Governing is hard work

If you hate government, you fill it with hacks.

We already know that ties to the GOP trumped knowledge or experience among those sent to rebuild Iraq.

Why shouldn't it happen here too?

at the Fish and Wildlife Service, what a patriot.

and the GSA

Its a strange world

Video: Rove raps at correspondents dinner.

Why did it take so long?

San Francisco to ban plastic bags from supermarkets

It is about friggin time - this needs to happen across North America. The dutch had it figured out a while back - make people pay for bags.

Stores in San Francisco use 180 million of the plastic bags each year, and city leaders said moves by stores to voluntarily reduce that number have not made enough of a dent.

The city hopes the move will have a positive environmental impact. The bags are difficult to recycle and often end up in landfills or as litter. They can be especially deadly to marine life when the bags end up in the water.

An association of grocers has said the move will make shopping more expensive.

More expensive? Just bring a damn bag, for Pete's sake. Sheesh

Oh the irony

Too clever by half (where did that expression come from?)

White House personnel appear to have been systematically avoiding using their government emails on the job because they knew they might some day be subpoenaed.

But as we noted earlier with Karl Rove, this may have been too clever by half. If the president's aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can't have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege.

[update] more here on what it may mean for executive privilege.

A further interesting question is the extent to which using RNC e-mails to communicate stuff about meetings with Bush et al should be viewed as a further waiver of other executive privilege claims, at the limit on everything pertaining to the meetings and topics discussed in the RNC e-mails. On this point I would have to defer to those more knowledgeable than I am about how the attorney-client privilege is interpreted and applied.

"Interesting"

Why TIME is in the tank

Yep, this whole Rove and the scandals thing is so bad news for the Democrats, why focus on all that past silly stuff, lets move on, nothing to see here.

Hilarious

This is an actual screenshot from John McCain's MySpace page. How it happened here.

Cancer and politics

Tests Show Snow's Cancer Has Returned

I can only imagine that the stress of that job is horrible. Here's hoping he gets better.

And same to Elizabeth Edwards and anyone else out there who is suffering from it.

DIY Foreign Aid

You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor

For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.
...
Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is www.globalgiving.com, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.

A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.

“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”

Why trusting the media is getting tougher

gwb43.com

White House Aides Tried to Hide E-mails, Lawmaker Charges

Looks like they were sending emails through a different mail server than the government server. This is an interesting issue in terms of preserving public sector records as well as for security (looks like gov employees email through yahoo and hotmail too). Eventually there will have to be a law stating that all gov related work must go through the government servers. In the meantime, it looks like another piece of the secrecy pie.

It would make for poetic justice if Waxman could use the national security letters to get the emails from yahoo...

[update] Looks like a Gonzales aide took the 5th and won't testify. Wow.

Goodling, one of several aides involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer senators' questions.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," Dowd said. Goodling was key to the Justice Department's political response to the growing controversy. She took a leave of absence last week.

Finally, a bit of sanity?

America speaks out: Is the United States spending too much on defense?

On 1-4 February 2007, the Gallup polling organization asked a representative sample of US citizens if they thought the United States was spending too little, too much, or just the right amount on defense and the military.1 For the first time since the mid-1990s, a plurality of Americans said that the country was spending too much. The surprising result of the survey shows current public attitudes to approximate those that prevailed in March 1993, shortly after former President Bill Clinton took office. Today, 43 percent of Americans say that the country is spending "too much" on the military, while 20 percent say "too little". In 1993, the balance of opinion was 42 percent saying "too much" and 17 percent saying "too little."

What makes this result especially surprising is that few leaders in Congress and no one in the administration today argues that the United States can or should reduce military spending. Quite the contrary: leaders of both parties seem eager to add to the Pentagon's coffers, even as public anti-war sentiment builds. And Congress is not the only institution that appears insensitive to the shift in public opinion. The Gallup survey also drew little attention from the news media. Indeed, a Lexis-Nexis database search shows almost no coverage of the poll, which was released on 02 March 2007.

It always bothered me that it is a political impossibility (or at least people seem to think it is) to say that you want to cut spending on the military. Democrats can't say it because they are worried as being seen as weak, and the republicans don't want to say it. This whole thing needs to be turned around - framed differently. Republicans need to be painted not as strong vs. weak, but as incompetent and reckless brutes - stupid rather than smart. No better time than now to start.

