Thursday, June 28, 2007

Mars Rovers Keep Going And Going On Solar Power, So Why Can't We?

This recent article about the Mars Rovers got me thinking:

NASA: Mars rover ready to enter crater
WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said the Mars rover Opportunity is ready to descend into that planet's massive Victoria Crater.
The latest trek presents a high degree of risk for the long-lived robotic explorer, but NASA and the Mars Rover science team expect it to provide valuable data.

Although NASA has planned the descent to enable an eventual exit, scientists said Opportunity might become trapped inside the crater or lose some capabilities. The rover has operated more than 12 times longer than its originally intended 90 days.
Now when NASA designed the Mars Rovers, they did not consult ExxonMobil about powering the rovers with fossil fuels. No, NASA wanted something more sustainable and advanced.

It seems to me that we could learn from NASA's good example. The Mars Rovers prove that we have the ability to convert to renewable and enviromentally-friendly energy sources, and the threat of global warming provides the necessity.

What are we waiting for?

Bush's Supreme Court Effectively Overturns Brown v. Board Of Education

I am so disgusted by this that I cannot write about it right now because I am so upset and shocked (from ThinkProgress.org):

BREAKING: Supreme Court Strikes Down Public School Desegregation Law

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Another Bush Administration Criminal: Griles

I cannot wait for Bush and Cheney to go to jail for their crimes, but until then, we can get some satisfaction from seeing other Bush administration criminals sentenced:

High ranking Bush administration official sentenced in lobbying scandal
WASHINGTON: A federal judge chastised a senior U.S. government official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in a lobbying scandal. He was the highest Bush administration official sentenced in the probe.

J. Steven Griles, the Interior Department's deputy secretary, pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, but on Tuesday his lawyers tried to deflect blame for his faulty testimony.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle was not pleased.

"Even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," she told Griles before doubling the five-month prison term he and prosecutors had agreed on.

Griles admitted to lying to Senate investigators about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the central figure in a corruption investigation that has led to convictions of a former congressman, legislative aides, lobbyists and officials in the Bush administration.

Friday, June 22, 2007

26%!

I do not regularly write posts about the polls, but I pay very close attention to them by visiting PollingReport.com almost daily. Often, I will look at the job approval ratings for George W Bush and find the average of the five most recent ratings.

Yesterday, I was excited to see a post on DailyKos.com that had a 26% job approval rating for Bush, a new record low for Bush (at least, out of all of the polls that I have seen). Today, I saw that PollingReport.com reported the same Newsweek poll Bush job approval rating of 26% and the disapproval rating of 65%, which is one point away from the record disapproval rationg of 66% from a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from last week.

That NBC/WSJ poll and a Quinnipiac poll had the Bush approval ratings of 29% and 28% respectively. Before those two polls came out, my five poll average had never been below 32%, but after those polls, the average hit a new record low of 31.4%.

Now with the new 26% approval rating, a new record low average has broken the last record in only one week. The new record low Bush job approval rating is (drumroll, please): 29.8%!

This marks the first time that my five poll average of Bush job approval ratings has gone below 30%. That is quite a significant milestone. Similarly, the five poll average for Bush job disapproval ratings has reached a new record high of 64.6%.

With numbers like these and all the news that has been coming out about the Bush administration's illegal activities and unethical behavior, impeachment cannot be far behind. Happy days are here again.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Green Google

Google is setting a good example to the "old dog" companies who refuse to learn planet-saving new tricks:

Google turns on solar panels, plans $10 million in grants
Google activates the solar panels covering the roof space on its campus and says it will provide $10 million in grants for hybrid cars.

Nancy Gohring
PC World
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; 9:32 AM

Google Inc. on Monday turned on the solar panels covering nearly all the roof space on its corporate campus and announced that its philanthropic arm plans to dole out over US$10 million in grants to support hybrid cars.

The announcements follow one last week made from Google's offices in Mountain View, California that launched an industry-wide initiative around improving the energy efficiency of PCs and servers.
I really need to invest in Google stock. (I hope that, someday, I will be able to afford it.)

PG&E Studies Tidal Power

I have been talking about tidal power for years. It is long past time for a power company to seriously consider it and move us closer to energy independence and, eventually, an end to global warming.

