The environment again

I think it's been too long since I've shared with you an article about the realities of global climate change and its consequences. So here's a piece by Caroline Arnold entitled, "Oil, CO2, Environment, Climate, War". The passages below gives you a flavor of what she has to say:

This week global warming is again in headlines. A White House aide resigned after charges that he changed federal science reports to downplay the effects of greenhouse gasses to global warming. The US contribution of CO2 was updated: each US citizen’s share of the national total CO2 releases is about 6 tons/year. For comparison, each citizen of India accounts for about 0.3 ton/year.

Dire forecasts are being made. In "The Long Emergency "James Howard Kunstler predicts that both American society and the global consumer economy will crash as cheap energy disappears, and that it is already too late to mend our ways: "It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life – ... central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it." (read http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0413_28.htm )

Jared Diamond, in "Collapse", postulates four reasons why societies or civilizations collapse: environmental destruction, climate change, increase in hostilities, and decrease in friendly relations. And he adds a fifth, overarching reason: failing to address any of the first four.
...
Nuclear power is no panacea for the energy-carbon crunch – it’s neither clean nor cheap, and has uncertain long-term consequences. It could help tide us over until we can cut consumption, increase efficiency, develop alternatives, and reduce transmission & transportation costs. It could buy us time to tune human fertility, human politics & economics, and personal lifestyles & habits to more renewable, sustainable, equitable and humane energy systems.

But right now we need to recognize that we can’t fuel our life-styles or cool the planet with faith-based science, marketing ideologies, or the coercion of war, terror and torture. The crunch between scarce energy and excessive CO2 will finally have to be dealt with by the crunched – us.

We need a new revolution – not an armed, adversarial revolution, but a peaceable revolution in what we buy, how we use energy, how we distribute and assess information, and in how we allow ourselves to be governed.

Needless to say, I agree. But do we have the will as a people to meet this challenge? So far, there's no real evidence that we do.

Friday Cat Blogging!

Here's Leroy in Cynthia's office chair in the old Center.

Photo by Cynthia Burgess (I think!)

Please don't shop at Walmart's - part 3

Here's the latest atrocity committed by Walmart's:

Wal-Mart officials in Cross Lanes told employees on Tuesday they have to start working practically any shift, any day they're asked, even if they've built up years of seniority and can't arrange child care.

Store management said the policy change is needed to keep enough staff at the busiest hours, but some employees said it appears to be an attempt to force out longer-term, higher-paid workers."

We have many people with set schedules who aren't here when we need them for our customers," said John Knuckles, a manager at the store, which is located in the Nitro Marketplace shopping center and employs more than 400."

It is to take care of the customers, that's the only reason," he said.

Workers who have had regular shifts at the store for years now have to commit to being available for any shift from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. If they can't make the commitment by the end of this week, they'll be fired."

It shouldn't cause any problem, if they [store employees] are concerned about their customers," Knuckles said.

Several single mothers working at the store have no choice now but to quit, said one employee, who would not give her name for fear of retribution."

My day care closes at 6 and my baby sitter can't work past 5," said the employee, a mother of two who has been a cashier for more than three years. Neither of the services is available over the weekends, she added. "I have to be terminated; I don't know what I'll do."

I simply cannot adequately express how appalling this is. Walmart's workers are human beings. And they have no recourse. If I have to pay double what Walmart charges in order to avoid supporting such shameful practices, I will gladly do so. Walmart's has no decency.

True freedom

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

-Noam Chomsky

Memo-gate

As I write, I am watching C-Span on my computer as it broadcasts the hearing chaired by Congressman Conyers on the Downing Street Memo. What I want to offer you today is the written testimony of Greg Palast who was unable to testify in person. Palast presents a time line of the lead up to war explaining what we know as a result of the various documents that have come to light. His testimony is entitled, "The Other ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue" and it's published by Common Dreams. Here are some passages:

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED," bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD - "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive. But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the war-hawk policy.

After that follows the time line. I urge you to click through and read the whole text of the testimony. It's not long.

Something to ponder

What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think.

-- Adolf Hitler

More on impeachment

Did you know that the merits of impeaching President Bush were actually debated on March 11, 2003?

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss and debate immediately putting into the U.S. House of Representatives Bills of Impeachment against President Bush Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and then Attorney General John Ashcroft in order to head off the impending war.