Global warming can't buy happiness

The pursuit of more isn't better when it means choking our planet to death

EARLIER THIS MONTH, a draft White House report was leaked to news outlets. The report, a year overdue to the United Nations, said that the United States would be producing almost 20% more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it had in 2000 and that our contribution to global warming would be going steadily up, not sharply and steadily down, as scientists have made clear it must.

That's a pretty stunning piece of information — a hundred times more important than, say, the jittery Dow Jones industrial average that garnered a hundred times the attention. How is it even possible? How, faced with the largest crisis humans have yet created for themselves, have we simply continued with business as usual?

The answer is, in a sense, all in our minds. For the last century, our society's basic drive has been toward more — toward a bigger national economy, toward more stuff for each of us. And it's worked. Our economy is enormous; our houses are enormous. We are (many of us quite literally) living large. All that more is created using cheap energy and hence built on carbon dioxide — which makes up 72% of all greenhouse gases.

Some pollutants, such as smog, decrease as we get richer and can afford things like catalytic converters for our cars. But carbon dioxide consistently tracks economic growth. As Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman concluded last year, CO2 is "the one major environmental contaminant for which no study has ever found any indication of improvement as living standards rise." Which means that if we're going to cope with global warming, we may also have to cope with the end of infinite, unrestrained economic expansion.
...
In the 1990s, for instance, despite sterling economic growth, researchers reported a steady rise in "negative life events." In the words of one of the study's authors, "The anticipation would have been that problems would have been down." But money, as a few wise people have pointed out over the years, doesn't buy happiness. Meanwhile, growth during the decade increased carbon emissions by about 10%.

Further, economists and sociologists suggest that our dissatisfaction is, in fact, linked to economic growth. What did we spend our new wealth on? Bigger houses, ever farther out in the suburbs. And what was the result? We have far fewer friends nearby; we eat fewer meals with family, friends and neighbors. Our network of social connections has shrunk. Do the experiment yourself. Would you rather have a new, bigger television, or a new friend?

Sunday morning reading

Terrorized by 'War on Terror': How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America, By Zbigniew Brzezinski

and relatedly:

Gonzales should be impeached

THE HOUSE of Representatives should begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales, the nation's highest legal officer, has been point man for serial assaults against the rule of law, most recently in the crude attempt to politicize criminal prosecutions. Obstruction of a prosecution is a felony, even when committed by the attorney general.

The firings of US attorneys had multiple political motives, all contrary to longstanding practice. In some cases, Republican politicians and the White House were angry that prosecutors were not going after Democrats with sufficient zeal. In other cases, they wanted the prosecutors to lighten up on Republicans. In still others, exemplary prosecutors were shoved aside to make room for rising Republican politicians being groomed for higher office.

It's hard to imagine a more direct assault on the impartiality of the law or the professionalism of the criminal justice system. There are several other reasons to remove Gonzales, all involving his cavalier contempt for courts and liberties of citizens, most recently in the FBI's more than 3,000 cases of illegal snooping on Americans.

And check this out - in a related breach of the public trust, abuse of power, and waste of resources, undercover NYC officers spied on potential protest groups

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

Bravo NYC police, bravo.

My National Security Letter Gag Order

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

The future

Shift Happens

Get that disco feeling

Do it

Oh, they can't. Why not? because Congress apparently has no oversight authority, so sayeth Tony Snow.

The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn't have oversight ability.

It is really on.

Go Barbara

California vs. Oklahoma

Gore

on flame retardant babies

"Remember Valencia"

What Would Jack Bauer Do?

yes, more torture and less rule of law please!

In a gentler time, conservatives would have deplored this gory primetime fare. But now, finding a worldview consonant with their hawkish tendencies, they have embraced Jack Bauer as their pop-culture icon, his name uttered as an invocation of the grit and guts needed in the Age of Terror.

I'm not so sure if "in a gentler time" conservatives would have deplored this at all. Please, this appeals to the authoritarian conservatives and they would have eaten it all up. Us vs. them and fear are the easiest ways to their heart and mind.

Feeling the weight of public opinion turning against the war in Iraq and the waning of enthusiasm for the war on terror, some conservatives saw in this fictional nuclear attack a reason to believe again. On NewsBusters.org, a project of the conservative Media Research Center, contributing editor Noel Sheppard was overcome as he stared at the computer-generated mush-room cloud: “Personally, I was left speechless for several minutes after the stunning conclusion, and had to watch the second hour again to convince myself that I had actually seen what I had seen…” He went on, “this … should be required viewing for all media members who question what’s at risk, and whether there really is a war on terror.” Sad news when a real war needs fictional proof. Kathryn Lopez was also moved by this sight of carnage, blogging on The Corner: “To everyone who goes to work today protecting you, me, our families, freedom: Remember Valencia.”

