seems no one likes the Condi Rice show: Times Online
CONDOLEEZZA RICE is coming under sustained criticism on several fronts.
Some, even within the White House, have started referring to the “Condi Rice show” — suggesting that the Secretary of State spends too much time on television talking to a domestic audience and not enough in international negotiations.
A senior Republican expressed unhappiness at the way that she was snubbed recently by Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister. “Henry Kissinger would never have been turned away from any capital,” he told The Times.
Richard Armitage, who was deputy to her predecessor, Colin Powell, has publicly attacked her for ignoring opportunities to negotiate with Syria. “We get a little lazy, I think, when we spend all our time as diplomats talking to our friends and not to our enemies,” he said.
Hmm…almost sounds like it’s time for her to be given a medal and promoted for her incompetence, doesn’t it?
Not only a failure of diplomacy, but a widening of the war would allow the neocons to blame Condi, and also have their big war against Iran and/or Syria. This “diplomacy” is so bad, I think it is meant to fail.
about Joe Francis, the Girls Gone Wild founder, is so awful I do’t even know where to begin: LA Times
Luckily, Amanda at Pandagon and zuzu at feministe have already weighed in on it, and Jessica at feministing has ideas for what to do about it. Please take 5 minutes this morning and tell Comedy Central how you feel about their accepting advertising from this steaming pile of dung.
Scientists know that the longer your drive to work, the more likely you are to feel frustrated and irritated and to experience physiological stress. Turns out the same is true for rail commuters, based on a study of New Jersey residents riding into New York daily.
The legal standards for demonstrating unreasonable risk of a chemical are so high under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that they have discouraged EPA from banning or restricting use of existing chemicals. Only 5 chemicals or groups of chemicals have been banned since 1976. Review of new chemicals provides only limited safety assurance. Report on Senate hearings available here; GAO report, “Actions are Needed to Improve the Effectiveness of EPA’s Chemical Review Program,” available here.
Climate change could reshape Europe’s energy sector as hotter and drier summers boost electricity demand and place new strains on its power stations. …Which is only to be expected when even the Inuit are ordering air conditioners: With signs that the world is warming, even Inuit peoples of the far north are ordering air conditioning: Better known for building igloos during hunts on the polar ice, Inuit in the village of Kuujjuaq in Quebec, Canada, are installing 10 air conditioners for about 25 office workers. “These are the times when the far north has to have air conditioners now to function,” said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a leading campaigner for the rights of 155,000 Inuit in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. “Our Arctic homes are made to be airtight for the cold and do not ‘breathe’ well in the heat with this warming trend,” she said. Temperatures in Kuujjuaq, home to 2,000 people, hit 31 Celsius (88 Fahrenheit) in late July.
FYI – I’ll be out of town on business Wednesday through Friday, so don’t panic when Science Headlines go missing for a few days…
The United States and France have produced a United Nations resolution of sorts aimed at ending the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, but the negotiations between US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and France’s Jean-Marc de La Sabliere nearly ended in disaster.
Through the course of a single week, the US and France came as close to a bitter split over Middle East policy as they had on the eve of the Iraq war. At issue in the confrontation was a US insistence that an international force (led by France) be deployed to Lebanon prior to the declaration of a ceasefire – a requirement the French thought ludicrous. They weren’t the only ones.
“The position that we’re taking in the UN is just nuts,” a former White House official close to the US decision-making process said during the negotiations. “The US wants to put international forces on the ground in the middle of the conflict, before there’s a ceasefire. The reasoning at the White House is that the international force could weigh on the side of the Israelis – could enforce Hezbollah’s disarmament.”
I have suspected from the get go that the US and Israel changed their mantra from “No cease fire” to “UN force BEFORE a cease fire” because they knew it would be unacceptable. By making unreasonable demands on a ceasefire, the US and Israel are guaranteeing that a ceasefire won’t intefere with Israel’s pummeling of Lebanon. The best part is that they think no one can see what they’re doing.
Mad Cow Watch Goes BlindCreekstone Farms, a Kansas beef producer, wants to reassure customers that its cattle are safe to eat by testing them all for mad cow disease. Sounds like a smart business move, but there’s one problem: The federal government won’t let the company do it.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture – invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to thwart con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers – is blocking companies from selling the testing kits to Creekstone.
USDA is doing the bidding of large cattle barons afraid that Creekstone’s marketing will force them to do the same tests to stay competitive. It’s true that the incidence of mad cow disease is quite low. But there’s little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.
Not only is USDA blocking Creekstone, the department said last month that it’s reducing its mad cow testing program by 90%. The industry and its sympathetic regulators seem to believe that the problem isn’t mad cow disease. It’s tests that find mad cow.
