MoveOn Petition

Stop Executive Overreach

Petition: Stop Executive Overreach

You've probably seen the news that President Bush let Scooter Libby, the one man who was convicted for the lies around the Iraq war, go free.

The obstruction of justice doesn't stop there. The Senate recently subpoenaed documents from the Vice President's office around the illegal wiretapping program and so far he has not complied. It's clear this administration thinks it's above the law.

That's un-American, and it's time for Congress to re-assert its constitutional authority and hold this administration accountable.

Stop the Bush administration's obstruction of justice and sign the petition to Congress.

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your Senators and Representative.

China blames growing social unrest on anger over pollution

Dirty water and air kill 500,000 a year, says report:

Do not fear no no not logic

Wow. The complete lack of coherent argument is mesmerizing in its single minded simplicity! I would be embarrassed to speak such silliness, but yet, they show no shame... Interesting. Emotional pandering, I must learn that skill.

Sorry Thomas Friedman, The World Is Round

For those who find Friedman irritating...

The no vacation nation

Europe heads to beach, America heads to work

Canada and Japan are only slightly better with only 10 paid vacation days guaranteed by law compared to the Europeans who get 4 weeks by law.

Of course, "In the United States, leave was generally harder to secure for people in low-pay and part-time jobs."

And in totally unrelated news, there is a new theory out there: Yawning keeps the brain cool.

A history lesson

A little birdy told me about this very interesting piece: The defeat that made Britain great

I Chong

The "Libby Motion"

Bush Rationale on Libby Stirs Legal Debate

By saying that the sentence was excessive, I wonder if he understood the ramifications of saying that,” said Ellen S. Podgor, who teaches criminal law at Stetson University in St. Petersburg, Fla. “This is opening up a can of worms about federal sentencing.”

The Libby clemency will be the basis for many legal arguments, said Susan James, an Alabama lawyer representing Don E. Siegelman, the state’s former governor, who is appealing a sentence he received last week of 88 months for obstruction of justice and other offenses.

“It’s far more important than if he’d just pardoned Libby,” Ms. James said, as forgiving a given offense as an act of executive grace would have had only political repercussions. “What you’re going to see is people like me quoting President Bush in every pleading that comes across every federal judge’s desk.”

Indeed, Mr. Bush’s decision may have given birth to a new sort of legal document.

“I anticipate that we’re going to get a new motion called ‘the Libby motion,’ ” Professor Podgor said. “It will basically say, ‘My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.’

Perhaps this is a way to argue out of the 3 strikes stupidity in California. However, this certainly doesn't signal a change:

Nor is there a reason to think that the Justice Department has changed its position about the sentencing system generally. Indeed, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said last month that the department would push for legislation making federal sentences tougher and less flexible.

It is just more of the same: IOKIYAR

Yoga Today and everyday

A new yoga 1 hour yoga workout each day

it is available through itunes podcast.

I did one the other day, not bad at all.

Put them to work in the administration!

Clever orangutans confirm Aesop's fable

Fireworks

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment: You ceased to be the President of the United States



Happy 4th

Call it what it is

Obstruction of Justice, Continued

All of this means that Bush's decision yesterday to commute Libby's prison sentence isn't just a matter of unequal justice. It is also a potentially self-serving and corrupt act.

Was there a quid pro quo at work? Was Libby being repaid for falling on his sword and protecting his bosses from further scrutiny? Alternately, was he being repaid for his defense team's abrupt decision in mid-trial not to drag Cheney into court, where he would have faced cross-examination by Fitzgerald? (See my March 8 column, Did Libby Make a Deal?)

Looks like the House may be looking into it, at least the theoretical potential misuse of presidential power

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. announced that he will be holding a full committee hearing next week titled, “The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials.” The hearing will be held next Wednesday, July 11, at 10:15 am in the committee’s hearing room, 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

“In light of yesterday’s announcement by the President that he was commuting the prison sentence for Scooter Libby, it is imperative that Congress look into presidential authority to grant clemency, and how such power may be abused,” Conyers said. “Taken to its extreme, the use of such authority could completely circumvent the law enforcement process and prevent credible efforts to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch.”

and just a wee bit more:

It will never die

There is still 'Scepticism' over climate claims

I'm beginning to question the responsibility of bringing new people into this world.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Bush spares Libby from prison term

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

Paris gets an unusually log sentence, and Libby has his sentence commuted. Justice!

I'll believe it when I see it

Leahy: If Bush And Cheney Don’t Cooperate With Subpoenas He Will Push To Find Them In Contempt Of Congress

Should get interesting...

New Mexican Bud

Law Requires N.M. to Grow Its Own Pot

Wow, real undercover reporting

Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s lobbyists for hire

On Cheney

A Different Understanding With the President

The General’s Report

How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

and if you don't want to read the whole thing, here is a short version.

What is wrong with these people?

