Coming down the pike

Prostitution scandal has Washington in new 'shock and awe'

The demise of a call-girl ring and pending trial of an alleged madam claiming thousands of clients has the US capital riveted by the chance powerful men may now be caught with their trousers down, with a senior state department official apparently first to fall.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, dubbed the DC Madam in local media, has been arraigned in federal court on charges of operating a Washington prostitution service for 13 years until her retirement in 2006.

Palfrey has denied she ran a prostitution ring. Her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was simply a "high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior and did so without incident during its 13 year tenure," she said.

Palfrey contends her escort service provided university educated women to engage in legal game-playing of a sexual nature at 275 dollars an hour for a 90 minute session, the Washington Post reported.

But Palfrey has also hinted that she has a record of the phone numbers of thousands of more than 10,000 customers that could embarrass more the a few of the US capital's high-fliers.

Friday, the US State Department announced that Randall Tobias, the embattled head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was resigning for unspecified personal reasons.

That unspecified personal reason being that he solicited "massages" from Palfrey's business, not sex of course (the Haggard defense).

Gregory Colbert

Watch the video

Boo

Beware of the boogieman. Good ol' Giuliani breaks out with the Cheny-ism 'if a democrat gets elected you are all going to die'. Nice one. This should be easily countered, "who was in office when we got hit?" Either that or, "yeah, that's what Cheney says". People totally heart Cheney.

The intelligence is in

And the former head spook says

George Bush insulates himself from reality! The administration didn't seriously entertain the notion that Iraq didn't have WMD's! Dick Cheney is an asshole!

Well, ok, not to revelatory.

On our prefrontal simulator and psychological immune system

Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy? (video)

We synthesize it.

Supplemental bill passed, now here comes the veto

"We Are One Signature Away From Ending The Iraq War". The vote was 51-46 with McCain skipping the vote.

GOP scandal update

Bill Moyers Journal

Buying the War: how did the mainstream press get it so wrong?

Watch the video.

Human capacities

Humanity's biggest problems aren't what you think they are (video)

I am posting this one because it is a bit odd, but interesting (certainly not the best talk on TED) . Also, I am surprised by his massive omission. He talks about the "flow" state, but never mentioned the century old and proven technology of meditation to radically transform the human condition.

All roads point to Rove

And this might be the way to get there

The House Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 32-6, just authorized a subpoena for Monica Goodling's testimony and an offer of immunity.

As former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias pointed out yesterday, Goodling should prove to be a very valuable witness to investigators. Since Goodling acted as the liaison to the White House at the Justice Department, communications from Karl Rove or other White House officials are likely to have gone through her. As Iglesias put it, she has "the keys to the kingdom."

Some more info on immunity:

It is likely to be weeks before the committee actually gets to interview Goodling. That's because the law requires that the Justice Department be allowed an opportunity to provide its views on immunity -- i.e. whether it might interfere with an existing or possible investigation. If the DoJ objects to giving Goodling immunity, then the committee would be forced to consider whether to defer or delay conferring immunity. And regardless of what the DoJ says, the local federal court has to approve giving Goodling immunity. All this is likely to take several weeks.

Painful

After all this time, you'd think McCain could articulate what the hell he really things about what is going on there and a plan for a solution. It is painfully obvious that when confronted with somewhat rational argumentation that he can't respond so he resorts to platitudes that he knows are disingenuous.

The investigator investigating officials who oversee the agency that is investigating the investigator.

Say what?

Rove's Newest Investigator Is GOP hack

If you have the time

One of my favorite philosophers of the mind talks - Dan Dennett: Can we know our own minds? (video)

Philosopher Dan Dennett makes a compelling argument that not only don't we understand our own consciousness, but that half the time our brains are actively fooling us. As he puts it, our bodies are made up of 100 trillion little robots, none of them with an individual consciousness. So what makes us feel we have one? Or that we're in control of it? Dennett's hope is to show his audience that "Your consciousness is not quite as marvelous as you may have thought it is." He uses thought experiments and optical illusions to demonstrate to the TED audience that even very big brains are capable of playing tricks on their owners.

Bring it on!

The Office of Special Counsel will investigate U.S. attorney firings and other political activities led by Karl Rove

Legislating obesity

The Farm bill makes junk food eating the economic-man's rational choice

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called “an epidemic” of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposal for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

It gets better!

To speak of the farm bill’s influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact — on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities — or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico’s eaters as well as its farmers.) You can’t fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.

But apparently there is hope.