PG&E backs new study of bay's tidal power
Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

In September, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom held a news conference on the shores of the San Francisco Bay -- the perfect photo op with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop -- and announced a plan to study whether it would be possible to submerge giant turbines below the choppy waters as a means of generating alternative energy.

On Tuesday, Newsom stood at the same Crissy Field location in front of the same backdrop and announced another study on how to harness the tides in the bay to create power.

It's the third city-backed study on tidal power in two years

Bush's Assault On The Constitution And The Law

Bush does not seem to understand what every fifth grader is taught regarding the three branches of government and the checks and balances between them:

'Signing Statements' Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; Page A04

President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes.

Bush has been criticized for his use of "signing statements," in which he invokes presidential authority to challenge provisions of legislation passed by Congress. The president has challenged a federal ban on torture, a request for data on the administration of the USA Patriot Act and numerous other assertions of congressional power. As recently as December, Bush asserted the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill.

[...]The instances of noncompliance were not as dramatic as some of the signing statements that have caused the most stir, such as Bush's suggestion that he was not bound by a ban on torture in U.S. military detention facilities. But congressional aides said they were significant.
Bush is essentially rewriting laws in violation of our U.S. Constitution. Bush should be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned for this.

Bush's Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

If there was an Olympic gold medal for hypocrisy, Bush would win it by an exponential lead:

Bush Threatens To Veto Bill To Allow More Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Washington, D.C. (AHN)- President Bush plans to veto legislation that would have relaxed the ban on federally funded stem cell research.

[...]President Bush has criticized the Democrat-led Congress of recycling a measure he already vetoed, which passed in a Republican-controlled Congress. He said that the bill would mean that taxpayers would be deliberately funding the destruction of human life.
The man has ZERO intelligence if he does not comprehend the incredible, dumbfounding hypocrisy of that statement.

ATTENTION, GEORGE W BUSH: Taxpayers ARE deliberately funding the destruction of human life on DAILY BASIS in IRAQ! Your hypocrisy disgusts me, as it should disgust any human being with at least an ounce of gray matter! You are the worst president ever, and even if you had not broken the law with your warrant-less wiretapping, unconstitutional signing statements, and violations of the Hatch Act, you should still be impeached for your horrific job performance! If you want to value incinerator-bound embryos more than the lives of American troops in your personal life, that's fine, but don't force the rest of us to endure the consequences of your primitive, illogical, and hypocritical ideology!

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Miliatary Mental Health

Add this to the list of ways we are failing to support our troops:

Report finds mental care for GIs lacking
By Renee Nadeau
Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Pentagon on Friday released its latest report on mental health care of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing to light disturbing statistics and shortfalls.

“Our troops give our country their brave service,” Sen. John Kerry said in a statement. “And we owe them the very best care when they come home, including healing the wounds of war, even those that might not be visible.”

The Mental Health Task Force Report found that 38 percent of returning troops show signs of combat stress. Adding to the problem is the stigma attached to mental health care among military members, which discourages many from seeking help. Other findings include the lack of accessible care and resources in the military system.
Magnetic yellow ribbons are not real support, and this is a sign of the hypocrisy by those who, like Bush, claim to support the troops, but do little to actually support them.

More White House Crimes

Add this to the list of crimes committed by the Bush administration:

Bush aides may have illegally lost e-mail, Dems say

By Andy Sullivan
Reuters
Monday, June 18, 2007; 4:34 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Karl Rove and dozens of other White House staffers appear to have illegally routed official e-mails through a Republican group that subsequently deleted them, a congressional report said on Monday.

By using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business, senior White House aides may have broken a law requiring them to preserve presidential records, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in an interim report.
Seriously, how many more crimes can they commit before the American public demands impeachment?

Taliban Gaining Ground

Add this to the list of examples for why George W Bush is a failure and why we should not have invaded Iraq:

Taliban step up attacks in southern Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Taliban militants overran a district in southern Afghanistan and were pushing for control of another critical area, prompting clashes with NATO and Afghan forces that have left more than 100 people dead over three days, officials said Tuesday.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters raided police posts near the strategic town of Chora in Uruzgan Province on Saturday, forcing NATO, backed by fighter jets, to respond.

