Some of the time the future comes right ’round to haunt me
Some of the time the future comes ’round just to see
That all is as it should be
Like it’s there to remind me
We’ve got to let it be…
– Beth Orton
Some of the time the future comes ’round just to see
That all is as it should be
Like it’s there to remind me
We’ve got to let it be…
– Beth Orton
Loses SCOTUS appeal: MSNBC
Oh, those activist judges… 🙂
I just checked out fallwell.com and it’s well done, with lots of information. I also fired off a congratulatory email to them. It really made me happy to hear that they have prevailed against that slime Jerry Falwell.
I did too Nag and I agree completely.
link
Every time a Chinese official even mentions dumping the dollar this happens. It sure seems to me that the stability of the dollar rests on a razors edge.
TOKYO (AP) — The dollar fell sharply against the euro and yen in Asia Monday on a media report suggesting that China might reduce its purchases of U.S. Treasury holdings, and amid speculation that U.S. interest rates may have peaked.
[snip]
Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was quoted in a Chinese state-owned newspaper Monday as saying that China should cut the amount of U.S. Treasury bonds it buys.
[snip]
The reaction to the reports underlines sensitivity to U.S.-China relations especially ahead of a meeting in Washington between U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Chinese leader Hu Jintao later in the week, traders said. China has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves and is a major investor in U.S. Treasuries.
I wonder whether Bush and Hu Jintao will talk about Bush’s plans for invading Iran? Also wonder what Hu Jintao might have to say about that. Anyone think that China might be our last best hope to stop this madness? Don’t they have the power to hold us hostage over this one? And don’t they have an interest in preventing a war in Iran?
NLinStPaul, I hope you are right. I found this link from Asia Times about how the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization” is going to include Iran in its membership:
“The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO’s decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.
I’m not even sure what exactly the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is, but China and Russia are it’s main members. I hope and pray that there is a movement afoot to throw a huge monkey wrench into Dubya’s war plans for Iran.
That would be , um, interesting, to see China grab W (okay, really the US) by the balls economically…
The SCO, from what I’ve gasthered, is largely an economic trade organization, though they also have some arrangements around security issues. It’s not a full military deal like NATO (at least not yet). Asia’s economies & energy needs are being woven together for future development, and largely ignore the US & Europe.
Asia Times has more on the SCO in its archives that’s qworth reading — as well as the pieces on Chinese-Russian relations.
Look at the price of oil…AP/Yahoo
While I’m happy to see anything push Bush’s “popularity” even lower, the $2.75 gas price is not fun, especially with summer coming on…
Full Article
Thanks. Can you believe it costs $250,000-500,000 a month to keep his studio/business rolling? Unreal.
Today’s WTF
ABC
So, I guess this is supposed to suggest that the whole Duke thing is really okay, because everyone wants to sleep with the players?
Enough said.
I also read someplace that there was a memeber of the team, whos father is a political big wig of some sort in DC. Could this be a political thing going on here too. Something like a cover-up of sorts.
I’m shocked that there are girls who want to sleep with jocks. Just shocked. This must be a new phenomenon for them to cover it so extensively.
The local coverage of the Duke story is relentless. The characters are known as ‘the stripper’ and ‘the boys.’ Puke. Puke. Puke.
What happened to just calling them cheerleaders? Do they have to rename everything? I wonder how many Dubya took for the team? Oh I feel evil today…..PMS
It is obviously a story related to the Duke thing, though I don’t see the relationship because the woman there was only at the party because of her job. I haven’t read any suggestion she was a groupie.
As for “lacrosstitutes”, back in the ’80s when I was in a dorm in college, the slang word for a woman who slept around was “wingnut”. I didn’t hear that word in a political context until much later.
link
Another Bush promise broken. This REALLY frosts me.
Parks “Glide Path” to Impoverishment Breaks Bush Campaign Pledge
WASHINGTON – April 17 – The Bush administration has directed the National Park Service to substantially decrease its reliance on tax-supported funding, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In a turnabout from the last two presidential campaigns when candidate Bush promised greater funding of parks, new “talking points” distributed last week to all park superintendents urge them to begin “honest and forthright” discussions with the public about smaller budgets, reduced visitor services and increased fees.
