Interspecies telepathy

The next big thing: interspecies telepathy.

I saw a segment of this on cable (Discovery Health channel). Its too unbelievable to be true, yet the people involved seem credible.

Milestones

Well, Saddam is dead and apparently this is an important milestone, marking the passing to where, exactly? I wonder if we will hear any questions if the Iraqis are better off with Saddam out of the picture. Rather a strange question when thousands of Iraqis are leaving daily, and over a million or so have already left. Apparently though, according to Holy Joe, the war is still winnable, as long as it has a clearly defined mission. I am sympathetic to the argument that we are morally obligated to help, but when you have no moral authority and you aren't trusted, how much can you help in this situation? The only way to stick around is to find a radically different approach, something that involves a lot more engagement than Bush would ever countenance. Anyway, as long as Bush is in charge, and dithers around, any call to sustain the war empowers him to screw the pooch just a wee bit more.

End o year poll

U.S. President Ranks as Top Villain and Top Hero of 2006

a video here

Political Science

A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

In recent years, scientists who work for and advise the federal government have seen their work manipulated, suppressed, distorted, while agencies have systematically limited public and policy maker access to critical scientific information. To document this abuse, the Union of Concerned Scientists has created the A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science.

Ford on Bush

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

US accepts threat to polar bears

Says its because of global warming, but won't back mandatory controls of CO2. Halfway there. I'm confused though, can someone tell me why this is coming up now?

No Coal in those Stockings

Mileage from Megawatts: Enough Electric Capacity to “Fill Up” Plug-In Vehicles

If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics.

...

“With cars charging overnight, the utilities would get a new market for their product. PHEVs would increase residential consumption of electricity by about 30 - 40 percent. The increased generation could lead to replacing aging coal-fired plants sooner with newer, more environmentally friendly versions,” said Kintner-Meyer.

“The potential for lowering greenhouse gases further is quite substantial because it is far less expensive to capture emissions at the smokestack than the tailpipe. Vehicles are one of the most intractable problems facing policymakers seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Pratt.

Latin America's New Reality

Ecuador's New Government Talks Default on Debt

Before Argentina's default, a powerful creditors' cartel headed by the IMF had a credible threat of punishing a defaulting country by depriving it of credit from most sources, thereby increasing the cost of a default. That is no longer the case. Furthermore, Ecuador can likely borrow whatever it needs from Venezuela, which has $36 billion in reserves, and has lent billions of dollars to Argentina, and also provided loans and aid to Bolivia and other countries.

All this is part of the new reality in Latin America, and means that the left/populist governments throughout the region can, if they are so inclined, pursue a much greater variety of economic and development policy options - and deliver on their promises without much fear of retribution from international financial markets or institutions, including the United States government.

Pretty funny stuff

According to Network World's Paul McNamara, the communications director for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Todd Shriber, hired two 'hackers' to break into the computer of his alma mater, Texas Christian University, and change his college grades.

It gets better... Check out the email correspondence here.

Redacted

Redacted Version of Original Op-Ed on Iran

Complete with black bars.

Things to come

Democrats Hiring Up for Investigations

Evidence continues to mount that the new Democratic majority plans to investigate the war, energy policy, and other Bush policies, as key committees have begun hiring lawyer-investigators whose job will be to probe the administration. In the House, for example, the Appropriations Committee under Rep. John Murtha's direction is hiring investigators who will be charged with looking into the administration's war policies and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Rep. Henry Waxman, the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee who's been dogging the vice president's energy task force, is also hiring lawyers. A Democratic leadership official said that the planned hearings and investigations into the war and other issues the lawyer-investigators are being hired to look into will be "very focused." In the Senate, officials said similar hirings were underway in a speeded up effort to have people in place for the start of the new Congress, especially the planned early January hearings into the war and military spending that are set to begin January 8.

The political economy of deficit spending

Bringing down the deficit enables big spending republicans.

Now that the Democrats have regained some power, they have to decide what to do. One of the biggest questions is whether the party should return to Rubinomics — the doctrine, associated with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, that placed a very high priority on reducing the budget deficit.

The answer, I believe, is no. Mr. Rubin was one of the ablest Treasury secretaries in American history. But it’s now clear that while Rubinomics made sense in terms of pure economics, it failed to take account of the ugly realities of contemporary American politics.

And the lesson of the last six years is that the Democrats shouldn’t spend political capital trying to bring the deficit down. They should refrain from actions that make the deficit worse. But given a choice between cutting the deficit and spending more on good things like health care reform, they should choose the spending.

Why is this? Becuase we can't trust our elected officials.

The answer, I now think, is to spend the money — while taking great care to ensure that it is spent well, not squandered — and let the deficit be. By spending money well, Democrats can both improve Americans’ lives and, more broadly, offer a demonstration of the benefits of good government. Deficit reduction, on the other hand, might just end up playing into the hands of the next irresponsible president.

The old conservatives & financial responsibility link is pretty well broken after G.W.

London braces for attack

this holiday season

You gotta be kidding me

Former national security adviser Samuel Berger hid classified papers under trailer

French troops had bin Laden in sights

But US gave no order to kill, says documentary

And this was only 3 years ago.

Probably a bunch a bull. If it is true it is because they didn't want the French to get him.

Mid-term elections returning some balance

Iran edition

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of Iran faced electoral embarrassment today after the apparent failure of his supporters to win control of key local councils and block the political comeback of his most powerful opponent.

Early results from last Friday's election suggested that his Sweet Scent of Service coalition had won just three out of 15 seats on the symbolically important Tehran city council, foiling Mr Ahmadinejad's plan to oust the mayor and replace him with an ally.

The outcome appeared to be mirrored elsewhere, with councils throughout Iran returning a majority of reformists and moderate fundamentalists opposed to Mr Ahmadinejad.