Senator: Bob Ney Won’t Seek Re-Election
Embattled U.S. Rep. Bob Ney Won’t Seek Re-Election, Fellow Republican Says
COLUMBUS, Ohio Aug 7, 2006 (AP)– U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, dogged by an influence peddling probe in Washington, will not seek re-election, state Sen. Joy Padgett said early Monday.
Ney called Padgett on Saturday and asked the fellow Republican to run in his place, saying that defending himself has been a strain on his family, she said.
“It’s a very sad time,” Padgett said of Ney’s decision, first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on its Web site.
She said Ney told her, “that there’s only so much he can take. He said, ‘I have to do this.'”
Cabingirl, I hope you don’t mind if I as you to read my newly posted diary. I was gonna bring these things over to your diary; however, thought it was tooooooo much to lay at your diary’s feet. I just wanted to collect these things [links] all together as one, for reading, is all. I want to tell you just how important you diaries are to all of us here, for reading and catching up on things. I try hard each day to brief them and take away some knowledge that I had not known before. After all this is why I am here—to learn. Thanks, tremendously for your endorsement on this and keep up the great work you and others do. hugs….
The number of immigrants illegally jumping the California-Mexico border appears to be increasing as enforcement gets tougher in Arizona, Border Patrol arrest statistics suggest.
It’s known as the water-balloon effect: Squeeze one spot and illegal immigration will bulge elsewhere along the 1,952-mile frontier. – linkage
As I’ve been harping for over a year now, until economic instability caused by NAFTA and other U.S. backed trade policies are examined and uprooted, the stream of humanity will continue to flow north. The Great Wall™ and armed national guard troops are dangerous forms of window dressing.
it’s just reverting back to the pre-Operation Gatekeeper days. Sigh…
Hope you’re able to make the Reggae Fest, when I saw them in December they were already playing a bunch of new music from the upcoming album. Excited to hear more of it in a couple weeks in Flagstaff.
Gallup: Lieberman Now More Popular With Republicans Than Democrats
The latest Gallup poll finds that among Republicans and Republican “leaners,” 46% view Lieberman favorably, while 27% view him unfavorably. Democrats are more evenly divided in their attitudes, with 38% viewing him favorably and 32% unfavorably. Currently, his support among Republicans is on the upswing. However, this is from a national sample and may not suggest a likely outcome next Tuesday.
Look like ‘ol Tombo will be on that ticket. CNN reporting at 5:30pm that Scalia nixed a Supreme Court hearing of Tom Delay’s case. The Texas GOP approached Scalia with the Delay case probably thinking that if anyone would approve it for the Supreme Court, it would be Scalia.
seems no one likes the Condi Rice show: Times Online
Hmm…almost sounds like it’s time for her to be given a medal and promoted for her incompetence, doesn’t it?
Almost sounds like they’re expecting (planning on?) a failure of diplomacy, and setting up Condi to take the fall…
Do you really think her husb-, I mean, George would let her take the fall?
He’s always hidden behind the women in his life – hardly the chivalrous sort.
Not only a failure of diplomacy, but a widening of the war would allow the neocons to blame Condi, and also have their big war against Iran and/or Syria. This “diplomacy” is so bad, I think it is meant to fail.
about Joe Francis, the Girls Gone Wild founder, is so awful I do’t even know where to begin:
LA Times
Luckily, Amanda at Pandagon and zuzu at feministe have already weighed in on it, and Jessica at feministing has ideas for what to do about it. Please take 5 minutes this morning and tell Comedy Central how you feel about their accepting advertising from this steaming pile of dung.
Man, what a piece of human waste product Francis is. I couldn’t stomach reading the entire article… not this early in the morning.
You see why I couldn’t even decide where to begin with a quote…ugh.
Just read it. What an asshole. That’s actually the nicest thing I could say about him.
Genetic analysis of spruce trees provides strong evidence for the presence of a tree refuge in Alaska during the last glacial period, and suggests that trees cannot migrate in response to climate change. The researchers’ findings also illustrate the great resilience of white spruce – and perhaps other tree species – to climate change, and have important implications for the future. For example, isolated populations of trees might persist in locally suitable habitats for long periods after regional climatic conditions have become unfavorable as a result of rapid global warming. This resilience might reduce the probability of species extinction and allow time for efforts at biodiversity conservation.
Speaking of resilience and hope for conservation, one of Britain’s rarest butterflies has returned to a spot where it has not been seen for more than 40 years, after a campaign to restore its habitat. And fishing nets with “exit holes” being introduced under a project to salvage depleted world fisheries are helping shrimp trawlers reduce unwanted extra catches by up to 70 percent, a UN study showed on Sunday.
Scientists know that the longer your drive to work, the more likely you are to feel frustrated and irritated and to experience physiological stress. Turns out the same is true for rail commuters, based on a study of New Jersey residents riding into New York daily.
