lapin, Author at Progress Pond

US Army Getting Desperate: Missed April Recruiting by 42%; Shoving M16s into Hands of Desk Jockeys!

On the heels of General Myers’ acknowledgement that the US Army is stretched thin by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, comes news that Army recruiting has missed its goals for new recruits for the third month in a row..

In initial reports on Monday, an Army spokesman refused to provide a margin by which the goal was missed. March 2005 recruiting was short by 32% and February’s was short by 27%. Today, the Army disclosed that April’s recruiting fell short by 42%.

This is not a good trend folks.
The Army has plans:

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said officials believe that increases in the number of recruiters, as well as new advertising and publicity efforts, will produce a surge in recruiting this summer so that the Army can meet its full-year goal of 80,000 recruits by Sept. 30.

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Boyce said big gains are expected this summer, and the Army is cautiously optimistic it will overcome the current recruiting deficit during a summer period that traditionally is a good period of recruiters.

Uh, yeah, good luck with that. Here’s the real plan, revealed in the wake of Myer’s acknowledgement on Monday:

Pentagon officials said several initiatives would mitigate the risks outlined in Myers’ report, such as increasing the number of special operations troops, placing more reliance on long-range precision weaponry and increasing the Army’s size by 10 combat brigades by converting soldiers in staff positions into frontline troops.

Look out desk jockeys! Look out all you rear echelon motherfuckers! Thought you could hide out in the supply depot in Maryland, did you? The freedom express is waiting to take you away.

But seriously, didn’t we see an admission by Myers last week that the Iraqi insurgency is as strong now as it was last year? Maybe that’s why recruiting is down, General. The kids aren’t falling for the videogame facade any longer. Word’s out, this war is too dangerous and half the country knows that the country was lied into it. These Bushco criminals have put us in a very dangerous situation.

Attacking Liberal Bias

How does one detect liberal bias? Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has the answer to that question:

Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests’ political leanings on one program, “Now With Bill Moyers.”

So simple! Merely track the guests on one of the most liberal leaning shows on PBS and then use that to paint the entire network as bereft of balance. Brilliant! PBS is in the White House cross hairs; their lining up wingers to smash it like every other social program they despise. But what happens when your pronunciations of bias conflict with reality?
Tomlinson’s decree is not the first time the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has attempted to hang the label of liberal on PBS. The CPB hired its own pollsters in 2003, looking for statistical backup for it allegation of bias:

More than half of those surveyed believed that PBS news and information programming was more “trustworthy” than news shows on the commercial networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN (while between 6 and 15 percent found PBS programming less trustworthy). Similarly, more than half of those surveyed believed that PBS provided more “in-depth” news and information programming than the networks (compared to between 17 and 24 percent who thought such programming was less in-depth). Only about 8 percent thought that PBS’s Iraq war coverage was “slanted.” More than a quarter of those surveyed said the reporting was “fair and balanced” (while 63 percent had “no opinion” at all). NPR received similar results. Few respondents believed that PBS and NPR “coverage of the Bush Administration” was “slanted” (a result that no doubt disappointed those at CPB who had formulated the question).

Finally, more than half (55 percent) said that PBS programming was “fair and balanced,” with strong support for its “high quality programming” and as “a valuable cultural resource.” NPR received an even higher approval rating for its programming, including perceptions that it is “fair and balanced” (79 percent of respondents). There was also strong support for government funding of public broadcasting (with only 10 percent of those surveyed believing that the annual $1.30 per capita funding was “too much”).

Whoops! No confirmation of perceived bias there. Let’s try something else. Like destruction of the agency from the inside:

Ken Ferree, the new acting president of CPB, told the Times’ Deborah Solomon this weekend that he doesn’t really know (or seem to care) much about PBS and NPR — entities whose funding he now oversees.

The CPB, of course, is responsible for allocating funds not only for NPR and PBS, but also Public Radio International. In an interview yesterday in the New York Times Magazine, Ferree, when asked what PBS shows are his favorites, admitted that “I’m not much of a TV consumer.” He then tossed off some of names of a few PBS staples, like “Nova” and “Masterpiece Theater” before admitting “I don’t know.” Ferree has also apparently tuned in once or twice to the “Newshour with Jim Lehrer,” because he confides to Solomon that “the Lehrer thing” is “slow.”

