Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Thousands feared dead in New Orleans

The city's mayor, Ray Nagin, has said that Hurricane Katrina is thought to have killed hundreds, probably thousands of people.
Mr. Nagin said there were significant numbers of corpses in the waters of the flood-stricken city, while many more people may be dead in their homes.

There would be a total evacuation of the city, he said, warning it could be months before residents could return.
MONTHS. And what did our President do?
Mr. Bush flew low over the affected states to survey the damage, on his way to Washington from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"It's totally wiped out," spokesman Scott McClellan quoted him as saying.

"It's devastating. It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."
So, to recap. We knew about this storm last week (it developed over the Atlantic on August 23rd, then hit Florida on the 25th and was expected to hit New Orleans, as it did, on Monday the 29th.)

The President, famous for "staying the course," keeps his busy schedule of bike riding and wood chopping until Monday morning when, instead of flying back to DC to take charge of the dire situation, flies to Arizona to eat cake with McCain and give a speech at a Country Club.

Then on Tuesday, after the hurricane has hit and wreaked havoc, he flies to California to give another speech and play the guitar.

Then on Wednesday, when thousands have already died, and after having gone back to his ranch for one last restful night (gotta get his beauty sleep I guess) he flies back to Washington and, on the way, he casually takes a look out the window (God forbid he actually makes a special trip to the area, let's just take a detour while we "stay the course") and then has the audacity to state: "It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

Well, I guess he'll never know for sure, will he.

At least Iran is happy

I got an email yesterday from Democrats.com. This section on the Iraqi Constitution, gave me pause:
What Noble Cause Did Casey Sheehan Die For?
"Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation. No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."
- Iraqi Constitution supported by Iran-backed Shiites and the Bush Administration (but opposed by Sunni leaders)

"Fortunately, after years of effort and expectations in Iraq, an Islamic state has come to power and the constitution has been established on the basis of Islamic precepts. We must congratulate the Iraqi people and authorities for this victory."
- Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful ultra-conservative Guardian Council

"This is the future of the new Iraqi government - it will be in the hands of the clerics. I wanted Iraqi women to be free, to be able to talk freely, and to able to move around. I am not going to stay here."
- Dr. Raja Kuzai, an obstetrician and secular Shiite member of the Assembly who met President Bush in the White House in November 2003.
Apparently not everybody is as convinced as Bush that the rights of women and minorities are being honored by this new Constitution.

Who knew we were so powerful!

Just when you think the right-wing nuts can't sink any lower, they surprise you.
An evangelical Christian group that regularly demonstrates at LGBT events is blaming gays for hurricane Katrina.

Repent America says that God "destroyed" New Orleans because of Southern Decadence, the gay festival that was to have taken place in the city over the Labor Day weekend.
Here's the latest rant from this putz:
"Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars," Repent America director Michael Marcavage said in a statement Wednesday.

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city." Marcavage said. "From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence,’ New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."
How can these people call themselves Christian? How can they consider themselves the true followers of Jesus' message?

They have the uncanny ability to always pick the worst moment in the worst tragedy to spread their hate. Do they really think this kind of talk will help them spread their message?

I wonder what the people still in New Orleans think about a statement like this.

Does Iraq come before the US?

Just read this posting on AMERICAblog. Finally someone is starting to ask for more action and more money from this failed administration:
A million people fled the New Orleans area before Katrina arrived. But former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged President Bush to send more troops.

"We have to send the army to stop this or we will lose New Orleans and we will lose 80,000 people," Barthelemy told CNN. "If we can spend the monies that we are spending to help the people in Iraq, then we can do the same thing for New Orleans."

Kofi not one of the boys

I don't know what's wrong with Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, who just cut short his vacation in his home country of Ghana (on the othe side of the world) by almost a whole week to return to New York for last-minute talks aimed at securing a deal on reforming the world body.

I mean, what was he thinking?! He clearly isn't in President Bush's league, since George steadfastly refused to shorten his record-setting, record-breaking five-week vacation to deal with Iraq's quagmire, or to talk to the pain-stricken mother of a dead soldier, or to coordinate the rescue effort for an incoming monstrous hurricane.

