Saturday, September 15, 2007
Mother Nature Bites Back
DENVER, United States (AFP) - They hosed the black bear with water, threw things at it and yelled, but the stubborn animal refused to move from its perch in a tree above a quiet neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.The headline accompanying this story reads "Hungry Bears Plague US West After Record Drought"
What it should say is "Hungry Bears Exacting Revenge on Humans for Building Houses All Over Bear Country."
If I remember history correctly, the bears were there long before the European invaders started to destroy their habitat. Go Bears!! (And I don't mean that pseudo football team from Chicago).
Third Fatal Crash in Four Days at Nevada Air Show
RENO, Nev. - Two airplanes collided Friday at the Reno National Championship Air Races, killing one pilot and injuring another in the third fatal crash at the event in four days.If I was the person organizing this air show, I'd be sending out invitations to all Repignican pilots in North America encouraging them to show up for the next few days of the show.
Minnesota Firefighters Rescue Donkey Trapped in Well
UNDERWOOD, Minn. - A donkey is happily eating grass again after falling down a dry, abandoned well and being freed in an intensive rescue effort. It appeared that the animal wandered away from its farm and onto some boards covering the well, which broke, said Bruce Huseth, fire chief in this western Minnesota town.Had this been an elephant I hope they would have decided to fill in the well and walk away.
Northwest Passage Ice Shrinks to New Low
PARIS - Arctic ice coverage has receded this week to record lows, the European Space Agency said, raising the prospect of greater maritime traffic through a long-sought waterway known as the Northwest Passage.Once again society is so thoroughly hosed. Faced with mounting evidence of the degree of environmental damage caused by global warming, how to "decision makers" view the topic? They see it as a way to make more money by shortening shipping lanes.
Until now, the passage has been expected to remain closed even during reduced ice cover by multiyear ice pack — sea ice that remains through one or more summers, ESA said.
So what if the polar bears are screwed? So what if vegetation changes cause the snow goose population nesting in the Arctic to plummet? So what if earth loses millions of acres of wetlands because of the loss of permafrost? None of it matters as long as some rich bastard somewhere finds a way to exploit the crisis for more profit.
Another Day, Another Lie From a Family Values Compassionate Conservative
Its SO precictable!! But what does it matter to a Repignican? They are not only the party of "god" but also the party where the ends justify the means.
King County Councilmember Jane Hague, in the midst of an already troubled re-election campaign, said Friday she takes full responsibility for widely circulated reports that she has a college degree that she doesn't have.
But Hague denied intentionally providing incorrect information and initially said she was puzzled at how several "Who's Who" books, The Seattle Times, the Municipal League of King County and the National Association of Counties all reported erroneously that she had a bachelor's degree from Western Michigan University.
"What is the point here? Are you trying to call me a liar?" she asked at one point.
Friday's telephone interview came nine days after Hague publicly apologized for speaking rudely and profanely to a sheriff's deputy and two state troopers who arrested her for alleged drunken driving June 2. She has pleaded not guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol.
... Asked why several "Who's Who" books said she had a bachelor's degree from Western Michigan, Hague said at first, "Beats me." She then speculated that her staff members may have inadvertently filled out forms with incorrect information.
... Jon Gelberg, senior managing director of special projects at Marquis Who's Who, said Hague submitted the information printed in that companies' publications.
This Just In From Nebraska....
....well ok...just in eight years ago. But some times the news moves slowly in the cornhusker state.
OPEC and Peak Oil: Global Warming Ain’t The Only Reason to Go Green
Precarious Energy Availability Joins Climate Debate As Reason to Conserve
Deborah Barrow, Founder, The Daily Green
Late August while we were all fixated on the end of yet another summer, this footnote to the endless stream of fear-inducing news from the Middle East was easy to miss:
Saudi Arabia to Set Up Oil Guarding Force
It seems the Saudis, who lay claim to 25% of the world’s known oil fields, are finally as freaked about terrorist attacks to their oil infrastructure as is everyone else in the world. They’re increasing the number of people protecting their many oil fields, miles of pipelines and shipping facilities from the current 5,000 to a reported 35,000. Many of these new guardians of our way of life will be trained by Lockheed Martin, a company that surely doesn’t want the Saudi oil fields to get hit by terrorists, what with it being so hard to fly planes and all with no jet fuel.
Here’s the good news: even with only 5,000 protectors, the Saudis have foiled 180 al-Qaeda operations against their facilities since 2003. Here’s the bad news: the Saudis have foiled 180 al-Qaeda operations against their facilities since 2003.
This week, News Editor Dan Shapley presents The Daily Green’s first look at Peak Oil. We’ve timed it to coincide with OPEC’s September meeting, where all manner of postulations about oil production and prices will fill our screens. We think that regardless of what the OPEC ministers decide about output, it’s time that the discussion about Peak Oil and its implications for this country’s economy, lifestyle as well as the climate debate goes mainstream. It’s far too important not to be discussed around dinner tables nationwide as well as in the presidential debates of this election cycle.
But before everyone gets their knickers in a twist, let me say that IMHO I think there are two kinds of Peak Oil. There’s the Geologic/Economic Peak Oil: the kind defined as the amount of oil left in the ground intersecting with growing global demand. And scientists and oil executives and others far smarter than I have passionate POVs about that, and their arguments pro and con are very entertaining. Scary. But entertaining.