"Improving product flow"

New publishing rules restrict scientists

he Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.

"This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow."
...
The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to determine whether they deserve to be published.

From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside peer reviewers' as well any exchanges between the scientists who are seeking to publish their findings and the reviewers.

Gunna sue the Don

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war

UK edition

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

I can't believe those cheeky Birts deceived us! Oh wait!

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

All good things

in moderation

Moderate drinking may lengthen your life, while too much may shorten it, researchers from Italy report. Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.

According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Of course, if you feel guilty, then that just reverses all the good effects.

Expect silliness

GOP media lemming alert

What we will hear in the next two years:

• The narratives about progressives tend to be negative -- Al Gore was a liar and a wimp, Howard Dean was crazy, John Kerry was a flip-flopping wimp, etc.).
• The narratives about conservatives tend to be positive (John McCain is a straight-talking maverick, Rudy Giuliani is "America's Mayor," etc.)
• The narratives about progressives (our focus today) are often based in large part on the media's endless repetition of snarky comments, stories, and anecdotes about purported personal qualities.
• Progressives and journalists often blame the victims of these narratives, chalking them up to inept candidates and campaign staff. No matter how many different progressives get unfairly defined by the media as soft and dishonest and ineffectual, too many people refuse to hold journalists accountable.

Good fun!

.002

"We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world." - Helen Keller

Worlds most dangerous toys

Fission Buddy is my favorite

Nuckin' Futs

A jibJab year (2006) in review

Why doesn't Bush get credit for the strong economy?

Paul Krugman on the Great Wealth Transfer

Why doesn't Bush get credit for the strong economy?" That question has been asked over and over again in recent months by political pundits. After all, they point out, the gross domestic product is up; unemployment, at least according to official figures, is low by historical standards; and stocks have recovered much of the ground they lost in the early years of the decade, with the Dow surpassing 12,000 for the first time. Yet the public remains deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. In a recent poll, only a minority of Americans rated the economy as "excellent" or "good," while most consider it no better than "fair" or "poor."

Are people just ungrateful? Is the administration failing to get its message out? Are the news media, as conservatives darkly suggest, deliberately failing to report the good news?

None of the above. The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices. Even in 2005, a year in which the economy grew quite fast, the income of most non-elderly families lagged behind inflation. The number of Americans in poverty has risen even in the face of an official economic recovery, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000.

Apparently, soy makes you gay

A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals

If you're a grownup, you're already developed, and you're able to fight off some of the damaging effects of soy. Babies aren't so fortunate. Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you're giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby's endocrine system just can't cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

Not only that it may have caused the rapid increase in leukemia in children and obesity today.

In all seriousness, there do seem to be some health risks from soy products. See here and here. It also apparently doesn't bring all the health benefits that were touted. I guess, like most things, good in moderation.

We will sell no wine

For at least a few seconds...

The true character of a good wine can take years, even decades, to emerge. Hiroshi Tanaka, a Japanese inventor, says he can trim the wait time — to just a few seconds.

As liquor ages, Tanaka explains, the water molecules slowly rearrange themselves more closely around the alcohol molecules, giving the alcohol its distinctive mature taste. Tanaka puts that process into overdrive. He pours the wine into a 70-pound container outfitted with an electrolysis chamber. A few-second electrical zap gives the wine a slight charge, which breaks up the water molecules and allows them to blend more completely with the alcohol. Voilà: Instantly-aged pinot noir, “smoother and more mellow than before,” Tanaka’s American partner, Edward Alexander, claims.

Wild.

Polls

Iraq Going Badly And Getting Worse, Majority In CBS News Survey Doubt U.S. Can Win; 62% Call War 'A Mistake'

BUSH'S JOB HANDLING IRAQ

Now
Approve
21%
Disapprove
75%

11/14/2006
Approve
29%
Disapprove
67%

Global warming feedback loops

Global warming kills phytoplankton that take up CO2

Global warming will stifle life-giving microscopic plants that live in the surface layer of the oceans, cutting marine food production and accelerating climate change, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Phytoplankton are not only the foundation of the marine food chain, but every day they take more than 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, scientists from Oregon State University, NASA and four other institutions said.

McBush

Losing their brand name

The setting was a leadership summit Monday in Tallahassee, where the elder Bush had come to lecture and to pay homage to Jeb, who is leaving office with a 53 percent approval rating, putting him ninth among the 50 governors in popularity. The former president was reflecting on how well Jeb handled defeat in 1994 when he lost his composure. “He didn’t whine about it,” he said, putting a handkerchief to his face in an effort to stifle his sobbing.

That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family’s grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They’d go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won.

The son who was wrongly launched has made such a mess of things that he has ruined the family franchise. Without getting too Oedipal, it’s fair to say that so many mistakes George W. Bush made are the result of his need to distinguish himself from his father and show that he’s smarter and tougher. His need to outdo his father and at the same time vindicate his father’s failure to get re-elected makes for a complicated stew of emotions. The irony is that the senior Bush, dismissed by Junior’s crowd as a country-club patrician, looks like a giant among presidents compared to his son. Junior told author Bob Woodward, for his book “Plan of Attack,” that he didn’t consult his father in planning the invasion of Iraq but consulted a higher authority, pointing, presumably, to the heavens.
...
This president has lost all capacity to lead. Eleven American servicemen died in Iraq on the day Bush was presented the report, which calls the situation there “grave and deteriorating.” Events on the ground threaten to overtake even this grim assessment. And we’re left to analyze Bush’s tender ego and whether he can reverse course on the folly that is killing and maiming countless Iraqis along with U.S. troops. Historians are already debating whether Bush is the worst president ever, or just among the four or five worst. He has little choice but to accept the fundamental direction of the Iraq Study Group. He’s up to his neck in quicksand, and they’ve thrown him a rope. It’s trendy to make fun of the over-the-hill types in Washington, but they’ve done a noble thing in reminding us that war is not just about spin and a way to win elections. It’s about coming together to find a way out, however unpalatable.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

Obama messes up someones game and then apologizes for it.

