In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Yes, this is a not-so-subtle hint to pick up the phone today and call your Representatives and Senators and let them know they need to vote against torture. And while you’re at it, why not let them know how you feel about the the National Intelligence Estimate report that was completed in April being withheld from release until after the November elections?
And I’ll just finish up with another quote from Molly Ivins recent column on the subject:
How will you feel if you didn’t do something? “Well, honey, when the United States decided to adopt torture as an official policy, I was dipping the dog for ticks.”
</soapbox>
Bush and Blair big time Daily Mail
True to form, the 43-year-old star did his utmost to shock on the first night of his comeback tour, with an ill-advised political satire featuring cartoon bestiality.
Sporting his trademark shades, designer stubble and a two-piece suit, the singer launched into a passionate rendition of his 2002 political track, Shoot The Dog.
But as he belted out the anti-war number, which portrayed Tony Blair as George Bush’s poodle, a cartoon backdrop showing Bush, Blair and the Prime Minister’s wife, Cherie, in bed together, emerged.
And then there’s the bit about the W balloon and the zipper…
How nice that Mrs. Bush offered a statement of condolence on the assassination of Afghani womens’ rights activist, Safia Ahmend-Jan.
an apology for her husband’s bungling of Afghanistan would have been more appropriate.
Sadly, Mr. Bush’s complete and total lack of compassion/manners/humanity no longer surprises me.
the “root cause of abortion”? Are these people crazy? (yeah, I know): Chicago Trib
Their voices were raised in Rosemont on Friday and Saturday at an unusual anti-abortion meeting that drew 250 people from around the nation to condemn artificial birth control. Experts at the gathering assailed contraception on the grounds that it devalues children, harms relationships between men and women, promotes sexual promiscuity and leads to falling birth rates, among social ills.
“Contraception is more the root cause of abortion than anything else,” Joseph Scheidler, an anti-abortion veteran whose Pro-Life Action League sponsored the conference, said in an interview.
When I read this, I kept thinking about all those folks at the big Orange who want to throw a woman’s right to choose under the bus in the name of winning elections. Is contraception the next thing they’ll want to toss? Did they really think anti-choicers would be satisfied with getting their way on choice, and not want to take more reproductive rights away? Are we all going to wind up living in Gilead?
Sadly, too many supposed liberals deride principle as “ideology”, as if standing for something was deplorable. I believe they are more interested in political power than anything else. They believe we have no where else to go so they consider us expendable.
I’m done voting for or supporting candidates who won’t stand up for all our rights.
(So much climate change stuff in the news today, I’ll post it separately below)
Some good news: The first Russian trials of a human vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus was a success, a Russian research institute member said Monday.
Two new extrasolar “hot Jupiter” type planets have been discovered, and they may be among the hottest yet found. How hot are they? Astronomers said, “All the theoretical models tell us that these planets should have dense cloud decks made essentially of ‘rock snowflakes’; the sorts of chemicals which condense to form clouds at these high temperatures are things that we normally think of on Earth as minerals – olivine, forsterite, all the magnesium silicates.”
Mosquitoes’ thirst for sugar could prove to be the answer for eliminating malaria and other mosquito-transmitted diseases. While it is generally well known that female mosquitoes need a meal of blood before laying their eggs, less well known is their appetite for sweet snacks from nectar-containing flowers between meals to keep their energy level up. Researchers found that praying mosquito-attracting flowers and trees with insecticide-laced sugar solution reduced the mosquito population in test areas dramatically.
In other bug news, up to a third of our food supply depends on pollination by domesticated honeybees, and researchers have found the honeybees are up to five times more efficient when wild bees buzz the same field. There appear to be two reasons for this. Male wild bees, probably looking for mates, will latch onto worker honeybees, which are sterile females, causing them to move from one flower to another. Secondly, female wild bees appear to “dive bomb” honeybees, forcing them to move. Frequent movement between flowers spreads pollen around more effectively.
“Researchers found that praying mosquito-attracting flowers and trees with insecticide-laced sugar solution reduced the mosquito population in test areas dramatically.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that kill any other insect (honeybees, butterflys) or birds (hummingbirds) nearby? That seems like an extreme solution thought up by, oh, I don’t know, a neocon funded research lab in debt to insecticide companies? Just a guess, but sheesh.