No, wait, the latter did force him to cut his vacation, by 2 full days, and that only after the hurricane had hit and devastated 3 states neighboring his home state of Texas.

Evidently, Annan doesn't have the state of the art equipment that allowed Mr. Bush to work from his ranch as if he was at the office.

Pay per Nap

Only in America do you find stuff like this: MinneNAPolis, a store that let's you take a nap for 70 cents a minute. It'll open next month in a Minneapolis mall and it'll have 6 individual rooms, all with different themes.

The company has already opened a store in the Boca Raton, Florida, executive airport. Now, personally, I don't think I could ever use a service like this, because I'd be thinking the whole time of how much this nap is going to cost me (a flat 1/2 hour rate would probably work better for me,) but what is really their target audience?

I mean, in an executive airport you usually find wealthy individuals, prone to expense whatever they can, who wouldn't think twice about using this service rather than falling asleep on a chair in a waiting room. But the new store's location puzzles me.
Julie Hanson, a spokeswoman for the Mall of America, said the new sleep shop will let people "escape it all."

"We think it would be really good for husbands at Christmas, when their wives are power shopping," she explained.
Is that really their target audience? Bored husbands at Christmas time? What are they going to do the rest of the year? And what about the annoyed wives of said husbands, who force their spouses to accompany them to the mall so that the men can carry the bags while the women try on a new blouse?

Deadly Chaos

Today, hundreds of people died in a stampede in Baghdad, Iraq, while they were marching to a shrine for an annual religious festival. The Sunni insurgency is probably responsible for the attack, carried out in order to try to plunge the country into civil war (the pilgrims were Shias.)

How worse will the situation get before the October referendum on the Constitution? Nobody knows. Who is ultimately to blame for this incident though?
The incident has caused the single biggest loss of Iraqi life since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Yes, Bush's oil-war. Why? Because he invaded Iraq without a post-war plan. Then he tried to rush through a Constitution because he needs to bring the troops back next year, in time for the US midterm elections. So now the Shias and Kurds have agreed on a charter, but the Sunnis reject it. And turmoil ensues.
The bridge [where today's stampede occurred] links the staunchly Sunni area of Adhamiya on the east bank of the Tigris and the Shia area of Kadhimiya on the west bank.

Shia pilgrims have often been attacked by Sunni extremists seeking to trigger civil war in Iraq.

In March 2004 suicide bombers killed about 180 people in simultaneous attacks in Kadhimiya and Karbala.

Is Chavez mad??

I mean, he's now saying his government will take legal action against Pat Robertson for calling for his assassination and might even seek to extradite him.

He went so far as to threaten to involve the UN if the US fails to take action (well, he must not have gotten the memo about John Bolton's recess appointment to the UN -- I'm sure Johnny B. will perform his duties and make it all go away.)
"I announce that my government is going to take legal action in the United States... to call for the assassination of a head of state is an act of terrorism," Mr Chavez said in a televised speech.

"If the US government does not take [the] action that it must take, we will go to the United Nations and the Organization of American States to denounce the US government," Mr Chavez said.

Mr Chavez, who has frequently charged that the US are plotting to kill him, said Mr Robertson was "crazy" and "a public menace".
How dare he insult one of our beloved televangelists? He even has the audacity to hold Bush accountable for something:
The Venezuelan leader has said that US President George W Bush will be to blame if he is attacked.
What gall!

Bush's alternate reality

I saved this article from a couple days ago. The Iraqis, at least a part of them, had reached an agreement on a draft for their Constitution, and immediately Bush rushed to trumpet the achievement, in spite of the charter's glaring shortcomings. This passage is striking:
Mr. Bush breezily praised the constitutional process as if it were the antithesis of the military conflict, rather than a political expression of the same Iraqi power struggle. He boasted that Iraq will have a constitution that "honors women's rights" and "the rights of minorities" even though the prevailing draft raises serious questions about both.
Again, George Pan is living in his own reality, where all is rosy (he probably flies too and Karl Rove is dressed as Tinkerbell -- yuck, what a mental image,) and would like for us to follow him there; he lures us there. The problem is that now, finally, more and more people are realizing that his reality isn't the reality we all live in, and just him saying something doesn't make it so.