And it just keeps getting better. Asked if he perhaps prefers listening to NPR to watching PBS, he states flatly: “No. I do not get a lot of public radio for one simple reason. I commute to work on my motorcycle, and there is no radio access.”

You may recall that Ken Feree was head of the FCC’s media bureau and designer of the FCC’s attempt to change federal rules governing media consolidation. Hmmm, the acting president of the CPB does not even watch PBS or listen to NPR. How can he be expected to make decisions about public broadcasting if he does not even consume it?

There are also indications that the White House is aggressively inserting itself into the management of PBS:

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.

There is more evidence of coordination between CPB’s Tomlinson and the Bush White House:

Mr. Tomlinson has also occasionally worked with other White House officials on public broadcasting issues. Last year he enlisted the presidential adviser Karl Rove to help kill a legislative proposal that would change the composition of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board by requiring the president to fill about half the seats with people who had experience in local radio and television. The proposal was dropped after Mr. Rove and the White House criticized it.

This is a typical Bushco pattern, most starkly seen in higher level regulatory agencies. Pack the leadership of ‘rogue’ agencies with sympathetic political appointees. Create new operating guidelines outside the agency and then insert those appointees in key management roles to implement those guidelines they had just written. Recipe for disaster, at least in terms of the editorial independence that PBS has enjoyed until now.

Mr. Tomlinson’s efforts have not been limited to targeting Bill Moyer’s. He was instrumental in creating a new show on PBS that has a decidedly conservative bias:

Mr. Tomlinson did help get one program, “The Journal Editorial Report,” on the air as a way of balancing “Now.” Ms. Mitchell backed the program, but public broadcasting officials said Mr. Tomlinson was instrumental in lining up $5 million in corporate financing and pressing PBS to distribute it.

Public television executives noted that Mr. Gigot’s show by design features the members of the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, while Mr. Moyers’s guests included many conservatives, like Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition; Richard Viguerie, a conservative political strategist; and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

So now we can see that allegations of liberal bias are baseless. But that will not stop bulldozer heading for PBS:

Last November, members of the Association of Public Television Stations met in Baltimore along with officials from the corporation and PBS. Mr. Tomlinson told them they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate.

Mr. Tomlinson said that his comment was in jest and that he couldn’t imagine how remarks at “a fun occasion” were taken the wrong way. Others, though, were not amused.

“I was in that room,” said Ms. Mitchell [Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of PBS]. “I was surprised by the comment. I thought it was inappropriate.”

Hat-tip to Susanhbu for research assistance.

US House Passes ‘Grandmother Incarceration Act’

[editor’s note, by lapin]Susanhbu wrote about this legislation when it was still a proposal in an earlier diary, here.

In a move to chill access to abortion, the US House this week passed the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. The stated intent of the legislation is to “strengthen parental rights,” but effectively the bill will curtail access to abortion for those teenagers who must go to a state beside their own to access abortion services. The bill places severe penalties on those adults who accompany women under 18 years of age across state lines to reach an abortion provider. The maximum penalty is a $100,000 fine, a year in jail, or both. The bill has been dubbed by opponents as the “the grandmother incarceration act.”

President Bush is urging the Senate to take up a bill passed by the House this week that makes it a federal crime — complete with possible fines and jail sentences — for doctors or other adults to help patients under 18 evade parental-notification requirements by crossing state lines for an abortion.

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Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council and father of three daughters, said in an interview that the bill was one of his group’s top priorities for the year and called it “a recognition of parental authority.”

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, countered that the bill is “a bureaucratic nightmare” and is part of a multi-track strategy by conservatives that includes packing the judiciary with judges sympathetic to their views.

The bill, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, passed the House on Wednesday night by 270 to 157, with 216 Republicans in favor and 145 Democrats against. Crossing party lines were 54 Democrats who supported the bill and 11 Republicans who opposed it. The bill makes an exception if the abortion is necessary to save the life of the minor. The House passed similar bills in 1998, 1999 and 2002, but none passed the Senate.

