As You Like It

Geitner

2009-04-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Just watched Tim Geitner on Face the Nation denying (kinda) today's Washington Post story that I alluded to in the previous blog. So who's lying? Can Geitner be trusted? Did the Post get it completely wrong?

For all the talk about transparency there certainly are a lot of unanswered questions swirling around these bailouts. And yet I'm sure that we know a lot more than the public knew in 1932. Just because there are soooo many more sources of information. But still, how can we be sure we aren't being taken for a ride?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ This post by Glenn Greenwald is very scary. What this tells me is trust no one. By handing the Summers' and the Genslers back the reign of power over the economy is the President succumbing to business as usual?

Make no mistake, I was very pleased that Obama won the Presidency. I want to trust him. I want to believe that he will do the right thing no matter who he pisses off. But it is hard for me not to begin to become disheartened. I want him to nationalise the banks. Hell, I want him to nationalise GM. But I realise that is too bold for him to pull off. At the least I want him to be one of us. Not a shill for the corporate oligarchy. I want him in their face and fighting to restore the middle class before we become the working poor. Is that too much to ask?

No love for EFCA

2009-04-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/03/efca-on-the-ropes

The underlying, disturbing portent of this article is not just about EFCA. It is about the continuing assault by the oligarchy on the middle class and one wonders if the President is complicit in this assault. We've known for years that our senators are complicit. They are so far down in the pockets of corporate america that they can't see the light of day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040303910.html?hpid=topnews

And what the hell is going on here?

And another one down and another one gone and another one bites the dust

2009-04-01T08:12:00.001-07:00

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/sen.-feinstein-not-sold-on-card-check-bill-2009-03-31.html

Transparency in Government

2009-04-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

Arlen Specter changed his mind on Card Check last week. Why? I would like to say that it was an elder statesman making a decision that he grappled with for a long time in his heart and mind as to what would be better for his country. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Specter's decision was based (as most of our elected officials decisions are based) on the next election cycle. He is up for reelection in 2010 and facing an uphill battle in the primary. Specter chucked Card Check in a desperate attempt to appease Republicans in his state who are against it (of course the "Party of NO" is against it) and in the process take a calculated risk that this would ensure a victory in 2010. The latest polls would indicate that, alas, this was a risk not worth taking. This transparent attempt to hold on to power is likely the only transparency in government we are likely to witness in the near future.

Why is Card Check important? The monied interests that run our government and their king, Ronald Reagan, declared war on the Labor Movement in the early 1980's. The first battle in this war was the Air Traffic Controllers Strike. The king and his minions won that battle decisively and were cheered by the middle class. Little did they know that this was the first salvo in the death of the middle class. How could they know? Thirty years of Republican revisionist history had been crammed down their throats. The lie was that Capitalism had created the middle class. When in fact it was the Labor Union movement that created the middle class.

The king's next move was more clandestine. The decision was made by the king and his minions that manufacturing would be supplanted by the Financial Services industry as roughly 20 to 25% of GDP. This went swimmingly until about 2007 when those chickens came home to roost. But hey, with very little manufacturing there was no need for Labor Unions anymore. No labor, no unions.

Card Check can begin to restore the Labor Union movement. But as Arlen Specter's transparency proves, it will be a struggle against the monied interests desire to keep "the people" under it's thumb and the politicians greed to keep their power safe from the mob.

The return of socialism?

2009-03-17T06:03:00.001-07:00

Great article in response to all the talk about socialism and Obama by self identified socialist themselves.

read more | digg story

No recession on K Street

2008-12-24T06:20:00.001-08:00

Washington’s influence industry is humming steadily while the national economy is declining in what several economists predict will be the worst recession in 50 years.

read more | digg story

Cold

2008-12-18T15:20:00.000-08:00

Cold

My hands shoved as deep as they will go into the pockets of my jeans

My breath frostily visible in the night air as I walk to the mailbox

To post a letter to a friend who lives in Las Vegas

Where last night it snowed three inches in the desert

Cold

The Future

2008-12-14T09:09:00.001-08:00

Bush Frustrated By Mother's Constant Questioning Of His Plans Post-White House

DECEMBER 14, 2008 | ISSUE 44•51

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The Legacy Of George W. BushJULY 22, 2008

WASHINGTON—With his departure from office only months away, President George W. Bush told reporters Monday that he is "fed up" with the way his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, keeps pestering him about his post–Oval Office plans.

"Every time I see her it's 'have you thought about your future' this, and 'do you know where you're gonna put your presidential library' that," said Bush, who will be moving out of the White House on Jan. 20. "It's like, I'll just get a job as a CEO or board chairman or something. My God, quit worrying about it. I'm 62 years old, for Christ's sake!"

Bush, who has prepared for the end of his second term by learning to play guitar and visiting friends across the country, said he will be "just fine" once he gets out into the real world.

"I might not have the most experience, and I don't have a lot of practical skills, either, but I need to figure this out for myself," Bush said. "I mean, you don't see Cheney's parents riding him about this stuff."

Reached for comment at her summer home in Kennebunkport, ME, Barbara Bush claimed that she only wants what is best for the president, and hopes that he will become more responsible and self-reliant in years to come. Her son, she said, would never even have gotten his job at the White House had she and her husband not "pulled a few strings."

"He's spent the last five or six years fooling around and experimenting with this little Iraq thing he likes so much, but now it's time for him to get serious," Mrs. Bush said. "And if he thinks he's just going to come live with us when this is over, he's got another thing coming."

"Our baby [former Florida governor] Jeb [Bush] already took his old room anyway," she added.

The Hawk

2008-12-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning I was filling my bird feeders in the back yard. In addition to the Goldfinch feeders and the "regular backyard" bird feeder (for the house finches, juncos, chickadees, etc), on my deck there is a peanut feeder that is regularly visited by Bluejays, Tufted Titmice, white and red bellied Nuthatches and one pesky squirrel. The red bellied Nuthatch was especially cool because they don't show up every winter. As I filled the peanut feeder I noticed a Tufted Titmouse in the tree beside the deck watching me. I said "Good morning" and he gave me a look that said "Just fill up the feeder, deke. I can smell them nuts!". When I finished, I turned away from the feeder to put my feed away and heard a loud rustling of wings. I turned back just in time to see a Red Tailed Hawk on my deck. Red Tails are about 2 feet tall and they mean nothing but business. As I confronted him, I was taken aback to the point that I stumbled (my wife says I swooned). He then flew up into my neighbors tree. I called my wife out on the deck to see him and he flew higher onto the limb of another tree in the backyard of the next neighbor. I didn't see if he had caught anything but my peanut feeder as of this writing remains untouched. No Bluejays. No Titmice. No nuthatches. This is a feeder that I regularly need to fill every third day.

So, my question is, do they have hawks in Springfield Il.? Does the governor eat peanuts?

2008-11-22T09:42:00.001-08:00

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

Everybody loves to talk about calm and peace, whether in a family, national, or international context. But without inner peace how can we make real peace? World peace through hatred and force is impossible. Even in the case of individuals, there is no possibility to feel happiness through anger. If in a difficult situation one becomes disturbed internally, overwhelmed by mental discomfort, then external things will not help at all. However, if despite external difficulties or problems, internally one's attitude is of love, warmth, and kind-heartedness, then problems can be faced and accepted.

- - - - - - - - -

The necessary foundation for world peace and the ultimate goal of any new international order is the elimination of violence at every level. For this reason the practice of non-violence surely suits us all. It simply requires determination, for by its very nature non-violent action requires patience. While the practice of non-violence is still something of an experiment on this planet, if it is successful it will open the way to a far more peaceful world in the next century.