Weird stuff. Listen to the audio.

Background here.

Truthiness

is Named Word of the Year

After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is ... "truthiness."

The word - if one can call it that - best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

"Truthiness" was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

Baby Bush

The baby in chief

Bush said he talked about "the need for a new way forward in Iraq" in his morning session with leaders from both parties and chambers of Congress, "and we talked about the need to work together on this important subject."

But some Democrats came away unconvinced that major changes were coming.

"I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically," Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev., said following the Oval Office meeting. "He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes."

Instead, Bush began his talk by comparing himself to President Harry S Truman, who launched the Truman Doctrine to fight communism, got bogged down in the Korean War and left office unpopular.

Bush said that "in years to come they realized he was right and then his doctrine became the standard for America," recalled Senate Majority Whip-elect Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "He's trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you're right you're unpopular, and be prepared for criticism."

Durbin said he challenged Bush's analogy, reminding him that Truman had the NATO alliance behind him and negotiated with his enemies at the United Nations. Durbin said that's what the Iraq Study Group is recommending that Bush do now - work more with allies and negotiate with adversaries on Iraq.

Bush, Durbin said, "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief."

Btw, can anyone tell me how it works that we extradite people to Syria to be tortured but we won't talk to them?

Not gonna doit

Bush Reaction to Report Worries Father's Aides

"We have a classic case of circling the wagons," says a former adviser to Bush the elder. "If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that."

White House advisers say Bush won't react in detail to the ISG report for several weeks, while he assesses it and awaits various internal government reports on the situation from his own advisers. Bush tells aides he doesn't want to "outsource" his role as commander in chief. Some Bush allies say this is a way to buy some time as the president tries to decide how to deal with rising pressure to alter his strategy in Iraq and hopes the critical media focus on the Iraq war will soften.

Ex-leaders son indicted in Miami for torture

Who could it be?

Oh, its the Ex-Liberian dictator's son. Who knew that torture was still illegal?

Crikey!

A tornado in London?

On freedoms

Legislators may reconsider suspending habeas corpus for detainees

Yum

What's wrong with our food?

The Great Spinach Scare of '06 is, thankfully, now behind us, but the bad news about our food keeps coming. Just this week, we've heard from Consumer Reports about a new study -- which, to be fair, the USDA disputes -- that says 83 percent of grocery store chickens are contaminated with either salmonella or campylobacter bacteria, or both. Then there are the 65 people apparently sickened by E. coli bacteria on green onions served in Taco Bells in New York, New Jersey and now, possibly, Pennsylvania. There may also be bacteria in the Razzamatazz at Jamba Juice, the smoothie chain, which has reported that some of the strawberries it used in the Southwest and California in the past week may have been contaminated by potentially lethal Listeria. And let’s not forget the unfestive and Listeria-inspired recall of ham and turkey by the HoneyBaked Ham company right before Thanksgiving.

But don't worry!

It's still better to eat than not to eat, because the certainty of death if you don't eat is 100 percent, where the certainty of death by eating is very tiny still, I'm sure, less than 1 percent. So any elementary grasp of statistics would tell you that you should continue to eat.

More on the Iraq Study Group

No middle ground

Feingold: don't believe the hype

Thank you sir may I have another!

Iraq Study Group executive summary (pdf) (some excerpts here)

There job is to unite! Not come up with a sensible plan. Anyway, it is really just more of the same.

Some thoughts:

More on primeval urges

Women need men

At the risk of sounding extraordinarily sexist, I'm convinced that women, even in the happiest of relationships, are programmed to worry their men are going to abandon them.

And they're terrified - in a way that most men find it frankly impossible to imagine. What's more, if their forebodings come true, women are more inclined to forgive an affair than a man if the shoe is on the other foot. That's not because they're nicer, more easygoing individuals. It's simply because their primeval urge to hang onto a male provider is so strong.

Important info

Why Men Cheat

Another mystery of the universe solved.

For your edification

Take the quiz

Your 'Do You Want the Terrorists to Win' Score: 100%

You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, "blame America first"-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day.... in Guantanamo!

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?

Au revoir!

The mustache says adios

Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

His carta de resignation.

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

Lawmakers decried spontaneous genetic mutations

Britain to push for global climate deal by 2008

The UK is to use the warnings of irreversible climate change and the biggest economic slump since the 1930s, outlined in yesterday's Stern review, to press for a new global deal to curb carbon emissions.

The Liberal Party in Canada has just elected their new leader, a former environmental minister and who running on a platform of three pillars; economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental sustainability. I have never seen a federal level election with such talk about the environment. There is hope...

Proving what we already knew

Eating slowly really does make people eat less

A new study provides the first-ever scientific proof that if you eat slowly, you will eat less -- and you will enjoy the meal more.

Women consumed about 70 fewer calories when they were told to take their time eating a meal of pasta and sauce, compared to when they were instructed to eat it as quickly as possible. They also rated the meal as more pleasant when they ate slowly.

"They got more pleasure for (fewer) calories, and more satiety for (fewer) calories," Dr. Kathleen Melanson of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston told Reuters Health."

So if you eat slowly from a small plate you will undoubtably live 33.2% longer, and thus pollute 33.2% more!

Btw, we need to get rich people to give poor people rides

He's The Worst Ever

He's so the worst, that I don't even need to say who he is

Psyche!

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.

The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."

However, snap! It was a joke to enlighten the people...