There are provisions in the House bill to protect teens who seek abortions and whose lives are endangered or who may be subject to parental/guardian abuse if the parent/guardian receives notification:

The House bill has a provision, not in the Senate version, that requires an out-of-state abortion provider to notify one parent with three exceptions: if the patient shows documentation that she has exercised a judicial bypass provision; if she signs a statement saying she is a victim of neglect, or physical or sexual abuse, by a parent; or if her life is in danger.

Here’s a link to the roll call vote. You may want to check for your rep’s position on this. This is one of those bills that kind of slipped in under the radar. Have no doubts, if this passes the Senate, the Family Research Council and their affiliates will be emboldened to launch further attacks on access to abortion.

CATO Lays the Wood to Bush Energy Policy

in 2000! I stumbled across a op/ed piece written by the Cato Institute’s Director of Natural Resources, Jerry Taylor. The column, titled Bush Energy Babble, was published on the New Republic’s website September 30, 2000, just days prior to the election. This libertarian think tank’s scathing review of Bush Energy Policy could just as well have been written in April of 2005.

Reading this op/ed piece has given me an eerie feeling, as if time has stood completely still since Bush was elected. Join me below the fold for some of the more salient quotes….

Another day, another energy plan. Today, George W. Bush rolled out his — by my count — third action plan for dealing with high energy prices. Plan number one, pried out of him by Steve Forbes before the New Hampshire primary, was to do nothing and let the market work its wonders. Sure, he mumbled something about increasing domestic production, opening up some public lands to the industry, and working to promote natural gas, but he was clearly annoyed at having to spend any time whatsoever on a subject other than “compassionate conservatism.” Plan number two, unveiled a few months ago, was a more concrete plan calling for increased domestic production via tax preferences, regulatory relief, and access to public lands placed off limits by environmentalists of both parties. Plan number three is, well, plan number two enhanced by a handful of bad ideas stolen from . . . Al Gore; additional tax credits for renewable energy and energy efficiency, a federally managed home heating oil stockpile, more R&D for “clean coal” technologies, and additional cash transfers to the poor to help them pay their heating bills this winter.

See last night’s bullet points there?

*increasing domestic production

*opening up some public lands to the industry

*promote natural gas (would that be solid or liquid?)

*additional tax credits for renewable energy and energy efficiency (like that of a Hummer?)

*more R&D for “clean coal” technologies

*cash transfers to the poor (????????) didn’t hear this one last night but imagine the uproar if he had!

Taylor continues the smackdown on the myth that it’s OPEC’s fault:

First of all, a cutback in OPEC production raises the price of domestic crude just as much as it raises the price of Saudi crude. That’s because the oil market is an international market and domestic prices will rise to the world price. OPEC, whether we like it or not, has an ability to set the world price in the short run.

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Second, government policies that restrict drilling on attractive public lands in Alaska and off America’s coasts aren’t primarily responsible for our heavy reliance on imported oil. This is: It costs between $5.00 — $7.50 to produce a barrel of domestic oil versus about $1.50 to produce a barrel of Saudi crude. As long as the Persian Gulf nations have a lot of $1.50 a barrel oil laying around — and they do — they’re going to dominate the world market whether we allow drilling in environmentally sensitive areas or not.

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Third, you get the impression from W. that America is some sort of latent Saudi Arabia, sitting atop a vast pool of oil that for some inexplicable reason is being left to the bugs and bunnies. In reality, however, there simply isn’t enough oil in Alaska or other publicly owned lands to significantly expand the world market. Currently, the United States controls only 2.8 percent of the world’s proved reserves of petroleum. Adding Alaskan oil fields now off-limits to the industry in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) might increase that figure by about 50 percent.

So Cato Jerry is saying that the concept of drilling in ANWR would benefit American consumers is not reality based, American oil is statistically and economically insignificant, and American oil companies benefit more than foreign oil sellers when the world market price rises.