--from The Pocket Dalai Lama by the Dalai Lama, compiled and edited by Mary Craig

Free Tibet!

2008-11-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

As many as 500 exiled Tibetan leaders are meeting in the Indian hill town of Dharmsala this week to discuss the future of their fight for their homeland.

The Dalai Lama wants the Tibetan people to decide strategy

It is a critical time, as they face up to the fact that their decades-long call for "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet has pretty much fallen on deaf ears in China.

Last month, Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said he was losing hope that his deliberately moderate "middle path" policy with Beijing - seeking autonomy but not full independence - would yield results.

He has now called together Tibetans from around the world to spend the next six days discussing what they do next.

The "brain-storming session" could lead to a more hard-line strategy, Tsering Tashi, the Dalai Lama's representative in London, admits.

"It's possible they will push for outright independence," he told the BBC. "Tibetans have a right to independence. Our history is evidence of that."

But one aspect will not change, he stressed.

"The Tibetan struggle will not want to take a violent stance."

'Hot debate'

The meeting comes at a time of crisis for the exiled Tibetans and their leadership, says Tibetan analyst Robert Barnett, of Columbia University in New York.

China's aggressive response to any moves by the Tibetan cause has led to divisions and dissension among the exiles, he says.

We believe times will change; China will change

Tsering Panden
Tibetan Youth Congress

"China realises it's on a winning streak. The longer it can go on being aggressive, the more the exiles split, the more it produces dissenters and the more the Dalai Lama is pressured to make compromises.

"The best outcome of this meeting, in the short term, is that they overcome the divisions. It will be quite impressive if they produce some unity."

Many Tibetans believe any criticism of the Dalai Lama's strategy is criticism of His Holiness himself.

This has made it difficult for a younger, more activist generation to have their calls for full independence taken seriously.

TIBET DIVIDE

China says Tibet was always part of its territory

Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th century

In 1950, China launched a military assault

Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959

Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India

Dalai Lama now advocates a "middle way" with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not full independence

In depth: Guide to Tibet

The Dalai Lama realises it is time to have that debate, which is why he has removed himself from this meeting, Mr Barnett says.

Tsering Panden, head of the New York branch of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which is pushing for full independence, believes there will be a "hot debate" next week.

"There are some people who blindly believe everything the Dalai Lama says. It's very important during this special meeting to make them aware that the 'middle way' is not working. Then, I think they will agree with us," he said.

"Our strategy is to educate Tibetans around the world, to make them more politically aware and to make sure that our voice continues to be heard on the global stage," he said.

"We know this will take many years, possibly generations, but nothing lasts forever. We believe times will change; China will change. Already we see people in China who are sympathetic to our cause."

Successor

Another, perhaps unspoken, issue at the heart of this meeting is the question of a successor to the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan leader is now 73 and has suffered bouts of ill health. In September, he was hospitalised for four days with stomach pain.

Last year he said he was considering breaking with centuries of tradition by choosing a successor, rather than awaiting rebirth which can take many years.

There is reason for his caution. When he picked a six-year-old boy in 1995 to be the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhist, Beijing rejected the choice and selected a pro-Chinese replacement.

Robert Barnett says Beijing believes the whole issue of Tibetan independence will disappear once the Dalai Lama dies, taking with him his skilled leadership and ability to court the West.

And, he says, there is a fear his death will lead to a disintegration of Tibetan society - with major unrest inside the region, and radical groups freed from the constraints of non-violence.

Tsering Panden hopes that a possible successor will emerge from next week's meeting.

"The Dalai Lama has a special place in the hearts of every Tibetan. If we can find someone who is endorsed by the Dalai Lama himself, then it will make the transition of leadership, when it happens, easier," he says.

Extrasolar Planets

2008-11-16T07:43:00.001-08:00

ScienceFirst Pictures of Extrasolar Planets Taken
Jason Mick (Blog) - November 16, 2008 10:07 AM

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2 comment(s) - last by eickst.. on Nov 16 at 10:41 AM

This image was snapped by Hubble of one of the four planets, which orbits the star Folmhaut 25 light-years from Earth. (Source: NASA)

A second image of three planets orbitting the star HR 8799 were taken by the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, which consists of two large 8-m reflecting telescopes. (Source: NASA/Gemini Observatory)

This artist rendition represents how the HR 8799 worlds might look when viewed up close. (Source: Gemini Observatory)

Beautiful new images reveal our first visual glimpse that other solar systems share planets just like ours does

One of the central themes both to science fiction and to real-life space progress was the drive to find and eventually travel to extrasolar plants. In recent years, constantly improving computer processing and better imaging technology have allowed scientists to at last confirm what many have long fantasized -- there's a wealth of planets outside our solar system.

From water bearing planets to ultra-hot ones, and even with a few that resembledlarger versions of Earth, extrasolar planets thus far have shown great variety. Most of these planets were detected using Doppler, or "wobble," technique to locate stars which were tugged at by the gravity of orbiting planets, leading to a wobble. Thus far, infrared images from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope and spectral analysis of composition had provided us of our clearest picture of these worlds. However, the public has never seen a picture of an extrasolar planet -- until now.

The new images, developed by NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are the first-ever pictures taken from the visible spectrum, glimpsed by the Gemini North and Keck telescopes on the Mauna Kea mountaintop in Hawaii. British and American researchers snapped the first ever visible-light pictures of three extrasolar planets orbiting the star HR8799. HR8799 is about 1.5 times the size of the sun, located 130 light-years away in the Pegasus constellation. Observers can probably see this star through binoculars, scientists said.

To identify the planets, researchers compared images of the system, known to contain planets HF8799b, HF8799c, and HF8799d. In each image faint objects were detected, and by comparing images from over the years, it was confirmed that these were the planets in their expected positions and that they orbit their star in a counterclockwise direction.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope at about the same time picked up images of a fourth planet, somewhat unexpectedly. The new planet, Fomalhaut b orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, part of the constellation Piscis Australis (Southern Fish) and is relatively massive -- about three times the size of Jupiter. The planet orbits 10.7 billion miles from its home star and is approximately 25 light-years from Earth.

Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas describes the challenge of obtaining the images, stating, "Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off."

NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s use of direct-imaging to "see" planets marks a new era in astronomy. Says Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, "After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets. The discovery of the HR 8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth."

While none of the planets were even remotely habitable, they are an important step towards imaging habitable worlds. Their discovery brings the total of known extrasolar planets to 326.

The photographs were published in two research studies in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's journal Science Express. They can be viewed here [1] [2].

Do You Care?

2008-11-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, we can grow up as a nation and stop preventing people from exercising their rights to a life partner.

Today in San Francisco, And Across the Country

by Josh Marshall

More here.

Photos courtesy of TPM Reader SS.

Let the Revisionist History Begin

2008-11-16T07:24:00.001-08:00

And of course, Rush to judgement Limbuagh is already calling this the Obama recession.

Down the Republican Rabbit Hole

by Devilstower

Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 07:00:03 AM PST

History may be written by the winners, but that doesn't stop the losers from wasting a lot of ink in the attempt. This time, it's the GOP revanchists who are busy trying to come up with a reason -- any reason -- for the economic crisis that doesn't point directly to their conservative ideology and the greedy green horse of the Apocalypse, deregulation.

There are dozens of letters percolating through Republican chain mail, and a matching number of posts on right wing blogs, all trying to spread the same message: Democrats loaned money to black people!

Here's an example plucked from my own mailbox.

We're on the brink of an economic disaster and another Great Depression. This was not caused by Republicans. This was caused solely by Democrats.
In 1977 Democratic President Jimmy Carter passed the Community Reinvestment Act to provide housing to poor people. In the 1990s Bill Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno threaten banks under red lining rules into giving loans to people who could not afford them. Then in the last 8 years, the leftist group ACORN, which has ties to Barack Obama, went to banks and threatened them to relax their rules again. Banks had to give loans to people who had no jobs or no identification.