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland.

Watching the watchers

Assults on the NSA - a rundown on the oversight of the NSA's domestic spying program. Looks like they will be busy.

Senate Judiciary Committee: Incoming chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has repeatedly voiced concern over the program, and fought GOP attempts to legalize it. Likely to hold insightful hearings on the matter; may investigate.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: To date, Incoming chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) greatest act of outrage over the program came in the form of a secret letter, one copy of which he mailed to Dick Cheney and another which he locked away in a safe. (You can read the letter here.) He has since publicly expressed frustration at being unable to learn details of the program's effectiveness, and has called for "full access" to information about the program.

House Judiciary Committee: Incoming chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has made harsh statements about the program. Expect to see hearings and/or full-fledged investigations in the new year.

Northern Dist. of Calif. (Hepting v. AT&T): The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed the suit against AT&T, but government lawyers have intervened in the case, attempting to get it dismissed by claiming the "state secrets" privilege -- national security would be compromised if the case moved forward. The judge rejected the motion; the government is appealing. Hearing won't happen before April 2007. (Note: Many of the class-action suits filed against telcos, including an ACLU case filed in Illinois, were transferred to the judge in this case, and are expected to eventually consolidate.)

Eastern Dist. of Mich. (ACLU v. NSA): - The advocacy group sued to stop the NSA program. This case prompted the historic ruling that the program is unconstitutional. The government has appealed that decision, and the judge has allowed the program to continue until the appeal is heard and decided. Oral arguments in appeal expected in January or February 2007.

Southern Dist. of Manhattan (CCR v. Bush): Advocacy group sues administration to stop NSA program. The judge has heard arguments heard on all preliminary motions, however the government is asking the case be consolidated with others. Judge appears to be holding up the suit until that issue is settled.

District of Oregon (Al-Haramain v. Bush): U.S. branch of Islamic charity suspects NSA improperly tapped its conversations via secret program. Government attempted to use state secrets privilege to get case dismissed. Judge rejected.

All over the place: Dozens of class-action suits have been filed against telcos all over the country. Over 30 have been transferred from their original courts to the Northern District of California. In over a dozen other cases, however, the plaintiffs are said to have opposed the transfer.

Justice Department - Office of Professional Responsibility: Earlier this year attempted to probe how top Justice officials, including attorney general Alberto Gonzales, reviewed, approved and monitored the NSA program. Stonewalled by President Bush, who refused to grant necessary security clearances to OPR investigators. OPR closed the investigation.

Justice Department - Inspector General: On Monday, announced an investigation into Justice officials' handling and application of intelligence gathered by the program. Appears targeted at possible wrongdoing by U.S. attorneys and lower-level officials, not senior executives and appointed officials. White House granted clearances to investigators. Ongoing.

NSA - Inspector General: Confirmed in January 2006 that the office had opened an audit into the program. In August, the IG handling the probe was promoted to Negroponte's staff, where he will oversee all counterespionage efforts in the intelligence community. There has been no word on the probe since it was announced in January.

White House - Privacy/Civil Liberties Oversight Board: This panel, chosen by the president and lacking investigative powers, nonetheless reviewed the NSA program and pronounced it all right with them.

Finally, public utility boards in about 20 states have taken action against the program. The boards -- state-level entities which oversee phone companies and other utilities -- have filed administrative complaints against the companies in some cases, and lawsuits in others. Even if the federal government isn't named in these matters, Justice lawyers have intervened in many to get them dismissed.

Nothing like evidenced based policy

Under 30, single? No sex for you!

The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health."

Abstinence education programs, which have focused on preteens and teens, teach that abstaining from sex is the only effective or acceptable method to prevent pregnancy or disease. They give no instruction on birth control or safe sex.

The untapped gold mine of buillshit detectors

Perhaps The media should invest

Agreed. Currently Stewart, Colbert, and Olbermann have a monopoly, and monopolies are bad for competition. Why do I think that the conservative version of the daily show coming on fox news will quite get it... who knows?

The single impact scenario

"To put it mildly, it was a bad day to live on Earth"

Are we prepared?

File under: tell me something I didn't already know

Bush nuts

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

Baaah

Acephalous: Measuring The Speed of Meme: An Experiment in which You Will Participate, Or Else...

Don't follow the link, I'm just doing my part.

Environment on the radio

The environment and related issues are every 4th story on the CBC right now. The amount of coverage is quite amazing, actually. How often do they show up on NPR? I see they have a story on the Supreme court case. Anyone listen? What are you hearing?

A nice gesture

EPA scientists file mass petition for action on global warming

Washington, DC — In an unprecedented action, representatives for more than 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are calling on Congress to take immediate action against global warming, according to a petition released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The petition also calls for an end to censorship of agency scientists and other specialists on topics of climate change and the effects of air pollution.

Didn't they see the memo? "Stay the course". Methinks they need to wait two more years.

Interestingly,

The filing of this petition coincides with today’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on a case (Massachusetts v. EPA, Case No. 05-1120) brought by states seeking to force the Bush administration to regulate greenhouse gases that fuel global warming under the Clean Air Act.

This should be a huge priority for the new congress. If you frame it right then it could be bad for republicans if Bush vetos environment legislation also. He got killed on his stem cell veto, and perhaps this could be another on. What do the polls say about American's position on climate change? Btw, of Canadians, 77% (or something like that) believe that their government should meet or beat Kyoto targets. Of course, Canada has a new conservative PM who launched a pathetic "clean air" bill that does absolutely nothing. Happily, however, he is getting uniformly criticized for it.

My mind is flat

Friedman offers a new solution: Re-occupy Iraq.

Friedman: …To have a proper civil war you need to have two sides —-you have about thirty sides—It's beyond a civil war there.