Libertarians describe themselves as market liberals, but they generally find allies in the far right (with the exception of some social policies). At the writing of this op/ed, I think they were right on in shredding Bush’s energy policy 6 years ago! They recognized the strangely symbiotic relationship between American and foreign oil producers. At no time in our history should our understanding of this relationship be more clearly shown than the relationship between our country’s president,(at his core, an independent oil man) and the de facto leader of the foreign oil cartel. I highly recommend reading the entire op ed, because this writer had the ability to see the future.

West Coast Duck and Cover

I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. In the 70’s (and probably now too), Charleston was a rich military target. We schoolchildren were often directed to watch films about the proper response to a nuclear missile attack. Duck and cover, turn away from the blast, get under your desk. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I remember thinking how glad I was that the likelihood of nuclear missile attack had been diminished and I wouldn’t have to think about my kids growing up with the paranoia of such an attack. Well a news story today has taken that away.

February 12, 2003

While testifying at a Senate committee hearing in Washington, CIA Director George Tenet was asked whether North Korea had a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast. Before answering, Tenet turned to very quickly consult with aides sitting behind him. “I think the declassified answer, is yes, they can do that,” Tenet said.

April 29, 2005

The Pentagon’s top military intelligence officer said yesterday that North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device, stunning senators he was addressing and prompting attempts by other defense and intelligence officials later to play down the impact. The statement by Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby before the Senate Armed Services Committee marked the first time that a U.S. official had publicly attributed such a capability to North Korea. Although U.S. intelligence authorities have said for years that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and could likely reach the United States with its long-range rockets, they had stopped short of asserting that North Korea had mastered the difficult task of miniaturizing a nuclear device to fit atop a ballistic missile. Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said U.S. intelligence agencies believe North Korea has developed multistage intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads capable of hitting the United States. A two-stage missile is believed capable of striking “Alaska and Hawaii, and I believe a portion of the Northwest,” he said.

So now, due to George’s incompetence, Bolton’s assholeyness, the determination of the North Koreans to successfully implement nuclear weaponry, and AQ Khan’s cut-rate Pakistani Nuclear Bazaar, we find ourselves faced again with the prospect of nuclear ballistic missile attack on our country. George and John couldn’t even sustain the dialogue that Clinton and Allbright initiated. Its as if Bushco wants to doom the country. How can any person say they feel more secure with these people in charge?

SciFri: ‘Eyes of Nye’

Bill Nye (who started his illustrious TV career on a Seattle produced show called Almost Live) has a new television series that is broadcast on PBS stations through American Public Television (PBS won’t distribute his show; it wasn’t serious enough for them, whatever). If you’re like me and feel that the scientific method has been taken to the woodshed one too many times lately, then you need to watch this show. And tell everyone you know to watch it as well. If the two episodes I saw are representative of the series, then reasoned discussion of scientific issues on American television is not dead.
The focus of the two episodes I saw were Cloning and Race. Now I’m not scientifically trained, but even still it was not difficult for me to understand the scientific concepts Nye presented in an engaging, informative manner.

CLONING

Remember when John Edwards, during the ’04 presidential campaign, discussed how stem cell research could lead to medical advances that could soon result in people like Christopher Reeve being able to walk. Remember how he was roundly derided in many press venues for making such a statement.

Bill Nye showed how John Edwards was telling the truth. Nye visited a research lab that was employing therapeutic cloning to grow nerve cells. A scientist explained how stem cells were grown following extraction from a fertilized human ovum. Nye went on a pretty lengthy riff about the moral debate around this issue then posed a series of thought provoking questions about the morality of letting a live person suffer when we have the knowledge and ability to help them. While Nye was discussing the political environment these questions were being debated in, he did something that was very impressive to me: he said “You can go to this website to keep track of federal legislation about stem cell research.” A banner at the bottom of the page gave the web address for the Library of Congress’s legislative information page(http://thomas.loc.gov/).