It even pervades into "serious" think tanks

The conservative obsession with 24 has gone beyond popular audiences into think tanks. Last summer the Heritage Foundation assembled a panel on the show, including not only producers, writers, and actors, but Heritage scholars and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who praised the series for “reflect[ing] real life.” Emcee Rush Limbaugh asked the stars whether they “had problems with their friends” in Hollywood because the show is pro-American. “Just jealousy,” replied Carlos Bernard to the audience’s laughter.

Fortunately, the author ends on a note of reason

In 24, the war on terror is an omni-present ticking clock, pitting our legitimate security needs against the most cherished tenets of our civilization. The stress one hour of this imposes on Jack Bauer alone makes good drama, but its extension to all America, for an indefinite time, is a farce. The devotion to 24 and its protagonist demonstrates what few may care to admit: in the war on terror, the conservative movement has become willing to sacrifice principle to passion and difficult moral reasoning to utility. As escapism, 24 is riveting; as a parable for our time, it is revolting.

Where neo-nomads ideas percolate

I guess this makes me a PhD bedouins

Hoping for some moral courage

Al Gore: Global Warming Testimony before Congress 3.21.07

He gives a good speech.

Check out: AlGore.com, and/or sign the card.

House Authorizes Subpoenas

for WH officials

The subpoenas are for testimony from Karl Rove, his deputy Scott Jennings, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley, and Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson. They also seek more documents from the White House.

Investigation update

Too many investigations to know what is going on anymore...

US Attorney Scandal - new document dump, but it looks like there is an 18 day gap during an important time period. They are going to subpoena Rove and Miers but Bush is going to invoke executive privilege that may lead to an interesting standoff.

And then there is this whole National Security Letters investigation...

The politicization of everything

Scientist accuses White House of 'Nazi' tactics - Los Angeles Times

A government scientist, under sharp questioning by a federal panel for his outspoken views on global warming, stood by his view today that the Bush administration's information policies smacked of Nazi Germany.

James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, took particular issue with the administration's rule that a government information officer listen in on his interviews with reporters and its refusal to allow him to be interviewed by National Public Radio.

"This is the United States," Hansen told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. "We do have freedom of speech here."

But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said it was reasonable for Hansen's employer to ask him not to state views publicly that contradicted administration policy.

"I am concerned that many scientists are increasingly engaging in political advocacy and that some issues of science have become increasingly partisan as some politicians sense that there is a political gain to be found on issues like stem cells, teaching evolution and climate change," Issa said.

[update] here's more on Waxman's investigation and what Hansen's testimony means.

Test the Nation - Canada's National IQ Test

Take the test and see where you fall

Interesting, on average Women are 1.5 IQ points lower than men... but the estimated IQ average has a 6 point differential. And Libras have the highest average IQ, and Red heads are the smartest (black haired people are lower than blonds!)

The iRack

Reasons why I should never complain

Press the meet

Sestak tells Delay to stop banging his head against the wall

Watch the video. I have never heard Sestak talk but he is great. He has an almost zen-like calm demeanor that is very effective, and the content of what he says is convincing too.

and here is another video with Zbigniew Brzezinksi on the situation.

Strange bedfellows, but a great party

Pat Robertson for Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Authoritarianism

and the American Political Divide

Duke's legendary basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski likes to tell his players that people remember 30% of what they hear, 50% of what they see and 100% of what they feel. Since Coach K stumped for Liddy Dole during her 2002 bid for the Senate in North Carolina, it's unlikely that he's going to be available for Democratic strategy sessions anytime soon. But, his insight is one that needs to be heeded. America has, at best, an ambivalent relationship to intellectually or rationally-based appeals. Its politics are going to be fought on an emotion-laden playing field and this is evermore true in a post-Cold War, post-9/11 world characterized by evermore rapid social change. Our analysis suggests that the Democratic Party's tendency to worry about tweaking its issue positions is misplaced. Instead, Democrats need to respond to the emotion-laden appeals of the Republican Party. And, to repeat, at the heart of that set of appeals is authoritarianism.

