You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go….
– Dr. Seuss
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go….
– Dr. Seuss
Are way underpaid: Reuters
I know all about the psychologist bit from last night’s eyebrow event…
his “boys” are going down in November: humaneventsonline.com
Always good to hear that…click the link for a little about their plans to educate the public on the “dangers” of electing Dems to a majority in Congress.
.
Your geat asset is word power, let’s hope it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’ll be watching for your new dirty political trick!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Mehlman need not worry.
Snow is working up a snowjob to remake the president. Snow’s internal memo to staff was leaked to ABC NEWS The Note
Huffpost provides this link
let’s have him swing more hammers
Do read the rest, the changes Snow would like to make. Dream on Snow. Once trust is broken…kinda hard to restore. But maybe you like hard work ‘“with nothing to show for it”
OOps. Maybe Snow hasn’t heard. He’ll need to have the President swing hammers elsewhere.
FEMA abruptly abandons long-term recovery….rolled up their offices in New Orleans
Never mind that Bush promised… “we’ll do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.”
Never mind that “Housing remains in very short supply, only a handful of public schools have reopened and many neighborhoods resemble ghost towns.” But according to WWL-TV, FEMA is choosing to abandon New Orleans anyway”
(h/t: Thinkprogress)
It’s not like anybody expected Snow to the tell the truth in either his new job or the old one.
wish I could delete that ABC NEWS link that was front paged at Huffpost
RAWSTORY reports that we fell for it, front paged at Huffpost, RAWSTORY, Kos and other blogs. Huffpost has deleted because
ABC made up that memo without indicating it was satire.
irresponsible is the word, passing off satire as real news. But that’s now standard fare.
I pass the salt shaker. My apologies.
It’s sad that no one can tell the difference with BushCo anymore…
“People want to like the President”…
Yeah, we all want to be fond of a guy who totures, lies our country into war, kills thousands with those lies, empties the US treasury into the pockets of Halliburton and his rich friends, spies on us without warrants…helluva guy, that George.
Raw is now reporting that the memo posted in the Note was “satire”. Of course, ABC failed to mention that in the beginning and Raw (and a lot of other news services) reported it as real. I guess it wasn’t very good satire.
Unless, of course, it’s real and someone threatened to break ABC’s fingers, thus the belated “satire” label.
Hmm.
I corrected my comment upthread. But you may have something there…given that the memo was said to have been leaked…
Whatever, if it wasn’t leaked, ABC should have attributed satire. The Note has lost credibility.
I read that memo earlier this morning and I also thought that it was legit. I was just making a snarky remark, but who knows?
The trouble with BushCo is that everything they’ve done thus far is so outrageous, nothing seems unbelievable anymore.
In Chicago: Chicago Tribune
Poor judgment. I’ll say.
World War I critics get pardons
Wow. Eighty years to get your name cleared. I wonder if the government whistle blowers who are being investigated and maybe prosecuted for leaking will have to wait that long for their pardons.
I read this yesterday and was amazed to discover how history is repeating itself even as we speak. Once again, it is only the godless traitors that oppose the “king”.
Full
Article
The dismal diversity of television is about to get even worse.
The administyration is abdicating its responsibility to protect the public against a Bird Flu pandemic.
Feds turn
noses up
This whole thing worries me. I have no doubt that the Bush admin is incapable of dealing with a pandemic… other than to declare martial law. It would be their ‘perfect’ excuse to do so. Maybe that’s when those massive detention centers being built by KBR would be put to use. Pray it never happens, but pray twice as hard that if it is going to happen, it waits until after 2008.
The federal government should not be allowed to just say, ‘it is not my job’.
It damn well is their job. They may not want it. They may not be able to do it. But it is most assuredly their job. And their will be penalties for non-performance.
And to say that because they cannot do everything is an excuse for them to do next to nothing (except for their Big Pharma Friends) is past ridiculous and approaching criminal.
If they don’t change their approach on this, and the pandemic comes, which I see as very real possibility, there will come a day of reckoning for their malfeasance and it will not be pretty.
The latest development is bad news piled on top of a whole load of hot stinking bad news that was already lying around.
Research has discovered viable H5N1 in human victims’ blood. Not good.
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=47528
I hope everyone is keeping a real close eye on this thing and doing what they need to keep themselves and their local communities safe and prepared.
link
There is no excuse for unauthorized disclosures of classified information, it is argued, because whistleblowers who have legitimate complaints about classified government misconduct can use official channels to convey those concerns on a classified basis.
But as a practical matter, those channels are often blocked or ineffectual.
That is what former National Security Agency employee Russell D. Tice discovered when he attempted to initiate contact with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees to report what he believed to be “probable illegal conduct” by the NSA.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) did not respond to Mr. Tice’s approach at all.