You have to hand it to them. In terms of bringing together the maximum number of Republican demons -- Carter, Clinton, Reno, Obama -- with the smallest amount of connecting narrative, this is a keeper.

It's a satisfying bedtime story for the right. They can snooze and dream of revenge, when the wonders of True Conservatism will pave the streets with a mixture of gold and liberal bones. Unfortunately for them, it's not only simplistic, not only demonstrative of deep prejudice, it's also dead wrong.

The Community Reinvestment Act and other red lining laws weren't passed to force banks to make loans to African-Americans and other minorities. They were there to make the rules consistent. Previous to the passage of the CRA, minorities were often required to have better credit, and make larger down payments to get loans equivalent to those awarded whites. Nothing in these laws required that banks lower their lending standards, only that they be fair, consistent, and operate in a "safe and secure" way. There was no evidence then, and no evidence now, that minorities with the same initial credit rating as whites tend to default on their loans at any greater rate.

Want proof? Mortgage failure rate in 2000: 1%. 2001: 1%. 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006? One (1) as in ONE percent. But wait! Everything that Carter, Reno, and Clinton could do was already in there. The nefarious community organizers of ACORN had already grown their little oak trees of pressure. Carter's poor people had been sitting in their new homes so long, that many of those initial mortgages were paid off and gone.

What does legislation passed 31 years ago have to do with problems today? Nothing. Neither do tweaks Clinton made to that legislation in the mid 90s. The real culprits require a much shorter trip down memory lane.

Subprime mortgages (and all mortgages, really) are a fraction of the current problem. The bailout would have been enough to buy out every subprime mortgage in foreclosure across the country. In fact, it was enough to do that several times over. So why not do that?

The reason is that the purpose of the bailout (at least as Treasury Secretary Paulson sees it) isn't to stop mortgage foreclosures, but to save the banks. And the banks have some self-inflicted problems that make those mortgages an afterthought.

For example, the wonderful credit default swap. In essence, credit default swaps are (or were) nothing but insurance policies for loans. And yet in 2007 the total number of credit default swaps traded far exceeded the value of all loans. In fact, it may have touched $70 trillion dollars, which puts it above the gross domestic product of the entire planet.

How is that possible? Come with me back to the primitive world of 1999, when SUVs ruled the roads and cell phones did not yet shoot video, and let's see how this clumsy bit of fiscal jargon conquered the planet.

The Evolution of the Credit Default Swap

Stage 1 (Perturbo mutans)
You have just made a loan to someone, and now you're nervous that this scoundrel might not pay. What to do, what to do? Ah, but you need not worry! I happen to have assets on hand that can easily cover your petty loan. What's more, for a small monthly fee, I'll be happy to provide you with insurance of a sort. Should the person to whom you've extended a loan prove unreliable, I'll shoulder the burden -- so long as you keep up the payments. Let's call this insurance a... credit default swap.

In 1999, these credit default swaps already existed, but they were a niche product. Only a fraction of banks employed them and then only on a fraction of loans. Without some knock to the system, swaps would probably have remained a relatively small player.

Stage 2 (Perturbo furtiva)
Knock, knock. In 2000 Republican economic hero, Phil Gramm, with the assistance of a small legion of lobbyists, created the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Along with ushering in the Enron disaster, this bill provided the one thing that credit default swaps needed to grow and mutate -- invisibility. Thanks to the CFMA, not only were credit default swaps unregulated, they were impossible to observe directly. Like black holes in deep space, you could only spot swaps by looking at how other things acted nearby.

So, now you've made a loan to someone, and you're worried about it. I want to offer you a credit default swap so I can collect the fee. Trouble is, I don't have the assets to cover your loan. So how can I... hold on, credit default swaps are so unregulated that no one says I actually have to be able to deliver on my promise. Hey, over here! Have I got a swap for you, and it's a bargain.

So now the CDS is a means of moving the risk, but the risk is still as high (or higher, since the original lender might have been better able to cover the loss). In fact, credit default swaps have gone from being a risk mitigator, to a risk magnifier.

Stage 3 (Peturbo veloxicresco)
You have a loan you're worried about. That's good, because lots of people want to offer you swaps. After all, you don't have to have any assets to issue a swap. The investment bank of First Me and The Change I Found In the Couch Cushions can offer swaps for all the debt at Morgan Stanley, and that's okay. I get free money for issuing the swaps, and the swaps have value on the books. So both me and my pal Mr. Stanley have values that are inflating faster than a tick in a blood bank.

Now you can get a swap for any loan you want, and with all the competition, the cost of these swaps is lower, and lower, and lower. Here's an idea: why not go out and make more loans, riskier loans. Why not offer anyone you can collar on the street a loan, no matter whether or not they can pay it off, not because some 30 year old law makes you do it, but because your friend the credit swap makes it perfectly safe!

So many people are offering these things that you could give a loan to Saddam while the bombs are falling without a care in the world. You can always get a swap.

Stage 4 (Fatum casus)
I have a swap. I really, really want someone to take my swap. Only even with every incentive I can offer, not enough people are loaning. Sure, there's a record amount of hypothetical money sloshing around the system thanks to me and my swaps, but it's still not enough. So what can I...

Wait a second. Swaps are unregulated. No one says I have to have enough resources to cover the swap, and even better, no one says I have to offer the swap to the person who actually made the loan! Hey buddy, see that loan over there? You may think it's iffy, but I think it'll hold up. In fact, I'm so sure it will, I'll sell you a credit default swap on it that pays off if it fails. You don't make the loan, you don't have to pay off on the loan, you don't have anything to do with the loan. You just pay me the fee. And if that guy loses his money, you collect. How sweet is that!

This mutation is enormous (see how the genera changed up there?). At this point, credit default swaps have become completely divorced from the original function. A single loan can be covered by multiple swaps. There's a complicated fiscal term for this. It's called gambling, and at this stage, that's all that remains of those little "insurance" policies. They no longer protect anyone from anything, they just offer a chance to place enormous overlapping side bets on everything.

Stage 5 (Fatum insanus)
I have swaps! Get your swaps here! Want a swap on a loan you made? Okay. Want to bet that the bozo in the next cube is making bad loans? We can do that. Want to bundle up some loans and bet on those? Buddy we can do better than that. I can give you a swap on the value of other swaps. Now we're really in business.

Who owns the original loan? Don't know, don't care. Who's actually responsible for the money if that loan should fail? Ehhh, can't really say. Has anyone noticed that a single bad loan could cause a cascade of swap calls that bounce around the system like a rocket-power pinball? Shut up.

Isn't anyone worried that this is the most massive house of cards ever constructed in human history? Lookit, what part of "we took 120 billion in bonuses out of this place in the last five years" are you missing?

Stage 6 (Fatum exicelebritas)
Hey, my loan went bad. Can I have my money from that swap, please?

Stage 7 (Fatum cerus)
Oh shit.

Now that people are paying attention, it turns out that the value of most credit default swaps is not just bupkis, it's Bupkis Plus. More computer power went into modeling these things than has been invested in predicting climate change, but everyone overlooked the giant "and then a miracle occurs" at the center of all the equations that allowed credit default swaps to generate revenue ex nihilo.

Trying to blame the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act for the current fiscal crisis is like blaming a spot on your windshield for engine failure while ignoring the gaping wound in you head gasket. Republicans are scribbling hard to create their new version of reality, and you never know what's going to sell. After all, people bought a "Book of Virtues" authored by Bill Bennet.

But in this case, even the Mock Turtle and the March Hare think the GOP line is too outlandish.