So explains Francis A. Boyle in his article, "The national campaign to impeach President George W. Bush". Interestingly, the emergency meeting was presided over by Congressman John Conyers who is now leading the efforts to get some answers regarding the Downing Street Memo. Actually, of course, the impeachment movement of 2003 went nowhere because it was judged to jeopardize the possibility of Democrats winning the presidential election of 2004. But it was debated.

Here's how Boyle concludes his article:

The Athenians lost their democracy. The Romans lost their Republic. And if we Americans did not act now we could lose our Republic! The United States of America is not immune to the laws of history!
...
Certainly, if the U.S. House of Representatives can impeach President Clinton for sex and lying about sex, then a fortiori the House can, should, and must impeach President Bush Jr. for war, lying about war, and threatening more wars. All that is needed is for one Member of Congress with courage, integrity, principles and a safe seat to file these currently amended draft Bills of Impeachment against Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, and now Attorney General Albert Gonzales, who bears personal criminal responsibility for the Bush Jr. administration torture scandal. Failing this, the alternative is likely to be an American Empire abroad, a U.S. police state at home, and continuing wars of aggression to sustain both -- along the lines of George Orwell's classic novel 1984. Despite all of the serious flaws demonstrated by successive United States governments that this author has amply documented elsewhere during the past quarter century as a Professor of Law, the truth of the matter is that America is still the oldest Republic in the world today. “We the People of the United States” must fight to keep it that way!

I don't think Prof. Boyle's prediction is at all unreasonable. I do, indeed, fear for the Republic.

Point well taken

The American people will trust the Democratic Party to defend America, when they believe that Democrats will defend other Democrats.

--Wesley Clark

The Democrats

Here's an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, "Why are the Democrats such weenies?" It's a good question. Of course, Howard Dean isn't. But he's been vilified by fellow Democrats (to their everlasting shame.) The article's author, Jon Carroll, explains what Democrats should be screaming about:

Why are the Democrats such weenies? Howard Dean makes the unremarkable statement that the GOP is the party of white Christians, and other Democrats run and flee and say, "Oh no, oh no!" And a Republican yahoo accuses Dean of "political hate speech." Neither "white" nor "Christian" is an epithet. A glance at the videotape from last year's Republican convention indicates that both characterizations are entirely fair.
...
I think we have scandal fatigue, because some of the newer ones are just not getting any play at all. A senior Air Force procurement officer, Darleen Druyun, made a deal to lease Boeing refueling tankers for $23 billion, despite Pentagon studies showing that the tankers were unnecessary. Then Druyun quit the government and joined Boeing. Such a coincidence. Two years later, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to nine months in the federal pen.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has ignited a trade war with Europe over "illegal subsidies" to Airbus because the alleged subsidies hurt the trade position of, yes, Boeing. We'd never give illegal subsidies to Boeing, oh my no.

This is just one example of the malign effects of the revolving door between big business and the Bush administration. There's the case of Philip Cooney, a former American Petroleum Institute lobbyist who signed on as the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (!!). According to documents obtained by the New York Times, Cooney "repeatedly" edited official documents to eliminate or downplay the now widely accepted links between greenhouse gases and global warming.

The White House is still taking the position that global warming is a liberal conspiracy. The liberals' ability to cause a drought in Australia has amazed many.

This is merely the latest in a long series of incidents, from "abstinence only" sex education campaigns to downplayed links between smoking and heart disease, in which the administration has adjusted the facts to fit its conclusions -- and to please its corporate donors and its ultraconservative base.

Most Americans are neither ultraconservative nor superrich, and they are interested in hearing the truth. The Democrats should be interested in telling the truth, and telling it in a strong and convincing manner. They cannot flinch when the White House does one of its "gay marriage booga booga" dances. Be not afraid, Democrats. This is not an occasion in which the meek will inherit the earth. Speak for the people, because the people need you to end the madness.

I so agree. Time for true progressives with backbone to infiltrate the party.

72 percent

Did you know that 72% of Americans agree that we need government-guaranteed health insurance for all? That's a very large majority. So what's the problem. Paul Krugman takes a look at it in his latest column entitled, "One nation, uninsured". Here's part of what he says:

Let's ignore those who believe that private medical accounts - basically tax shelters for the healthy and wealthy - can solve our health care problems through the magic of the marketplace. The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies.