Using a new approach called Core Operations Analysis, each park is asked to develop budgets based on a 20 to 30% reduction in appropriation support. In this exercise, park superintendents decide which visitor services or other functions can be jettisoned (“staffing and funding alternatives based on realistic funding projections,” in the words of the Park Service). Whatever shortfalls in support for essential operations that remain must be made up for with fee hikes, cost shifting or increased reliance on volunteers.
Step 1. Underfund the parks so that they can’t be properly run and maintained.
Step 2. Claim that the problems that arise from underfunding show that the parks would be better off being run by private companies.
Step 3. Pirates of the Yosemite Falls Ride.
Andi, I just knew this would frost you… I almost put “Attention AndiF” in the title. 🙂
I had the same exact thought: moving towards privatization, exploitation and profit; goodbye wilderness. I can’t tell you how incredibly angry this makes me. Bush looks at the US as his personal treasury, his personal property to foul or to give away as he pleases. Whether we agree or not, he already sees himself as King and acts accordingly.
Oh for Heavens sake, I remember this one, way back when. Why is it that we tend to forget so much of the valuable things?
gen. Riper
And then there is this one I agree
Good Morning Cabin Girl and all. Had a full work day yesterday and could not get back here. Hugs and have a great day…
The end of the second artilce would make a great sig line:
Thanks, Brenda!
Yes it would make a great line. I seem to be going in 9th gear with reading these days, trying to gather as much info as I can possibily gather in one mind for processing. Just not enough hours in the day for that, it seems. Hugs
Two great articles, Brenda… thanks! Rumsfeld, I think, will be right behind Dubya, tied with Cheney as “the country’s worst ever”.
I must need more coffee – I saw your link, and thought it said Gen. Ripper! Now why would I think a thing like that, LOL?
Oh good heavens, man, I spit my coffee all over my keyboard on that one!!!! My cats thought I had a seizure or something..they came a running to get some first hand sight as to what I was doing in my office. Just tooooo funny!!!!
talk about survivers guilt I just love reading these installments.
BostonJoe, our very own activist, is coordinating a “Petals for Peace” campaign that starts today!!
EVERYONE CAN PARTICIPATE. Please jump the link above and check out the ways that you can help :O)
I mean, really, folks, how hard can it be to draw a flower and send a fax of it???
Copy and send mine if you dare 😉
Thanks, blueneck…but do you mind if I draw my own? 🙂
Here’s the link to BostonJoe’s diary at the Big Orange, if anyone wants to give it a recommend there.
PLEASE DO! I hope to make everyone feel better about it by showing just how pathetic my drawing skills are! But I’M NOT AFRAID! It still sends the message doesn’t it? And that’s what we want isn’t it!!?
This is so easy to do, it only takes a minute, and it can make a difference if we can get the snowball big enough to roll down the hill under its own weight. JUST IMAGINE THE HEADLINES on WaPo and NYT frontpages:
MILLIONS SEND FLOWERS IN “PETALS FOR PEACE” CAMPAIGN
THE FLOWER CHILDREN ARE BACK: IN FORCE
NEW ELECTRONIC AGE USHERS IN NEW FORMS OF PROTEST
MILLIONS GATHER TOGETHER THROUGH BLOGS TO DELUGE CAPITOL HILL
It CAN HAPPEN!
IF you make it so.
:O)
Today is the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake: Another major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area would probably produce much stronger shaking than the catastrophic 1906 event, the BBC reports. [NPR reported this morning it would be “30 times” the energy of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.] Since earthquake intensity in California increases from one quake to the next until the “big one,” (then there is a quiet period since the stress has been released) experts expect the “big one” sometime in the next 30 years – and are holding a conference today on preparations for it.
Worth a look: When a star like our sun reaches its old age, it blows off part of its gas in an expanding shell, and settles down as a white dwarf star. A striking example of this can been seen over at the Astronomy Photo of the Day site today.
Thirteen years after construction began on the controversial Three Gorges Dam on China’s biggest river, the Yangtze, work on the project is nearly complete, a year ahead of schedule. The flood control project will also be the world’s largest hydroelectric facility, but at the cost of serious social disruption and ecological damage.
Russia will double spacecraft production by 2009 in response to a decision to increase crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) from two to six by then, Russia’s leading space company said on Friday. The Experimental Machine Building Plant in Korolyov, outside Moscow, is to double production of the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft by 2009. Meanwhile, China indicated it intends to be a player in what’s shaping up to be a new – but slow-motion – space race back to the moon: Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China’s moon probing project and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, indicated that at present, the United States and the European Space Agency plan to make a moon landing in 2018 and 2023 respectively, while China will not implement its manned moon landing test and joint lunar base construction with related countries until 2017.