From the Daily Kos

2008-11-15T14:31:00.001-08:00

Supreme Court Checks Price Tag for Supreme Court

by Devilstower

Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 01:53:28 PM PST

There's no doubt that if you're charged with a crime, it's good to be rich. It's nice to be innocent, but really, would you rather be guilty as sin and packing a squad of high-powered private attorneys, or pure as driven snow and represented by a massively overworked public defender?

But what do you do when even the best attorneys can't help? What about when you're facing a $20 million dollar fine for pollution.

The fine was part of a $30 million settlement with the government over accusations that[Massey Energy Company] violated water pollution permit limits more than 4,500 times from January 2000 to December 2006. The government said Massey had polluted and clogged hundreds of streams and rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia by releasing millions of pounds of metals, sediments and acid mine drainage into their waterways.

What if you've already faced millions in fines for getting your workers killed?

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has levied a $1.5 million fine against the Massey Energy Company for 25 violations that contributed to the death of two West Virginia coal miners killed in a fire in January 2006.

Then a jury goes and awards a $50 million judgement against you, just becuse you totally violated a contract.

The Massey Energy Company, a coal producer, was ordered by a West Virginia jury to pay $50 million in damages to the closely held Harman Mining Corporation. Harman's owner, Hugh Caperton, accused Massey of driving his company out of business.

If you're thinking that a criminal record approaching 5,000 counts and a history of screwing business partners might be something that even TV lawyers couldn't handle, you're just not thinking big enough. Why stop at hiring good lawyers when you can just buy the state supreme court?

In fact, if you're Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, you can't stop at buying just one supreme court judge. After all, the first one might not get caught.

A justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court and a powerful coal-company executive met in Monte Carlo in the summer of 2006, sharing several meals even as the executive’s companies were appealing a $50 million jury verdict against them to the court.

So even if that judge voted for you, which he did, you might still end up facing the case again without him.

Chief Justice Elliott E. Maynard withdrew from the case last week after the publication of photographs of him and Massey's chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, vacationing in Monte Carlo.

Still, Donnie had a backup judge.

The chief justice, Elliott E. Maynard, and a second justice disqualified themselves from the rehearing and were replaced by appeals court judges

Wait a second, we're not done.

the vote was again 3-to-2 in favor of Massey. A third justice, Brent D. Benjamin, who was elected to the court with the help of more than $3 million from Mr. Blankenship, refused to recuse himself.

Ah, sweet justice! You'll be happy to know that, given a second chance, Justice Benjamin still didn't see anything wrong with presiding on a case for his sugar daddy. You have to admit, he has a point. After all, if you're on the West Virginia Supreme Court, and you start recusing yourself from every case involving Don Blankenship, you really might as well go home.

But as of yesterday, the United States Supreme Court has decided to take a look at the case.

The appeal asked the Supreme Court to consider whether a West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals justice should have disqualified himself from deciding the case because Massey's chief executive officer had spent $3 million to help him get elected to the court.
Justice Brent Benjamin twice was in the majority in 3-2 decisions that overturned the $50 million jury verdict against Massey.

Should the US Supreme Court overturn the West Virginia verdict, it'll show that you can't evade justice by packing the bench with your bought and paid for cronies. If they let the Blankenship court's decision stand, don't get too excited. I'm sure other courts will institute an orderly bidding process for buying their votes.

While we're waiting for a decision, Blankenship can stay busy with his hobby of buying the state for Republians.

Mr. Blankenship, the chief executive of the state’s largest coal producer, Massey Energy, has promised to spend "whatever it takes" to help win a majority in the State Legislature for the long-beleaguered Republican Party in a state that is a Democratic and labor stronghold.
In a state where candidates who win typically spend less than $20,000, Mr. Blankenship has poured more than $6 million into political initiatives and local races over the past three years. Mr. Blankenship has spent at least $700,000 in his current effort to oust Democrats, and the state is awash with lawn signs, highway billboards, radio advertisements and field organizers paid for by him.

Or get back to work as the top practitioner of mountaintop removal.

The Case for Rebirth

2008-11-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

When this world initially formed, there seem to have been two types of events or entities, one sentient, the other insentient. Rocks, for instance, are examples of nonsentient entities. You see, we usually consider them to have no feelings: no pains and no pleasures. The other type, sentient beings, have awareness, consciousness, pains and pleasures.

But there needs to be a cause for that. If you posit there is no cause for consciousness, then this leads to all sorts of inconsistencies and logical problems. So, the cause is posited, established. It is considered certain.

The initial cause must be an independent consciousness. And on that basis is asserted the theory of continuation of life after death. It is during the interval when one's continuum of awareness departs from one's body at death that the subtle mind, the subtle consciousness, becomes manifest. That continuum connects one life with the next.

--from Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism edited by Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace, published by Snow Lion Publications

Moved by a Crescent

2008-10-22T19:39:00.001-07:00

In a gratifying “have you no sense of decency, Sir and Madam?” moment, Colin Powell went on “Meet the Press” and pushed back on ugly innuendo.

read more | digg story

Big Cars

2008-10-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, my Mom and Dad and I lived in Altoona, Pa. We lived back a dirt road that ended at my Uncle Charles' house and then turned left in a long oval that if you looked at it from the air, resembled a large backwards capital P. We were the second house around the P and where the oval met the original dirt road to form the P was another house. There was a large creek that ran behind Uncle Charles' house and ours. My maternal Grandfather had built both houses. First ours, a bungalow with hardwood floors and a large living room with a fireplace he had built with stones he hauled up from the creek. Then Uncle Charles' house, a two story which Grandpap moved into as his family grew.
Uncle Charles and his wife, Aunt Frances were nice enough folks. Charles was the second oldest of five children. My mother was the youngest. Charles and Frances always believed that my mother had married below her family's station. This, of course, created some tension in my mom's relationship with her older brother. When my father had a snoot full (which he was wont to do in those days) Charles and Frances were always the object of his drunken derision.
Charles and Frances were upper middle class by today's standards. Charles was a terminal manager for Mobil Oil. They had one son, just like my folks. But they had horses and a big corral to ride them in. And Charles always bought a new car every two years. It was always a big car. I remember the 1959 Buick with the huge tail fins. My dad had 10 year old used cars. Hell, I remember when we didn't even have a car. We would walk down that lane and catch the bus to go into town. My dad rode the bus to work. I remember in '59 my dad finally got enough cash together to buy a 1950 Chevy that leaked transmission fluid like it was coming out of a spigot. But we were happy. Happy until Charles bought a new big car. He would bring that new car home and his first stop would be our driveway. And he would show it off to my mom and dad like he was rubbing their noses in it. And I knew that next day, Dad was going to get a snoot full and he was going to come home and talk about going over to Charles' house and calling him out. Mom always managed to nip that idea in the bud, but it was not a happy evening at our house when Charles bought a new, big car.
And ever since then, I have not liked big cars.

It's Electric!

2008-10-18T06:56:00.001-07:00

Pee... if you Dare!

from Boing Boing by Richard Metzger

Isn't This a little Over the Top?

2008-10-18T06:51:00.001-07:00

SYOP 10/18/08) Charging that the FBI probe of ACORN represents an "unholy alliance" between Republican operatives and potentially illegal conduct by law enforcement targeting voter fraud, the Obama campaign demanded Friday that the U.S. special prosecutor look into the voter registration of Joe Wurzelbacher.

The Obama camapign claims that the alleged Toledo plumber, aka JoeThe Plumber, who became the hot topic of the last Presidential debate due to his rope-line confrontation with Barack Obama's over the Democratic candidate's tax plan, was not on the voter registration rolls in Ohio as Joe Wurzelbacher, but turned up later registered as Samuel Wurzelbacher.