Fighting was continuing Tuesday, and some officials reported that there had been dozens of civilian casualties.

The spike in violence has led to a mounting number of civilian casualties, which are sapping support for foreign troops and the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Lieberman Has Lost His Mind

Joe Lieberman, and anyone else who says that things are improving in Iraq and that we should consider attacking Iran, needs to have a psychiatric evaluation.

Lieberman says strike on Iran is an option
By Associated Press | June 11, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Senator Joseph I. Lieberman said yesterday that the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's alleged involvement in Iraq.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."
Lieberman has no proof for these accusations (which the article fails to mention). He is just wildly throwing out accusations and threats like some war-mongering madman (e.g. George W. Bush). Well, Bush isn't fit to be U.S. president, and Lieberman isn't fit to be a U.S. senator.

Problems With VA Bonuses

VA Acknowledges Problems With Bonuses
By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The VA on Tuesday acknowledged problems in its award of $3.8 million in bonuses to senior officials who put health care at risk and said it would consider changes to avoid conflicts of interest and improve oversight.

Isn't it funny how they always acknowledge problems like this AFTER the problem occurs?

Seriously, nobody considered this to be a problem beforehand?!

I am not sure that the people who did not think that these bonuses were a problem BEFORE they were given out should be in charge of an institution that is so important to our veterans. They need to be fired... now.

False Memorial

There is a new memorial in Washington, D.C.:

Questions arise over memorials
Monument selection scrutinized in D.C.

By Leora Falk
Washington Bureau
Published June 13, 2007


WASHINGTON -- The nation's capital, a city of monuments and statues of long-dead warriors and politicians, gained another memorial Tuesday.

This one, however, does not commemorate a specific event or luminary, but rather the terrors of communist regimes. The monument in memory of the millions killed under communist regimes is a 10-foot bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue that student demonstrators erected during the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.

[...]Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the Vietnamese community in the U.S. was instrumental in helping raise the $1 million needed to build the memorial.

The dedication was the culmination of a 14-year effort. The choice of the Goddess of Democracy "symbolizes both the worst about tyranny and the best about freedom and democracy," Edwards said.

Now... I know what you're thinking: "Bryan, you love democracy and hate brutal regimes that kill millions of people. What can you possibly have against this memorial?"

Well, I am glad you asked. I am not against the memorial itself, but I do disagree with its title "Victims of Communism Memorial." I would argue that there are no victims of "communism," but rather victims of tyranny, oppression, and dictatorships.

Communism is simply basically an economic ideology, not a form of government.

As a political movement, communism was attempted by brutal, oppressive regimes made up of evil people seeking power and wealth (both of which communism seeks to dilute). These people never succeeded in implementing the economic policies of communism because they were only using communism as a pretense to hide their true ambitions. They deceived, pludered, and killed for their own personal gain. They did this not through democracy or the true will of their people; they did this through brutal force and the exploitation of their people's trust.

Communism seeks to advance economic equality for everyone, which is, by itself, a noble sentiment, but the "communists" never sought and therefore never acheived such an ideal.

Communism was not our enemy during the Cold War, but tyranny was. When Joseph McCarthy was seeking to combat "communism," he should have realized this. Perhaps then he would have avoided becoming tyrannical himself.

Tyranny is the enemy of democracy, and tyranny is not exclusive to "communists". It has existed in many forms thoughout human history, and if this memorial is to be a true memorial it should be a memorial for all the victims of tyranny, not just the victims of "communism."

Update (regarding the comment from Anonymous):

Anonymous,

Wow, your hypocrisy beyond is hilarious. How can you so completely misunderstand my point and then call me "stupid" with a straight face? You describe me as "naive" and "ignorant" while failing to comprehend communism, Lenin, Mao, Che, and everything I just wrote.

Here is some advice for you. When making an argument, have some evidence or supporting statements to back it up. Otherwise, your argument is ineffective. If name-calling is your only defense, it really makes you seem unintelligent.

So for the sake of your apparent lack of education and inability to comprehend basic concepts, I will go into greater detail about what I wrote.