But there are signs this year will be different. The public-health community has come to recognize it can’t hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can’t be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

And then there are the eaters, people like you and me, increasingly concerned, if not restive, about the quality of the food on offer in America. A grass-roots social movement is gathering around food issues today, and while it is still somewhat inchoate, the manifestations are everywhere: in local efforts to get vending machines out of the schools and to improve school lunch; in local campaigns to fight feedlots and to force food companies to better the lives of animals in agriculture; in the spectacular growth of the market for organic food and the revival of local food systems. In great and growing numbers, people are voting with their forks for a different sort of food system. But as powerful as the food consumer is — it was that consumer, after all, who built a $15 billion organic-food industry and more than doubled the number of farmer’s markets in the last few years — voting with our forks can advance reform only so far. It can’t, for example, change the fact that the system is rigged to make the most unhealthful calories in the marketplace the only ones the poor can afford. To change that, people will have to vote with their votes as well — which is to say, they will have to wade into the muddy political waters of agricultural policy.

Blair to step down

'within weeks'

Torboto

The Robot That Tortures People

Greening

NYC pledges 1 million new trees by 2017

and Pelosi to Green the Capital.

Oh, now I'm not just a monkey, I'm a monkey with a worm brain!

Human Brain Has Origin in Lowly Worm

If its true, then they should get nailed for it

Yahoo sued for providing data on Chinese dissidents

According to the lawsuit, Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary (Yahoo HK) provided information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of Xiaoning, a writer, on charges of incitement to subvert state power, a human rights group said.

Wang was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in September 2003, due in part to writings distributed over the Internet.

According to the lawsuit, the Chinese court specifically relied on evidence supplied by Yahoo to identify and convict Xiaoning. The judgment noted that Yahoo HK informed investigators that a mainland China-based e-mail account (bxoguh@yahoo.com.cn) was used to set up Xiaoning's "aaabbbccc" Yahoo Group, and that the e-mail address ahgq@yahoo.com.cn, which Xiaoning used to post e-mails to that Yahoo Group, was also a mainland China-based account maintained by Xiaoning. The Chinese court said Yahoo was instrumental in causing Xiaoning's arrest and criminal prosecution, according to the lawsuit.

Yahoo spokesman Jim Cullinan said Yahoo is distressed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet.

Right, as if they didn't know.

Where virtuous pagans and classical philosophers go

Is no more . No more limbo for limbo.

Rove's "math"

Campaign against alleged voter fraud fuels political tempest

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

This, btw, is background real story behind the Attorney scandal. Several of the fired attorney's wouldn't pursue voter fraud seriously enough.

Speaking of that, looks like Alberto didn't do himself any favors today...

R. Perle documentary

On the topic of alternative views, PBS has a documentary produced(?) and narrated by Richard Perle:

Richard Perle advocates and defends neoconservative policies

After watching this, I have to give him some credit for putting his views out for discussion and direct debate.

New rule

Bush event volunteers say they did nothing wrong

When ejecting people from a Bush speech they were just making "viewpoint-based exclusionary determinations"

I sense a real slippery slope here if there are not any better guidelines than the extremely arbitrary "viewpoint-based".

Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans

Watch 'Daily Show' and 'Colbert'-- and Visit Newspaper Sites

The Power of Green

Finally, Friedman writes about something sensible.

‘Framing the Debate’

Chapter 1

Shazaam

Attorney scandal linked to President

No one disputes that Domenici's call to Iglesias was at best inappropriate. But there's been a lack of direct evidence that Iglesias's refusal to bow to political pressure led directly to his firing. Now we have that evidence. And it's not Kyle Sampson or even Alberto Gonzales whom Domenici went to to get sign off for Iglesias's ouster. It was right to the president. And the available evidence now points strongly to the conclusion that the final decision to fire David Iglesias came from the President of the United States.

Getting the other side

A big problem with human cognition is confirmation bias, it looks for evidence that supports whatever world-view or theories it has. This is an issue on the internet tubes because with the high levels of choice, people only read those who agree with them, resulting in the echo-chamber effect. Anyway, I thought I'd link to someone with an opposing point of view for once.

The AG argues in the WaPO that he did Nothing Improper

I look forward to Tuesday, when he testifies in front of Congress. I hear he has been practicing a lot.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has retreated from public view this week in an intensive effort to save his job, spending hours practicing testimony and phoning lawmakers for support in preparation for pivotal appearances in the Senate this month, according to administration officials.

Truth telling is hard work.

Why Nader was wrong

There was a substantial difference between the two parties, in both values and competence: Justice Department's Independence 'Shattered,' Says Former DOJ Attorney

Under Gonzales, though, almost immediately from the time of his arrival in February 2005, this changed quite noticeably. First, there was extraordinary turnover in the political ranks, including the majority of even Justice's highest-level appointees. It was reminiscent of the turnover from the second Reagan administration to the first Bush administration in 1989, only more so. Second, the atmosphere was palpably different, in ways both large and small. One need not have had to be terribly sophisticated to notice that when Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey left the department in August 2005 his departure was quite abrupt, and that his large farewell party was attended by neither Gonzales nor (as best as could be seen) anyone else on the AG's personal staff.