Sentencing can get out of hand in US courts

Last Monday, Elisa Kelly and her ex-husband George Robinson began purging a 27-month prison sentence in a Virginia jail for serving beer and wine at their son Ryan's 16th birthday party.

The parents said they feared Ryan and his friends would drink behind their backs, so they chose to buy the drinks and supervise the party themselves.

But in Virginia, where you can drive a car at 16 and vote, buy a gun or join the military at 18, it is against the law to drink alcohol before 21.

...

In November 1995 in California, Leandro Andrade stole 150 dollars' worth of movies on video tape for his children, including 'Snow White,' 'Cinderella,' and 'Free Willy.' With several prior convictions for robbery under his belt, Andrade was put away for no less than 50 years.

His case went to the US Supreme Court, whose justices upheld the sentence, five-to-four, saying it was not too extreme. The following year, California voters rejected in a referendum a measure to weaken the "three strikes" law.

That is a society totally out of whack. We need to end our ridiculous experiment with mandatory sentencing. Something is not right if there is one inmate for every 136 citizens.

A primer on Palestine

Hamas May Find It Needs Its Enemy

Don't we all.

Mindfulness training...

in the classroom.

Dispelling conventional wisdom

Turns out that intellectual engagement isn't turning kids away from religion. Looks like those liberal militant-atheist college professors aren't doing there job:

Percent of Young Adults Reporting Religious Declines, by Level of Education

Educational Attainment	Decline in Attending Services	Decline in Importance of Religion	Disaffiliation From Religion
Didn’t attend college	76.2%	23.7%	20.3%
Attended, but earned no degree	71.5%	16.3%	14.6%
Earned associate degree	60.3%	15.1%	14.4%
Earned at least a bachelor’s degree	59.2%	15.0%	15.0%

Behavioral factors, he said, are a better way than college status to predict whether young adults will become less religious. Those who don’t have sex before marriage are also those who don’t experience as much of a drop in religious connection. Those who have smoked pot experience more of a drop. Those who increase alcohol consumption during their young adulthood experience more of a drop in religious connection.

Those who blame college for declining religious activity by students don’t understand that it is these factors, among others, that are the influence, Regnerus said. “This is about this period of the life course where freedom and choice become paramount,” he said. “What diminishes religiosity is freedom and choice, not intellectual engagement.”

You could even make the argument that going college increases your chance of staying in religion. It would be most likely be wrong, but you could make it.

No real surprise

New Orleans turns to international aid

Alan Watts

Music and life animated by the South Park guys.

Pay attention.

[WHOOPS, had the wrong link there. Try it again. This time... Pay attention]

I like to see the media confronted

This is depressing but SO true

Gore writes about he media's assault on reason, and the media proceeds to prove him right.

Possibly one of the stupidest f@#king things I have ever heard

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

No. Really. They wanted to build a hormone bomb that would turn enemy soldiers gay, and more interested in sex than fighting.

Just frikkin' dump ecstasy on their heads and pump in some loud techno music and watch them dance themselves tired.

On the other hand, I'm all for less-violent means of war. Heck, why isn't that just diplomacy?

Disaffected conservatives

...set a litmus test for '08
Want vow to curb presidential power

A new political group recently asked Mitt Romney to promise not to wiretap Americans without a judge's approval or to imprison US citizens without a trial as "enemy combatants." When Romney declined to sign their pledge, the group denounced him as "unfit to serve as president."

Gonzales no-confidence vote

Fails in the Senate

And MAN is Lieberman (voted no) is amazing - he is a righteous git and a unprincipled ass - each one judiciously applied at all the wrong times. I can't wait until 2008 when the Dems have a larger Senate majority and they strip him of all is leadership positions and stops caucusing with the Democrats.

Jailed Chinese reporter sues Yahoo

Snap

China’s Plan for Global Warming

Wait for the US

could be a while...

First CIA rendition trial opens

The first criminal trial over the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects has opened in Italy.

Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

The Americans - most believed to be CIA agents - will be tried in absentia. Italy has not announced if it will seek their extradition to the Milan trial.

Krugman

Lies, Sighs and Politics (behind select wall)

In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night”?

Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit.

You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies — for example, when he declared of his tax cut that “the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.” That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates’ acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes — failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush’s dishonesty. And that’s how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now fast forward to last Tuesday. Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.”

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But it wasn’t.
...
For if there’s one thing I hope we’ve learned from the calamity of the last six and a half years, it’s that it matters who becomes president — and that listening to what candidates say about substantive issues offers a much better way to judge potential presidents than superficial character judgments. Mr. Bush’s tax lies, not his surface amiability, were the true guide to how he would govern.

And I don’t know if this country can survive another four years of Bush-quality leadership.

Freaky new technologies

Wireless power sources

and

Britain's endemic surveillance cameras talk back

and of course

Google street view

Attorney-general knew of BAE and the £1bn. Then concealed it

What is this all about??

