primary mission! Then why the hell did he and Congress create Homeland Security? I guess to downsize the federal government it was a good idea to create a whole new bureaucracy that doesn't do much very well?

Imagine Donald Rumsfeld leading this great nation in a hurricane or earthquake disaster, and at his first press conference saying "stuff happens" just like he described our military's poor preparation for post-invasion Iraq?

Hey Mister President, did you ever hear of the US Coast Guard. They were out there plucking people off roofs before the wind stopped blowing. Fully fund the Coast Guard to aid and coordinate nation disaster relief and you'll see a job well done.

Or you can simply fly to an Aircraft Carrier after a hurricane and declare "Mission
Accomplished."

Is our president on crack?

Perhaps we can change our nation's name during the cover of night, get rid of this guy, and wake up tomorrow called Canada?

W.

Way to go, Walter. Looking forward to hearing from you again soon!

Biased mainstream press

I've recommended Media Matters to you before as a watchdog organization for spotting inaccuracies and bias in the mainstream press. Here's an article about how the Frist insider trading story has hardly been noticed by mainstream television. The article is called, "Network news broadcasts give scant coverage to Frist stock scandal":

Despite having found the time to cover Kate Moss's purported cocaine use and to put one of its correspondents in a wind tunnel to demonstrate the effects of hurricane-force wind, ABC's World News Tonight has yet to mention the brewing scandal over the sale of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN) stock in HCA Inc., the hospital chain founded by Frist's father, just two weeks before a bad earnings report caused the stock price to drop sharply. The nightly news broadcasts of CBS and NBC didn't do much more, both giving the story brief mentions on September 23.

Look, this is big. This is the same offense that sent Martha Stewart to prison. (Except that it involves a LOT more money.) And I'm telling you, if Frist doesn't do time for this I'm going to know that Martha was sent up because she's a woman and a Democrat.

Could be...

Now here's some sad information coming out of Washington. According to reports, President Bush may be drinking again. And I thought, "Well, why not? He's got everybody else drinking."

--David Letterman

The president's security blanket

Every Monday morning, Smirking Chimp publishes an article called Pundit Pap - a run down of the Sunday morning political talk shows. Usually I'm not home on Sunday morning and, even if I am, I really can't stomach those shows. But I think they're a fair indicator of what the news media are committed to emphasizing and they also are vehicles for the administration to communicate its spin of the week through the Republican guests that appear. So I like to read Pundit Pap. This morning, a hilarious bit of transcript from the McLaughlin show was published. I just have to share it with you:

Former Texas Gov. Bush [on video from Wednesday, 9/21/05]: Ya know something we, ahh, I've been thinking a lot about how America has responded and it's clear to me that Americans value human life and value every person as important.

And that stand in stark contrast, by the way, [next clause said slowly] to the terrorists we have to deal with.

You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina and our hearts break. They're the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish that they had caused it [dramatic pause].

We're at war against these people.

It's a war.... [dramatic pause] on terror.

These are evil men who target the suffering [dramatic pause].

They killed 3,000 of our people on September 11, 2001 [with an 'I'm not makin' this up' look on his face].

And they've continued to kill.

John McLaughlin: Does that ring true?

Larry O'Donnell: There are few Presidents in our history more lost than that. [Members of panel laugh out loud.] For him to find this desperate pathway from Katrina, from lives lost because of government mishandling of the hurricane that hit New Orleans. To get a path from there to his war on terror, and somehow link the hurricane to Al Qaeda, is as large as possible flight of mental illness as we've seen in a President. [More laughter.]

Tony Blankley: Now look...

Larry: There is no coherent objective to what that man said....

Eleanor Clift: He was like a child reaching for his security blanket.

Tony: Oh, lets be more respectful of the President.

Larry: Why?!

Eleanor: And putting everything in the framework of terrorism is the only thing that has sustained him. Except the public is now catching on, because they feel that Katrina revealed that we are less safe, that the Department of Homeland Security doesn't work, and that this President doesn't make us safer! He can't reach for the terrorism security blanket anymore!

When Eleanor Clift is good, she is very, very good. And I'll never again hear Bush use the "terror" without visualizing him looking like a scared little boy and clutching his security blanket for dear life.

WOW!