Warning: this is the ugly part. The scientist Nye was interviewing then showed a videotape of a lab rat that had “sustained a spinal cord injury.” I’ll leave it to you to figure out how that happened. The rat was unable to move its lower extremities and was dragging itself around its cage by its front legs. After being treated with stem cells, the rat soon regained its ability to move its lower extremities and was walking (stiffly, but still walking) around its pen. This may have been one of the best juxtapositions of science and political activism I have ever seen on television.

RACE

This episode focused on answering a central question: is there a biological difference between the races? With geneticists, Nye explored the fundamentals of DNA and differences between the appearances of what is known as racial groups. First, Nye explored the origins of humanity to explain why some people have darker skin than others. Humanity originated in areas close to the equator. Exposure to high levels of ultraviolet radiation required a high concentration of melanin in the skin for protection of the skin. As humans moved to areas away from the equator, they were exposed to lower and lower levels of UV. The concentration of melanin in their skin then decreased so that enough UV rays could penetrate the lowest levels of the dermis. Humans need some UV exposure to produce vitamin D. Without vitamin D, people have difficulty metabolizing calcium and thus suffer from rickets and other debilitating conditions. So humans developed lighter skin color as an evolutionary response to decreased UV exposure. Not because some deity determined that light skinned people were superior!

Then Nye, with genetic researchers, examined the profile of his own DNA. Scientists use DNA markers, which are the oldest components of our DNA to establish genetic origin. Nye’s DNA bore resemblance to the DNA of residents of Northern Africa. So Nye, a white guy, has the same genetic sequence as a North African person. So boom! Any rational basis for saying an African person is fundamentally different from a Caucasian person was completely blown out of the water in less than 30 minutes. And it was fun to watch!

I’m not a scientist, but I have an appreciation for the scientific method. Anything that can restore rational discourse related to scientific matters in the public forum deserves our support. Because our current faith based presidency is dooming us.

Nye was recently interviewed in the Seattle Times. From what he said, I’d swear he was a reader of blogs like this:

I was just at the American Association of the Advancement of Science, and I’m not a spokesman for the AAAS or anything, but anecdotally, everybody’s very concerned. Because along with this resurgence or embracing of fundamental Christianity is this rejection of science. And that’s bad. Science has brought us so much. Like I’m talking to you on a cellphone, for crying out loud, from the other side of a continent. And we accept it as part of our lives, and we even expect it. And we all eat food grown on farms that are perhaps hundredths of the size of the amount of land needed per person as it was 200 years ago. And then to go and reject that process, to reject that way of understanding the world in favor of this other philosophy, is not good.

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I like to regard myself as someone who’s capable of critical thought, that is to say who can evaluate claims. When I go to Dinosaur National Monument and look at the hillside there that’s under a pavilion built by the Woodrow Wilson administration, when I look at the dinosaur bones accumulated there, I cannot accept the idea that the Earth is 10,000 years old and that we were put here just as we are. That is not reasonable to me. That this divine being or something put these things here to test me? Created all of radio chemistry — that is the potassium argon dating of volcanic soil — created all this just to fool me? … I believe that [people who believe these things] haven’t been well enough educated in the process of science and the generally accepted — for lack of a better term — truths about the universe, about nature.

Bill Nye is a hero. If you have a television, you should watch his show.

Respectfully crossposted at DailyKos

Toyota Embarrasses GM/Ford

The chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation is so concerned with the state of the American auto industry that he is recommending Japanese auto companies increase prices for their products:

Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Hiroshi Okuda was quoted by Japanese media on Tuesday as saying the plight of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. could result in problems for Toyota and other foreign carmakers.

Okuda told reporters Monday that Japan’s auto industry must consider a response, such as raising car prices in the United States and cooperating in technology.

“We need to give some time for American companies to take a breath,” Okuda was quoted as saying by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan’s biggest business daily.

It’s a sad day for American industry when its foreign competitors feel compelled to lend a helping hand.
I’m not criticizing the Japanese. They have done a bang up job taking the long range point of view. Their focus on developing reliable, affordable, fuel efficient vehicles has given them a competitive edge. The Toyota Motor Corp. chair is articulating this long range vision with his statements. He recognizes that Toyota, if it continues on the path it is currently following, could be blamed for the complete implosion of American car manufacturers. In reality, Toyota contributes to this implosion by offering superior products that the American car companies are too short sighted to develop. And I won’t deny that the business environment in Japan is different from that of the United States, which may result in other advantages to the Japanese automakers (although many Japanese cars sold in the US are manufactured in the US as well).