Those aerial drone aircraft that the military loves to tout have peaceful uses as well – a research consortium funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has successfully sent a fleet of aerial drones through the pollution-filled skies over the Indian Ocean to take measurements. “Based on [the project’s] success it is possible that in five years, hundreds of lightweight AUAVs [autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles] will be documenting how human beings are polluting the planet and hopefully provide an early warning system for potential environmental disasters in the future,” a researcher said.
It will work, but it’s dirty: Chemical companies are increasingly looking to coal as the main ingredient in wall paints, fertilizers, even plastic grocery bags as oil supplies become more expensive and supply more uncertain. Useless fact of the day: Ever wonder why we call it “natural gas?” The reason is that a century and more ago, coal gasification to generate “manufactured gas” (as opposed to the “natural” kind) to run gaslights was widely practiced – generating a string of “Superfund sites” today at these now-abandoned facilities… But Internet visionaries like Bill Gates, John Doerr and Steve Case are not betting on coal, but rather on the next great “disruptive” technology: alternative fuels and other environmentally friendly products. Which raises an interesting question if you’re an investor: Who do you trust – the people that make chemicals for a living, or the people that changed our world? Or if you want to go really retro, there’s always manure: A new technology being promoted by Green Mountain Power and the University of Vermont might clean up and deodorize manure before it’s spread on farm fields, reducing the chances for air and water pollution. The technology, being sold by a Colchester businessman, uses electricity to kill disease-causing bacteria in liquid manure. That nearly eliminates the odor from the manure by removing 20 percent or more of its phosphorous. Nonetheless, experts said, the manure retains what’s needed for farmers to use it as fertilizer.
Did you see the story yesterday that one option during a flu epidemic would be drive-through diagnosis? One reason – not covered in the press – might be the result of a Johns Hopkins University survey that found over 40 percent of public health employees surveyed said they are unlikely to report to work during an influenza pandemic.
Time once again for your daily dose of global warming gloom. – Today, it’s walruses being endangered by shrinking Arctic ice, in addition to polar bears: Scientists have reported an unprecedented number of unaccompanied and possibly abandoned walrus calves in the Arctic Ocean, where melting sea ice may be forcing mothers to abandon their pups as the mothers follow the rapidly retreating ice edge north.
On Scarborough last night, Monica Crowley said that Iran could get nuclear weapons soon or they “may” already have nuclear weapons now. You never can be sure of things like this. Joe punctuated the urgency of this discussion by asking if we need to do something immediately before something happens to New York, Los Angeles or “your city”. I believe Monica would be in favor of killing everyone on earth that she doesn’t know personally just to be sure nothing bad happens, but she never came out and said it so you really can’t be sure of that either.
For all of the federal agents reading this, there may or may not be a nuclear weapon in the glove compartment of my car. There wasn’t last time I checked but that was months ago and you never know what sneaky Iranian sympathizers might do. I would be grateful if someone from the government would come by and check for me, I might accidentally blow up 3 counties if I trigger something trying to check on it myself.
olden days? If someone could tell me that they were I might be able to find a little bit of faith that we can make it through all this without nuking somebody!
In 2000-2001 after I graduated from law school and moved back to Florida, I used to keep CNN on in the background all day while I worked. It wasn’t even like this then. As far as television news and the current bloodlust is concerned, I think 9/11 really did change everything for the worse.
well, well, well
Didn’t you know that if it makes Dubya or his policies look good, it’s OK? In fact, it’s mandatory.
ok, nag, are you trying to be funny or what..<snark>
Hugs
educators are having to become fabulous liars…or they work themselves so hard that the job can almost become unbearable for even the Kindergarten teachers. I stayed to have my son’s class read to me yesterday one child at a time because as usual his teacher is swamped. Fifteen kindergarteners read a short story to me that I couldn’t have read until the end of first grade and the least successful among them only missed pronounced two words out of about fifty. One of the trickier words was “glasses”….but about 60% of them didn’t even miss a beat with that one and they didn’t miss a beat with “sweater” either. Jesus only spoke Spanish in September but Jesus reads English just about as well as the rest of the children whose first words were in English. Jesus’ teacher is working her ass off right now making sure that these kids all benchmark! Jesus isn’t learning a lot of social skills right now and he isn’t doing much side by side playing with his classmates either which to me is just as important in his development. With the No Child Left Behind shit though the only thing that Jesus is doing is reading, and reading, and more reading and after that he does his reading!