Third, and most significantly for present purposes, there was an almost immediate influx of young political aides beginning in the first half of 2005 (e.g., counsels to the AG, associate deputy attorneys general, deputy associate attorneys general, and deputy assistant attorneys general) whose inexperience in the processes of government was surpassed only by their evident disdain for it.

Having seen this firsthand in a range of different situations for nearly two years before I retired, I found it not at all surprising that the recent U.S. Attorney problems arose in the first place and then were so badly mishandled once they did.

PURGEGATE UPDATE

Its more and more interesting

....Here's the latest Purgegate news:

• The original plan to fire all 93 U.S. Attorneys came from Karl Rove "as a way to get political cover for firing the small number of U.S. attorneys the White House actually wanted to get rid of." Link.

• Wisconsin USA Steven Biskupic was originally on the list of prosecutors slated to be fired. Then he was removed. The reason for his reprieve is unclear, but perhaps it was because he was making his bosses happy by pursuing a bogus prosecution designed to make Wisconsin's Democratic governor look bad? Link.

• When he testified before Congress, Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, said that he had no replacements in mind when he was originally planning the purge. Turns out that's not exactly true. Link

Who better to fight corruption?

Than those with experience?

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz faced a fight for his political life Friday after the development lender's directors demolished his defense in a favoritism scandal surrounding his girlfriend.
...
More than 100 pages of documents released with the statement revealed that on his personal direction, Riza was given raises that took her annual pay package to nearly 200,000 dollars when she was reassigned from the World Bank to the US State Department to forestall any conflicts of interest after Wolfowitz took charge of the bank in June 2005.
...
"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," Wolfowitz told a news conference. He said that "in hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations" over Riza's generous pay deal.
...
The controversy has become a deep embarrassment for Wolfowitz just as he battles to overcome skepticism about a campaign that he is waging against corruption in the 185-member World Bank's multi-billion-dollar lending.

Say it loud: I'm elite and proud!

Bill Maher rants

my favorite line:

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

Krugman on the same issue: For God's Sake

The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.

But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.

Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.

For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.

Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.

And just for fun he finishes with a fun little fact: "Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series."

Karl Rove, again

More on the emails

Before we get too much further on the question of those missing White House e-mails, let's stop for a moment to remember this: As things currently stand, the White House wouldn't turn them over to Congress even if it could find them.

White House counsel Fred Fielding made that point in no uncertain terms Thursday in a letter to House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman. As the New York Times reports today, Fielding wrote that the White House would produce the e-mails only as part of a "carefully and thoughtfully considered package of accommodations," which is to say, as part of the deal Fielding has offered in which Congress would get private, transcript-free interviews -- but no sworn public testimony -- from Harriet Miers, Karl Rove and others who have been implicated in last year's prosecutor purge.

And why is the White House so resistant to the idea of Rove & Co. having to testify in public and under oath? The Times sheds a little light on that, too. As we've noted previously, the White House and/or the RNC changed e-mail policies in 2004 so that White House officials' RNC e-mails would no longer be deleted automatically after 30 days. The change may have come as a result of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame, an investigation that, at that point and long after, focused, to a considerable degree, on Rove's role in leaking Plame's identity to reporters and his failure to testify honestly about it before a federal grand jury.

So what did Rove do in the face of the e-mail policy change? According to the Times, he continued to delete e-mail messages from the RNC's servers himself. In 2005, the paper says, the RNC changed its policy again, and Waxman is charging that the second change was made specifically to keep Rove from deleting e-mails that the White House or the RNC knew should be kept.

Which brings us to one more thing worth remembering now: Although Rove's lawyer announced last June that Fitzgerald had informed him that Rove wouldn't be indicted in the Plame case, Fitzgerald certainly hasn't ruled out the possibly completely. If Fitzgerald is learning for the first time now about Rove's faculty with the delete button, it strikes us as at least theoretically possible that congressional Democrats aren't the only ones who might be interested in what Rove would have to say under oath.

Vonnegut

Reads Slaugterhouse Five

Co-sponsor

The Sanders/Boxer Global Warming Bill

The Sanders/Boxer Global Warming Bill (S.309) summary

• Contains findings which include the need to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to a worldwide stabilization goal of 450 parts per million and states that the purpose of the bill is to prevent global temperature increases of more than 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit from current levels.
  
  
• A cap and trade program is outlined, but not required, and the funds from such a system may be used to help those disproportionately affected by global warming or as grants to find the cleanest energy sources.
  
  
• If greenhouse gas concentrations exceed 450 parts per million, or if there is an increase in temperatures above the goal, then the National Academy of Sciences shall report this fact and EPA can order additional reductions.
  