Vieira: So what does that mean in terms of our role there then, Thom?

Friedman: Um, Obviously when you're dealing now with something broken up into so many little pieces–it's hard to believe that anything other than re-occupying the country–um, and establishing the very coherent order we failed to do from the beginning is really the only serious option left.

Vieira (stunned) But, is that really a serious option—to reoccupy the country?

Friedman: Well, I'm simply saying if you actually want to actually bring order there—the idea that you're going to train the Iraqi army and police to this kind of fragmented society is ludicrous. Who's training the insurgents? Nobody is training them and they seem to be doing just fine. This is not about the way–it's about the will. Do you have a will to be a country? If you don't have that then there's not much training is going to do..

So Friedman 1) offers a solution that is a totally incoherent non-starter, re-occupy Iraq? Who will do it? With what troops? Don't we have 120+K already there? and then 2) blames it on the Iraqis (no will). At the end of the day, it sounds like he has given up hope for establishing any control. There will be no more more Friedman units [one Freidman unit = 6 months].

Name	Occupation	Description	Units	Begin date	End date
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"The next six months in Iraq... are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time"	1	November 30, 2003	May 30, 2004
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"What we're gonna find out... in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."	1	October 3, 2004	April 3, 2005
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"I think we're in the end game now.... I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear"	1	September 25, 2005	March 25, 2006
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse"	1	December 18, 2005	June 18, 2006
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding"	1	January 23, 2006	July 23, 2006
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."	1	March 2, 2006	September 2, 2006
Thomas Friedman	opinion columnist	"we're going to find out... in the next year to six months - probably sooner - whether a decent outcome is possible"	1	May 11, 2006	November 11, 2006

To be fair, there were plenty of other people making the same types of predictions, and at some point he was probably right, in the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The professor of pigging out

We eat with our eyes, not with our stomach

. One experiment we've done in this realm is with a refillable soup bowl. We found that people eating from the refillable bowl ate 73 percent more soup.

Refillable soup bowls, thats super cool! The moral? Buy smaller plates:

We find that people eat 92 percent of all the food that they serve themselves. You're likely to eat, if not all of it, most of it. So anything that causes you to take more than you otherwise would is going to cause you to eat more. Six ounces of pasta on an 8-inch plate looks like a pretty good portion. But that same 6 ounces of pasta on a 12-inch plate would look like barely an appetizer.

And studies say if you eat less (25% less) you will live longer. So I guess we should by plates 25% smaller and all will be well.

Oh also important to live long and healthy ;
1. Nice guys die last
3. Get the giggles
4. Eat whole grains
5. Floss (!?)
6. Veg out - go vegetarian!!
7. Eat tuna (and salmon and other oily fish)
8. Drink tea (green better than black)
9. Believe in something
10. Eat berries ...
and it goes on... do yoga, olive oil, live yoghurt, have a pet (?), optimism, fall in love good friends, stay married, reduce salts, keep using your mind, enjoy a glass of red wine, and get enough sleep to name a few...

Depressing... So unbelievably depressing

On McCain

What people need to know

YOU CAN READ 1,000 profiles of GOP presidential front-runner John McCain without encountering a single paragraph examining his core ideological philosophy...

Lott v. Rove

Lott's wants Rove out - I didn't know this, but apparently Rove helped to oust Lott a few years ago after his Strom Thurman comments, and now Lott is back in power...

Buddha on the brain

Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge

High court to hear global warming case

there is always hope

The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.

A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles.

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels are burned. It is the principal "greenhouse" gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to a warming of the earth and widespread ecological changes.

The Bush administration intends to argue before the court on Wednesday that the EPA lacks the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The agency contends that even if it did have such authority, it would have discretion under the law on how to address the problem without imposing emissions controls.

The states and more than a dozen environmental groups insist the 1970 law makes clear that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that is subject to regulation because its poses a threat to public health.

A sharply divided federal appeals court ruled in favor of the government in 2005. But last June, the Supreme Court decided to take up the case.

The ruling next year is expected to be one of the court's most important ever involving the environment.

Fuel is cool!

Science a la Joe Camel

At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.

The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.

The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.

Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.

Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.

It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.

And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.

So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.

In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school.

Makes me think of that great movie, "thank you for smoking".

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change

And are gearing up to lobby

Chuck Hagel - on leaving Iraq and trying to save face

With no victory or defeat

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.
...
merica finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.

Good news Friday

Jubilation over Nepal peace pact

Vatican may allow use of condoms to combat Aids

Strong hints have emerged that the Vatican is preparing to change its policy on the use of condoms in the fight against Aids, after a 200-page study on the question, commissioned by the Pope, was passed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for consideration.

"This is something that worries the Pope a lot," said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the head of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, which compiled the study.

The report's completion coincides with the news that 2.9 million people died of Aids-related illnesses this year and 4.3 million more became infected. By next February, when it is predicted that Pope Benedict XVI will pronounce on the question, another 806,000 people will have become infected.

In MayThe Independent reported that the Catholic Church was on the brink of a historic U-turn. It is believed that the study urges a subtle but important change of tack. Condom use will be permitted if a man with HIV insists on having sex with his non-infected wife, as a "lesser evil".

Well, its a good start.

Iraq to the US: Get out

Says a new poll

PIPA has released a new poll of Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S. occupation, and the takeaway is very, very clear: they want us to leave. 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis want us to leave within a year (the number is 80% for Shiites in Baghdad). By wide margins, both groups believe U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they're preventing, and both groups believe that day-to-day security would improve if we left. Support for attacks on U.S. forces now commands majority support among both Shiites and Sunnis. And none of this is because of successful al-Qaeda propaganda: 94% of Iraqis continue to disapprove of al-Qaeda.