House Intelligence Committee staffers met with Mr. Tice but concluded that neither they nor any member of the Committee had the requisite security clearances to receive his complaint.
Apparently the NSA told Tice that he has every right to petition Congress; however, Congress doesn’t have the security clearance to hear what he has to say. So Tice can’t give it away to Congress and if he did, they’d have to block their ears and sing so they wouldn’t hear. What a racket.
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so serious.
Does anyone have information on Keith Richards?
Uk Telegraph
Thank you Cabin Girl.
In the “euphemism by design” category (I love the way they do this):
Liinks are there @ GAO Reports page. Some of the best – and funniest – wordsmithing in government.
for very interesting reading on hump day
yet again they are predicting oil at $100/barrel…for what reason do they say this…well, here is one reason, IMHO.
intresting
The Der Spiegel article (translated to English) describes in detail the decrepit conditions of the Iraqi oil fields and ports and how vulnerable they are to disruption.
Highly recommended to all BooFrogs!
link
Experts fear Pakistan is losing fight against an Islamist militant revolt in its tribal belt
As hideouts go, the Shawal Valley in northern Pakistan is a militant’s dream. Lonely goat trails wind through a rocky 25-mile corridor that nudges the Afghan border. Its fiercely conservative tribesmen and forbidding high-walled compounds have sheltered Taliban fighters and probably al-Qaida fugitives.
[snip]
A vicious mini-war has erupted between the Pakistani army and the “Pakistani Taliban” in North Waziristan, a turbulent tribal area that has moved to the front line of the Pakistani and US “war on terror”. Every day sees fresh violence between the army and militants – a loose coalition of radical clerics, tribal leaders and al-Qaida fighters.
[snip]
The fight is also ideological. Taliban clerics have imposed strict social edicts, such as a ban on music or films, and started to dispense summary justice. Last week Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, told the Guardian he was concerned “Talibanisation” was spilling into the settled areas. “There is an extremist mindset – attacks on barbers, no television or songs,” he said.
A Pakistani intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the revolt was led by eight tribal and cleric leaders. Some have direct links to the Afghan Taliban. “We have apprehended people on their way to attack US positions in Afghanistan,” he said.
Anyone who has been following the reports of the Taliban/al Qaida seeping into Pakistan knows that this has been a long time coming. Bush insists that the Taliban is crushed. The reality is far different. It look like Pakistan as well as Afghanistan will be dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaida for a long time to come. This isn’t good.
link to NYT article, may not be behind free subscription.
Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men.
[snip]
“The security situation is not good,” Governor Munib told General Eikenberry and a group of cabinet ministers at a meeting with tribal elders. “The number of Taliban and enemy is several times more than that of the police and Afghan National Army in this province,” he said.
Uruzgan is not the only province teetering out of control. Helmand and Kandahar to the south have been increasingly overrun by militants this year, as large groups of Taliban are reportedly moving through the countryside, intimidating villagers, ambushing vehicles, and spoiling for a fight with coalition or Afghan forces.
Insurgents also have the run of parts of Zabul, Ghazni and Paktika Provinces to the southeast, and have increased ambushes on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.
The Bush administration is alarmed, according to a Western intelligence official close to the administration. He said that while senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed.
So not only are the Taliban and al-Qaida alive and well in Afghanistan, things are getting worse. This would explain the Bush admin’s silence lately on Afghanistan. They don’t want the American people to find out that they’ve screwed up royally… again.
bet they are really in a fix, if you ask me
wants to give insurance companies a helping hand by allowing them to refuse coverage for regular cancer screening tests, like mammograms: American Cancer Society
Please follow the link and take the time to send a fax or email. Thanks!
Last week or so I posted the below
CodePink Action Alert
ACTION ALERT – Peace in Iraq Call-In Day, Monday, April 24,
800-620-4394
Tell the Senate –
Not one penny more for the War!
No permanent U.S. bases in Iraq!
On Tuesday, April 25, the Senate will take up the supplemental spending bill for 2006. The current proposal includes $67 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afganistan.
————-
Thank you to all who called in!
From my Portland CodePink Email
Subject: [Ufpj-legislative] YOU made it happen! Victory in the Senate!
Amazing! The Senate has passed the Biden amendment to the supplemental spending bill — the amendment bars spending of any of the supplemental money on the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, or to exercise U.S. control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq!!!!
You wrote the letters and emails and made the phone calls — thank you for your hard work!
As in the House last month, the Senate approved this amendment by a voice vote (so we have no record of opposition or support by specific members). There was no debate on this amendment either.
UFPJ still opposes the supplemental spending bill — but it is expected to pass overwhelmingly. But the no permanent bases amendment is our silver lining. You may remember that on March 16, the House adopted a parallel amendment, introduced by Lee (D-CA), Allen (D-ME) and Schakowsky (D-IL), barring spending on permanent bases in Iraq.