  
• Calls for 30% reduction in greenhouse gases from cars by 20l6 and calls for energy facilities built after 2012 to be as clean as a new natural gas plant.
  
  
• Creates grants for carbon sequestration and requires EPA to set standards as well.
  
  
• Creates a research and development program on global warming and calls for 100% increase per year for the first ten years in energy research for clean, low carbon sources of energy.
  
  
• Contains an energy efficiency standard requiring reductions in electricity use through the use of consumer products that are low carbon such as efficient light bulbs.
  
  
• Requires utilities to generate or purchase an increasing amount of renewable energy.
  
  
• Contains a standard for low carbon renewable fuels such as cellulosic ethanol or other fuels that reduce carbons emission 75% or more.
  
  
• Directs the SEC to promulgate regulations requiring corporate disclosure of climate change risks.

Some other relevant info

Grading Bush's Veto Threat

From here

Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84

RIP

Vonnegut slide show

a nice obit

West Point grads exit service at high rate

Clearly, their actions are supporting the terrorists, and these grads clearly hate America.

Its never the crime, its the cover-up

Whoopsie!

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Democrats also have been asking if White House officials are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via nongovernmental accounts to get around a law requiring preservation - and eventual disclosure - of presidential records. The announcement of the lost e-mails - a rare admission of error from the Bush White House at a delicate time for the administration's relations with Democratically controlled Capitol Hill - gave new fodder for inquiry on this front.

"This sounds like the administration's version of the dog ate my homework," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information."

This is the kind of thing that will come back to bite someone in the rear...

Mr. Chrysler gets the rage

Iacocca: Where have all the leaders gone?

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

There is plenty more where that came from...

Kiva

Join Kiva, a micro-loan institution.

Mixing the law and the bible

Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school

Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.

But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.
...
"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . ". . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."

It sounds paranoid, but if I wanted to create a Handmaid's Tale state, I'd start with filling the justice department with religious zealots.

Deleted scenes

Fuk Yu, no, Fuk Mi!

Fukuyama

While the End of History thus was essentially an argument about modernisation, some people have linked my thesis about the end of history to the foreign policy of President George Bush and American strategic hegemony. But anyone who thinks that my ideas constitute the intellectual foundation for the Bush administration's policies has not been paying attention to what I have been saying since 1992 about democracy and development.
...
I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.

Newtingo

You want to impress me Newt? Do this in English on Fox.

Good ol' Fox news

E-Democracy in action

From: comments@whitehouse.gov [comments@whitehouse.gov] Sent: Wed 4/4/2007 9:36 PM To: Me Cc: Subject: Attachments:

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.

We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.

Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

Lurking

StopIranWar.com

before it starts

Just for the fun of it

Iranian Leader Says He'll Free Britons

For Easter

Year of the earth, part 215

Sydney in climate change blackout

33 of 34

U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution

Acomparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower.

In a discouraging trend,

The study found that over the past 20 years:
* The percentage of U.S. adults who accept evolution declined from 45 to 40 percent.
* The percentage overtly rejecting evolution declined from 48 to 39 percent, however.
* And the percentage of adults who were unsure increased, from 7 to 21 percent.

Year of the earth, part 214

High Court Tells EPA to Consider Global Warming Steps

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered Bush administration environmental officials to reconsider their refusal to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, giving a boost to advocates of stronger action against global warming.

The justices, voting 5-4, today said the Environmental Protection Agency didn't follow the requirements of the Clean Air Act in 2003 when it opted not to order cuts in carbon emissions from new cars and trucks.

``EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

The ruling doesn't necessarily mean the EPA will have to impose new regulations. Still, it adds to growing pressure on the administration, which has resisted mandatory limits on carbon emissions. The decision is a setback for General Motors Corp. and other automakers and for utilities with coal-fired plants, including American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co.

Environmentalists and 12 states, including California and Massachusetts, are seeking to force the federal agency to limit emissions from new cars and trucks. New York is leading a separate state effort to curb power-plant emissions.

The decision also helps efforts by states including California to enact their own climate-change regulations. In fighting those rules, automakers have pointed to the EPA's conclusion that carbon dioxide isn't an ``air pollutant'' subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. The majority today rejected the agency's interpretation, saying greenhouse gases are air pollutants.

Update on the Attorneygate

WH wants AG to testify ASAP, but Dems r OK 4 now

... in the meantime, staffers for the House and Senate judiciary committees will be conducting private interviews with seven Justice Department officials involved in the purge. And when Gonzales appears before the committee, senators will be armed with transcripts from those interviews to check the AG's story. Says Leahy: "We're, in effect, interrogating a number of people leading up to it... The 17th is now the time…. It's the date the hearing will take place."

Outsourcing the gobmint

Under the Influence: How Lobbyists Wrote and Bought the Rx Drug Bill

Another one joins the club

With the other 60+% of the nation.