No principles

GOP leaving spending bills to Democrats

Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills.

There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.

The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.

It was always all about the power.

Reno 9-11

Reno Files Challenge to Terror Law

Former Attorney General Janet Reno and seven other former Justice Department officials filed court papers Monday arguing that the Bush administration is setting a dangerous precedent by trying a suspected terrorist outside the court system.

It was the first time that Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, has spoken out against the administration's policies on terrorism detainees, underscoring how contentious the court fight over the nation's new military commissions law has become. Former attorneys general rarely file court papers challenging administration policy.

Another Olbermann special comment

On Vietnam

Global Orgasm for Peace

Those crazy Californians...

Ken Adelman: A Rat Abandons a Ship of Fools

A cakewalk indeed

in the first 100 hours

Democrats to quickly target oil industry tax breaks

An interesting proposal

Democratic congressman says he will introduce bill to reinstate military draft

WASHINGTON: Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.

Representative Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.

I agree. And if you don't want to serve in the military, then there should be a mandatory year of national community service.

Same ol' same ol'

Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush

Good riddance to bad rubbish

GOP 'Chess Club' Ruled The House For 12 Years And Won't Be Missed - CBS News

Finally calling a duck a duck. Man.

Speaking of ducks, is Rove outta there?

Bastards

McCain: Bush Admin Breaks Laws to Hide Global Warming Data

Of course it is no surprise when you have jerks like this as the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Unfriggin' believable.

Getting Waterboarded

Meanwhile, in related news, Senate Dems plan overhaul of military tribunals bill

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who is running for president and who, come January, will be the second ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee, introduced legislation today that would amend the existing law.

Dodd said he’s expecting the legislation to be taken up early next year.

"The bill goes back and undoes what was done," Dodd told The Hill. Dodd was one of the top critics of the military tribunal bill the GOP hashed out with the White House and was signed into law last month.

Dodd’s bill, which currently has no co-sponsors, seeks to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees; bar information that was gained through coercion from being used in trials and empower military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable.

Dodd’s bill also narrows the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States who are not lawful combatants. The legislation would also authorize the U.S. Court of Appeals for the armed forces to review decisions made by the military commissions.

Moreover, Dodd seeks to have an expedited judicial review of the new law to determine the constitutionality of its provisions.

Dodd is the first Democrat to take aim at the controversial military tribunals bill. But Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, also said that he is in the process of drafting "major changes" to the legislation.

Among the planned changes are instituting habeas corpus rights for detainees and looking into the current practice of extraordinary rendition.

Leahy is among several other Democrats, including incoming Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who are concerned about the practice of sending suspected terrorists to countries other than the United States for imprisonment and interrogation.

Btw, I never heard anyone question the fact that we send suspected terrorists to Syria. Aren't they a state sponsor of terror? Bolton puts them in the "Beyond the axis of evil" category. And please, John, Cuba? Are they really that evil? They export doctors for gosh darn sake.

Report: Sony losing hundreds on each PS3 - News at GameSpot

iSuppli breakdown pegs cost of manufacturing $499 20GB console [Playstation 3] at $805, $599 60GB console at $840.

When the Xbox 360 went on sale last year, BusinessWeek commissioned tech researcher iSuppli to take apart the console and estimate how much it cost to manufacture. The firm concluded that, including all pack-in accessories (hard drive, controller, cables, and so on), each premium 360 set Microsoft back some $126. Before labor, just the parts it took to make the console cost $470--$71 more than the full-fledged system's $399 price tag.

This week, iSuppli conducted a similar cost-analysis study of the PlayStation 3--with even more shocking results. According to the study, the hardware for the 20-gigabyte PS3 costs $805.85 alone--$306.85 more than the stated list price of $499. The 60GB model hardware costs $840.35, $241.35 more than the $599 sticker price Sony announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this year. (Note: Sony did not announce price points of $499.99 and $599.99 at E3, although some retailers list the consoles' prices as such.)

I might have to buy one just to save the money.

Unleash the Shiites?

The U.S. may be forced to choose sides in Iraq's civil strife

AS SECTARIAN violence rises in Iraq and the White House comes under increasing pressure to revamp its strategy there, a debate is emerging inside the Bush administration: Should the U.S. abandon its efforts to act as a neutral referee in the ongoing civil war and, instead, throw its lot in with the Shiites?

A U.S. tilt toward the Shiites is a risky strategy, one that could further alienate Iraq's Sunni neighbors and that could backfire by driving its Sunni population into common cause with foreign jihadists and Al Qaeda cells. But elements of the administration, including some members of the intelligence community, believe that such a tilt could lead to stability more quickly than the current policy of trying to police the ongoing sectarian conflict evenhandedly, with little success and at great cost.

dancin

The best part is the last 4 seconds.

Will China clean up the U.S.'s mess?

Somebody has to

Thomas Friedman tells us in Wednesday's New York Times that, after his most recent visit, "for the first time, it's starting to feel to me like China is reaching its environmental limits." That's kind of like observing, after the recent kidnapping of Iraqi government officials directly from their Baghdad offices, that the situation in Iraq is beginning to get ugly. But far be it from us to carp at Friedman's recommendation that China "radically change to greener, more sustainable modes of design, transport, production and power generation," if it wants to avoid an "eco-nightmare." Not only is this true, but as Friedman concedes, China's leaders are well aware of the problem, and working to address it.

fun with interactive maps

2006 Election Results: U.S. House

More Schecter Fun

Cuz I'm too lazy to blog for real.

Need read

Here's an inspiring story about somebody who won election to the House without having to suck-up to party leadership or beg for gobs of money and favors to fund an election. This person had no prior political experience before running for Congress:

A win from the blue

Recipe

No-Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Going from blue to green

Boxer pledges shift on global warming policy with new Senate role

Ok, I know I said I wasn't going to post - but I saw this and was just too damn giddy...