H.H. Dalai Lama

2008-10-18T06:45:00.001-07:00

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

The modes of thought in pride and in courageous thought are entirely different.

Depression caused by disintegration of the ego probably comes from not being able to posit a conventionally existent I. Still, when some understanding of emptiness develops, you have a different feeling of I than that to which you previously were accustomed. Our usual feeling is that the I is something solid, really independent, and very forceful. Such no longer remains, but at the same time there is a sense of a mere I that accumulates karma and performs actions. Such a sense of self is not at all a source of depression.

If you have difficulty positing a merely nominal I as well as merely nominal cause and effect of actions--if you get to the point where if you assert selflessness, you cannot posit dependent-arising--then it would be better to assert dependent-arising and give up selflessness. Indeed, there are many levels of understanding selflessness, and Buddha, out of great skillfulness in method, taught many different schools of tenets that posit coarser levels of selflessness for those temporarily unable to understand the more subtle levels. It is not the case that only if the most profound level is immediately accessible, it is suitable, and if it is not accessible, the whole endeavor should be thrown away. You have to proceed step by step with whatever accords with your level of mind. Between emptiness and dependent-arising, you should value dependent-arising more highly.

--from The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace by H.H. the Dalai Lama of Tibet, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, published by Snow Lion Publications

Thanks, Rick

2008-10-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

Every morning I rise at 5am. I head down the stairs, through the dining room and into the kitchen. I put on a pot of coffee and then I step out on my back porch and look up at the stars. These days Orion is back. Straight overhead. Lower and to the left is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. A couple of years ago I didn't appreciate any of this. I didn't appreciate a clear sky at 5:15 in the morning. Then my wife and I started going to the Ward Beecher Planetarium almost every Saturday night. It was a cheap date. And we were hooked.
The major reason we kept going was a man named Rick Pirko. Rick presented most of the planetariums programs. He made everything that he was interested in very easy to understand. Once my wife and I became "regulars", (as Rick referred to the small core group that showed up most of the time) he would often stay and talk to us after the show. He would ask our opinion about different programs and about the planetarium in general. It was easy to see that he loved what he was doing. And it seemed to the casual observer that he could do almost anything.
I remember last Halloween at the Oakland Performing Arts Center the Zhou was performing music from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rick was in the audience with his camera. When the sound system went on the blink, Rick jumped on stage and fixed it.
But Rick's lasting impression on me will always be in the stars. I don't know much about astronomy but what I do know Rick and the crew at the Ward Beecher Planetarium taught me. I will be forever grateful. Rick Pirko passed from this life this morning. He is the same age as I am. His final lesson for me is to see my own mortality as clearly as Orion on a clear winter night.
In my Buddhist practice everyday I recite "The Foundation of all Perfections" by Je Tsongkapa. One of the verses says that "Spirit quivers in flesh like a bubble in water" I will miss you Rick.
Tomorrow morning when I rise at 5am and walk down the stairs and through the dining room into the kitchen, I will put on the coffee and step outside and look up at the sky. And it is then that I will remember Rick. And every morning thereafter. Thank you.

The Most Dangerous Man in America

2008-10-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

The Shadow President

By JACOB HEILBRUNN

Published: October 12, 2008

In 1992 Paul Wolfowitz, then the under secretary of defense for policy, presided over the drafting of a 46-page document called the Defense Planning Guidance. It was essentially a blueprint for American unilateral dominance in the post-cold-war era and created such a furor that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had to withdraw its most extreme provisions. Read one way, the document looks like a dress rehearsal for the bellicose policies pursued a decade later by the Bush administration. But looked at another way, it also seems like a valuable window into Cheney’s operational code.

ANGLER

The Cheney Vice Presidency

By Barton Gellman. Illustrated. 483 pp

The Penguin Press. $27.95

As vice president, Cheney, you could say, has acted like a great power seeking to maximize influence and quash any rivals, forging an alliance only with Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. He thus treated the State Department and the National Security Council as foreign enemies, spying on them and humiliating Condoleezza Rice (when she was the national security adviser) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Whenever possible, he has acted unilaterally, even working behind President Bush’s back to alter his tax and environmental policies. But just as critics warned back in 1992 that American overreaching would ultimately create a coalition of enemies determined to check it, so Cheney’s relentless amassing of power and influence has finally rebounded on him in Bush’s second term. With the rise of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Cheney faces true rivals who command the president’s ear.

Yet when Cheney originally returned to Washington with George W. Bush, he was widely seen as an old hand who would soberly guide his young charge. Time magazine, for example, gushed in February 2001 that “Cheney’s calm ‘comes from riding the range genetically for several generations,’ says his chief of staff, referring to the vice president’s Western heritage. It is a disposition that should serve Bush well, especially when the days get longer.” That was then. His chief of staff, Scooter Libby, avoided the hoosegow only after Bush commuted his sentence, and Cheney, who fairly breathes contempt for the Constitution and democracy, has come to epitomize an administration that is a quicksand of deceit.

It didn’t have to be that way. As governor of Texas, Bush hewed to a centrist course, working, as he often boasted, with the Democratic-led State Legislature. As a candidate for the presidency, he promised more of the same. But as president, he struck out on a more radical and polarizing course, one that Barton Gellman, in his engrossing and informative “Angler,” suggests he would not have followed absent Cheney. (Angler is Cheney’s Secret Service code name.) Gellman, a reporter at The Washington Post, has interviewed numerous associates and antagonists of the vice president, offering the most penetrating portrait of him yet. The result is that Cheney doesn’t seem as bad as you might think. He’s even worse.

As Gellman shows, Cheney’s intriguing began as soon as Bush entrusted him with the vice-presidential vetting process. He treated the candidates, ranging from Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma to Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, almost as if they were terrorist suspects, demanding personal information about their extended families that no previous campaign had ever requested, including whether they were “vulnerable to blackmail.” According to Gellman, David Addington, Cheney’s longtime hatchet man, “oversaw the disassembly of candidates, cataloging their blemishes and mounting them for inspection.” Once Bush chose Cheney — after failing to interview any other candidate or to consult his staff — his running mate didn’t even bother to answer his own questionnaire, let alone supply medical or financial records. The pattern of Bush and Cheney operating together in secret was set.

Next came staffing the administration itself. Once again, Bush gave Cheney a free hand. And once again, it was Cheney and Addington who went to work creating a network of loyalists even before the Florida recount had been adjudicated. Cheney had a keen sense of the importance of titles and positions: Libby, for instance, got three titles — the vice president’s chief of staff and national security adviser, and assistant to the president. This, Gellman notes, meant that “no one save Cheney and Bush themselves were his superiors.” Appointees who proved ideologically unreliable, like Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, were quickly and ruthlessly eliminated by Cheney.

This might be seen as nothing more than rough-and-tumble bureaucratic politics. But when it came to national security, Cheney, as Gellman reminds us, established what amounted to a parallel government. Together with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, his old boss from the Nixon administration, Cheney ran rings around the bureaucracy, which he viewed as an entrenched enemy filled with traitorous liberals. One Cheney ally explains to Gellman that the State Department is “basically an Al Qaeda cell.” Richard Haass, then the director of policy planning at the State Department, was generally viewed as an enemy agent: Cheney’s office was requesting secret National Security Agency transcripts of Haass’s conversations abroad. “In the first term,” Gellman writes, “most White House staff members were unaware that many of their e-mails were blind-copied to Cheney’s staff.” The snooping habits of these aides prompted their “nervous counterparts” at other agencies to call them the Watchers.