Lenin, Mao, and Che may have been considered communists in terms of economics, but they were dictators in terms of politics. True communism supports the idea that the people should control the government, not the other way around. That concept is known as democracy, and it is an idea that Lenin, Mao, and Che discarded from their communist belief system.

Lenin, Mao, and Che were tyrants, and THAT is what made them evil. Even if they had been capitalists, they still would have been evil because they were tyrants. (For example, Hitler was a tyrant but not a communist. He sent communists to concentration camps.)

My point still stands: tyranny is the enemy of democracy, not communism.

I will agree with you that I should not have said "communism is simply an economic ideology," and I have changed the word "simply" to "basically" in my post because that is what I meant to express. Communism is basically an economic ideology, but if you delve deeper, communism is much more complex than that. Wikipedia.org states that communism "is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production." If you want to know more about the complexity of communism, read the rest of the Wikipedia article. For the purposes of this addendum however, I would like to focus on the basics.

If you had taken the time to understand what I was trying to communicate instead of resorting to your narrow-minded Right-wing name-calling, you might be able to make an intelligent argument about why you think communism is not a good economic system.

And I might agree with you because, despite your illogical conclusion that I am a Trotskyist, I am actually not one. I do not think that communism is better than capitalism, and I don't know anything about Trotsky. I actually prefer a well-regulated fair market form of capitalism. (My previous post goes into greater detail about my views on a fair market economy.)

I would like to reiterate, that communism has only ever been attempted by tyrannical regimes that never actually acheived a true communist economy. If everyone in a democracy voted for an economic system that was based on communism, you could disagree with their decision, but you would have to agree that they have the right, in their democracy, to do that. In a free, democratic society they might have a chance of making communism work, but communism has never had a chance to work because it has always been pushed by oppressive dictatorships that ultimately only served the dictators' selfish desires for power and wealth. I am not saying that I think that a communist economy would work; I am just saying that it has not been given a real chance to work.

Lenin, Mao, and Che may have believed that communism was the best economic system, but their governments were dictatorships, and dictatorships are wrong regardless of what ideology they base their economy on. Lenin, Mao, and Che probably thought that their communist intentions or communist ideals were good, but they never could have acheived those ideals, whether they were sincere or not, because their tactics were inherently evil and corrupt. They blocked freedom and forced communism onto people through deception, thievery, and violence, and, as we are seeing in Iraq and have seen throughout history, when you use such tactics to force your beliefs onto people, you get failure.

I have no problem with being against communism as an economic system, and I am not defending it as an economic system. I am trying to correct the historical error that conflates communism with tyranny when they are actually two different things. Again, in human history, communism has only ever been attempted by tyrannical governments, so I understand why that error was made.

However, tyrants are evil regardless of whether they are considered to be communists (Lenin, Mao, and Che) or capitalists (Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Mobutu Sese Seko, King George III, or Jefferson Davis), and both types are enemies of freedom and democracy.

I stand by my statement that this memorial to democracy should honor all the victims of tyranny and dictators, not just the victims of communist tyranny and communist dictators.

Update 2007-06-19 (regarding the comment from Zak):

Zak,

Thank you for your comment. As oppossed to the comment that preceeded yours, your comment actually used thought and reason.

I don't really think that we are in disagreement. I wasn't trying to defend communism. I just think that dictators and their brutality are to be blamed for the deaths of thousands (or millions), not communism.

The aspects of communism that you listed sound like an extremist form of communism. Such an extreme form of communism is obviously inherently flawed and would never work, but I think almost any system would fail if it becomes extremist. (As to whether a moderate form of communism would work, I honestly don't know and don't really care. I am certainly not willing and do not I have the patience to try it and find out.)

An extreme form of capitalism can also be dangerous (as the Great Depression proved). Even freedom cannot be entirely absolute without causing chaos. Absolute freedom would be anarchy, so to combat that we have laws and punishments that limit freedom for the purpose of sustaining order and justice.

The fight between ideologies (just like fights over where to set the thermostat) is seldom one extreme against another. Usually, it is between two different levels of moderate.