Sen. Barbara Boxer on Thursday promised major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup as she prepares to head the U.S. Senate's environmental committee.

''Time is running out, and we need to move forward on this,'' Boxer said of global warming during a conference call with reporters. ''The states are beginning to take steps, and we need to take steps as well.''

Boxer's elevation to chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Public Works Committee comes as the Democrats return to power in the Senate. It also marks a dramatic shift in ideology for the panel.

The California Democrat is one of the Senate's most liberal members and replaces one of the most conservative senators, Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe had blocked bills seeking to cut the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, calling the issue ''the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people.''

Environmentalists were overjoyed at the change.

''That's like a tsunami hit the committee,'' said Karen Steuer, who heads government affairs at the National Environmental Trust, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. ''You can't find two members or people more ideologically different.''

Boxer said she intends to introduce legislation to curb greenhouse gases, strengthen environmental laws regarding public health and hold oversight hearings on federal plans to clean up Superfund sites across the country.

On global warming, Boxer said she would model federal legislation after a California law signed this summer by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That law imposes the first statewide cap on greenhouse gases and seeks to cut California's emissions by 25 percent, dropping them to 1990 levels by 2020.

A top environmental aide at the White House signaled Thursday that the administration would work with Boxer.

Maybe Arnie made going green 'cool' enough for the rest of us. Nobody can call him a tree hugging wimp. Lets get Bush in a flightsuit posing with Arnie fighting the war on global warming terror. The press would eat it up.

Human Development Report 2006

This year's human development report, Beyond Scarcity: Power, politics and the global water crisis, focuses on the fact

that we are in the midst of a crisis in water and sanitation that overwhelmingly affects the poor. ‘Crisis’ means here that too many people do not have access to enough water under the right conditions to live. This crisis, the HDR suggests, is not about scarcity – the world is ultimately not running out of water. People do not have water because they are locked out by poverty, inequality and government failure.

This reminds me of Amartya Sen's argument that famines are not caused by a lack of food, rather by a lack of access to food - due to economic and social factors (like a rise in the price of food, job losses, distribution problems etc). The HDR 2006, for example, points out that the poor pay far more for water than we do...

in the slums of Nairobi the poor pay five to 10 times more per litre of water than wealthy people living in the same city. The poorest households of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Jamaica spend on average over 10 percent of their income on water; in the United Kingdom, by contrast, spending more than three percent of family income on water is considered an economic hardship.

The report says that effective water delivery in countries has been stagnated by the debate on public-versus-private delivery...

The debate over the relative merits of public and private-sector performance has been a distraction from the inadequate performance of both public and private water providers in overcoming the global water deficit,” says the Report. A new, more strategic approach that puts the poor at the centre of the solution is essential to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, stress the authors.

Appreciate your life - the HDR also reports annually on 'quality of life' among countries (based on the HDI indicator) - this year Norway's # 1, followed by Iceland and Australia. See rankings.

Short break

I have a deadline looming so I am going to avoid all the news and fun until the 16th. So, play nice all 2 of you.

And I leave you with the following interesting tidbits

Rumsfeld a German war criminal?

Though he is now the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld is expected to be accused of war crimes in a lawsuit to be filed next week in Germany.

The Center for Constitutional Rights will file the suit on behalf of a group of Iraqi detainees as well as the so-called 20th hijacker, who is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay.

"The former secretary actually authorized a series of interrogation techniques," said Michael Ratner, President of CCR. "They included the use of dogs, stripping, hooding, stressed positions, chaining to the floor, sexual humiliation and those types of activities."

Those techniques, he says, amount to torture and violate the Geneva Conventions. Ratner will be traveling to Berlin next week and plans to file the suit on Tuesday.

Another US official who won't be able to travel freely through the EU.

and apparently some in the GOP are pissed off about the timing of Rumsfeld exit... as they should be.

"The White House said keeping the majority was a priority, but they failed to do the one thing that could have made a difference," one House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. "For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority."

Exit polling suggested that an overwhelming majority of voters disapproved of the administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and members and aides were frustrated with the timing of the announcement because an earlier resignation could have given them a boost on the campaign trail, they believe.

"They did this to protect themselves, but they couldn't protect us?" another Republican aide said yesterday.

and finally Ken Mehlman to step down from RNC post.

See you in a few days!

Chafeeleaving GOP?

Chafee unsure of staying with GOP after losing election

Hispanic vote

7 of 10 voted democratic

That is an 11% increase from 2002 midterm!

Young democrats

Youth turnout in election biggest in 20 years

Rock the Vote, a youth-and-civics group, said young voters favored Democrats by a 22-point margin, nearly three times the margin Democrats earned among other age groups and dealing a potentially decisive blow to Republicans in tight races.

And they say that once you are a democrat in your 20s you generally stay a democrat. This could be good news for the future!

More Cliff

he is looking like a regular, and he consistently outperforms his GOP counterpart.

The benefits of the Senate

Looks like Allen will concede today around 3PM EST, so the Democrats have the Senate. Besides being able to stymie judicial appointments, there is another great benefit that I had forgot about... Bolton will be gone form the UN

Joseph Biden of Delaware is expected to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democratic control of the US Senate is formally confirmed.

"I never saw a real enthusiasm (for Bolton's nomination) on the Republican side to begin with. There's none on our side. And I think John Bolton's going nowhere," he said.

Mr Bolton, the controversial former undersecretary of state in charge of non-proliferation, was nominated by President George W Bush to be UN envoy in March 2005.

But after his confirmation was blocked in the Republican-led Senate, Mr Bush made a recess appointment, which will last until the new Congress convenes in January 2007.