British investigators were ordered by the attorney-general Lord Goldsmith to conceal from international anti-bribery watchdogs the existence of payments totalling more than £1bn to a Saudi prince, the Guardian can disclose.

The money was paid into bank accounts controlled by Prince Bandar for his role in setting up BAE Systems with Britain's biggest ever arms deal. Details of the transfers to accounts in the US were discovered by officers from the Serious Fraud Office during its long-running investigation into BAE. But its inquiry was halted suddenly last December.

Those Liberal Canadians

Sex, or he's your ex

Poll: Americans Lean Dem By Wide Margin

From tpmcafe

The new AP-Ipsos poll has a fascinating number. Respondents were asked they identified as Democrats, Republicans or independents, and then independents were asked which way they lean. With leaners, 54% of Americans are Democrats, compared to only 36% Republicans — an almost 20-point Dem margin. This is likely a product of recent Washington scandals and mishandling of foreign affairs by Republicans, but it could very well turn into a full-fledged political realignment if the Democrats can sustain it.

The nexus of politics and terror

The kingdom made me slouch

In Saudi Arabia, a view from behind the veil

Libby gets 30 months

Freezers of cash

William Jefferson (D-LA) indicted

He needs to resign, ASAP.

and, Fox is up their fun little tricks again. Good to see they haven't lost their edge.

Speaking the truth

O'Reily is worried about the breaking down of the 'white Christian power structure'

Wow, well, points for honesty.

Street Level

Google Maps incorporates a street level view

crazy. Currently only in a few cities. Looks like they drive the whole city with a 360 camera.

Why Hawks Win

A psychologists explanation

Why are hawks so influential? The answer may lie deep in the human mind. People have dozens of decision-making biases, and almost all favor conflict rather than concession. A look at why the tough guys win more than they should.

U.S. Opposition to Iraq War at All-Time High, Poll Shows - New York Times

U.S. Opposition to Iraq War at All-Time High, Poll Shows

Something the Democrats should have kept in mind:

A majority of Americans continue to support a timetable for withdrawal. Sixty-three percent say the United States should set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq sometime in 2008.

That said, Americans have more faith in Democrats than republicans:

In general, more Americans now have a favorable view of the Democratic party (53 percent) than of the Republican party (38 percent). The Republican party has not had a majority positive rating in a New York Times/CBS News poll since December 2003.

And check this out:

Beyond the war issue, the poll found widespread concern over the nation’s overall direction. More Americans — 72 percent — now say that “generally, things in the country are seriously off on the wrong track” than at any time since the Times/CBS News poll began asking the question in 1983. The figure had been in the high 60’s earlier this year.

The highest ever (since 1983). Who is that 28%? What do they think is going on?

People want change, and they want it now! I know they say, "live in the present", but damn, Jan. 2009 can't come soon enough.

Silver lining

Congress Passes Increase in the Minimum Wage

Of course it was in the Iraq spending bill, which is only logical. But regardless of how it was done, the new minimum wage will be $7.25/hour - up from $5.15/hour - over the course of two years. There are already 7 states with minimum wages higher than that. Sad really that 1) it took so long (10 years) and 2) that it is still so low.

Human Development Report 2007

This really is the year of the environment. The title of this years HDR is: Human Development and Climate Change.

Human development is about putting people at the centre of development. It is about people realizing their potential, increasing choice and enjoying the freedom to lead the lives they value. Created in 1990, the Human Development Report has explored themes including gender equity, democracy, human rights, globalization, cultural liberty and water scarcity.

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity at the start of the 21st Century. Failure to meet that challenge raises the spectre of unprecedented reversals in human development. The world’s poorest countries and poorest people will bear the brunt.

The past years have witnessed the emergence of a growing consensus on climate change. Governments across the world have seen the warning signs. The science linking global warming to human activity is unequivocal. The economic case for action is compelling: the costs of inaction will heavily outweigh the costs of action. Yet the politics lags behind the science and the economics. Collectively, the world’s governments are failing to act with the urgency demanded by the scale of the threat.

The window of opportunity for avoiding dangerous climate change is closing fast. This year’s Human Development Report explains why we have less than a decade to change course and start living within our global carbon budget. It explains how climate change will create long-run low human development traps, pushing vulnerable people into a downward spiral of deprivation. Because climate change is a global problem with global causes and effects, it demands a global response with countries acting on the basis of their historic responsibility and capabilities. The Human Development Report 2007 will be launched in November.

I manifested this, I swear...

Bird Sh*ts on Bush During Press Conference

Edwards and Dodd get it

and push for rejecting Iraq funding bill - I think they are right. Stand up to Bush. He is amazingly unpopular. When he speaks his poll numbers fall. What are they so scared of? I don't think that this move 'displeases the centrists'. The majority of people are in favor of timetables. People want accountability.