However, whether a given form of communism is extreme or not, or whether communism is inherently flawed or not, is not an integral component of the original point of my post that it should not matter whether an genocidal maniac is communist (like Stalin) or not (like Hitler) and all victims of such demons deserve to be memorialized.

I don't care whether a person, a faction, or a state is communist or not, but I care immensely about whether or not they are enslaving, raping, and killing people. I criticize China because of their human rights abuses and extreme restrictions on freedom, not because they are ruled by a communist party. I criticize China as much as I criticize Sudan for genocide in Darfur and Saudi Arabia for torture, brutality and inequality.

If people want to only think memorialize the victims of communist regimes, that is their choice, but I think they risk neglecting the victims of other brutal regimes both past and present. That is how America has ended up supporting many evil and deadly regimes in the past (like that of Saddam Hussein) and in the present (like Saudi Arabia). This hypocrisy and moral ambiguity in American foreign policy might be our biggest flaw, and it leads to horrific consequences and more victims.

We really need to fix this uneven treatment of brutal regimes in both our minds and our foreign policy. Only by consistently condemning all brutal regimes and working through sensible approaches to end them all can we truly memorialize and honor all victims of tyranny.

Poisoned Patriots

What kind of world do we live in where horrors like this happen?

House Panel Probes "Poisoned Patriots"
Ex-Marines Seek Nearly $4B For Exposure To Chemicals At Camp Lejeune

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2007

(CBS/AP) Marine families who lived at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina over three decades drank water contaminated with toxins as much as 40 times over today's safety standard, federal health investigators said Tuesday.

The government disclosed results from a new scientific study on the same day that some families testified for Congress about cancers and other illnesses they blame on drinking tainted tap water at the sprawling training and deployment base.

The House Energy and Commerce panel on oversight and investigations, which is holding a hearing on the subject, describes the sickened Marines as "poisoned patriots."

Chemicals from a local dry cleaners seeped into Lejeune's water for three decades, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. During that time, 75,000 people lived there and some 20,000 children were born.
I do not know who should be blamed for this tragedy, but on some level we are all to blame. Whoever is directly responsible for this needs to be punished, and we, as a civilization, need to do a better job of ensuring this never happens again. Through our collective power, that is administered through government, we must do a better job of protecting ourselves and our world.

That is why I do not understand the propensity of those on the Right who claim that "goverment doesn't work." They then run for office in government based on that ideology and set about proving their ideology by running government badly. If they fail to make sure government fails, they run the risk of invalidating their own belief system.

Ronald Reagan, the ideological leader of the Right, claimed "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" With that as their mind set, it is no wonder then that when the Republicans had complete control of government for the first six years of this century, they succeeded in making the government dysfunctional.

Capitalism without government regulation and oversight is dangerous. It leads to tragedies like the story above. The conservative and libertarian pursuit of an unrestrained free market and their worship of the "almighty" dollar is hazardous to the health and welfare of everyone.

If unregulated capitalism were a good thing we would not need entities like the FDA, the EPA, and the SEC, but neccessity was the mother of invention for those government agencies. History has proven their worth, but despite this, when Republicans get into power, they do everything they can to diminish the power of those agencies to protect the public.

And the public is still willing to vote for them? This is insane behavior. About half of the public actually buys the Republican lie that says "government doesn't work," yet those same people depend on the government for public services. Roads, police, fire departments, national defense, public schools, and more are needed and used by the public constantly. That is why I do not understand the conservatives' opposition to "socialized" medicine. All the public services that I just mentioned are forms of socialism, yet "socialism" has become some sort of scary word used by Republicans to frighten people away from something that 70% or more of Americans want: socialized medicine.

We have and need public roads, public schools, and public defense; we should have and do need public medicine. It is that simple.

I know that no system is perfect, and certainly government is no exception, but why do Republicans want us to believe that a "free market" is. The only thing that is "free" about a "free market" is the freedom of the wealthy to exploit the health and welfare of the poor to gain more wealth. And "free trade agreements" are just an extension of that practice; they are used by the wealthy to exploit the poor in other countries for greed.

We need to change the debate in this country and in the world so that our ideals are to have a "fair market" supported by "fair trade agreements." Because in a fair market we would have regulations and protections that benefit not just the wealthy but the poor as well.