A system in which the government provides universal health insurance is often referred to as "single payer," but I like Ted Kennedy's slogan "Medicare for all." It reminds voters that America already has a highly successful, popular single-payer program, albeit only for the elderly. It shows that we're talking about government insurance, not government-provided health care. And it makes it clear that like Medicare (but unlike Canada's system), a U.S. national health insurance system would allow individuals with the means and inclination to buy their own medical care.

The great advantage of universal, government-provided health insurance is lower costs. Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured.

We are headed for a truly dangerous situation. Emergency rooms are being closed across the country because of their overuse by the uninsured. And I like the point made by a commenter to this article: those within inadequate health care fall down on basic productivity because of unattended acute and chronic illnesses. We're going to lose our competitive edge as a nation if we don't take care of the health of its people.

Another memo surfaces

All right. You simply must read this article. It's from The Times of London which is a conservative newspaper and is entitled, "Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’". Here's the opening:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

Later, the article goes into the effects of the publication of the earlier memo which said that the facts and intelligence were being "fixed" to justify war against Iraq.

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month's publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to "the DSM" on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.

The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true -- as Dearlove told the July meeting -- that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" in Washington.

The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that "the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all".

John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being "fixed" around the policy.

He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to "manufacture" the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.

He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme.

Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website -- http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/ -- to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers.

Here's another passage worthy of your attention:

AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush's actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment.

It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day.

I'll try to keep you updated on this issue. Perhaps enough noise is being made that the mainstream press will start to cover this. But I'm not holding my breath.

Dean fights back

Well, it was gratifying to learn that $100,000 was raised on line by Howard Dean supporters and given to the DNC. Dean got the message as described in this article by Will Lester entitled, "'People want us to fight': Howard Dean renews attacks on Republicans". Here's how it gets started:

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Saturday that positive responses from key supporters have reinforced his determination to keep talking tough even though some congressional Democrats have suggested he should tone down his rhetoric. "

People want us to fight," Dean told the national party's executive committee. "We are here to fight."

Addressing Iowa party activitists later Saturday in Des Moines, he added: "We need to be blunt and clear about the things we're going to fight for. I'm tired of lying down in front of the Republican machine. We need to stand up for what we believe in."

"We can use some of your passion," Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, told Dean at the Iowa fundraiser.

We can all use some of his passion. Let's not take the Republican smears lying down!

Dean speaks for me.

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Howard Dean Speaks For Me"

It was created by members of the well-known and influential blog, Daily Kos, and will be sent to congressional Democrats.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Dean/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Conyers and today's press

I want to share an article with you by Margaret Kimberly entitled, "John Conyers and Deep Throat". It's about Conyers' efforts to direct attention to the Downing Street memo and how the press is falling down on the job. Here's a pertinent passage:

An internal memo from Tony Blair's government said the following about the Bush administration argument in favor of war with Iraq: Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Unlike in the early 1970s, the Washington Post didn't even have to do any work on this story. All the Post had to do was quote other newspapers. They finally did, but very late and with very little fanfare. The Post reported the story weeks after the Times of London did, and to add insult to injury placed it on page A18. The Post's own readers angrily emailed their ombudsman and demanded that their newspaper do its job, only to be scolded for daring to question that august publication.

Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan isn't holding his breath waiting for the press to tell this story. He is asking at least 100,000 Americans to sign a letter demanding answers to questions on the Downing Street memo.

John Conyers sat on the House Judiciary committee that was on the verge of impeaching Richard Nixon. Conyers must be feeling a strange case of déjà vu. He has seen a corrupt White House before, but in 1974 America still had a functioning press and Democrats were the majority party in the House of Representatives.

Thanks to Democratic party incompetence, that hasn't been the case since 1994. Conyers and his colleagues have evidence of numerous impeachable offenses against George W. Bush, but they are unable to make themselves heard when their leaders won't buck the system and the media focus on missing person cases and celebrity criminal trials.

Conyers is doing his job as a member of Congress, the media's job as an investigative force, and the Democratic party's job in opposing the Republicans. Not content to wear so many hats, John Conyers ignored the right wing attack on Felt, and planned to praise him with a House resolution.

"As one who was a first hand witness to Watergate, I can only state humbly that Mr. Felt helped bring our country back from the brink of a constitutional crisis and an out-of-control White House."