Gellman might have emphasized more fully that Cheney and Rumsfeld were essentially reprising their role during the Ford years, when this duo sought to rub out moderates like Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, whom Gerald Ford dumped in 1976, and move the administration to the right. While Rumsfeld’s Pentagon created spider-web charts showing links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, Cheney worked over skeptical Republicans like the House majority leader, Dick Armey, informing him, in Gellman’s words, that “Saddam could put drone aircraft on a freighter, steam them across the Atlantic and use the route-planning software to dispatch lethal microbes anywhere from Miami to Boston.”

Much attention has already been devoted to the administration’s malignant torture and surveillance policies, erected on the wobbly foundation of a monarchical view of the presidency by the likes of Addington and John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general. But Gellman reveals that the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, and top people in the Justice Department were prepared to resign rather than accede to an extension of a surveillance program that was Cheney and Addington’s brainchild — to the extent that they kept Bush’s own terrorism adviser, Frances Townsend, in the dark about it. Gellman singles out Bush’s sudden retreat in the face of this rebellion — which Cheney had hidden from him — as a key moment: “Bush did learn something, something he would not forget. A president could not operate as Cheney did, doctrinally unbending come what may. . . . In his second term, his second chance, the president would take greater care to consult his own instincts.”

Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the Republican debacle in the 2006 midterm elections that Bush finally divested himself of Cheney’s main ally, Rumsfeld. It’s hard to avoid the feeling that the bluster and bombast of Cheney and his aides about the president’s unlimited powers ended up subverting their own goals. As Jack Goldsmith, a former Justice Department official who helped lead the revolt against the surveillance program, put it to Gellman, Addington “was principled to the point of being stupid. He held fast to his hard-core views of unilateral executive power even when they led to self-defeatingly adverse political consequences for the presidency.” Still, Cheney’s younger disciples will probably be around and credentialed should there be a fresh Republican administration. The vice president will soon be gone, but his truculent spirit may remain.

Jacob Heilbrunn, a regular contributor to the Book Review, is the author of “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons.”

Is William Spinning?

2008-10-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

Buckley’s Son Leaves National Review

By Patricia Cohen

Christopher Buckley, the author and son of the late conservative mainstay William F. Buckley, said in a telephone interview that he has resigned from the National Review, the political journal his father founded in 1955.

Mr. Buckley said he had “been effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement” after endorsing Barack Obama in a blog posting on TheDailyBeast.com; since then, he said he has been blanketed with hate mail at the blog and at the National Review, where he has written a column.

As a result, he wrote to Richard Lowry, the editor of the National Review, and its publisher, Jack Fowler, offering to resign, and “this offer was rather briskly accepted,” Mr. Buckley said.

Mr. Buckley said he did not understand the sense of betrayal that some of his conservative colleagues felt, but said that the fury and ugly comments his endorsement generated is “part of
the calcification of modern discourse. It’s so angry.” Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s quote about the Democrats, Mr. Buckley added, “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.”

H.H. Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

2008-10-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

Why is endeavor necessary? If we consider material progress, we see that research started by one person can always be continued by another. But this is not possible with spiritual progress. The realization we talk about in the Buddhadharma is something that has to be accomplished by the individual. No one else can do it for us. Of course, it would be wonderful if in the future we could attain realization through some sort of new injection or by means of a new generation of computers, without having to go through any difficulties. If we could be absolutely certain that such a time would come, we could simply lie back and wait to get enlightened. But I doubt that this will ever happen. It is better to make an effort. We have to develop endeavor.

I.
Thus with patience I will practice diligence,
For it is through zeal that I will reach enlightenment.
If there is no wind, then nothing stirs;
Neither is there merit where there is no diligence.

We can be patient in various ways, such as by not thinking ill of those who harm us or by accepting suffering as the path. Of these two, the latter is the more important for generating endeavor, and it is endeavor that enables us to attain enlightenment. As Shantideva says, "It is through zeal that I will reach enlightenment." In the same way that protecting a lamp from the wind allows the flame to burn without flickering, endeavor enables the virtuous mind to grow undisturbed.

What is endeavor? It is finding joy in doing what is good. To do that, it is necessary to remove anything that counteracts it, especially laziness. Laziness has three aspects: having no wish to do good, being distracted by negative activities, and underestimating oneself by doubting one's ability. Related to these are taking undue pleasure in idleness and sleep and being indifferent to samsara as a state of suffering.

--from A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life by Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, translated by The Padmakara Translation Group

Que Sera, Sarah

2008-10-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

Que Sera, Sarah

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been lax on industrial pollution

Posted at 5:01 PM on 06 Oct 2008

Though Alaska has a birth-defect rate twice the national average, and though exposure to industrial toxins has been strongly linked to birth defects, Gov. Sarah Palin has made little effort to keep industrial pollution at bay. To the contrary: Thanks to Palin's nod, Alaska is home to the only coastal fishery in the U.S. where oil companies can dump toxic runoff. In Feb. 2008, her administration opposed a bill that would have increased the notice given to parents before schools were sprayed with pesticides, as well as a bill that would have banned PBDEs. In Aug. 2008, Palin opposed a measure that would have halted the controversial Pebble Mine, which critics fear may decimate the world's largest commercial wild salmon fishery. She has neglected to push the Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a highly contaminated military base. "She doesn't have a good understanding of the science," says the former research director of the Alaska Native Medical Program. "What she tends to do is talk about personal responsibility as the key to good health."

source: The New Republic
see also, in Grist: Palin successfully lobbies Schwarzenegger to veto bill that would reduce port pollution

World to Obama/McCain on Global Warming: Don't Blow It.

2008-10-14T15:36:00.001-07:00

It's online activism at its best:videos are pouring in from around the world through a 3D Globe interface, asking the candidates to right Bush's wrongs and join the UN process.The US is the ONLY developed nation that didn't ratify Kyoto,the first global climate deal. Will Obama/McCain make up for lost time and join the world before we're all toast?

read more | digg story

The Palin Problem

2008-10-13T16:44:00.001-07:00

Do we want leaders who are everyday folks, or do we want leaders who understand everyday folks? Therein lies an enormous difference, one that could decide the presidential election and, if McCain and Palin were to win, shape the governance of the nation.

read more | digg story

The Sarah Monologues

2008-10-13T15:18:00.001-07:00

Hey Sarah, I can see Jupiter from my back porch. Can I get a job at NASA?

The dumbing down of the GOP

2008-10-13T15:11:00.001-07:00

Why aren't more conservatives disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the vice presidency (again)?

read more | digg story

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama

2008-10-13T15:09:00.001-07:00

A Fox News Channel program last week thrust Andy Martin, widely credited with starting a cyber-whisper campaign about Barack Obama, into the foreground.

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Rant#1

2008-10-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

John McCain, if he meant to or not, has aided and abetted the "dumbing down" of America by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. The Republican Party has become so anti-intellectual that this woman who doesn't have a clue what's going on outside of Alaska (or maybe just Wasilla for that matter) is a viable candidate for Vice-President and hence President of the U.S.
So, with that "shoot from the hip" decision, McCain got a slight bump coming out of the convention and won over some of the Religious Right. However, it may be one of those decisions that will have unintended consequences. The "honorable" John McCain has now resorted to character assassination as his campaign withers in the face of the financial crises. And Sarah is the weapon of asinine destruction. As she whips the faithful to a froth at campaign rallies, the faithful seem to be getting vengeful. With shouts of "traitor" or "kill him" or "off with his head" this is getting way out of control.
Sarah, aren't you married to a secessionist? Where does that bump the needle on the Patriot Meter?

That's all for now. I'll be back.