By exemplifying the ideals of a fair market economy, we can strive to better our country, improve the poor conditions in other countries that lead to war and terrorism, and put an end to the poisoning of patriots.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Mitt Romney: Liar Or Idiot?

My Mormon mother recently asked me if I would consider voting for the Mormon Mitt Romney for President in 2008.

Let me again reiterate that after eight long and destructive years of George W. Bush there is NO chance that I would even think of considering voting for a Republican in 2008. In fact, after George W. Bush, I may never vote for a Republican for president. Republicans like Nixon, Reagan, and especially George W. Bush have proven to me that Republicans care little for humanity, equality, Christian values, the rule of law, our Constitution, and our country.

But I do not want to get into all that right now. Now, I want to talk about Romney, and why he, in two recent debates, has proven a man like him should never be president. In two short statements, he has cemented my resolve to never vote for him in a million years.

Here is the first one:

Romney: ‘We Ought To Double Guantanamo’
As Crooks and Liars noted , former governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) said tonight that instead of shutting the prison at Guantanamo Bay, “we ought to double Guantanamo,” in part so that detainees “don’t get access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil.”
ROMNEY: I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.

Wow, that's crazy!

I mean it is one thing to support Bush when he is down to a 32% approval rating in the polls, but to come out and be MORE evil than Bush while running for president indicates Romney is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.

Romney wants to double that crime against humanity, Guantanamo Bay?! He wants to double that place of evil that is both a symbolic and actual representation of torture, our abuse of human rights, and the degradation of our American values?!

Where are your supposed Christian morals, Romney?!


In my book, wanting to "double Guantanamo" is enough of a dealbreaker, but Romney manages to "double" my disdain for him with this:

Memo to the Media: Mitt Romney doesn’t know “Jack” about Iraq
By: John Amato on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 12:15 PM - PDT

CNN: Romney: Well, it’s a setting that’s almost a null set. Which is, if we knew that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and if he had complied with the United Nations resolutions to allow IAEA inspectors into his country, we wouldn’t be having this conversation…

This statement by Romney is why I titled this post the way I did, because this statement is blatantly false. Hussein did allow the IAEA inspectors into his country, the IAEA inspectors were in Iraq before the war, and they told us that THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ! So Romney is either a liar or an idiot, and it enrages me that the MSM is letting this slip by.

The CrooksandLiars.com post above goes on to link to Matthew Yglesias for the information that proves that Romney's statement is false, and I will link to it also:

Null Set Blogging, Part Three
Almost a null set, eh? Brian also notes that this is "evidence that he didn't just screw up his Iraq history at the debates on Tuesday, but rather that he's in a constant state of either denial, ignorance, or deception."

On March 7, 2003 Muhammed ElBarradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told the world, "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq."

The person who actually ordered the IAEA inspectors to leave Iraq was... (drumroll, please)... George W. Bush! And why did he do that? So that he could begin bombing Iraq.

Does Romney believe Americans have such a bad memory that we would forget all that and believe his inaccurate version of recent history? Well, he may be partially right because the MSM isn't doing its job by rushing to correct him and remove this flagrant deception from the public conversation.

In short, no, I will not be voting for Romney.

I usually take pride in being a Mormon, but deceitful, pro-torture, anti-human rights Mormons like Romney, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and professional bigot Glenn Beck make me ashamed of my religion. (Thank goodness for our Mormon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who restores some of my lost pride.)

Romney wants to double Guantanamo and lies about Iraq? Hmm. I think we got more than enough of that line of thinking from Bush. We definitely do not need another four years of that from a Bush clone like Romney.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Retrial For Teacher Framed By Spyware Porn

Common sense gets a second chance to prevail:

Teacher to get retrial over internet porn
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian

A US judge yesterday ordered a retrial of a schoolteacher found guilty of computer porn charges after a sustained campaign by internet specialists proclaiming her innocence.

Julie Amero, 40, was convicted in January of being responsible for a series of sex advertisements that popped up on a classroom computer and were seen by pupils, in a case that has caught nationwide attention and raised important questions about content control on computers.