He also knows that today's press is unprepared to do its job vis a vis the Bush administration. "Today it is unclear who will step up to the plate to expose the wrongdoing of the current administration."

I have signed Rep. Conyers' letter. If you haven't done so yet, you can click through using the link on his name above.

The effect of truth

I'm a great admirer of Thom Hartmann. Today I'm linking you to an article he wrote in defense of Howard Dean entitled, "Dean just told them the truth and they thought it was hell". It's a short article and so I urge you to click through and read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt, however, that articulates what I think is the most important point:

Given that this nation is only one of a half-dozen or so mature democracies still stuck with a system of government (lacking proportional representation or IRV) that requires a two-party system to operate properly, it's critical that progressives infiltrate and take over the Democratic Party. After all, it was started by radical progressives like Thomas Jefferson, and reached its greatest electoral victories in the 20th Century when Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted an unabashedly progressive agenda.

Hartmann also pointed out how important it is to put our money where our mouth is. He urged everybody to call the DNC and make a donation in support of Howard Dean. Here's how:

The website for the DNC is www.dnc.org and their phone number is 877 336-7200. Speak out now.

It's often been said that the Democrats see politics as a debate while Republicans see politics as war. That's part of the problem. We have got to stop playing nice-nice and start fighting back.

That circular firing squad

When are Democrats going to learn some basic party loyalty? I refer, of course, to the current Dean bashing going on. Here's what happened: Howard Dean said the Republican Party is the party of white Christians. Then other prominent Democrats publically denounced him for saying that -- including Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. Aside from the fact that what Dean said is true, it's just plain stupid for us to attack our own. Here's a comment I found on Daily Kos with which I utterly agree:

Even if you disagree with Howard's statements, you do NOT go on TV and speak against him!!! Come on, you don't do this! The repubs would NEVER do this, NEVER. Call Dean, speak privately to him, but Biden has given Hannity and all of the other talking heads ammunition. Put on Hannity - he keeps talking about how even Biden and PELOSI don't support Dean and how he may have to resign.

I swear, if the dems don't learn to stick together, we are never going to defeat these determined, malevolent people in the White House - our only way is to hold a united front.

Of course, the Republican Party is not exactly known for diversity. Here's part of an article I found on AMERICAblog:

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004 Fenton Communications

BEHIND TODAY'S FACADE OF DIVERSITY LIES A NEARLY ALL-WHITE REPUBLICAN PARTY

One Percent of Republican Legislators in the States And Washington are African-American or Hispanic

Newspaper Ads Point to Retro Republican Reality

The uninformed viewer watching TV coverage of this week's Republican national convention in New York might come away thinking that the President's party is built upon a solid commitment to inclusion of racial minorities. Once again, as it does every four years, the Republican Party is trying to portray itself as a 'big tent,' with room for every American.

But a new book about America's political divisions notes that the 99 percent of all Republican legislators across the country and in Congress are white. The national Republican Party, whose base is in the South, the Plains and the Mountain states, looks to white men as its power base and source of leadership. Even when Republican states have significant minority populations, the elected Republican representatives rarely are drawn from those communities.

The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, a new look at political divisions in America by educator-entrepreneur Dr. John Sperling, calls those states 'Retro America,' and notes: 'Its whiteness and maleness are mirrored in the Republican Party.'

So Howard Dean told the truth.

The Dean bashing has also created a distraction away from the real news: the Downing Street memo and that fact that Bush's approval rates are at an all time low. I wish I could get those self-serving, disloyal Democrats together in one room and scream at them, "What were you thinking???"

Preparing for war

While we're on the subject of impeachable offenses, take a look at this article published last year in the Sun Herald. Here's an excerpt:

Woodward said he found that the administration quietly shifted money around to pay for early preparations for war in Iraq, without the approval of Congress. He said those preparations included building landing strips and addressing other military needs in Kuwait.

The money, about $700 million, was taken in July 2002 from a budget item that had been approved for the war in Afghanistan, Woodward wrote.

"Some people are going to look at that document called the Constitution, which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress,"

The hubris of this president simply defies description.

Friday Cat Blogging!