The Dems sell out

The Democrats are too scared to be labeled as betraying the troops. They forget that the majority of people want the war to end and that they won't fall for the GOP bullsh*t about betraying the troops. They are trying to protect their a*ses but this just makes people think they won't really stand up to Bush. They need to reject this bill. Glad to hear many of the Democrats won't vote for it. Make it a Republican bill. I dunno, maybe they know something I don't, but it looks bad.

And I can't wait until Lieberman is no longer a Democrat.

I don't believe I intended to break the law

but she didn't mean to.

This is interesting because this violates the hatch act...

Goodling to testify today

Here is a quick primer

and another some more info

You can watch it live here.

Be careful what you theorize

Bomb Plot Thwarted at Falwell's Funeral

This just exemplifies how the whole battle for "hearts and minds" is really a battle of moderate vs. extremists. This is why people like Huntington who write about the Clash of Civilizations are so corrosive to society. The thing about social sciences is that it has a double hermeneutic - where concepts and theories that may not be the case actually can actually become a self-fulfilling prophesy because if people believe it to be true.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come 'true' This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning. - Robert K. Merton

Maybe I'll write a theory about how everyone is good at heart and put nice happy pictures of landscapes in the book, so people feel good. I'm sure that will work.

Anyway, that is just my thought for today.

Greg Palast and RFK Jr.

If you have the time...

Impeach Gonzales

Sign the petition. Bush continues to insist that Gonzo has done nothing wrong and the no confidence vote has no real teeth.

The president told the Democrats to get back to more pressing matters.

"I stand by Al Gonzales, and I would hope that people would be more sober in how they address these important issues," Bush said. "And they ought to get the job done of passing legislation, as opposed to figuring out how to be actors on the political theater stage."

Impeachment is the only way to achieve any accountability.

Iraq

A big moneymaker for Al Qaeda

in one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda's command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network's operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.

The influx of money has bolstered Al Qaeda's leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of Al Qaeda funds, with the network's leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells.

Al Qaeda's efforts were aided, intelligence officials said, by Pakistan's withdrawal in September of tens of thousands of troops from the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border where Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are believed to be hiding.

Little more than a year ago, Al Qaeda's core command was thought to be in a financial crunch. But U.S. officials said cash shipped from Iraq has eased those troubles.

"Iraq is a big moneymaker for them," said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official.

Another reason to get the heck out of Iraq. Al Qaeda won't survive in Iraq if the US pulls out, or at least so I've been led to believe.

But, but... there are terrorists!

What a difference 4 years and a failed policy make. Generalising from an n of 1, I just realised another quality of the 28%. They have no ability to look at a world from another persons perspective. The ability to understand another's perspective is, of course, the most important part of making friends and influencing people. No wonder the US is so loved.

Ron Paul and a ramble

Is the only republican candidate who speaks in the ancient tounge of reason and logic. It is interesting that the title of the you tube posting is "Rudy gives Ron Paul a smackdown". Rudy's fantastic smackdown consists of an absurd argument from some imagined authority just because he was there and calling the ideas absurd, never addressing their merit at all. When pandering to the base, logic and reason really have no place in the debate discussion of Iraq, or evolution, or global warming, or hiring practices, or AIDS programs... but of course it is just that my notion of rational argumentation comes from a limited rationality! Their rationality is just following another culturally specific logic that has just as much right to be right as my rationality! We have almost arrived into the post-modern world, and by that, I mean we have come full circle, from pre-modern to modern and then to pre-modern again where everything was beautiful and marriages were arranged, women knew their place, families were all happy and trusting, people attended civic organizations, we were the immigrants, with the only differencing being a candy-coated covering of tee-vee american idol democracy over our authoritarian government.

Krugman

The Bush Bubble (behind select wall)

"What we need to realize is that the infamous “Bush bubble,” the administration’s no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there’s a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job — and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

And the Republican nomination will go either to someone who shares these beliefs, and would therefore run the country the same way Mr. Bush has, or to a very, very good liar."

Not to beat a dead horse, but the 28% who still support Bush are fundamentally the authoritarian-tendencies who firmly believe that force is the only method of communication. They are Dobson's Dare to Discipline kids where love comes through discipline and order. It doesn't matter what Bush does, or what anyone of the candidates do, as long as they are hard and tough and very fatherly. Not like that preening Edwards and other effeminate democrats. Mitt and Guiliani understands that now and also have to overcompensate for their social positions. This hard core tough guy trumps all the other issues. But thats them. And thats now a small part of the population. The rest of us aren't so dang fearful and realize that there are other things that do trump obedience, like competence. Thats why so far my vote is for Richardson in the primaries.

WTF!?? Rupert Murdoch is joining the fight against climate change!?