Knowing what we do about authoritarianism, we suggest several ideas. Perceived threat is what makes those who score in the middle of the authoritarianism distribution act like authoritarians. Democrats benefit if they can make people feel less fear. Without holding the presidency, this will be hard to accomplish. But, candidates like Jim Webb might be able to argue credibly that the nation can only achieve its potential if its citizens stop living in fear.

Not unexpected.

U.S. odd man out in climate consensus

POTSDAM, Germany (Reuters) - A consensus on the need to protect the world's environment is emerging among rich and developing nations, but the United States remains at odds with other countries on key points, Germany said on Saturday.

Environment ministers of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, and officials from leading developing countries, were meeting to prepare for a June G8 summit where they plan to discuss specific targets for protecting the environment.

"On two issues, the United States were the only ones who spoke against consensus," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting, which he chaired on behalf of Germany's G8 presidency.

Gabriel said the U.S. remained opposed to a global carbon emissions trading scheme like the one used in the European Union and rejected the idea that industrialized nations should help achieve a "balance of interests" between developing countries' need for economic growth and environmental protection.

"We find this regrettable," Gabriel said, adding "I would have been disappointed if I'd expected something different."

Restoring accountability

Bit by bit

Well, surprise surprise surprise....

White House Security Chief Reveals -- No Probe of Plame Leak There

Well, there sort of was a probe:

Knodell testified that those who had participated in the leaking of classified information were required to own up to this and he was not aware that anyone, including Karl Rove, had done that.

Anyway, Bush knew who did it so why was a probe needed? Sheesh.

And just for kicks to demonstrate the overwhelming political influence of the comedy channel,

Rep. Waxman at one point said that he regretted not being able to put up a video of the president promising a full probe but added, "I guess we will leave that to The Daily Show."

Learn about education in California

Arnie hangs out with smart people

watch the video.

Nothing to see here, move along please

Northern hemisphere has had warmest winter ever

Rove might get a medal too!

E-Mails Show Rove's Role in U.S. Attorney Firings

New unreleased emails from top administration officials show the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House. The e-mails also show Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel—weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.

The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers and was her idea alone.

However, according to a senior White House official who has seen the e-mail exchange the Justice Department is preparing to release, "It does not contradict what we have said and it's not inconsistent with what we have said."

Well, ok then. I'm glad they cleared it up.

More on Alberto

Waas: Gonzales, A Likely Target, Helped Block Wiretapping Probe

Murray Waas, over at National Journal, adds to Alberto Gonzales' woes. It's another one of those complicated simple stories, and the gist is this: Gonzales knew that an internal Justice Department investigation would likely end up focusing on him, nevertheless, he went to Bush and got him to shut it down.

He is so gone. I give him less than 2 weeks.

Bush and Blair uncut

At the G8 (I couldn't get the video to work on Firefox)

Under the radar

Ohio Election Workers Sentenced

CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots so they could avoid a longer, detailed review.

Jacqueline Maiden, 60, a Cuyahoga County election coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer, 40, each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan allowed the women to remain free on bail pending appeal, but indicated he thought there was a more widespread conspiracy among election officials.

``I can't help but feel there's more to this story,'' Corrigan said.

It does make you wonder.

Time select for free

for University Students and Faculty

Why am I reading this in a UK paper?

Evangelical Christians attack use of torture by US

The uncoupling of American evangelism from the administration of George Bush gathered pace yesterday when one of the largest national umbrella groups of socially conservative Christians issued a statement critical of US policy towards detainees and repudiating torture as a tactic in the war on terror.

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents about 45,000 churches across America, endorsed a declaration against torture drafted by 17 evangelical scholars. The authors, who call themselves Evangelicals for Human Rights and campaign for "zero tolerance" on torture, say that the US administration has crossed "boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible" in the treatment of detainees.

A little late, but I guess better than nothing.

I guess it is getting some play on the teevee.

bush on al

Bush feels sleepy.

Fox News Tries to Trash Michael Moore

Purgegate

Schumer: Gonzales Staffer "Will Not Become The Next Scooter Libby"

Attorney General Gonzales is holding a presser at 2PM today.

... damn he didn't resign.

Frustration

Btw, this is Tina Richards, the mother of a Marine and anti-war protester, questioning Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc.

On the purge

Uh-oh ... Bush got Iglesias axed.