Let's just hope these people don't fall back asleep.

Bush's inadequacies 2

I read this post by Rob and I thought, He sent our men and women to fight in Iraq without the equipment they needed, and as a result, many more have died that wouldn't have.

Now we see that there isn't enough equipment HERE at home to rescue people and avoid a disaster from getting worse, which will probably result in more loss of life.

Just imagine if another 9/11 were to happen, maybe, God forbid, a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. How would we be able to face that tragedy? It doesn't seem to me that President Bush did much to bolster our homeland security in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

What a failure of a President.

Where are the Democrats? Why aren't they complaining?

Bush's inadequacies

The more I read about Bush's response to the worst natural disaster in US history the more I'm befuddled. This post by Michael on AMERICAblog pretty much summarizes all of his shortcomings [my comments in (italic):]
-- President Bush staying on vacation when EVERYONE knew a massive hurricane was getting ready to strike (that's why it's called a forecast, because you know in advance that something is coming; this hurricane had been forecasted for days)

-- President Bush flogging politics AFTER the hurricane destroyed New Orleans and Biloxi; the President joshing with McCain over birthday cake while the waters were rising (we have pictures of this)

-- President Bush's father sending 25,000 troops after Hurricane Andrew. Either his dad was WASTING time and money or W is falling far short of his father. Again. (he'll never be able to overcome his complex of inferiority)

-- President Bush pushing a joke of an energy bill that did NOTHING to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, nothing significant to develop alternative fuels and nothing to strengthen our infrastructure. Now we can see how vulnerable it is since one storm is impacting our nation's ability to refine oil. (and now he decided to tap into the emergency national reserve of oil, to help the oil companies -- like they need help -- and at the same time lower the price of gas, hoping it will help his sagging poll numbers; however, they blasted the Clinton administration when they wanted to do the same thing to lower gas prices accusing them to play politics with a national security asset)

-- President Bush going back to Texas for another night of vacation instead of going straight to the White House AFTER the disaster struck. (isn't this incredible? Why not go directly to DC? Why stop in Crawford another night? It just doesn't make sense)

--President Bush jamming on the guitar while the disaster worsens. (we have pictures of this too)

-- President Bush finally, grudgingly ending his vacation two days early and going back to DC. If he can stay in touch in Texas, why go back, as John says? If he needs to be back in DC, what the hell took so long? (precisely. Either he can operate fully from his ranch as he does from the White House, in which case, why cut the vacation short -- could it be that someone finally told him it doesn't look good that he enjoys himself while people are suffering and dying not only in Iraq, but now also here in the US --, or he can't and that's why he has to go back to DC now, in which case, he has been on vacation all this time, he hasn't done anything constructive in this time of need, and now he shaves off only two days from his five weeks to show he cares, when we all know he doesn't)

-- President Bush's backdoor draft that abused the compact between the country and the brave men and women who volunteered for the National Guard and Army Reserve has damaged them for decades to come. Many fewer people leaving the Army are going to volunteer for these groups in the future. And this natural disaster reminds us all of how vital they are. (it really is gonna take years to recover from this shortfall)

-- Widespread looting that one observer said made New Orleans look like downtown Baghdad. How many times can Bush turn a bad situation into a disaster before people start catching on? (by now I'm losing hope people ever will...)

-- The Coast Guard is saving lives left and right. They are perennially underfunded but President Bush has given the Coast Guard massive new responsibilities to guard our coasts, inspect ships and more all while helping in emergencies like this. So in a post 9-11 world, his attempt to DELAY for DECADES the essential upgrading of the Coast Guard's ships that date to the Vietnam and Korean war is offensive and inexcusable. How would you like to watch your grandmother clinging for her life and find out the boat struggling to get to her is decrepit and unfit? That's what Bush is doing to the Coast Guard.