And then there’s Geopolitical Peak Oil, which I define as oil shortages driven by the various political uncertainties in the nations where most of the oil actually lies under the ground. And if you’re paying any attention to this at all, you know there’s a lot of concern. As the Government Accounting Office said in a Peak Oil report just this year (and yes, the GAO has already weighed in) 60% of the world’s oil reserves are “in countries where relatively unstable political conditions could constrain oil exploration and production.”
In other words, a lot of the oil you use to drive to work and farmers use to grow our nation’s critical supply of Cheetos (a shout out here to brilliantly funny and equally frightening James Howard Kunstler) comes from countries where they either hate us, or where others who hate us could take over. You know, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. The usual suspects.
So, the time is now to get conversant about Peak Oil, hedge your bets and go green. It’s the best way to protect the Red, White and Blue. Who can argue with that?
New Word for the Policital Lexicon
John Stossel among other neocons is also a wacko. My friend Mike today coined the word "wackocon" for assholes like Stossel, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and other fascist bastards who put money and Repignican ideology above all else.
Wackocon - use it daily in all your conservations.
More On The Myth of the "Poor Farmer"
Regarding our "poor" farmers, so dependent on subsidies, Samuelson notes:
In 1934, per capita farm income was 33 percent of non-farm incomes; in 2004, farm household incomes (a slightly different measure) were 26 percent above the U.S. average.
Friday, September 14, 2007
A Surge and Then a Stab
Once again, Paul Krugman gets it right the first time, every time.
A Surge, and Then a Stab
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Friday 14 September 2007
To understand what's really happening in Iraq, follow the oil money, which already knows that the surge has failed.
Back in January, announcing his plan to send more troops to Iraq, President Bush declared that "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."
Near the top of his list was the promise that "to give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis."
There was a reason he placed such importance on oil: oil is pretty much the only thing Iraq has going for it. Two-thirds of Iraq's G.D.P. and almost all its government revenue come from the oil sector. Without an agreed system for sharing oil revenues, there is no Iraq, just a collection of armed gangs fighting for control of resources.
Well, the legislation Mr. Bush promised never materialized, and on Wednesday attempts to arrive at a compromise oil law collapsed.
What's particularly revealing is the cause of the breakdown. Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.
Now here's the thing: Ray L. Hunt, the chief executive and president of Hunt Oil, is a close political ally of Mr. Bush. More than that, Mr. Hunt is a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a key oversight body.
Some commentators have expressed surprise at the fact that a businessman with very close ties to the White House is undermining U.S. policy. But that isn't all that surprising, given this administration's history. Remember, Halliburton was still signing business deals with Iran years after Mr. Bush declared Iran a member of the "axis of evil."
No, what's interesting about this deal is the fact that Mr. Hunt, thanks to his policy position, is presumably as well-informed about the actual state of affairs in Iraq as anyone in the business world can be. By putting his money into a deal with the Kurds, despite Baghdad's disapproval, he's essentially betting that the Iraqi government - which hasn't met a single one of the major benchmarks Mr. Bush laid out in January - won't get its act together. Indeed, he's effectively betting against the survival of Iraq as a nation in any meaningful sense of the term.
The smart money, then, knows that the surge has failed, that the war is lost, and that Iraq is going the way of Yugoslavia. And I suspect that most people in the Bush administration - maybe even Mr. Bush himself - know this, too.
After all, if the administration had any real hope of retrieving the situation in Iraq, officials would be making an all-out effort to get the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to start delivering on some of those benchmarks, perhaps using the threat that Congress would cut off funds otherwise. Instead, the Bushies are making excuses, minimizing Iraqi failures, moving goal posts and, in general, giving the Maliki government no incentive to do anything differently.
And for that matter, if the administration had any real intention of turning public opinion around, as opposed to merely shoring up the base enough to keep Republican members of Congress on board, it would have sent Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, to as many news media outlets as possible - not granted an exclusive appearance to Fox News on Monday night.
All in all, Mr. Bush's actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you'd expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor.
In fact, that's my interpretation of something that startled many people: Mr. Bush's decision last month, after spending years denying that the Iraq war had anything in common with Vietnam, to suddenly embrace the parallel.
Here's how I see it: At this point, Mr. Bush is looking forward to replaying the political aftermath of Vietnam, in which the right wing eventually achieved a rewriting of history that would have made George Orwell proud, convincing millions of Americans that our soldiers had victory in their grasp but were stabbed in the back by the peaceniks back home.
What all this means is that the next president, even as he or she tries to extricate us from Iraq - and prevent the country's breakup from turning into a regional war - will have to deal with constant sniping from the people who lied us into an unnecessary war, then lost the war they started, but will never, ever, take responsibility for their failures.
Michigan Repignican Activist Gets 5 Years for Sexual Battery
It just never ends. Never.
Published September 14, 2007
Michigan GOP activist gets 5 years for sexual battery
Associated Press
CLEVELAND - A lawyer who formerly led a Michigan young Republicans organization was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison on a guilty plea to sexual battery stemming from allegations that he forced sex acts on a woman while both were at a convention last year.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peter J. Corrigan sentenced Michael A. Flory, 33, of Jackson, Mich. Flory, dressed in a jacket, white tie and dark blue button-down shirt, was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.
Other charges, including rape, kidnapping, aggravated burglary and gross sexual imposition, were dismissed when he pleaded guilty July 24.
Flory is the former chairman of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans.
He was attending a Cleveland convention of young Republicans, ages 18 to 40, at the time of the crime in July 2006. The victim, 21 at the time, was intoxicated and became ill, and Flory took her back to her hotel and attacked her in her hotel room, said assistant county prosecutor Carol Skutnik.
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