As has happened so many times in the last six years, the maximal version of this story -- which seemed logical six weeks ago but which I couldn't get myself to believe -- turns out to be true. Indeed, it's worse. We now know that Gonzales, McNulty and Moschella each lied to Congress. We know that the purge was a plan that began at the White House -- and it was overseen by two of President Bush's closest lieutenants in Washington -- Miers and Gonzales. Sampson is the second resignation. There will certainly be more.

Cafferty comments in his own indignant and irritated sort of way.

Real News

Fox at its finest

My personal favorite is the "100 hours to turn America into San Francisco" caption.

TaxGeek 2006

Your Open Source Solution to Tax Time [screenshot here]

TaxGeek is a Mozilla-based US income tax program that includes Form 1040, Schedules A, B, C, C-EZ, D, E, K-1 (1065), SE (Short and Long), W2, Form 8880, Form 8863, Form 3903, and Form 2441 with access to most other files as PDFs. It is also intended to be extensible so that developers can easily add other forms that are needed without affecting the existing file formats and stored data.

TaxGeek will do all the calculations required in the forms it supports. It can use tax-tables, tax-formula, and the qualified dividends and capital gains methods. It has 95% of the supporting worksheets for 1040 implemented and working and many of the supporting worksheets for schedules and forms that are supported. Additionally, TaxGeek has a context-based repository of PDFs of all the commonly used IRS forms that aren't officially supported. These forms are clearly marked for identification by developers of what needs to happen next.

TaxGeek will also create PDFs of all the supported Forms so that you can not only do your taxes, but also print them and send them in to the IRS. PDF creation support is only possible with the installation of Perl PDF::Reuse. At this point, e-filing is *not* supported. Communication with the IRS has proven their firm committment to corporate tax programs and an unwillingness to work with Open Source projects. But this may change if sufficient demand emerges as they do publish the e-file API.

Frankly I still find it pathetic that the IRS doesn't allow you to e-file for free. It doesn't make any sense. It would save them money. But no. Instead I do it online, print it, mail it, and they have to re-enter the data.

The NYTs says Gonzales should go

The Failed Attorney General

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

good, and still more, please

How many politicians does it take to change all the lightbulbs in Europe?

Two years to change EU light bulbs

ORDINARY light bulbs are to be banned across the European Union within two years in the fight against climate change.

The 490 million citizens of the 27 member states will be expected to switch to energy-efficient bulbs after a summit of EU leaders yesterday told the European Commission to "rapidly submit proposals" to that effect.

Environmentalists said the change would save the public up to £5.4 billion a year in fuel bills and also about 20 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year.

The energy that would be saved in the UK is equivalent to one medium-sized power station.

The announcement came as EU leaders agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels and pledged to increase this to 30 per cent if other developed countries followed suit.

Greenpeace hailed the summit deal as "the biggest such decision since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol".

Ok! now, Canada? US?

I want to invest in that new lightbulb company.

bad bush

Priests to purify site after Bush visit

And more of this, please

EU sets binding targets on environment

Ms. Merkel (the German Chancellor) was leading negotiations on details of the package which includes a commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. By the same date the EU wants to ensure 20 per cent of its power comes from renewable energy and 10 per cent of its cars and trucks run on biofuels made from plants.

European leaders hope their commitment to tackling climate change will encourage other leading polluters like the United States and China to agree on deep emissions cuts. Ms. Merkel plans to present those plans to a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that she will host in June.

"Europe only produces 15 per cent of global CO2," Ms. Merkel said late Thursday. "The real climate problem will not be solved by Europe alone."

In case you had not heard

There is a new scandal over US attorney firings... Get the rundown here.

News of the U.S. attorney firings first surfaced back in January. It garnered attention almost entirely because one of the firees was San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. Best known for her successful investigation of disgraced former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), Lam’s investigation had continued into the heart of the CIA and deep into the congressional appropriations process. Lam’s dismissal raised immediate red flags. Dan Dzwilewski, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego field office, went so far as to tell the San Diego Union-Tribune, “I guarantee politics is involved.”

Within a week it emerged that as many as a half-dozen other U.S. attorneys had been forced out under similarly unexplained circumstances at roughly the same time. That was enough to get Bush administration critics asking questions. But the story might well have languished there, in the netherworld of Bush White House quasi-scandals, had it not been for questions asked of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a Senate hearing early last month.

