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02-21-09 - Don't Drink the Water & Don't Breathe the Air (Tom Lehrer wiki - playlist - youtube - pollution):
- Sweetness and Blight - There's mercury in our soda pop! (grist) "Why is the FDA unwilling to study evidence of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup?"
- Biting the Hand That Seeds You (nytimes) "Biotech companies block scientists from researching environmental impacts of GMOs"
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- Rewriting History: Prince of Darkness Richard Perle Denies Own Existence (washingtonpost)
- Global Warming and Lack of Will - Why We're All Bound to Roast:
- Rich nations failing to meet climate aid pledges (guardian.co.uk) "World's richest countries have pledged nearly $18bn to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, but less than $1bn has been disbursed"
- Class Warfare:
- The Grand Obstructionist Party:
- Strong Investment (digbysblog) -- Republicons playing the judicial system to keep Sen. Al Franken from being seated and adding to the Democrat majority
- Coleman Flip-Flops Yet Again on Counting Rejected Absentee Ballots (bradblog)
- Social Security Under Attack -- Again:
- Peter G. Peterson Foundation - Titanic Liars (digbysblog)
- Our "Liberal Media":
- The Swift View of Comet Lulin (apod)
02-20-09 - Barack's Gang:
- Who Will Be Left to Watch His Back When Obusha's Floor Drops Out? (commondreams)
- Obama's legal changes may be fewer than expected (mcclatchydc)
- Is Obama Preserving the Constitution? (smmirror)
- Barack Obama and the Imperial Presidency (firedoglake)
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- Jane Meyer: The Hard Cases (newyorker) "Will Obama institute a new kind of preventive detention for terrorist suspects?"
- Greenwald: Charlie Savage on Obama's embrace of Bush/Cheney "terrorism policies" (salon) "Is it too early to sound the alarm bells that Obama is moving much faster and more aggressively than many expected to maintain key Bush/Cheney powers?"
- Venezuela, An Imaginary Threat (guardian.co.uk) "Obama is maintaining a hostile policy towards Hugo Chávez – which will cost the US friendships elsewhere in Latin America"
- The Military's Expanding Waistline - What Will Obama Do With KBR? (tomdispatch)
- Israel/Murders in Iran: Is Israel assassinating Iran nuclear scientists? (haaretz) -- Like wet gremlins loose in the house.
- Israel/Gaza Atrocities: Once You See What Truly Happened in Gaza, It Will Change You Forever (alternet)
- Class Warfare/Economic Shakedown:
- US claims 52,000 hid UBS Swiss bank accounts (ft) -- UBS admits helping tax evaders (cnn)
- Restoring the Rule of Law:
- War Criminals, Including Their Lawyers, Must Be Prosecuted (commondreams)
- Scott Horton: Investigating Bush's Crimes (thenation)
- Will Obama back 'truth commission' to probe Bush practices? (mcclatchydc)
- Global Warming - Time for Activism:
- Snake in the Dark (apod)
02-19-09 - Our "Liberal Media":
- Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch promotes degrading, violent, racist cartoon against President Obama (buzzflash) -- The Secret Service should be all over this newspaper and all over Murdoch for allowing it. See more of this cretin's tasteless cartoons (gawker).
- Robert Parry offers a historical perspective on the changes that have come over the MSM (consortiumnews). What he doesn't emphasize is that the MSM shift to the right was enabled by conservative-engineered legislation -- and legislation can also be used very beneficially now to start backing us out of the hole where those earlier decisions have left us uncomfortably wedged. Rightwing lunatics, like all boundary-testing children, have figured Obama for a pushover and now are waging an all-out deceitful war against Obama's and Democrats' attempts to right the capsized ship of state. Their objective is to obstruct the Democrat president's governance, just as they did throughout the entirety of Clinton's 8 years. Obama can change that and change it he must.
- Class Warfare Is Alive And Well:
- CNBC's Bourgeois-Riot Party Wants to Act Out Again (nomoremister.blogspot) -- CNBC's Rick Santelli urges a Chicago Tea Party against Obama's attempts to help over-mortgaged homeowners. Maybe Rick could organize and lead something like the Brooks Brothers Riot (which consisted of bussed-in GOP staffers, who illegally interfered with and shut down the recounting of the November 2000 vote in Miami, Florida).
- Update 02-20-09: The White House has declared war on CNBC Ranter Rick Santelli (salon)
- Economists: Stop Talking About The Non-Existent Social Security Crisis (wonkroom) "Social Security is not facing a crisis, or anything that any reasonable person could call a crisis…It’s a very distant problem . . . The “entitlement crisis” frame is entirely misleading." However, "there are concerns that it will be a perfect opportunity for Obama “to compromise with deficit hawks” on entitlement reform." -- Digby has words of warning on it here (digbysblog.blogspot).
- Newly Poor Swell Lines at Food Banks Nationwide (nytimes) "Demand at food banks across the country increased by 30 percent in 2008 from the previous year", how much more by now?