McCain’s planetariophobia

2008-10-08T17:35:00.001-07:00

So a little while back, John McCain made an ill-advised crack about planetaria (that’s the plural of planetarium), calling them "foolishness". It was ill advised because it raised the hackles of lots of science-loving folks, including those who want to — gasp, horror! — educate kids about astronomy and science.

read more | digg story

Timothy Egan: The Legacy

2008-10-02T02:46:00.001-07:00

At the end of his presidency, George Bush will leave behind a Mount Rainier of shame and folly.

read more | digg story

Jon Stewart: Bush Bailout Speech Same as Iraq Speech (VIDEO)

2008-09-26T22:03:00.001-07:00

Jon Stewart finds an eerie similarity between President Bush's big bailout speech and his Iraq invasion speech five years ago. "Those who do not study the past get an exciting opportunity to repeat it."

read more | digg story

Making America Stupid

2008-09-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode.

read more | digg story

Racism is alive and well in the Red heart of USA

2008-09-15T15:02:00.001-07:00

Forum sells 'Obama Waffles' with racial stereotype- WASHINGTON (AP) -- A conservative political forum on Saturday sold boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing Arab-like headdress on its top flap.

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McCain offers soul for presidency.

2008-09-15T14:58:00.001-07:00

John McCain has shown, with his outrageous lies about Barack Obama, that he will sacrifice his reputation for honor on the altar of ambition.

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McCain Last Year: Mayors And Governors Can't Handle Nat Sec

2008-09-13T22:12:00.001-07:00

The Senator declared. "I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn't a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn't a governor for a short period of time."

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In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

2008-09-13T22:08:00.001-07:00

An examination of Gov. Sarah Palin’s record finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

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Gov. Palin’s Worldview

2008-09-13T22:03:00.001-07:00

If John McCain seriously thought Gov. Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, it raises profound questions about his judgment.

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Dick Cavett roasts McCain-Palin in the New York Times

2008-09-13T09:51:00.001-07:00

In a piece entitled "Experience 101" former host of the Dick Cavett Show and now opinion writer for the NYT skewers John McCain for lying, sleazy ads, and his pick of inexperienced Sarah Palin as his VP choice.

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Palin and Pork

2008-09-13T06:55:00.001-07:00

Is that lipstick on that pig?!?

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Bush Secret Order To Send Special Forces Into Pakistan

2008-09-13T06:51:00.001-07:00

A secret order issued by George Bush giving US special forces carte blanche to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistani territory raised fears last night that escalating conflict was spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan and could ignite a region-wide war.

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She's Clueless, He's Worse

2008-09-13T06:47:00.001-07:00

Ignorance is bliss, which perhaps explains Gov. Sarah Palin being so confidently wrong about the root cause of the federalization of most of the nation's mortgage market. But what is Sen. John McCain's excuse?

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A campaign of victimhood - The Denver Post

2008-09-13T06:44:00.001-07:00

There was a time when Republicans campaigned on their ideas, programs and values. This year — lacking ideas, programs or values — John McCain and Sarah Palin are running for the White House on an elaborate fictional narrative of victimhood.

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Does Bush believe McCain was tortured?

2008-08-19T19:55:00.001-07:00

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects.

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Bush admin tries sneaky attack on endangered-species protect

2008-08-19T19:51:00.001-07:00

The Bush administration is trying to push through changes to The Endangered Species Act that would be --suprise!--detrimental to endangered species!

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Gingrich Claims Tire Inflation Lines Big Oil's Pockets

2008-08-18T17:41:00.001-07:00

Last night on Fox News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) returned to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) recent suggestion that Americans inflate their tires properly in order to save energy costs. Seeming to outdo his previous false attacks on this issue, Gingrich claimed that Obama’s idea is actually encouraging Americans to “enrich Big Oil”

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Bush & Cheney's Lawbreaking Enabled Putin to Invade Georgia

2008-08-18T15:45:00.001-07:00

Indeed, despite George W. Bush & Dick Cheney's howls of outrage at Russian aggression in Georgia and the disputed province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration set a deep precedent for Moscow's actions -- with its own systematic assault on international law over the past seven years. Now, their condemnations of Russia ring hollow.

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Shock doctrine opens way for oil drilling

2008-08-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

Naomi Klein: "Corporations are built to be opportunistic. That's their mission. If there's an opportunity, they must take advantage of it, and it's in the interests of their shareholders, and they shouldn't be sentimental about it. So that's what capitalism is supposed to do: take advantage of opportunities"

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Sucking up to the Bankers: A Bipartisan Lovefest

2008-07-30T20:13:00.001-07:00

This is a time to condemn the bankers, not to embrace them. They are the scoundrels who got us into the biggest economic mess since the Great Depression, lining their own pockets while destroying the life savings of those who trusted them.�

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4.5 Billion Years in Provence

2008-07-30T20:05:00.001-07:00

MoJo article on nuclear power that is a cautionary tale, discussing problems in France, which has invested heavily in nuclear power, with leaks, and with the disposal of waste.

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The Culture of Debt

2008-07-23T07:16:00.001-07:00

America once had a culture of thrift. But over the past decades, that unspoken code has been silently eroded.

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Wall Street's Great Deflation

2008-07-15T17:06:00.001-07:00

Phil Gramm, the senator-banker who until recently advised John McCain's campaign, did get it right about a "nation of whiners," but he misidentified the faint-hearted. It's not the people or even the politicians. It is Wall Street--the financial titans and big-money bankers, the most important investors and worldwide creditors who are whiners

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Failure of the Bush Regime

2008-06-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

Remember when John Kerry accused Bush of taking his eye off the prize of capturing Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice? Was Kerry right? I thought so at the time and I know so now. I don't know if John Kerry was the answer but I believed then and I believe now that this is one of the most misguided, incompetent regimes that has ever stolen power in this country. Remember how Dick Cheney hinted that if John Kerry was elected we would be attacked again. Well, Dick we probably will be attacked again because you stole the 2004 election. That blood will be on your hands because you have taken us to Iraq for oil and sold it to your stooge Georgie W. by telling him he could avenge Daddy by finally getting rid of what had become an impotent Saddam. Nothing this regime spews can be believed. Hell of a job, Brownie!

Bush Administration's War on Terror: EPIC FAIL

2008-06-30T15:22:00.001-07:00

Does anyone remember the infamous town hall debate with John Kerry when Bush was asked if he thought he made any mistakes in his first term and how he hemmed and hawed and couldn't come up with anything he had done wrong and finally mumbled something about people he had appointed? Does anyone now believe that this chest thumping idiot has ever been in charge of anything?

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Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate Crisis?

2008-06-29T20:51:00.001-07:00

Coexistence with mankind has given rise to the sort of tough plants that flourish despite the worst we can do — hoeing, pulling, burning and, more recently, spraying the fields with herbicidal chemicals. Weeds have adapted to every means we used to exterminate them, even turning the treatments to their own advantage.

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Not facing up to climate change crisis a crime?

2008-06-29T20:43:00.001-07:00

Not only is the Bush Administration war criminals and traitors, they are domestic and world criminals for their neglect of science and the environment.

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Paul Krugman: Driller Instinct

2008-06-20T21:05:00.001-07:00

Dear Professor*

2008-06-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Professor,
They've found water ice on Mars!! What are the potenialities? Why am I so excited?!? Because this means there could now be or at one time have been LIFE on Mars?? I hope they are well intentioned anarchists!!!

*With apologies to Nin Andrews.

Clarke On Iraq War Architects: They Shouldn't be in Society

2008-06-08T21:10:00.001-07:00

Noting that “prominent Democrats” had ruled out impeachment, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann asked former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke on his show last night, what “remedy” there could be for the lies and misinformation highlighted in the new Senate Intelligence Committee reports on the Bush administration’s misuse of pre-war Iraq intelligence.