The eight fired U.S. attorneys seemed inclined to go quietly until McNulty told the Senate that they’d been let go for “performance-related” problems. A review of the attorneys’ performance evaluations quickly cast doubt on that explanation. And it was also enough to get the fired attorneys talking.

More of this please

Australia pulls plug on old bulbs

Australia has announced plans to ban incandescent light bulbs and replace them with more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs.

The environment minister said the move could cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tonnes by 2012.

House Dems lay out proposal

To End Iraq War

Here is what Dem Barbara Lee read at their press conference:

We are here today to discuss our proposal for Congress to fully fund the safe withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by December 31st, 2007.

"The American people sent a clear message in November -- they called on Congress to bring a responsible end to the Bush administration's failed policy in Iraq, and that is what the Lee Amendment is designed to do.

"Let me briefly explain what the Lee Amendment would do.

"It would require that all funds appropriated for Iraq could be used only for the following purposes:

"First, to complete the withdrawal of all US Armed Forces and military contractors from Iraq by December 31st, 2007.

"And second, to provide for the protection of those forces and contractors during the course of that withdrawal.

"We also clarify that while this would effectively end our military occupation of Iraq, it does not prohibit or restrict funds from being used for diplomatic efforts or reconstruction.

"According to a Gallup poll out this week, 6 in 10 Americans (58 percent) want U.S. troops to be withdrawn within 12 months.

"This very simple proposal represents where the majority of Americans are with regard to Iraq, and we are in discussion with our leadership to consider this proposal in formulating the supplemental."

Random thoughts

When is the 14th Dalai Lama coming to a town near you?

Jorge

I realize this is a tautology, but the problem with losing your credibility, is that no-one believes a word you say. What must it be like to be so transparently dishonest?

Just before heading off for a six-day visit to Latin America, President Bush yesterday attempted to co-opt the populist rhetoric of his hemispheric arch-nemesis, President Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela.

Speaking to the "tens of millions in our hemisphere" who "remain stuck in poverty, and shut off from the promises of the new century," Bush said: "My message to those trabajadores y campesinos is, you have a friend in the United States of America. We care about your plight."

But if you think Bush has a credibility problem in his own country, it's even worse south of the border -- especially when it comes to issues of social justice.

Let there be no doubt about this: Bush's attempt to persuade Latin Americans that he is the champion of the poor -- given his pro-business bent and six years of an almost exclusive focus on free trade and terrorism -- is utterly doomed. Almost laughably so.

...
'Unfortunately, in over 40 years of study of the region, I have rarely seen a moment where there is as much mistrust of the United States and as strong a rejection of the U.S. posture in the world,' said Arturo Valenzuela, a former Clinton official who heads the Latin America program at Georgetown University.

Correction: this could become a crash after all

As traders brace for fresh turmoil, soothing words may simply be hiding reality

The most interesting part of the article is the end -

As Stephen Lewis of Insinger de Beaufort puts it, the real surprise, given what has been happening in the US housing market, is that consumer spending has held up so well. But there is a sense that the consumer is starting to run out of road, with spending propped up by the one-off impact of lower energy prices.

Charles Dumas at Lombard Street Research agrees, and says the increase in borrowing on credit cards rather than the rising value of real estate, is a sign that US consumers are drinking in the last-chance saloon. The vast majority of Americans don't have a yacht and a summer home in the Hamptons; they don't have stock options and they have not seen their salaries rise at 10, 50 or 100 times the current inflation rate.

Given Asia's export-dominated growth is heavily weighted towards the US, investors should be prepared for the 9% fall in Shanghai last Tuesday to be the first of many bad days.

"Household borrowing is the centre of the storm," says Dumas. "When economies fluctuate, services fluctuate gently, construction and manufacturing more violently. Construction we know about: the housing slump is now beginning to be reinforced by a business construction collapse. The US manufacturing sector is now called China, or Pacific-developing Asia more generally. The current US downswing must take the gloss off growth in that region, where asset markets are priced for perfection." A different perspective comes from Stephen King at HSBC. His view is that the global economy is now more than the United States and its satellites. Even if America does slide into recession, there is no reason to assume the rest of the world will follow.

This requires a radical re-think, since we have become accustomed, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union to assume the world is unipolar with the US the hegemonic power. King says the weaker domestic demand growth in the US last year did not seem to have knock-on effects elsewhere. Far from catching a cold when the US sneezed, the rest of the world went shopping. "Relative to our own forecasts, the big surprise last year was the strength of domestic demand growth, notably in Canada, Mexico, China, the Middle East, Germany and the UK."