- Religious Right Evangenital Hypocrite Watch:
- "Ex-Gay" Poster Boy Chris Delaney Opposes Freedom and Sexual Honesty (truthwinsout) "Delaney admits the reason why he asserts that anyone can change: It is because, to do otherwise, would be to admit that gay people deserve the same freedom and respect as anyone else:"
- Megachurch Willow Creek Chicago Pastor Rev. Steve Wu Steps Down For ‘Sexual Impurity’ (truthwinsout) "Willow Creek encourages gay people to “change” or remain celibate. Meanwhile, this is the kind of sexual immorality that is going on at the church, while gay people are guilted into abandoning hopes of love, affection, sexual pleasure and a healthy relationship. It is time these hypocrites look in the mirror, instead of pointing fingers at others that they do not understand."
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- The 'Enemy Combatant' Canard - the al-Marri case (harpers) -- Bush is guilty of tyranny. Will Obama be the same? Includes a Rachel Maddow interview of Jane Mayer.
- Afghanistan Contractor Theft/Corruption (guardian.co.uk) -- Sounds just like Bush's pals in Iraq.
- Move to deploy extra 17,000 troops is but a short-term 'sticking plaster' until total review of Afghan situation (guardian.co.uk)
- The Great Economic Shakedown:
- Mauna Kea Milky Way Panorama (apod)
02-18-09 - Religious Right's Cruel Homo-Fascist Agenda - What's It's Ultimately All About - These Particular Fascist Extremists Below Are Just Honest Enough to Say It: (WARNING: Keep this little antidote nearby as you read the insanity below: 'I Do' (Bjorn Borg, youtube))
- Utah Legislature just killed complete set of gay rights bills. (sltrib four down, one to go - last one down) Opponents lied, as they always do when they refer to homosexuality as a life-style "choice rather than an innate characteristic -- contrary to a broad consensus among psychological and medical experts."
- Front group 'America Forever' ran full-page ads comparing "being gay to being "druggies and hookers," labels homosexuality as "anti-species behavior" and concludes that "gays should be forced not to display" their sexual orientation."
- Jamaican MP argues that "the proper sentence for buggery should be life imprisonment."
- Nigeria making it illegal to be gay (minnesotaindependent)
- Matt Barber of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law and Liberty Counsel basically agrees and supports this position.
- Minnesota: "The defense of imprisoning gays and lesbians is not new for the religious right. Right here in Minnesota, the “pro-family” group Minnesota Family Council was founded to defend sodomy laws, laws that police used for decades to arrest gays and lesbians on the street, raid and shut down gay and lesbian bars, and imprison same-sex couples. The Family Council fought vigorously in the 1980s and early 1990s to keep in place Minnesota laws that could result in the imprisonment of gays and lesbians simply based on their sexual orientation."
- "These actions and statements reveal that “pro-family” and “traditional marriage” are code words for an agenda whose ultimate goal is the criminalization of gays and lesbians."
- Democrats Keep On Screwing the Gays - Over and Over:
- Bill Clinton's "Regrets" (signorile) "The entire Democratic establishment -- from Obama with Warren to Clinton with Manchester -- just doesn't give a damn about us. And that's because our groups have sucked up and accepted crumbs."
- Prison-Industrial Complex:
- Class Warfare:
- Venezuelans, with $ billions at Stanford Int'l Bank, want money (uk.reuters) -- Sweet justice for greedy and ruthless wealthy Venezuelans who have fought tooth and toenail Hugo Chavez's attempts to bring democracy to the country and economic justice to the nation's impoverished majority after so many years of cruel exploitation by the Venezuelan wealthy elite class in concert with U.S. corporations promoting "U.S. national interests." One could wish only that the amounts of those wealthy Venezuelans' money misappropriated by Stanford were both higher and completely irretrievable.
- Abraham Lincoln - Gay President?
- Reagan's Economic Shakedown:
- Time To Stick a Fork in Reagan's Ass (existentialistcowboy.blogspot) -- A refreshingly unconstrained description of the hollow shell of a man conservative elites selected to be their point man, and of their grand con game that would destroy our constitutional democracy in a short 28 years.
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- Who are the Taleban? (bbc)
- Obama orders 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan (reuters) -- Will he also pay the Taleban $ hundreds of millions (or $ billions) not to attack U.S. troops, as Bush did at the beginning in Afghanistan and also did in Iraq to bring about the so-called "surge success"? Then what happens when the money stops?
- Israel is engaged in covert war inside Iran (reuters)
- Israel's Crimes Against Palestinians: Who and where is the sheriff? (bbc)
- Election Theft - Planning to Make It Even Easier:
- If the Internet is so insecure why in the world would any responsible election official even suggest using the it to transmit completed ballots? One has to wonder what is really behind this new Internet voting push. (bradblog)
- Satellites Collide in Low Earth Orbit (apod)
02-17-09 - Failed So-Called 'War on Drugs':
- DEA paid $123,000 to charter private jet for boss' trip to Colombia (miamiherald) instead of taking one of the agency's own 106 planes.