-- Every time Bush praises the Coast Guard and National Guard and Army Reserves for behaving heroically during this disaster, he insults our intelligence. Bush has delayed providing decent equipment to the Coast Guard even AFTER 9-11. Bush has abused the National Guard and Reserve and likely crippled them for decades to come by turning them into de facto regular army troops when their real purpose is to defend this country AT HOME and come to the rescue during disasters like this. And Bush has repeatedly underfunded and undermined these essential groups again and again and again.
Again, the situation is dire in New Orleans, but I believe that the whole country is on the brink of disaster thanks to this failure of a President, and we're just seeing it come to the surface here because an external agent suddenly pierced through Peter George Pan's bubble reality.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Katrina and George

Now considered the worst hurricane ever to hit the US since records have been kept, Katrina has wrought havoc on the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and it could have been worse.

I can't even imagine the heartache of being in such a terrible situation. There are reports of 80 dead already and maybe a million homeless. The tag price will be something around $25 billion, some $5 billion more than Andrew, the previous worst hurricane.

And in all this, where is Bush? Still on vacation naturally. Actually, yesterday he did leave his ranch. Did he go back to the White House, to start coordinating the relief effort? Or did he go to Louisiana, which after all is Texas' neighboring state, probably no more than a 2-hour helicopter ride from Crawford, to assess the situation and show empathy to the hurricane victims?

No, why? Was anything interesting happening there? Instead, he opted to go to Arizona to talk about Medicare at a Country Club (because that's where senior citizens usually hang out) and to celebrate his newfound-pal John McCain's birthday.

Now, this is understandable, since yesterday the hurricane was actually making landfall, and the President couldn't possibly put himself in danger by going to New Orleans. Silly me. So, I'm sure he acted today.

Hmh, no, he didn't. Today he was travelling alright, but to the Golden State of California (which the GOP desperately wants to wrestle away from the Democrats,) to equate his oil-war in Iraq that virtually nobody supports anymore, with World War II. You might have heard of that one. It's the one where Hitler had conquered almost all of Europe and was intent in wiping all the Jews and other minorities from the face of the planet. It kind of involved the whole world. Yes, that one. Do you see the similarities now? Me neither.

Anyway, so Bush doesn't care about Louisiana (not enough people there voted for him to warrant His Highness' Interest, I guess,) but where are the Democrats? I mean, figures like Senators Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Reid, Durbin have quite a national profile, and it would help both them and the party if they just showed up where Bush fails to, don't you think?

Why aren't they lambasting him at every hour on the hour on every newscast in the country for not showing up where he's needed, for not showing any leadership, for failing to act as the fracking President? Why aren't they taking the issue away from him and start a fundraiser for the victims? Even just visiting the area would point out, glaringly, that Bush didn't.

My assessment? Bush needs a new publicist (how could he miss an opportunity for such a photo op is beyond me, especially with his approval ratings at 40%, his lowest ever,) and the Democrats need to get their s**t together and start acting like they really do want to win some elections, instead of just showing up.

Get it together already, or do we need to start camping out in front of every Congressmembers' residencies during their vacations?

Planning a takeover

Ok, this article really shocked me, not because there are people who actually believe this sort of crap or that they'll be successful at all, but because these are people who got a good education and good paying jobs, not hillbillies. How then would you explain this:
"I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord," said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. "I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world."

DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.

[...]

Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff's offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

"We're going to force a constitutional crisis," said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

"If necessary," he said, "we will secede from the union."
These people are insane.

A smoke-free China?

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was ratified on Sunday by China. The treaty prohibits tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship on radio, television, print media and the Internet within five years, and company sponsorship of international events and activities.

China also said it will ban tobacco vending machines and
has tightened regulations meant to prevent minors from buying tobacco, but enforcement has been uneven.
I hail this as very good news, since China has more than 300 million smokers and some 5 million of them are teenagers.
Chinese tobacco companies sold 1.8 trillion cigarettes in 2003.
I wonder what the tobacco industry thinks of this development.

IT'S ALIVE!!

In a recent posting I mentioned how our respected Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia believes our Constitution not to be a living organism. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad, however, seems to disagree:
"Our own constitution, as you know, had to change in order to remain relevant, and this will be the case with Iraq as well," he said. "Constitutions are not just one-time documents. To be relevant they will have to adapt."
So if Scalia were right, by now our Constitution wouldn't be relevant anymore. I wonder what he'd tell Mr. Khalilzad.