Congress is definitely hearing our voices. They have agreed that America must not leave behind a permanent presense in Iraq, this is the first step toward troop withdrawal.
Congratulations!
Sue Udry
Legislative Action Coordinator
United for Peace and Justice
Don’t you hate it when work interferes with your blogging, LOL?
Ozone holes hanging around for a bit longer. Optimism that Earth’s protective ozone layer, ravaged by aerosol chemicals in the 20th century, may be restored within the next couple of decades is premature, according to a study published on Thursday. Recent assessments that suggest ozone erosion has now permanently stabilized fail to take into account the potential for volcanic eruptions, solar storms and other natural phenomena – as well as global warming – to distort the picture, it says.
Reagan Redux: Is this really news? The US government is conducting secret research into building a ground-based laser weapon that could destroy enemy satellites in orbit, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The secret project, which according to the Times was partially made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress in February, would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit. New Scientist magazine also covers the issue
Nanotechnology companies need to do more to understand potential toxic effects of their products, a senior UK researcher has warned. Professor Anthony Seaton, of Aberdeen University, said “very little” was still known about the health impacts of particles engineered at small scales.
Under increasingly severe criticism from the scientific community, NASA has opened the door to outside input on its proposed budget, expected to wind its way through congress over the next several months.
Geology News from Down Under: A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 rocked Tonga in the Pacific early Thursday, triggering panic evacuations in New Zealand after tsunami warnings were briefly issued for the South Pacific. And a fresh lava dome at the peak of Indonesia’s trembling Mount Merapi continued to expand Wednesday, suggesting an eruption that would send heatclouds down its slopes, a scientist warned Wednesday.
Climate gloom du jour: The vast loop of winds that drives climate across the tropical Pacific and helps nourish marine ecosystems has weakened by 3.5 percent since the mid-1800s and may weaken another 10 percent by 2100, according to a new study in Nature. The study indicates that the only plausible explanation is climate change.
Could it be industrial disease? Of the world’s 4 million patients who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, nearly 1.7 million are in China, a survey by Chinese experts shows. Parkinson’s disease has been linked to certain environmental chemical exposures. More here.
A new technology for producing drinking water from seawater has the potential to cost much less than the conventional alternatives: “Forward Osmosis.” While the current “reverse osmosis” technology uses pressure applied to saltwater to “push” just the water through a selectively permeable membrane to generate freshwater, the new technology uses ammonia and carbon dioxide added to water on the “clean” side to “pull” water through the membrane (hence the name). The dissolved gases are then removed and recycled in a separate step using waste heat, which is much cheaper than applying pressure – so the economics and energy needs of the process, once perfected, are expected to compare favorably to reverse osmosis as a means of generating drinking water.
Mystery du jour: Biologists have found that one of Darwin’s finches living in the remote Pacific archipelago of the Galapagos islands has begun to revert to an earlier form because of interference caused by a growing human population. Humans are causing evolution “to slip into reverse” for one of the finch species that lives on the islands. Scientists have found that the finch is losing the distinguishing trait that was causing it to split into two different species – its beak. The medium ground finch is normally found in two distinct forms – one with a larger beak the other with a smaller one – but when humans come to live alongside the finch, this “bimodal” beak size tends to disappear and the finches all have intermediate beaks. No one knows why, but introduction of alien plant species (whose seeds might be food for the birds) or people feeding the birds are suspected as causes.
Londoners interested in getting back to nature are taking up a new hobby – beekeeping. London beehives are not confined to parks and gardens. Robin Pemberton-Jones, a former governor of the Bank of England, kept hives on top of the Bank, and beekeepers provide honey for the Archbishop of Canterbury from hives in Lambeth Palace’s gardens. Others keep bees at the Natural History Museum and on top of Fortnum and Mason.
A new method to calculate the transfer of nitrogen from Arctic mushrooms to plants is shedding light on how fungi living symbiotically on plant roots and transfer vital nutrients to their hosts.
Quebec bans 2,4-D. The most stringent pesticide law in North America pulls more than 200 products from shelves.
I really like your science summary every morning, KP.
My comment below was in preparation while you posted and already covered it.
Ozone layer shows signs of recovery: scientists
Interational cooperation can work. Now, if we could only persuade Canada to stay with the Kyoto-Protocol and convince the greatest polluters to join…
Reuters reports
FCC finally took action against five online companies that sold confidential phone records.
Yeah. Indeed these are snoopers, stalkers and thieves.
I read somewhere that gov. agencies used these companies as a shortcut to get illegal info on people. Jeeze, now they’ll have to find their own illegal information. What a shame. š