No, this is a pure criticism of American car companies and the federal government that sets the policy framework they operate in. The auto industries and their lobbyists have been playing head-in-the-sand, working their connections with federal representatives to defeat initiatives to increase gas mileage standards and lower emissions. Their efforts have been successful, but that success is tainted with the bitter taste of failure to compete. Emblematic of this industry/government failure is the juxtaposition of the end of a tax credit for purchasers of hybrid cars while at the same time purchasers of SUV’s over 6,000 pounds (like Hummers that only get 8 miles per gallon) can write off their purchases in entirety in one year.

Now, American car manufacturers are reaping the whirlwind, with sagging sales and extensions of mercy from their competitors. Bittersweet mercy it is too. If Japanese competitors were to actually raise their prices, they would probably continue to sell a similar number of cars and increase their profits, furthering their competitive edge with access to even greater resources for technological development.

Last week, General Motors reported a loss of $1.1 billion for the January-March quarter, its biggest quarterly loss in more than a decade, partly because the Detroit automaker has been losing U.S. market share to Asian manufacturers.

While faring better than GM, Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford is also losing market share and says it could sink post a loss or break even before special charges in the second quarter.

Toyota, which reports earnings next month, has been consistently boosting global sales.

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Toyota, based in Toyota city in central Japan, has passed Ford to become the No. 2 automaker in global vehicle sales. Some analysts believe it’s just a matter of time before it catches up with GM, the world’s biggest automaker.

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On Monday, Nissan Motor Co. posted record profits for the fiscal year ended March 31 with U.S. vehicle sales surging 18 percent from a year ago. Honda Motor Co. reported a 5 percent increase in fiscal year profit Tuesday as sales climbed to a record for the fourth straight year.

Business can be like an evolutionary laboratory. Those species that fail to adapt, disappear. We need visionary leadership in our remaining American industries and government to take on the challenges that face us. We don’t need those only interested in turning back the clock 200 years.

Respectfully crossposted at Daily Kos.

Abramoff Used DeLay to Fund Anti-Intifada Militia

[editor’s note, by lapin] BooMan has graciously invited me to post on the front page. Thank you for this privilege.

Jack Abramoff dangled a carrot to Indian tribes in exchange for contributions to a charity he set up, the Capital Athletic Foundation. The Foundation had been described to them by Abramoff as one of Tom DeLay’s favorites. They understood that contributions to the charity would grease the skids into Tom DeLay’s office. What they didn’t understand was that some of their contributions would be used to fund anti-intifada operations by Israeli settlers:

More than $140,000 of foundation funds were actually sent to the Israeli West Bank where they were used by a Jewish settler to mobilize against the Palestinian uprising. Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as “security” equipment.

Abramoff has stepped in it big time.

The Newsweek investigative piece details shattering revelations:

The charity, called the Capital Athletic Foundation, was supposed to provide sports programs and teach “leadership skills” to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.
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In 2002 alone, records show, three Indian tribes donated nearly $1.1 million to the Capital Athletic Foundation. But now, NEWSWEEK has learned, investigators probing Abramoff’s finances have found some of the money meant for inner-city kids went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada.
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The FBI, sources tell NEWSWEEK, is now examining these payments as part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients. The tribal donors are outraged. “This is almost like outer-limits bizarre,” says Henry Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation at Abramoff’s urging. “The tribe would never have given money for this.”

Abramoff is described in the article by one of his associates as a super-zionist. The connection between Israeli internal affairs and American policies has only been strengthened by DeLay and his association with Abramoff. Who would have guessed that gambling Americans would end up funding sniper rifles for Israeli settlers. This is truly bizarre.