- Barack's Gang:
- Holder's DoJ defends Bush rule to allow concealed guns in national parks (washingtonpost) -- Hell, if we had wanted to continue with Bush's failed policies, we could have just voted for open, honest corruption on the McSame/Palin ticket.
- Saving social security (guardian.co.uk) "Here's a cheap and effective form of economic stimulus – tell America's baby boomers that their welfare benefits are safe . . . . Workers are likely to be especially fearful about the prospects of getting their social security benefits now due to an all out assault on the program financed by billionaire banker Peter Peterson. Peterson has spent much of the last two decades trying to cut social security, Medicare and other benefits for the elderly. He recently contributed a billion dollars to a foundation bearing his name that is primarily committed to this goal. Peterson's investment has paid off both in exposure from the media and more importantly attention from many members of Congress and their staffers. There are now dozens of senators, congress people and their staff running around Capitol Hill crafting creative new ways to cut social security. Baby boomers are right to fear that Peterson and his crew will take away their benefits."
- Bushies at DoJ won't go quietly into the night apparently (stltoday) -- Obama must get all the Bushie obstructionists out of his administration (or wall them off if he can't fire them). Now Bushie Michael Hertz wants to delay Karl Rove's deposition so he can make a deal with him (no doubt to give Rove as much of the store as possible). If Obama allows these criminals to get off the hook, then he doesn't deserve to be president, plain and simple, because each day he fails to prosecute them all, he violates his oath to uphold the Constitution, and each day he fails to prosecute the torturers and their enablers, he also violates the Geneva Convention on the matter.
- Domestic Spying:
- UK: The British are the most spied upon people in the democratic world, but only the judiciary can restrain parliament (guardian.co.uk) -- Given our stacked GOP judiciary in the U.S., will the U.S. judiciary step up to restore privacy rights here? Are there even enough 4th Amendment respecting judges left to do the job?
- That Grand Old Criminal Obstructionist Party, Bless Their Shriveled, Craven Hearts:
- Republicans try to block Obama from closing Gitmo House of Horrors (guardian.co.uk)
- Ending the Hidden Agenda Behind Tax Cuts (commondreams)
- The Great Economic-Shakedown:
- Warning: Britain is heading towards deflation (guardian.co.uk)
- Lendman: Financial Crisis: Toxic Plans for Toxic Assets (baltimorechronicle) -- Other interesting articles after this at site.
- Health-Care Struggle:
- Petition for Conyers single payer, extension of Medicare to all (democrats)
- Global Warming:
- Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming: Scientists (commondreams)
- Is America ready to quit the enemy of the human race? (grist) "Superb NYT story captures both coal's peril and the barriers to its elimination"
- World carbon dioxide levels jump 2.3 ppm in 2008 to highest in 650,000 years (grist)
- 'Feedback' triggers could amplify peril (google/afp) -- It's already happening.
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff - Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions (independent.co.uk)
- Unusual Red Glow Over Minnesota (apod)
02-16-09 - That Grand Old Criminal Party:
- How 'Suspicious' Plane Crashes and Assassinations Benefit the Right Wing (existentialistcowboy.blogspot) -- Substitute "Voting Irregularities in Recent Elections" for "'Suspicious' Plane Crashes and Assassinations" and you have yet another amazing coincidence.
- Chris Hedges: Bad News From America’s Top Spy (truthdig) -- "The age of the West has ended. Look to China. Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself."
- Global Warming - Environment Destruction:
- James Hansen: Coal-fired power plants are death factories. Close them. (guardian.co.uk)
- Tropical forests may dry out and become vulnerable to devastating wildfires as global warming accelerates over the coming decades (guardian.co.uk)
- Climate change even worse than predicted: expert (yahoo/afp)
- Indian experts find bacteria to beat global heat (indiatimes) - One of many potential attacks on the problem. Another would be to convert to the burning of wood for our energy, instead of using fossil fuel. This would require planting millions of acres to fast-growing trees that would themselves soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. Upon burning it, new technologies could be used to remove the CO2 from the emissions for safe disposal. New technologies probably are just waiting to be found and developed. Will they solve the global warming problem before it gets out of hand? Probably not, because it may already be out of hand because of feedback loops having already been set into motion. All we can really expect to do at this point probably is is to mitigate the rate and intensity of the warming somewhat -- with a lot of luck -- and gear up for BIG changes in our own and our kids' and grandkids' lives.
- Carbon burial research grows with large-scale Illinois experiment (blog.wired) -- Humans produce several billion tons of CO2 annually. This geological formation could eventually hold more than 100 billion tons. Folks, we've got a long way to go QUICKLY to get ahead of it .
- Military-Industrial Complex:
- The Great Carina Nebula (apod)
02-15-09 - Bush Family of Secrets:
- Obama Should Worry About the Bush Family Tentacles Undermining His Plans (alternet) "Bush may be gone, but his influence -- and the forces that put him in office -- aren't."
- Antarctic 1994 Ice Shelf Vista (apod) - Now gone, gone away from global warming (dude.uibk.ac.at)