I just have to share Cindy Sheehan's speech of yesterday with you. She entitles it, "Patriotic Dissent". Isn't that a wonderful expression? Here's a paragraph that is simply steaming it is so biting and energetic:

We, as a young colony of Great Britain, broke from another tyrant, King George the Third. Well, I wish our George the Third were here today to see us out here in force protesting against his war and against his murderous policies. George is not here, though, because he is out galavanting around the country somewhere pretending that he cares about the people who are in the path of hurricane Rita. We know that he cares nothing for the people of America: Katrina, Iraq, and his idiotic response to 9/11 are evidence of that. He is just out and about play-acting like a President whose country is in crisis, just like he pretends to be a Commander in Chief and a Cowboy (I wonder if before he took off to Texas or Colorado or wherever he went, he watched a movie like Independence Day to see how that other fake president acted?). The reason he is out today is that his handlers told him that he got a little flak for playing golf and eating birthday cake with Senator McCain while some of his employers were hanging off rooftops and treetops in New Orleans. He swaggers around arrogantly like he is a macho dictatorial tyrant who doesn't have to answer to his employers, the people of the United States of America. Those days are over George, we are here today to tell you that we are a majority and we will never rest until you bring our young people home from the Middle East, and until you start putting money into rebuilding OUR communities: the ones natural disasters destroy with your help, and the ones which your callous and racist war economy are decimating. We won't allow you to take anymore money out of social programs to finance Halliburton to rebuild the Gulf States: there is no money. Our bank account is empty. George, this is our rainy day and you have failed us miserably. Stop pouring money into the pockets of the war profiteers and into building permanent bases in Iraq ... It is time to bring our billions of dollars home from Iraq too!!!

Will enough people listen? That's the question.

Protest in London

Here's an update on the anti-war protests story I blogged earlier today. It seems a solidarity protest was held in London yesterday. Did the American press report that? Not that I've come across. The Independent did, however. I'm so glad I regularly read foreign newspapers. Otherwise I wouldn't know what's going on. Our press just disgusts me, sometimes.

The article is entitled, "Thousands March to Demand Withdrawal of Troops from Iraq". Here's an excerpt:

More than 10,000 protesters descended on London yesterday for a mass demonstration against the war in Iraq.

Many of the protesters, who marched from Parliament Square to Hyde Park blowing whistles and carrying placards, were demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops.

Buses were used to bring people from all over Britain to join the demonstration, organised by the Stop the War Coalition.

Scotland Yard estimated that crowds had swollen to 10,000 people by the time the march reached Hyde Park in the early afternoon, although organisers put the numbers at up to 100,000. Other marches were planned for the United States.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be pro-active in searching out unbiased news sources. Please don't depend on cable or broadcast evening news. You will get a lot of sensationalism that way and will not get thorough reporting on what really is happening.

Give peace a chance

Yesterday there was a massive anti-war protest in Washington D.C. with solidarity protests in many other cities in the U.S. Needless to say, the mainstream press is all but ignoring it - preferring to give wall-to-wall coverage to Hurricane Rita. Why they can't report on two stories at once is beyond me. I really had to look on a number of mainstream news websites to find an article that reported on the protest in any depth. Fortunately the Washington Post came through. Here are some excerpts from an article entitled, "Antiwar Fervor Fills the Streets:
Demonstration Is Largest in Capital Since U.S. Military Invaded Iraq":

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

The demonstration drew grandmothers in wheelchairs and babies in strollers, military veterans in fatigues and protest veterans in tie-dye. It was the first time in a decade that protest groups had a permit to march in front of the executive mansion, and, even though President Bush was not there, the setting seemed to electrify the crowd.

Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Riffs on Vietnam-era protests were plentiful, with messages declaring, "Make Levees, Not War," "I never thought I'd miss Nixon" and "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." Many in the crowd had protested in the 1960s; others weren't even born during those tumultuous years.

Protest organizers estimated that 300,000 people participated, triple their original target. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who walked the march route, said the protesters achieved the goal of 100,000 and probably exceeded it. Asked whether at least 150,000 showed up, the chief said, "That's as good a guess as any.
...
More than 200 counter-demonstrators set up outside the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and some back-and-forth yelling occurred as the antiwar marchers moved past. "Shame on you! Shame on you!" one counter-protester shouted at the antiwar group. Several dozen officers stood between the two groups, and no trouble erupted, police said.

Some organizations supporting the war in Iraq plan to demonstrate today on the Mall.

Antiwar groups staged smaller rallies yesterday in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Rome and other cities. In Washington, the events were sponsored by groups including the ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice and focused on a succinct theme: "End the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now."
...
The masses on the street served up a broad cross section of the United States by age, geography religion and ethnic group. The Raging Grannies, Presbyterians for Peace, Portuguese Against Bush and a group of Quakers were there. The Buddhist Peace Delegation took up most of 14th Street NW with its golden banner that read: "May all beings be safe and free from anger, fear, greed, dilution and all ill being."