The greening of Fox

Last week, the media mogul pledged not only to make his News Corp. empire carbon neutral, but to persuade the hundreds of millions of people who watch his TV channels and read his newspapers to join the cause. Messages about climate change will be woven throughout News Corp.'s entertainment content, he said, from movies to books to TV sitcoms, and the issue will have an increasing presence in the company's news coverage, be it in the New York Post or on "Hannity & Colmes." Yes, as Murdoch said in an exclusive interview on his climate plan, even Fox News' right-wing firebrand Sean Hannity can be expected to come around on the issue.

If this is true, this is some great news - not just because its good for the environment, but because I am sick and tired of listening to global warming cynics who somehow think that global warming is an ideological issue use poor logic to spout off about something they don't know anything about. It should be enjoyable to watch the bubbleheads like Hannity try to spin this new spin and explain it away. I bet they take the - it is efficient to change angle- that might appeal. Whatever they say, at least it is movement in the right direction.

Skinny and fat AIDS

Book review: The invisible AIDS cure

This looks like a good book for those interested in development interventions - not necessarily for its message (found in other critiques) that many development interventions do not take into account the social context sufficiently and give short shrift to locally grown solutions (although it will probably always be a point that needs to be reiterated, especially with the dominance of economics over the development agenda) - but for its writing style. Or at least so the reviewer makes it seem.

Gore writes a book about Britney and Kfed

Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason

ok, its not really about Britney and Kfed, but they are mentioned in the excerpted chapter, and it will get you to read it. Go, be amused.

Long story short, looks like the internet will save democracy from the teevee. I worry that the internet leads, while increasing potential for interaction and perhaps engagement, it can also lead to equally uniformed people and increased polarization. Somebody needs to come up with a solution to open peoples minds up more, reducing the power of cognitive inertia. I guess college is supposed to do that a bit, and the reduction of identity politics would help a lot - only identity politics becomes easier on the internet - heck, the GOP has been doing targeted mailing very successfully for a while now. Did you know that all democrats want to ban the bible and replace it with the communist manifesto? Only a select few are privy to that kind of inside scoop. Calls to the greater good could be effective, but they are almost always trumped by the politics of fear and localism. How do you promote the collective good when the self-interested ego is the ultimate arbitrator? I'd suggest a lot of meditation for the world, but that takes too long and is too difficult. Maybe just mandatory mushroom trips for everyone and they can have a spiritually ego-transcendent experience , and we'll have special places for the 25% who have a bad trip. Anyway, no solutions here, just a rant.

Subpoena shampoena

Senate Committee to Gonzales: AHEM

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for any of Karl Rove's emails in the Department's possession that might be relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. The deadline was 2 PM yesterday. The deadline came and went. And now Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) are angry.

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but... isn't this breaking the law? I think that Congress relies on the DOJ to enforce subpoenas... is this right? and if so... well then, um. What the hell happens then? Oh! Impeachment!

God save us if the GOP wins in 2008

when McCain sounds like the only sane one

Double Gitmo? Romney has gone fully bonkers.

It is all about who is the biggest tough guy now.

Health care in the US and Canada

The worst two of 6 (including Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and the UK). Not only that, but both the US and Canada pay more than everyone else per person for health care, although overall the US is the worst and the US pays almost twice as much as Canadians per person.

And I always thought the UK system was bad. I guess not.

Economist's View

You Economists Don't Get It, Do You?

Manufacturing belief

The origin of religion is in our heads, explains developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert. First we figured out how to make tools, then created a supernatural being.

Pleasantries

Angry Wolfowitz in four-letter tirade

An angry and bitter Paul Wolfowitz poured abuse and threatened retaliations on senior World Bank staff if his orders for pay rises and promotions for his partner were revealed, according to new details published last night.

Under fire for the lavish package given to Shaha Riza, a World Bank employee and Mr Wolfowitz's girlfriend when he became president, an official investigation into the controversy has found that Mr Wolfowitz broke bank rules and violated his own contract – setting off a struggle between US and European governments over Mr Wolfowitz's future.

Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too."

The remarks were published in a report detailing the controversy that erupted last month after the size of Ms Riza's pay rises was revealed. The report slates Mr Wolfowitz for his "questionable judgment and a preoccupation with self-interest", saying: "Mr Wolfowitz saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply."

He'll be gone soon. Looks like the WH might no longer back him. Can't say I'd be sad to see him go.

What is it with Mayors of New York?

Bloomberg poised for third-party campaign - and he is going to spend $1 billion of his own money. And perhaps he'll run with Chuck Hagel. How would it play out? One scenario is good for the Democrats:

"If the Republicans nominate someone the press can tag as a pro-war social conservative and the Democrats pick an anti-war liberal, Bloomberg will run up the center," Mr. Goldman said. "If conservatives don't rally to stop Giuliani they will get a third party socially conservative candidate who will only help elect the Democrat."