Wild vs domestic honeybees… I wouldn’t know the difference. Keres posted a pic of Tasmanian wild honeybees last week and they were deeper in color. I wonder about US wild bees… I’ll have to go look it up. We have lots of honewbees around here, thanks to a neighbor who keeps them, but they’re usually very docile when they’re on pollen. (unless you wear a yellow shirt)
Link
Citing extremism, more GOPers are joining the Democrats.
A trend of local, below-the-radar party-switches is undercutting Republicans as they face the sternest challenge in a decade to one-party control of Congress and several state legislatures. Such party-switching by elected officials often indicates that the label they are shedding has lost appeal and foreshadows poor performance at the polls.
Some recent switchers are exiting GOP ranks with a bang. Distorted priorities, the federal deficit and the Iraq war are common themes in their announcements. And in a direct swipe at the far-right ideology that has become a governing credo in the Bush years, they cite intolerance in the party as the chief reason for leaving.
“The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing,” Oklahoma state Senator Nancy Riley told the Associated Press in August, when she became a Democrat. Riley represents a district in suburban Tulsa and has served as minority whip in a chamber that her former party was looking to take over in the fall election. She announced her defection after years of what she described as “abhorrent” treatment by Republican leaders who suffer a “lack of compassion for people.”
This restores my faith that the middle of the road Republicans with a sense of decency still exists… and they’re bailing out of the party of Bush.
A new study by NASA climatologists (including James Hansen) finds that the world’s temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in 12,000 years, and is only 1 degree C (1.8F) from tipping into temperatures not seen in a million years. The study concludes that, because of a rapid warming trend over the past 30 years, the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted nearly 12,000 years. This warming is forcing a migration of plant and animal species toward the poles. Data reveal that the Earth has been warming at the remarkably rapid rate of approximately 0.2C (0.36F) per decade for the past 30 years. This observed warming is similar to the warming rate predicted in the 1980s in initial global climate model simulations with changing levels of greenhouse gases. More here, and on the front page from Steven D.
Ancient rocks from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean suggest dramatic climate changes during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era, a time once thought to have been monotonously hot and humid. Understanding the natural variability in climate in past eras is important to modeling future climate changes, both natural and mad-made.
And the British weekly New Scientist gets snarky: “Maybe this is Earth’s way of telling President George W. Bush that global warming cannot be ignored: in just one year, the perennial sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has shrunk by nearly three-quarters of a million square kilometres, an area comparable to that of Bush’s home state of Texas.” Full story here.
Scientists and some environmentalists have begun to question the environmental and social arguments for bioethanol and biodiesel, casting serious doubts on whether either can meet high hopes. (subscription required)
More plants make more rain: A statistical study of satellite images indicates that more plants create more rain – adding to the impetus to preserve green spaces in dry regions, in order to help prevent deserts from growing and encroaching on agricultural land.
Scientists have issued their strongest warning so far this year that unusually warm Caribbean Sea temperatures threaten coral reefs that suffered widespread damage last year in record-setting heat. Waters have reached 85 degrees around the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico — temperatures at which coral can be damaged if waters do not cool after a few weeks — said Al Strong, a scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, in a telephone interview Monday.
The feud between doors No: 10 and 11 continues;
Cherie Blair denies calling Brown a liar, but damage is done. “It no secret that she dislikes Mr Brown and does not want him to succeed her husband. Her hostility will have increased after allegations that Brown supporters attempted a coup against the Prime Minister earlier this month.”
James Baker, the family fixer and Frank Carlucci are kissing and making up with Libya’s Qaddafi:
Carlyle, the US private equity group with links to leading Republicans in talks to buy state-controlled Tamoil, valued at €3bn.
Musharraf: attacks Brit’s M16
from his book “In the line of Fire”
“The signal for the hijackers to act would be the “fasten seatbelts” sign when it was switched on before landing”
All is not quiet on the Iraqi northern front:
Is Turkey and Iran Preparing for War in Iraqi Kurdistan?
(Commenters Note on the credibility of the link: the contents in the piece reported yesterday on Dutch Public Radio.)
Is there a connection?
Iraq’s president Talabani would like 2 permanent American air bases.
The Ottoman empire returns!
Can the Baghdad Caliphate be far behind?
Is that you before the beard? Nice pants. Oh, with matching gloves… almost missed that. LoL
In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power. The opening graphs:
There’s more of course.
Found quite by coincidence as someone posting at Metafilter had linked to something I’d posted at my blog.