The prosecution at the trial in Connecticut had claimed she must have clicked on the websites for the adverts to begin appearing. But after the trial, 28 computer science academics in the state sought to prove that the rapid-fire sequence of pop-up sex advertisements could have appeared automatically.

Bush Makes Polluting Easier

Honestly, does Bush have any shame at all?

EPA makes it harder to protect wetlands
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for non-permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act.

The new guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers requires that for such waters to be protected there must be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.

[...]Environmentalists said the new rules will put in jeopardy many of the intermittent streams and headwaters that now fall under the Clean Water Act, and result in less protection of wetlands.

"This guidance adds unnecessary and unintended hurdles for agencies and citizens trying to protect our wasters," said Jan Goldman-Carter, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, and she called it a "retreat from protecting many important headwaters streams and wetlands."

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Glaciers Flowing Faster

The WoT and WoD have not made much progress since their inception, but let us check in on the War on Global Warming. There might be some good news there:

Hundreds Of Antarctic Peninsula Glaciers Accelerating As Climate Warms
Science Daily — Hundreds of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are flowing faster, further adding to sea level rise according to new research published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Climate warming, that is already causing Antarctic Peninsula increased summer snow melt and ice shelf retreat, is the most likely cause.

Using radar images acquired by European ERS-1 and -2 satellites, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) tracked the flow rate of over 300 previously unstudied glaciers. They found a 12% increase in glacier speed from 1993 to 2003. These observations - that echo recent findings from coastal Greenland - indicate that the cause is melting of the lower glaciers, which flow directly into the sea. As they thin, the buoyancy of the ice can lift the glaciers off their rock beds, allowing them to slide faster.

::Sigh:: Or not.

Schlozman On Crossing The Line

Schlozman says he never 'crossed the line' in hiring at Justice Department
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star

Former U.S. attorney and current Justice Department lawyer Bradley Schlozman says he never “crossed the line” by asking political views and affiliations of potential employees of the department.

Fortunately for us, he is not the one who decides whether he "crossed the line" or not.

William Jefferson (D-LA) Should Resign From Congress

Why?

Why did Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District re-elect William Jefferson? There was a run-off election between Jefferson and another Democrat, and the district could have voted to send the candidate who wasn't under investigation by the FBI, but no, they had to vote for Jefferson.

This is a major, MAJOR problem with American politics. Most people do not pay enough attention until things get really bad like it did with the Republican corruption during their twelve year reign in Congress. That is part of the reason the Democrats were voted into majority control of Congress in 2006. We cleaned up some of the corruption by doing so, but we still need to finish the job regardless of party affiliation. It looks like Congress is heading in that direction by getting the House Ethics Committee involved now that Jefferson has been indicted:

House Approves Speedy Jefferson Probe
The House ordered a speedy internal investigation that could oust indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson from Congress before his bribery trial.


Mindful of anti-corruption sentiment among voters last November, the House passed two resolutions Tuesday that require the ethics committee to investigate charges more quickly than in the past.


Jefferson, meanwhile, resigned his seat on the Small Business Committee in response to his indictment on federal charges of taking more than $500,000 in bribes. Democrats already had moved to take that seat from him. Jefferson admitted no wrongdoing.

I know that, in our country, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but I have noticed a trend of late regarding indicted members of Congress. The trend follows the pattern of investigation, proclaimed innocence, indictment, resignation from House committee while proclaiming innocence, conviction, and finally, resignation from Congress with apology for crimes they committed. This was the case with Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham. They kept denying and denying and denying, for months, that they are guilty, then all of a sudden, almost overnight, they admit that they were guilty all along.

I wish that we could skip all that with Jefferson. If he is guilty, he should resign from Congress now yesterday, plead guilty, and stop wasting our time. We should not have to endure this prolonged process every time a member of Congress gets caught being corrupt. Additionally, if we do go through this process and Jefferson is found guilty, Jefferson will be a tool of the Right to counter our claim that we are fighting corruption in Congress. In fact, they are already using him to do just that.

If Jefferson is guilty, (and considering the trend, the fact that he was hiding money in his freezer, and that some of his former aides have already pleaded guilty, he probably is guilty) after doing so many things wrong, he should do the right thing and end this now.