This is Jake of blessed memory. Here's what Paul Rogers wrote about Jake:

This is a picture of Jake who lived in Colorado Springs. Our friends Sara and Ed took him in when he was 14 years old, nearly toothless, and having trouble walking. For his last 8 months he got canned food mixed with water in the blender, took daily pain medication to let him walk when he wanted, and a large heated bed under the grand piano where he could over see the operation of the household. All he had to do in return was wear the fake antlers for a picture at Christmas.

Dissing Amnesty International

The more I read articles by John Atcheson the more I am impressed with his analysis and his writing. Here's an article entitled, "The Disassembler in Chief and the War of Error" that takes a look at how the Amnesty International report on the Guantanamo detention center was spun by the administration. Here are some passages:

If you want to see exhibit A in how the administration and their conservative henchmen manage to spin the press, check out the imbroglio over Amnesty International’s 2005 Report, which accuses the US of "atrocious human rights violations" and says in it’s forward,"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity."

A Secretary General Irene Khan, in releasing the report, referred to Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times..."

Now, accusations such as these, delivered by a respected and venerable organization such as Amnesty International are serious business.

So how did the administration and the conservative spin machine respond? Call for immediate impartial investigations? Reaffirm the US commitment to the Rule of Law? Denounce practices which violate human rights?

Of course not.

As Matthew Rothschild points out, they chose to shoot the messenger and change the subject. Just as they did with Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, General Shinseki, General Zinni, Hans Blix, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Newsweek, and anyone else that questions their misguided war of error.

Atcheson then reviews the administration's attack on Newsweek over its report about Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay and then continues his discussion on Amnesty.

Enter the Amnesty International Report highlighting this administration’s egregious human rights violations. Within hours, conservatives worked themselves up into a patriotic lather and quickly turned the discussion into a debate about neutrality, impartiality, and a semantic argument over the use of the word "gulag."

As usual, the mainstream press took the hook and ignored the real story: the tragic metamorphosis of the US from a "shining city on a hill" – a beacon from which the light of liberty, justice, and freedom blazed out upon the world – to a country whose recent behavior places it among the world’s international thugs.

And so now, the press coverage focuses on the "gulag" statement, and not on the immoral and illegal actions of the US. It focuses on whether Amnesty International has lost it’s "neutrality," or, even more absurdly, on whether Gitmo, Bagram Air Base, and our various rendition partners actually constitute a gulag comparable to the Soviet Union’s.

Why does this keep happening with our press? The real story being lost? Once more, it's the same thing that happened with the Dan Rather report on Bush going AWOL from the National Guard. The problem with that story was not its accuracy but its sourcing. And yet the mainstream press completely ignored the content and gave Bush a pass on having simply not shown up for duty. How that could have happened continues to boggle my mind.

Atcheson continues:

Which issue is more important – whether America’s human rights record has indeed become atrocious, or whether Amnesty International is guilty of hyperbole? If the mainstream media is any guide, Amnesty’s inapt metaphor wins hands down.

But Mr. Bush's illegal activities have resulted in an exponential increase in the number of Muslims who hate America, loss of our credibility and prestige abroad, loss of potential allies in the real war on terror -- and ultimately loss of the most powerful tactic we have in that war, winning the battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims.

Meanwhile, Ms. Khan's overstatement has resulted in ... what? World-wide attention to the full scale erosion of the rule of law under the Bush administration.

The bottom line? Under Mr. Bush, the US has joined the bad guys; we've crossed a line and we are behaving like international thugs. Under Mr. Bush our shining beacon is turning into cheap and tawdry neon sign proclaiming, "We’re not the worst."

It’s all part of a continuing trend with this administration. Aside from condoning torture and committing war crimes, the President and his administration rejected the international court and the land mine treaty, dropped out of Kyoto, scuttled the ABM treaty, undermined the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, eviscerated the treaties banning biological and chemical weapons, and militarized space.

Sure, "gulag" is a loaded term, and Stalin’s crimes were far worse than ours, but why is that the story?

Rather than debating – if not celebrating – the fact that we're not the worst international thugs ever to walk the planet, while calling Ms. Khan to task over semantics, why isn’t the press drawing needed attention to the fact that we've crossed that line, extinguished our beacon and joined the dark side?

When is our press going to grow some spine and start reporting the real story? I'm sorry to say that I'm not optimistic. Fortunately there's the internet. I will continue to get my news from international sources because I simply can't trust the propaganda machine that passes for the news media in this country.