FRONTLINE "Spying on the Home Front" at pbs.org/frontline

For those who want to learn about trade policy and economics

Dani Rodrik's weblog

You may love mom

but the U.S. doesn't

As individuals, we're pretty fond of our mothers. But as a nation we don't value motherhood all that much. We lag far behind Europe in granting leave for the birth or adoption of a child, for example. Our system of unpaid leave applies only to those who work for the largest corporations, and most new mothers (or fathers) can't afford to take it anyway. CEOs and their lap-dog lawmakers say paid leave, the norm in most of the rest of the developed world, would cost too much. Guess it would. After all, we have to save money -- for tax breaks and corporate bailouts benefiting the same employers that don't provide any family benefits.

Child care is another area where we're neanderthal when it comes to social policy. No president has had the guts to propose a comprehensive, federally subsidized child care program since Richard Nixon vetoed such a plan, calling it the "Sovietization of American children." Most moms are now in the paid workforce out of economic necessity -- but still make only 76 cents to a man's dollar -- so they can't afford private child care that can run $5,000 to 10,000 per year per child. The result is a generation of children characterized by a phrase unknown to our grandparents -- latchkey kids. The situation certainly makes you wonder what all that "no child left behind" rhetoric really means.

Many mothers, but few fathers, take traditional "women's jobs" (nursing, schoolteaching, housekeeping, child care) to be at home when their children are. For this they are punished with the historically low wages attached to female-dominated occupations. Is there a reason other than ingrained sex discrimination that dog-pound attendants make more than child care workers, and parole officers make more than social workers? If employers were really "family friendly," they would seriously evaluate their pay scales to see where the inequities are and bring women's pay up to par. And they would also encourage fathers to take advantage of the few programs that do exist, like flextime and job-sharing, without labeling guys who want to do it "girlie men" -- or worse.

I'm still amazed that stuff like that can't be pushed under the "family values" value that I think would effectively neutralise the "sovietization of our children" argument. What is more friendly to family than maternity leave? The US really has some screwy policies.

With little public debate, the United States has chosen a radically different approach to maternity leave than the rest of the developed world. The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries that don't provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states.

Australian mothers have it better, however, with one year of job-protected leave. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act provides for 12 weeks of job-protected leave, but it only covers those who work for larger companies.

To put it another way, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

The madam, her girls and a city in fear

As the woman who ran a Washington call-girl ring fights prosecution, her lethal weapon is the names of 10,000 clients

Incredible Shrinking Packages

More companies are cutting down on packaging to reduce expenses and address growing environmental concerns.

Earth to G.O.P.

The Gipper Is Dead

By my rough, conservative calculation — feel free to add — there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously — an all-time record.

Wrongdoing of this magnitude does not happen by accident, but it is not necessarily instigated by a Watergate-style criminal conspiracy. When corruption is this pervasive, it can also be a byproduct of a governing philosophy. That’s the case here. That Bush-Rove style of governance, the common denominator of all the administration scandals, is the Frankenstein creature that stalks the G.O.P. as it faces 2008. It has become the Republican brand and will remain so, even after this president goes, until courageous Republicans disown it and eradicate it.

Bushies Behaving Badly: An illustrated guide to GOP scandals.

Silly quizes

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: The Christian God   You are the Holy Lord. You are the shepherd and those that follow you are your lambs. You are kind and patient, but when need be, you are vile and creul. You are often asked for advise or wisdom, and you willingly give it. Congratulations!! You are God!!
Budha
Jesus
Goddess Bast
Goddess Sekhemet
God Zeus
You are your own God or Goddess
Satan
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

I didn't expect that result. I like that Buddha was number 2 though :)

Das Rad

The Monica Problem

Now its the GOPs

Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

The new face to be at 10 Downing

Brown to end Blair's terror strategy

As Mr Brown prepares to take over from Mr Blair, he is determined to signal a dramatic shift in the way No 10 handles its relations with the Bush White House.

Laying out his plans for a more distinctly British premiership than Mr Blair's, Mr Brown said he looked forward to working with Mr Bush and recognised the need for close links with the Americans.

But, when asked if he would stick as closely to the president as Mr Blair had, he replied: "Obviously people who know me know that I will speak my mind. I'll be very frank.

"The British national interest is what I and my colleagues are about."

Mr Brown, who backed the 2003 Iraq invasion, said he had since learned that only so much could be achieved against terrorists and religious fanatics by brute military force, intelligence, security work and policing. In terms that will appeal to many Labour supporters but anger Mr Blair — and some in Washington — he said the fight to stop "extremist terrorist activities" would only be won after world leaders triumphed in a peaceful battle for "hearts and minds".

Suggesting that he would not follow Washington into any future military action against rogue nations such as Iran, Mr Brown said the kind of "cultural war" fought by the West against Communism in the 1940s and 1950s could be a "model" for the next chapter of the war on terror.