Jack Abramoff in his natural state: consulting with his lawyer in 2004

The Unbelievable Denial That is Consuming Them

If you’ve read any diaries I’ve written over at dKos, you may know that I have a few local talk radio hosts that I torture (merely in the rhetorical sense). When they start spouting the talking points on koolaid overdrive, I feel compelled to call them, even though I’m often met with a torrent of abuse by the hosts. I have a couple of purposes:
*disrupt the delivery of the message, whatever it may be
*right what I percieve is a wrong perpertrated on the public
*revenge; I just can’t take it sometimes and must have satisfaction

Well today I called in again.
Of course, the topic was Terri Schiavo (how could they resist?). The hostess sounded like she was reading from a list of talking points(sidenote here: I think the driver of the Schiavo drama has moved beyond the GOP. I think the fundies have taken over and the party regulars who were content to ride the fundies to power are scared shitless at what they have created, so in this context talking points have been distributed by Focus on the Family/insert favorite fundie group here). You know, all the standard stuff:
*Mike Schiavo hasn’t provided Terri therapy since 1991
*Mike Schiavo spent all the settlement from the malpractice suits on lawyers so he could kill his wife
*17 Physicians have stated that Terri could be cured (yes, but did they examine her
*Mike Schiavo is the devil
*George Bush said we should err on the side of life. What’s the rush to kill Terri?
*On and on and on.

You may ask yourself why I subject myself to this, and I can only answer that I feel like I have a mission to monitor this station and provide dissent when ever possible. Dissenting voices are rare on their shows but necessary.

So I just can’t stand it any longer. I call in and get placed on hold. The callers in front of me say they agree with the hostess and can’t understand how the courts have no respect for life and why can’t a leader come out of the judiciary to save Terri. Ugh. Finally, she gets to me:

Hostess: Now to lapin; you’ll have to be quick, we are pressed for time.

Me: Thanks. I really need your help to understand something. I hear you talk about your president and how he says we should err on the side of life. Now I’m sure you’ve heard about the report that was published in the British medical journal Lancet that said 100,000 Iraqis had died in our war. Why doesn’t the culture of life value these innocent women and children who died for the lie of WMD? Is this one woman’s life more valuable than the 1,000’s who have died in Iraq? Why aren’t you guys upset about those people?

Look, the topic is Terri Schiavo. I realize you’re just trying to muddy the waters and make this a political discussion. I realize that lots of Iraqis have died, but lots of Americans have died there too. And I also realize that generations of Iraqis will live in democracy and freedom. You’re not going to get me going down the Iraq rabbit trail. All you people that are trying to make this a political issue are just stupid! You just want to kill disabled people. You know Hitler wanted a perfect society too, with no disabled people.

Click

With every word of her response, her voice rose in tone and shrillness. She would not allow me to respond following her rant (I wanted to ask her if all self professed Christians have such flexible moral standards; no slam on all Christians intended, just the theocon ones). I only had to speak 5 mild sentences and she went ballistic. What has become evident to me is that these people firmly believe everything they say, in spite of what the facts of the situation may be. Comparing Hitler to me threw me for a loop; this is the same woman who has railed against civil unions and gay adoption for years (I call her on that too). They are incapable of believing anything other than what they are told to believe. They are becoming the caged beast, the rabid one and I think we are on the verge of a very dangerous time. The theocrats recognize they have stumbled. They can choose to back off, or they can strike in an attempt to restore their base some legitimacy. It’s the strike back I’m worried about.

Abstinence Only=More STD’s

cross posted at dKos

May this be the final nail in the coffin of abstinence only programs:

Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain their earlier findings that teens who pledged abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.

Some of the findings of the study are quite shocking….

The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, “puts you at risk,” said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study’s authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge.

The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the researchers found.

Does anal sex only mean you are still a virgin?

But you know, this is science so those who are not members of the reality based community will most likely dismiss this study as the biased ramblings of eggheads who have nothing going for them but tenure. That is, until something scary starts dripping out of little Johnny’s penis before Sunday school one week.

Please forward this article to anyone you know who is an adherent of abstinence only programs. Like Bill Frist and others intent on killing our kids with ignorance.