Sweet.

Credibility

Liars

I'm sorry I don't feel great sympathy for the legions of conservative commentators who kept drinking and spewing the Bush Kool-Aid, knowing full well it had nothing to do with conservatism, until they are now forced to reveal the truth. Here's an amazing quote from Rush Limbaugh yesterday Limbaugh yesterday:

"There have been a bunch of things going on in Congress, some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at, and it has been difficult coming in here, trying to make the case for it when the people who are supposedly in favor of it can't even make the case themselves - and to have to come in here and try to do their jobs."

No wonder he was driven to pain-killers. The GOP has way to many members who suffer from self-loathing.

In the same vein, Bill Maher says Ken Mehlman [and then later CNN edits it out - I actually saw the edited version, they did such a good job, you can't tell.]

GOP entitlement program bankrupt

Out-of-Work GOP Aides Face Tough Road Ahead

The hundreds of Republican staffers — not to mention more than a few Members — who will lose their jobs in the next few weeks are going to face a hostile marketplace on K Street as unemployed Republicans flood the market.

Tuesday’s election results sent at least 20 incumbents in the House and Senate packing and flipped control of the House to Democrats. It also flipped a decade-long trend of Republicans as the darlings of the lobbying sector. While GOP aides are flooding the town with their résumés, it’s now plugged-in Democratic aides whom companies and firms really have an eye for.

MMM bread

The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work

The economics of occupation

Some inconvenient truths: Quitting Iraq won't undo the real damage of the war

An older article with, unfortunately, no answers, but interesting nonetheless.

Good things

Democrats with the House and the Senate.

Bush seen as diminished world leader, as if that was really possible. Blair sweating potential House inquiries.

[Oh, and screw you Bush for saying that the terrorists should not celebrate. Bi-partisanship my donkey.]

Rummy gone.

Hastert Will Step Down from Republican leadership

And in really stupid news reporting: Stock futures fall on election results. yes, I'm sure there is a direct correlation there. Which party in the WH is better for investors? The Democrats

Boneless Bush

Its fun!

American democracy still works

so far, at least

The basic mechanics of American democracy, imperfect and defective though they may be, still function. Chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists — well-intentioned though they may be — need to re-evaluate their defeatism and conspiracy theories in light of this rather compelling evidence which undermines them (a refusal to re-evaluate one's beliefs in light of conflicting evidence is a defining attribute of the Bush movement that shouldn't be replicated).

Karl Rove isn't all-powerful; he is a rejected loser. Republicans don't possess the power to dictate the outcome of elections with secret Diebold software. They can't magically produce Osama bin Laden the day before the election. They don't have the power to snap their fingers and hypnotize zombified Americans by exploiting a New Jersey court ruling on civil unions, or a John Kerry comment, or moronic buzzphrases and slogans designed to hide the truth (Americans heard all about how Democrats would bring their 'San Francisco values' and their love of The Terrorists to Washington, and that moved nobody). It simply isn't the case that we are doomed and destined to lose at the hands of all-powerful, evil forces.

All of the hurdles and problems that are unquestionably present and serious — a dysfunctional and corrupt national media, apathy on the part of Americans, the potent use of propaganda by the Bush administration, voter suppression and election fraud tactics, gerrymandering and fundraising games — can all be overcome. They just were.

Bush opponents haven't been losing because the deck is hopelessly stacked against them. They were losing because they hadn't figured out a way to convey to their fellow citizens just how radical and dangerous this political movement has become. Now they have, and as a result, Americans see this movement for what it is and have begun the process of smashing it.

That work is far from over, but it can be achieved — unquestionably – by those willing to fight for that result and who figure out how to perusade a majority of American of the rightness of their views. That's exactly how our democracy is supposed to work.

Its a good day.

I'm going to be doing this all day, me thinks! I must admit, it has all gone better than I had thought. I was thinking that they'd take about 20 in the House and 3-4 in the Senate. I had no idea that there would be such a high turnout and it looks as if the Dems GOTV effort was very good!

And it is also great that S. Dakota does the sane thing and vots against the ban of almost all abortions.

How love conquered marriage, and what to do about it

Too Close for Comfort

Instead, we should raise our expectations for, and commitment to, other relationships, especially since so many people now live so much of their lives outside marriage. Paradoxically, we can strengthen our marriages the most by not expecting them to be our sole refuge from the pressures of the modern work force. Instead we need to restructure both work and social life so we can reach out and build ties with others, including people who are single or divorced. That indeed would be a return to marital tradition — not the 1950s model, but the pre-20th-century model that has a much more enduring pedi-gree.

Yeah, where we marry for economic reasons, women don't work outside the home and men have all the power! Wahee!

What the money says

Tradesport predictions and other election matters

Senate seats to watch:

Arizona - turning Democratic - 7.9%
Connecticut - remaining Democratic (Lamont) - 4.0%
Connecticut - remaining 'Democratic' (Lieberman)- 94.7%
Maryland - remaining Democratic - 65.3%
Michigan - remaining Democratic - 94.9%
Minnesota - remaining Democratic - 92.9%
Missouri - turning Democratic - 60.0%
Montana - turning Democratic - 69.0%
New Jersey - remaining Democratic - 94.2%
Ohio - turning Democratic - 96.2%
Pennsylvania - turning Democratic - 94.2%
Rhode Island - turning Democratic - 68.0%
Tennessee - turning Democratic - 22.0%
Virginia - turning Democratic - 66.0%
Washington - remaining Democratic - 92.2%

The Dems are a lock to win back the House, but still on the losing end of picking up the Senate - not much margin for error there, they'd have to win all 6 seats that are vulnerable. However - interestingly, the 6 most contested Senate seats all predict Dem victory (unfortunately, Lieberman wins also.).