While he accepted his share of responsibility for Iraq — and was at pains to describe Mr Blair as a "brilliant Prime Minister" — his comments were part of a clear attempt to break with the Prime Minister's Iraq policies and conduct of policy with the US.

Debate on Amendments to the Intelligence Authorization Bill

For your edification

no time to comment

The five-secod rule and existential security

The power and glory of the five-second rule

But there's a far deeper significance to the five-second rule that I think McGee is overlooking. The five-second rule is much more than a safety buffer; it is a philosophy of ad hoc survival, a vital existential enabler, a strategy for coping with a world in which, if one took the time to carefully consider all the potential risks and hazards that cluster around every moment of existence, one would be utterly paralyzed and incapable of action. The five-second rule is what keeps parents from turning into some kind of zombie cross between Howard Hughes and the Cowardly Lion. Without the metaphorical power invested in the universal application of the five-second rule, we would not be able to function.

When I look my son or daughter in the eye, shortly after that piece of toast has gone for a little spin, and I declare "five-second rule!" -- I am most definitely not saying that there is a 36.4 percent smaller chance of getting food poisoning per each 110 nanoseconds of floor-bread physical interface. Of course not! What I am actually saying is: "Oh child of mine, the world is full of many dangers and horrors, but if you try to protect yourself against all of them, all of the time, your journey through life will be one filled with shudders at every shadow. Sometimes, you just gotta live." (And yes, I am also saying, "goddammit! -- I do NOT have the time to make you another piece of toast while assembling your school lunch and getting ready for work." But parenting has always been a mix of sage life advice and inexcusable laziness.)

I always thought it was 3 seconds, but oh well.

The Univision election

The Citizenship Wave & the 2008 Election

Latino radio played a critical role in the mass mobilizations last year, and latino television may play an equally critical role in getting immigrants to become citizens and vote. And in these numbers, they will upend the old assumption that growing populations in the Sunbelt meant strength for the GOP

Its good to laugh

Science catching up to ancient knowledge

Study Suggests Meditation Can Help Train Attention

According to a study published today in the online edition of the journal PloS Biology, three months of rigorous training in this kind of meditation leads to a profound shift in how the brain allocates attention.

It appears that the ability to release thoughts that pop into mind frees the brain to attend to more rapidly changing things and events in the world at large, said the study’s lead author, Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Expert meditators, he said, are better than other people at detecting such fast-changing stimuli, like emotional facial expressions.

Nothing new here, especially considering that meditation is attention training. So this study is rather saying that going to the gym to train your muscles actually trains your muscles.

Of course there are other benefits too:

Recent research has shown that meditation is good for the brain. It appears to increase gray matter, improve the immune system, reduce stress and promote a sense of well-being. But Dr. Davidson said this was the first study to examine how meditation affects attention.

31 states target global warming

They are forming a climate registry to measure and track greenhouse gas emissions by industry

Led by California, 31 states representing more than 70% of the U.S. population announced Tuesday that they would measure and jointly track greenhouse gas emissions by major industries.

The newly formed Climate Registry is the latest example of states going further than the federal government in taking steps to combat global warming. State officials, along with some industrial groups and environmentalists, say the registry is a crucial precursor to both mandatory and market-based regulation of industrial gases that contribute to warming.

All agree that the most important part of the new registry is subjecting emissions statistics to third-party verification — unlike a Bush administration program that does not require verification.

"You have to be able to count carbon pollution in order to cut carbon pollution," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

and it looks like a Senate committee approved legislation to boost fuel efficiency standards in the US, from 25 to 35 in 2020.

"On the one hand, it's a start," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program. "On the other hand, it's a pretty weak start. It doesn't actually require the administration to act, so there is no guarantee that fuel economy goes up."

Joan Claybrook, a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who is now president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, called the bill "a political compromise that now compromises the very purpose of the fuel economy program."

Habeas resusitatus corpus?

Dems might put a restoration of habeas corpus in a bill

NYT: The Democrats’ Pledge

State of the World's Mothers 2007

The report is out in time for mothers day.

Top ten and worst ten places in the world to be a mother

Top Ten		Bottom Ten
Rank	Country	Rank	Country
1 2 2 4 4 4 7 8 9 10	Sweden Iceland Norway New Zealand Australia Denmark Finland Belgium Spain Germany	131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140	Djibouti Burkina Faso Ethiopia Eritrea Angola Guinea-Bissau Chad Yemen Sierra Leone Niger

The Netherlands are at 11, the UK 12, Canada is at 15 and the USA is 26th. I'm a bit surprised to see New Zealand and Australia up so high.

The terrorism convenience factor

Who knew? Morris: It’s ‘Convenient’ To Keep U.S. Troops In Iraq So Terrorists Can Kill Them ‘Around The Corner’

Strange logic. Support the bait! Ah, I mean troops!

Because I love punishment

Romney

Reaches to the Christian Right

Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

It's a two-fer, rip on France and show your ignorance. Well done.