On the face of it, this is a relatively reassuring interpretation of events. If there really has been a de-coupling going on under our noses, it is possible that a US recession could be isolated. Scratch beneath the surface, though, and King's thesis has some potentially serious long-term geo-political - and hence economic - consequences. What could be happening is that we are seeing the very gradual waning of US economic supremacy, with years of budget and trade deficits and two decades of excessive consumption chipping away at what is still a phenomenally powerful economy. Britain suffered from just this process in the final quarter of the 19th century; other nations were growing in strength and Britain was in the early stages of relative decline.

Paul Kennedy argued in the late 1980s that political power derives from economic power. The first doubts crept in for Britain when winning the Boer War in the face of determined resistance and guerrilla attacks proved a lot more difficult than London had blithely imagined. History may show that South Africa between 1899 and 1902 is a better parallel for America under Bush than is Vietnam.

Libby guilty on 4 of 5 counts

VIDEO: Fitzgerald Speaks Out On Libby Verdict

All this in the richest country in the world

Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile

Increasingly, the problem affects middle-class people like Ms. Readling, who said she made about $60,000 last year. As an independent contractor, like many real estate agents, Ms. Readling does not receive health benefits from an employer. She tried to buy a policy in the individual insurance market, but — having had cancer — could not obtain coverage, except at a price exceeding $27,000 a year, which was more than she could pay.

Babys got back

A Barney Fife revival

Some states put untrained cops on duty

These states allow a certain grace period - six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin - before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.

Seems like a good place to save a few bucks.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush:

Climate change will destroy us

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Not that it will make any difference to Bush - but he will have a hard time squaring the circle of being a protect the US president and then not acting on what the Pentagon says is the biggest threat. Its about friggin' time they did.

Obama

Damn, he's good.

Iraq 101

Take the class at Mother Jones

"All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it’s time to get serious. We’ve spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won’t get asked a stumper like, “What’s the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” Okay, even the head of the House intelligence committee doesn’t know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we—and our leaders—should have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And while we’re at it, let’s do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It’s time for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can’t afford to fail."

The 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions

1. State sales taxes.
2. $250 educators' expenses.
...

John Murtha

on Press the Meet

Conservative epistemology

from here

Duuude, this is like so true.

Marijuana as wonder drug

A NEW STUDY in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and US drug policy -- that we still need 'proof' of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found smoked marijuana to be effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy. It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.

As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.

just curious, why can't the government score any good weed?

The Iraq insurgency for beginners

A leading expert on the insurgency clarifies who is shooting whom in Iraq

Here is a snippet:

Describe the insurgency.

You have to be careful when you say "insurgency." You have to distinguish between the Shiite militias and the actual insurgency, which is the Sunni groups. Most of the Shiite militia activity is not directed at the U.S., it's directed at the Sunnis. The Sunni insurgency, meanwhile, is directed at everyone -- the U.S., the Iraqi government, the militias.

The best way to divide it up is into three camps. You have Sunni nationalists, initially a large portion of the insurgency; the moderate Sunni Islamists, who use Islamic terminology and talk about establishing a government based on Sharia law; and you have the Salafists, like the group Al-Qaida in Iraq. To them, the fight is not about preserving the borders of Iraq, it's about revolution, about rebuilding something completely new on the basis of some kind of idyllic Muslim empire.

and this also seemed slightly relevant:

Stock Market Report

Health care

If I only had lots of money

Alleged D.C. Madam "Considering" Selling Off Phone Records

Back in October, the feds busted a long-time prostitution service in the Washington, D.C. area. The madam, Jean Palfrey, soon caught attention by telling a reporter from the Smoking Gun that they must be going after her as part of a larger investigation into "some Duke Cunningham-type bigwig client that got caught up in something[.]"

As we noted back in December, Palfrey hasn't actually named a member of Congress. But she seems determined to make it easier for those who want to find out. Though her firm's policy was that "no record is a good record!!" she's now apparently mulling selling her phone records from the last thirteen years to raise funds for her defense.

Palfrey, whose assets were seized by the IRS back in October, has launched a website, deborahjeanepalfrey.com, to solicit contributions. But if that doesn't bring in enough, "consideration is being given to selling the entire 46 pounds of detailed and itemized phone records for the 13 year period, to raise the requisite defense funds," according to the website.