Quite a list

Rules for Being a Republican

1. You must believe that being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime - unless you're a millionaire right wing radio gasbag; then, it's an "illness" and requires prayer for "recovery".

2. You must believe that those born to privilege achieve success all on their own, and that all of their customers are lazy and stupid.

3. You must believe that folks who work for their money should be taxed at a much higher rate than those who inherit theirs.

4. You must agree that racking up huge amounts of debt and handing it off to future generations is worth the few thousand extra in tax breaks given to your wealthy "investors."

5. You must believe that the US should pull out of the UN, but that our highest national priority is to start a war to enforce UN resolutions against Iraq. At the same time, you must believe that the perfect UN Ambassador is one that doesn't believe the UN should even exist.

6. You must believe that government should stay out of people's lives, except to make reproductive decisions for women, to punish anyone having the "wrong kind" of sex, or private sex with the "wrong" gender, or to insert themselves into a family's health care decisions when they decide the decisions being made are wrong.

7. You must believe that pollution is perfectly ok, so long as it's profitable, and that science is bunk when it cuts into profits, but wonderful when it enhances them.

8. You must support prayer in schools, as long as no one prays to Allah or Buddha.

9. You must believe that the right to exploit a brain dead woman for political gain is mo0re important than allowing people to die on their own terms, with their own dignity.

10. You must believe that "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India, and encouraging corporations headquartered here to move their address offshore to avoid taxes.

11. You must believe that, while a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, huge multi-national corporations can be trusted to make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

12. You must believe that Jesus loves you, but shares your hatred and distrust of the poor, homosexuals, and the Clintons.

13. You must hate the ACLU for representing people whose rights have been violated, and believe they owed it to the country to bail out Oliver North.

14. You must believe that the best way to show appreciation to the troops is to charge them to fly home for leave, serve plastic turkey and cut their VA benefits.

15. You must be willing to believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate sins that can only be purged by running for office as a Republican.

16. You must think that keeping sex education and birth control out of schools is the wisest course, because without them, teenagers will never have sex.

17. You must think that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and piss off the rest of the world at the same time we demand their cooperation and money.

18. You must believe that single-payer health care, in which everyone pays for and receives health insurance, would be a disaster compared to the current system, in which 40 million people are forbidden from paying into the system, but still receive emergency health care. You must also believe that insurance companies only care about giving you the best darn health care there is, damn the profit. You must also believe that providing health care to Iraqis is good policy, while providing it to Americans is a "Socialist plot."

19. You must believe that forcing bankrupt people to pay their bills is a much more important problem than addressing how they got there in the first place.

20. You must agree that the link between tobacco and cancer is "dubious," that claims of global warming are "junk science" and that creationism has a sound scientific basis that should be part of all school curricula.

21. You must believe that waging war with no security or exit strategy was good for Iraq.

22. You must agree that Saddam Hussein was a good guy when Reagan was sending him arms, a bad guy when he invaded Kuwait, a good guy again when Cheney did business with him at Halliburton, and then a bad guy again when Bush decided that a war in Iraq would be a very lucrative deal for his "investors."

23. You must believe that the Bill of Rights is absolute in the case of the Second Amendment, but negotiable with regard to the rest of the document.

24. You must agree that the adulterous affairs of Democrats require public embarrassment and impeachment, while those of Republicans are a private matter, and excusable because, well, "boys will be boys" (or girls).

25. You must ascribe to the notion that the Clintons' business deals were major breaches of the public trust, while the fact that Dick Cheney is still being paid by Halliburton, which is now getting billions of your tax dollars, is no big deal.

26. You must believe that everything that Democrats do should be public knowledge, but that the public has no right to know anything that Republicans do.

27. You must always deride a Democrat's changes of mind and philosophy as a "flip-flop," while referring to those of fellow Republicans as "growth."

28. You must openly support "state rights," except when John Ashcroft wants to force local libraries to turn over their records or Tom DeLay wants to impose new districts because he doesn't like election results.

29. You must agree that the outcome of an election is always more important than making sure everyone got to vote and that all votes were counted.

30. You must agree that income tax cuts for the rich are good for the economy, while payroll tax cuts for the working class are bad. Furthermore, you must believe that making sure that the rich have a few extra dollars in their pockets is good for the economy, while raising the minimum wage is detrimental.