You owe $145,000!!

That's how this article starts, and it sure is an eye catcher!! It looks like the economy isn't doing as good as the President would have us believe. Many economists, on both sides of the political spectrum, are saying that there are many indications a recession might come and it might be big:
A chorus of economists, government officials and elected leaders both conservative and liberal is warning that America's nonstop borrowing has put the nation on the road to a major fiscal disaster — one that could unleash plummeting home values, rocketing interest rates, lost jobs, stagnating wages and threats to government services ranging from health care to law enforcement.
The U.S. comptroller general, David Walker, who audits the federal government's books said:
"I believe the country faces a critical crossroad and that the decisions that are made — or not made — within the next 10 years or so will have a profound effect on the future of our country, our children and our grandchildren. The problem gets bigger every day, and the tidal wave gets closer every day."
So, God help our kids and grandkids, 'cause I don't see any big changes in the way the country operates anytime soon. And who's really to blame for all this? Keep reading...
Blame the bust of the dot-com boom, the ensuing recession, President Bush's federal tax cuts, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ok, the dot-com bust wasn't Bush's fault, since it happened at the end of the Clinton presidency, and so the following recession and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the tax cuts and the wars we're still waging (although I did support the Afghanistan one) are all Bush's decisions. He could have easily said, "Look, I know I promised you tax cuts, but the economy now is such that any tax cut could put us into a recession, so, let's wait a little and see." He could have not listened to the neocons and the little voices inside his head and kept his focus on Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, instead of throwing the country into a worthless war. No, and no. His priorities were and are to help his big money friends get richer and the religious right, who put him in office, advance its agenda as much as possible. And now we're dipped in debt like doughnuts in frosting.
Simply hoping for good times to return won't erase numbers like that, Walker says.
That sentence so exemplifies Bush's thought process and governing style: just hope for the best, create an alternate reality, a fantasy world if you will, where all is well, and maybe it will happen. Unfortunately, he ain't no Peter Pan.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Iraqi Constitution update

The final draft has been approved by Shias and Kurds, but not by Sunnis, which led the Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa to state that parts of the Iraqi draft constitution are a "recipe for chaos" and that the Arab League shared Sunni Muslim concerns over federalism and the fact the charter does not identify Iraq as an Arab country.

The Bush administration (and Blair, the faithful poodle) downplayed such rejection or worries, but I share them completely.

There have already been demonstrations by Sunnis against the charter and this can only lead to more violence as we near the October 15 deadline for the referendum that will decided if such Constitution lives or dies.

Mr. Moussa said:
He was concerned that the draft text denies Iraq's "Arab identity".

"I do not believe in this division between Shia and Sunni and Muslims and Christians and Arabs and Kurds," he said. "I don't buy this and I find in this a true recipe for chaos and perhaps a catastrophe in Iraq and around it."
So the whole region (but Iran) is now worried that Iraq will eventually split up into three countries, one of which under Iran's extremist influence, and the other with no oil and therefore power- and riches-hungry (let's not forget this is the segment of the population that was in power when Saddam was in charge.)

Not a good forecast at all.

A shot to a new life

Well, I'm glad to read that sometimes we treat animals as more than an inferior species:


A Thai elephant who lost a foot after stepping on a landmine six years ago has had a temporary limb fitted.

Motala, 44, is set to wear the sawdust filled canvas shoe for up to eight months to help her leg get strong enough for a more permanent prosthesis.

The poor animal had stepped, like many humans before her, on a land mine while she was helping out in a logging camp:
Motala's accident raised awareness of the plight of elephants working along the Thai-Burmese border, an area littered with landmines from Burma's 50-year insurgency.
I like to think that they owed her such care after her valiant sacrifice.

Maureen's sharp sight

Another great editorial by my beloved Maureen Dowd. This is my favorite line:
Iraq, it turns out, is the one branch of American government that the Republicans don't control.
And to think of all the money they spent to buy them out!!