Protest organizers made special note of military participants in the antiwar effort.

Army 1st Sgt. Frank Cookinham, with a Special Forces patch on one shoulder, scorpion tattoos crawling across the back of his neck and "LOCO" permanently inked on his Adam's apple stands out in most crowds. He was pretty uncomfortable yesterday.

"I've never done this before, but here I am, in uniform, figuring this is the only way I can shove it to Bush," said Cookinham, of Newport, R.I., a Persian Gulf War veteran who recently returned from a second tour in Iraq. "This war makes no sense."

He definitely has that right. This war makes no sense. When are we as a nation going to come to our senses and demand that the troops be brought home?

Global warming and hurricanes - Part 2

The Guardian gives us another article about global warming and the extreme weather patterns we're now experiencing. This one is by Jeremy Rifkin and is entitled, "Sorry, Mr President, homilies won't stop the hurricanes".

A new scientific report out this past week in Science Magazine, a prestigious American journal, gives fresh impetus to the connection between oceans warming as a result of climate change and the increased severity of hurricanes. Scientists report that the number of major - category four and five - hurricanes has nearly doubled in the past 35 years. Tropical storms, say the scientists, draw their energy from warm ocean water. As the global rise in temperature heats the world's oceans, the intensity of hurricanes increases.

Katrina and Rita, then, are not just bad luck, nature's occasional surprises thrust on unsuspecting humanity. Make no mistake about it. We Americans created these monster storms. We've known about the potentially devastating impact of global warming for nearly a generation. Yet we turned up the throttle, as if to say: "We just don't give a damn." What did anyone expect? SUVs make up 52% of all the vehicles owned in America, each a death engine, spewing record amounts of CO2 into the earth's atmosphere.

How do we explain to our children that Americans represent less than 5% of the population of the world but devour more than a quarter of the fossil-fuel energy produced each year? How do we say to the grieving relatives of the victims of the hurricane that we were too selfish to allow even a modest five-cent tax increase on a gallon of petrol in order to encourage energy conservation? And when our neighbours in Europe and around the world ask why the American public was so unwilling to make global warming a priority by signing up to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, what do we tell them?

Sadly, the religious right in America is telling them that Jesus is returning soon so it doesn't matter what we do to the earth. This attitude is both callous and tragic beyond description.

Friday Cat Blogging!

It's Leroy!


Photo by Ellie Finlay

Global warming and hurricanes

An article in the Independent (a British newspaper) entitled, "This is global warming, says environmental chief" explains the relationship between global warming and current hurricane intensity:

The growing violence of storms such as Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans, and Rita, now threatening Texas, is very probably caused by climate change, said Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Hurricanes were getting more intense, just as computer models predicted they would, because of the rising temperature of the sea, he said. "The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming."
...
Referring to the arrival of Hurricane Rita he said: "If this makes the climate loonies in the States realise we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation." As he spoke, more than a million people were fleeing north away from the coast of Texas as Rita, one of the most intense storms on record, roared through the Gulf of Mexico. It will probably make landfall tonight or early tomorrow near Houston, America's fourth largest city and the centre of its oil industry. Highways leading inland from Houston were clogged with traffic for up to 100 miles north.
...
Asked about characterising them as "loonies", he said: "There are a group of people in various parts of the world ... who simply don't want to accept human activities can change climate and are changing the climate."

"I'd liken them to the people who denied that smoking causes lung cancer."
...
A paper by US researchers, last week in the US journal Science, showed that storms of the intensity of Hurricane Katrina have become almost twice as common in the past 35 years.

Will the powers that be in the U.S. come out of denial any time soon? I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE: Here's a comment about this article that I found on AMERICAblog by someone named Jonathan:

It's pretty simple really...global warming exists. In the last ten years, global water temperatures have risen by 1 degree Celsius, and another one degree C in the fifty years before that.

A calorie is defined as the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water (at 15°C and 1 atmosphere of pressure) by one degree celsius.

Consider how many grams of water there are in the ocean and how much extra energy the planet would have to absorb from the sun to warm the oceans that much. That's global warming.

The wholesale consumption and combustion of oil based energy products in the last century has created gasses that trap energy that should be radiating back off of the planet and into space.

There's no way for us to bleed that energy off, short of preventing the energy from being trapped by the greenhouse gasses in the first place. Short answer is: we're fucked.

That's putting it bluntly. And scarily.