Twenty leading marine scientists are calling for tighter controls on the live reef fish trade, a growing threat to coral reefs.
The legal standards for demonstrating unreasonable risk of a chemical are so high under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that they have discouraged EPA from banning or restricting use of existing chemicals. Only 5 chemicals or groups of chemicals have been banned since 1976. Review of new chemicals provides only limited safety assurance. Report on Senate hearings available here; GAO report, “Actions are Needed to Improve the Effectiveness of EPA’s Chemical Review Program,” available here.
FYI – I’ll be out of town on business Wednesday through Friday, so don’t panic when Science Headlines go missing for a few days…
Link
The United States and France have produced a United Nations resolution of sorts aimed at ending the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, but the negotiations between US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and France’s Jean-Marc de La Sabliere nearly ended in disaster.
Through the course of a single week, the US and France came as close to a bitter split over Middle East policy as they had on the eve of the Iraq war. At issue in the confrontation was a US insistence that an international force (led by France) be deployed to Lebanon prior to the declaration of a ceasefire – a requirement the French thought ludicrous. They weren’t the only ones.
“The position that we’re taking in the UN is just nuts,” a former White House official close to the US decision-making process said during the negotiations. “The US wants to put international forces on the ground in the middle of the conflict, before there’s a ceasefire. The reasoning at the White House is that the international force could weigh on the side of the Israelis – could enforce Hezbollah’s disarmament.”
I have suspected from the get go that the US and Israel changed their mantra from “No cease fire” to “UN force BEFORE a cease fire” because they knew it would be unacceptable. By making unreasonable demands on a ceasefire, the US and Israel are guaranteeing that a ceasefire won’t intefere with Israel’s pummeling of Lebanon. The best part is that they think no one can see what they’re doing.
Link
The U.S. Department of Agriculture – invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to thwart con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers – is blocking companies from selling the testing kits to Creekstone.
USDA is doing the bidding of large cattle barons afraid that Creekstone’s marketing will force them to do the same tests to stay competitive. It’s true that the incidence of mad cow disease is quite low. But there’s little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.
Not only is USDA blocking Creekstone, the department said last month that it’s reducing its mad cow testing program by 90%. The industry and its sympathetic regulators seem to believe that the problem isn’t mad cow disease. It’s tests that find mad cow.
More proof that our government wants citizens with brains of mush.
Link
Embattled U.S. Rep. Bob Ney Won’t Seek Re-Election, Fellow Republican Says
COLUMBUS, Ohio Aug 7, 2006 (AP)– U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, dogged by an influence peddling probe in Washington, will not seek re-election, state Sen. Joy Padgett said early Monday.
Ney called Padgett on Saturday and asked the fellow Republican to run in his place, saying that defending himself has been a strain on his family, she said.
“It’s a very sad time,” Padgett said of Ney’s decision, first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on its Web site.
She said Ney told her, “that there’s only so much he can take. He said, ‘I have to do this.'”
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Cabingirl, I hope you don’t mind if I as you to read my newly posted diary. I was gonna bring these things over to your diary; however, thought it was tooooooo much to lay at your diary’s feet. I just wanted to collect these things [links] all together as one, for reading, is all. I want to tell you just how important you diaries are to all of us here, for reading and catching up on things. I try hard each day to brief them and take away some knowledge that I had not known before. After all this is why I am here—to learn. Thanks, tremendously for your endorsement on this and keep up the great work you and others do. hugs….
Great roundup, Brenda. Recommended, and I hope everyone else will get a chance to check it out too. 🙂
As I’ve been harping for over a year now, until economic instability caused by NAFTA and other U.S. backed trade policies are examined and uprooted, the stream of humanity will continue to flow north. The Great Wall™ and armed national guard troops are dangerous forms of window dressing.
I’m not surprised at the shift.
OT, but thanks for the heads up on Ozomatli in Philly later this month. 🙂
it’s just reverting back to the pre-Operation Gatekeeper days. Sigh…
Hope you’re able to make the Reggae Fest, when I saw them in December they were already playing a bunch of new music from the upcoming album. Excited to hear more of it in a couple weeks in Flagstaff.
Link
The latest Gallup poll finds that among Republicans and Republican “leaners,” 46% view Lieberman favorably, while 27% view him unfavorably. Democrats are more evenly divided in their attitudes, with 38% viewing him favorably and 32% unfavorably. Currently, his support among Republicans is on the upswing. However, this is from a national sample and may not suggest a likely outcome next Tuesday.
Look like ‘ol Tombo will be on that ticket. CNN reporting at 5:30pm that Scalia nixed a Supreme Court hearing of Tom Delay’s case. The Texas GOP approached Scalia with the Delay case probably thinking that if anyone would approve it for the Supreme Court, it would be Scalia.
SURPRISE!!
not really “news” but ongoing…
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