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Bill Moyers owns Fox News

2008-06-08T20:47:00.001-07:00

Fox News' Porter Berry, producer for Bill O'Reilly shows up at the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis to ambush Bill Moyers. Moyers gives them a taste of of their own medicine as about 20 cameras film the show...

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Oglala Sioux could regain Badlands national parkland

2008-06-08T20:27:00.001-07:00

The National Park Service is considering giving back the southern half, which was confiscated from the Indian tribe during World War II.

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Teen's Science Project May Be Huge Breakthrough on Plastics

2008-06-07T18:10:00.001-07:00

I have a new hero.

As part of a high school science fair project, a 16-year-old from Ontario figured out how to break down the polymers in plastic bags—compounds that can last for over 1,000 years—in about three months.

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'Unavoidable' attack on Iran looms, says Israeli minister

2008-06-07T06:59:00.001-07:00

Perhaps, just perhaps if Israel would agree to dismantle the "weapons of mass destruction" (being the only government in the Middle East that possesses such weapons.......Bush, Cheney....can you hear me now?) someone in the Middle East might be willing to have a dialog with them on the future of the area.....just a thought.

Haroon Siddique and agencies guardian.co.uk - An Israeli minister has said an attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses to halt its alleged weapons programme.In the most explicit threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud

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Build a Hydrogen Generator and Run Your Car With Water

2008-06-05T16:39:00.001-07:00

This great article describes how you are able to build your own hydrogen generator and and run your car with water instead of gasoline. Check it out!

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Hillary Clinton Running For The Vice Presidency

2008-06-05T16:15:00.001-07:00

Hillary Clinton has, in effect, converted her presidential campaign into a bid for the vice presidency, an unprecedented move and a high-risk gamble for a candidate in her position.

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Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

2008-06-05T16:01:00.001-07:00

January 2009 cannot come fast enough!

Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors.A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

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How Obama went from underdog to alpha

2008-06-04T19:19:00.001-07:00

A reflection on the campaign so far.

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How McCain's Economic Adviser Created the Housing Crisis

2008-06-04T19:10:00.001-07:00

Call him Foreclosure Phil. Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

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The Science of Denial

2008-06-04T18:54:00.001-07:00

The Bush administration’s strategy for bending science to its political ends has resulted in seven lost years in this country’s fight against global warming.

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Cost of Solar Panels Expected To Plummet

2008-06-04T18:53:00.001-07:00

Solar photovoltaics have their challenges, from shortages of silicon to the sheer cost of purchasing and installing solar panels, but a new report from the Prometheus Institute says that both these problems will be addressed over the next few years, leading to cheaper solar and an abundance of capacity to produce.

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Shell Station in LA to Offer Hydrogen Later This Month

2008-06-04T18:51:00.001-07:00

A Shell station on Santa Monica Boulevard will begin dispensing hydrogen fuel later this month as part of a research program run by the US Department of Energy in conjunction with GM. The station will be followed in the next few months by other stations in the LA area in an effort to build the mini networks necessary to jump-start alternative fuel.

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As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation Program

2008-06-04T18:44:00.001-07:00

Farmers are taking their fields out of a government conservation program that pays them not to cultivate.

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What Makes McCain Tick?

2008-06-04T18:07:00.001-07:00

Will the real John McCain stand up? Actually, I don’t expect him to, now that he is the Republican presidential candidate, pandering to the irrationalities that drive his party. Nor is it likely that the fawning mass media will pressure him to the point of clarity. But I remain genuinely confused as to what makes him tick.

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Vermont Progressives Succeed in Growing

2008-05-28T18:40:00.001-07:00

Just another reason to Love Vermont.

The Progressive party is slowly succeeding at a time when other progressive movements are failing. And maybe, just maybe, this movement in Vermont signals a crack in the political landscape that could allow American progressives to rise from the dead.

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Vermont town seeks Bush, Cheney arrests for War Crimes

2007-12-29T14:08:00.001-08:00

President Bush may soon have a new reason to avoid left-leaning Vermont: In one town, activists want him subject to arrest for war crimes.The measure asks: "Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against

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The Pakastani's are coming! The Pakastani's are coming!

2007-12-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

From today's New York Times:
Mike Huckabee used the volatile situation in Pakistan Friday to make an argument for building a fence on the American border with Mexico and found himself trying to explain a series of remarks about Pakistanis and their nation.
On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”
On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.
“When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he told reporters in Pella. “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.”
In fact, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security.
Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak.
“The fact is that the immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about someone coming with a shoulder-fired missile,” he said.

These are the words of a man that wants to be THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
Be afraid, be very afraid

Catholic Women

2007-12-28T16:47:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting fact. Someone asked Factcheck.org if Catholic women are more likely to get an abortion than Protestant women. The answer "Catholics are slightly more likely to get an abortion than Protestants, according to a 2000-2001 survey".

My First Blog

2007-12-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

Just a short opening for this rookie blogger. I'll throw out a quote from Poor Richard's Almanack circa 1743 which I believe to be prescient for our current spiritual void.

"How many observe Christ's birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."
Benjamin Franklin

As You Like It

Geitner

No love for EFCA

And another one down and another one gone and another one bites the dust

Transparency in Government

The return of socialism?

No recession on K Street

Cold

The Future

Bush Frustrated By Mother's Constant Questioning Of His Plans Post-White House

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Slideshow:

The Hawk

Free Tibet!

Extrasolar Planets

Do You Care?

Hopefully, we can grow up as a nation and stop preventing people from exercising their rights to a life partner.

Today in San Francisco, And Across the Country

Let the Revisionist History Begin

And of course, Rush to judgement Limbuagh is already calling this the Obama recession.

Down the Republican Rabbit Hole

by Devilstower

Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 07:00:03 AM PST

From the Daily Kos

Supreme Court Checks Price Tag for Supreme Court

by Devilstower

Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 01:53:28 PM PST

The Case for Rebirth

Moved by a Crescent

Big Cars

It's Electric!

Pee... if you Dare!

Isn't This a little Over the Top?

H.H. Dalai Lama

Thanks, Rick

The Most Dangerous Man in America

The Shadow President

By JACOB HEILBRUNN

ANGLER

The Cheney Vice Presidency

Is William Spinning?

Buckley’s Son Leaves National Review

H.H. Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

Que Sera, Sarah

Que Sera, Sarah

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been lax on industrial pollution

Posted at 5:01 PM on 06 Oct 2008

World to Obama/McCain on Global Warming: Don't Blow It.

The Palin Problem

The Sarah Monologues

The dumbing down of the GOP

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama

Rant#1

McCain’s planetariophobia

Timothy Egan: The Legacy

Jon Stewart: Bush Bailout Speech Same as Iraq Speech (VIDEO)

Making America Stupid

Racism is alive and well in the Red heart of USA

McCain offers soul for presidency.

McCain Last Year: Mayors And Governors Can't Handle Nat Sec

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

Gov. Palin’s Worldview

Dick Cavett roasts McCain-Palin in the New York Times

Palin and Pork

Bush Secret Order To Send Special Forces Into Pakistan

She's Clueless, He's Worse

A campaign of victimhood - The Denver Post

Does Bush believe McCain was tortured?

Bush admin tries sneaky attack on endangered-species protect

Gingrich Claims Tire Inflation Lines Big Oil's Pockets

Bush & Cheney's Lawbreaking Enabled Putin to Invade Georgia

Shock doctrine opens way for oil drilling

Sucking up to the Bankers: A Bipartisan Lovefest

4.5 Billion Years in Provence

The Culture of Debt

Wall Street's Great Deflation

Failure of the Bush Regime

Bush Administration's War on Terror: EPIC FAIL