I think that is GREAT! I am really impressed. I can not imagine me doing this in some other country, for heavens sake. I know I had trouble with my French and Latin back in Hi school…and look at the youngsters!!!! I truly am impressed.
that I have about Jesus broke free. Being from Colorado for such a large chunk of my life, children who have Spanish as their primary language is not that unusual to me. Children are so sensitive and so helpless and in the South children like Jesus are not common place. I did not find it unusual that Jesus trusted me almost immediately when ever I went into class to help, he instantly recognized that I recognized him and I find nothing odd there and perhaps you could say that I even find something personally reassuring for myself in sharing the South with Jesus right now. What disturbs me a lot though is that I do not see Jesus’ class assimilating Jesus but I see Jesus doing everything imaginable to fit in enough with his class. I don’t know what to do about this…….the South just doesn’t own up to much Latino influence and he is such a little guy. He always sneaks up on me and I feel an unnoticed little hand on the back of my leg…..his way of making a small contact with me in the very proper South. Sometimes I really worry about him though……does he have anything like that with anybody else down here during school hours? Does he feel like he spends all day on some strange planet until he gets home? Will he be okay being so little and living through this experience?
sometimes there is not one more word that can be said.
a picture says a thousand words
and watch the household become emaciated.
You got that one right! Hi Tracy. good to see ya.
Oh my! I had cnn on and just heard gw say he was the decider and he gets to be the one who decides who says or not…..ref: rummy. Not only, now, is gw a war president he is a decider…well, well, my heart just goes pitter patter on that one!!!! <snark>
language of childhood moments I’ve had as a mother because he the President and started America’s first official preemptive war and has never verbally matured beyond the language of childhood! Well I’m a decider too and I have decided that he is a Fucking Lunatic!
Me too, Tracy. I think we all are deciders. I have to agree with you on every aspect of your statement. I just want to say a person al thank you for all that you do. Hugs to you girl…….
Maybe Babs and Laura could do a little more in helping him with reading and cognitive thought! :o)
the decider, our famous leader
I have some very good news for you all…my oldest grand-daugher has placed first in her speech contest. She placed 2 weeks ago in Nashville {state}. NOw she goes to national….Antaheim {spelling?}, CA. I have to tell you all that her Nana is so very proud of her. She wants to be a dr or a lawyer…maybe both, so she says…and she is just a freshman in hi school…I call that getting off on the right foot…please allow me to brag just a little if you will…
Congrats!!! Isn’t there some senseless survey some place about how most people would rather be in a building on fire than speak publicly? What a milestone to reach so early on!
Well, Tracy, I think you are right that most ppl would rather be in that building than speak in public. Thanks……
a)encouraged by moi, politically…;o)
I did not know that Wass interned for Anderson
here
according to Steve Clemons of the washingon note, a kissinger move
I read that FP article and elsewhere. On that Kissinger move, Iran’s overtures have been rebuffed time over time. And Steve has not read the latest. Wish I had time to do a full diary.
Meet the VICE SQUAD. No, it’s not a movie or TV show. Quite an eye popper. It’ll curl your hair or grow some.
Robert Dreyfuss exposes the Cheneyites in May issue of American Prospect. Confirming some of what we suspected and much, much more. On the covert and overt, I’d to catch myself that I was holding my breath. Reads like a mafia thriller.
So much for ‘I’m a decider.’ Go curl up and read the whole article. I’ll accept Cheney’s resignation instead of Rumsfeld. Imagine that.
This is one evil man. Cheney has to Go. His coup of the presidency can no longer be condoned.
Just who are they kidding here, not me… harold ford, of all ppl
In case you do not know this, I am not for ford, in the least!
Post Wins 4 Pulitzer Prizes; 2 Go to New Orleans Paper
One of the authors of the domestic spying piece said, “This was by far the toughest story I’ve ever worked on. It involved sources who obviously put themselves in some jeopardy just by talking about the very existence of the program.”
One of the Pulitzer winners was David Finkel, who wrote the Maryscott O’Connor interview piece — he won the explanatory reporting prize for tracking the failure of a U.S.-funded program to export democracy to Yemen.