Man, France can't get any love even though the right wing candidate just won the presidency over there.

Its sad when sanity is so funny

Maher New rule: no more French Dissing

Constitutional liberties

Which ones are important? With no fly lists, secret rendition and torturing, often of innocents, illegal domestic spying... and it goes on, and suddenly the NRA learns the value of innocent until proven guilty, at least when it comes to your right to buy a gun. NRA: Don't ban gun sales to suspects:

"As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word 'suspect' has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties," Cox wrote.

So, yes, guns are their issue, so they don't have to get active about the other ones, but I have to think that they are on the wrong side of this one. Then again, maybe we all need guns to protect ourselves from the secret renditions and illegal spying...

The Aussie ‘Big Dry’

Friedman (behind wall)

Here's hoping the Harper in Canada follows the Harper in Australia.

Almost everywhere you travel these days, people are talking about their weather — and how it has changed. Nowhere have I found this more true, though, than in Australia, where “the big dry,” a six-year record drought, has parched the Aussie breadbasket so severely that on April 19, Prime Minister John Howard actually asked the whole country to pray for rain. “I told people you have to pray for rain,” Mr. Howard remarked to me, adding, “I said it without a hint of irony.”
...
In the process, Prime Minister John Howard, a conservative now in his 11th year in office, has moved from being a climate skeptic to what he calls a “climate realist,” who knows that he must offer programs to reduce global-warming greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, but wants to do it without economic pain or imposed targets, like Kyoto’s. He is proposing emissions trading and nuclear power.

The Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, proposes a hard target — a 60 percent reduction in Australian CO2 emissions from 2000 levels by 2050 — and subsidies for Aussies to retrofit their homes with energy-saving systems. The whole issue has come from the bottom up, and it has come on so quickly that neither party can be sure it has its finger on the public’s pulse.

“What was considered left a year ago is now center, and in six months it will be conservative — that is how quickly the debate about climate change is moving here,” said Michael Roux, chairman of RI Capital, a Melbourne investment firm. “It is being led by young people around the dinner table with their parents, and the C.E.O.’s and politicians are all playing catch-up.”

I asked Mr. Howard how it had happened. “It was a perfect storm,” he said. First came a warning from Nicholas Stern of Britain, who said climate change was not only real but could be economically devastating for Australia. Then the prolonged drought forced Mr. Howard to declare last month that “if it doesn’t rain in sufficient volume over the next six to eight weeks, there will be no water allocations for irrigation purposes” until May 2008 for crops and cattle in the Murray-Darling river basin, which accounts for 41 percent of Australian agriculture.

It was as if the pharaoh had banned irrigation from the Nile. Australians were shocked. Then the traditional Australian bush fires, which usually come in January, started in October because everything was so dry. Finally, in the middle of all this, Al Gore came to Australia and showed his film, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“The coincidence of all those things ... shifted the whole debate,” Mr. Howard said. While he tends to focus on the economic costs of acting too aggressively on climate change, his challenger, Mr. Rudd, has been focusing on the costs of not acting. Today, Mr. Rudd said, Australian businesses are demanding that the politicians “get a regulatory environment settled” on carbon emissions trading so companies know what framework they will have to operate in — because they know change is coming.
...
And then there are conservatives like Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Cameron, the Tory Party leader in London, who understand that climate is becoming a huge defining issue and actually want to take it away from liberals by being more forward-leaning than they are.

In short, climate change is the first issue in a long time that could really scramble Western politics. Traditional conservatives can now build bridges to green liberals; traditional liberals can make common cause with green businesses; young climate voters are newly up for grabs. And while coal-mining unions oppose global warming restrictions, service unions, which serve coastal tourist hotels, need to embrace them. You can see all of this and more in Australia today.

On the benefits of interval training

A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion

A good way to lose the public trust... even more.

Spying on Americans

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.
...
Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

According to the administration, the bill contains “long overdue” FISA modifications to account for changes in technology. The only example it offered was that an e-mail sent from one foreign country to another that happened to go through a computer in the United States might otherwise be missed. But Senator Feinstein had already included this fix in the bill Mr. Bush rejected.

Moreover, FISA has been updated dozens of times in the last 29 years. In 2000, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency then, said it “does not require amendment to accommodate new communications technologies.” And since 9/11, FISA has had six major amendments.

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

First Gere, now Ahmadinejad

Iranian president criticized for embracing female school teacher

The UK is a little more relaxed, although I suggest that they follow Maher's new rule:

Mission Accomplished Anniversary

You can't veto the truth

Politicizing the DoJ

Secret Gonzales Order Put Young Aides in Charge

original article here

Leahy is on it.

This memorandum should have been turned over to Senate and House committees as part of requests made in ongoing investigations. I expect the Department of Justice to immediately provide Congress with full information about this troubling decision as well as any other related documents they have failed to turn over to date.