Bush against alleviating world poverty

In less than a month, world leaders are supposed to come together at the UN for a summit on world poverty and UN reform, and now this administration is calling for drastic changes to the draft agreement or to scrap it altogether:
The United States has only recently introduced more than 750 amendments that would eliminate new pledges of foreign aid to impoverished nations, scrap provisions that call for action to halt climate change and urge nuclear powers to make greater progress in dismantling their nuclear arms. At the same time, the administration is urging members of the United Nations to strengthen language in the 29-page document that would underscore the importance of taking tougher action against terrorism, promoting human rights and democracy, and halting the spread of the world's deadliest weapons.
Now, don't get me wrong, it is important to be tough against terrorism and halt the spread of WMDs, and it certainly is vital to promote human rights and democracy, but what's wrong with helping impoverished nations, act on climate change, and reducing nuclear arsenals?

See, this administration is fast becoming the proverbial broken record. They want to keep terrorism center stage because that's the only thing Bush can work with; without it, he's got nothing to do but ride his bike and chop some wood, and someone must have told him that a President should do something more than that.

Bush wants other countries to get rid of their WMDs (or else,) but he won't even consider giving the good example and reducing (I'm not saying eliminating here, God forbid,) his own WMD stockpiles.

Bush says he wants to spread human rights and democracy, but that only applies to countries that actually have some natural resources we can profit from, not all of them -- what were we thinking!!
Next month's summit, an unusual meeting at the United Nations of heads of state, was called by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to reinvigorate efforts to fight poverty and to take stronger steps in the battles against terrorism and genocide. The leaders of 175 nations are expected to attend and sign the agreement, which has been under negotiation for six months.

The United Nations originally scheduled the Sept. 14 summit as a follow-up to the 2000 Millennium Summit, which produced commitments by U.N. members to meet deadlines over the next 15 years aimed at reducing poverty, preventable diseases and other scourges of the world's poor. But the Bush administration is seeking to focus attention on the need to streamline U.N. bureaucracy, establish a democracy fund, strengthen the U.N. human rights office and support a U.S. initiative to halt the trade in weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, forget poverty, genocide, disease prevention, let's talk about bureaucracy, WMDs, and amassing money for a fund so abstract, it looks like a Picasso. After all who cares, those who die are only poor and mostly black, right?
And now the whole world will get its chance to deal with Mr. Bolton, our newly recess-appointed top man at the UN, who wants:
to impose greater oversight of U.N. spending and to eliminate any reference to the International Criminal Court. The administration also opposes language that urges the five permanent members of the Security Council not to cast vetoes to block action to halt genocide, war crimes or ethnic cleansing.
Because the US obviously can't be held accountable for anything it does (how else would it be able to torture prisoners abroad and break any international treaty we ever signed?) and can't be told it cannot block genocide, war crimes, or ethnic cleansing if it so decides.

The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that W. was a very spoiled child. He clearly always got anything he wanted. Someone should tell him he's grown up now. Or has he?

Greatest Hits Deluge

Well, I read this little clip on Entertainment Weekly last night and was aghast:
It's never too soon for your first greatest hits album. Fans eager to have the best of both of Hilary Duff's prior CDs on one disc (along with three new songs) wanted 207,000 copies of Most Wanted.
Now, you can imagine my shock when I read "both." I actually had to go back and read it again, just to make sure.

I'm no fan of Ms. Duff and I certainly don't want to detract from her talents, but are you kidding me??!

So she made TWO CDs and her third is a GREATEST HITS!?!? Oh, c'mon! It's ridiculous. And can you imagine that there were actually over 200,000 people who not only bought it (I'm sure it's gonna sell much more than that before it's run is over) but that couldn't wait for the damn thing to be out. They had to have it the very first week!!

Incredible. I have a policy of never buying a greatest hits if I already have all the albums of an artist. Why? Because I already have all those songs, just not on the same medium, which nowadays, if you have a cd burner, is quite easy to fix. As for the usually lonely new addition of a previously unreleased track, well, if you really die to own that, buy the single, or save the money (if it's not issued as a single.) Purchasing a whole CD for one track is demented and is part of the reason why the record industry keeps issuing greatest hits and Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over again: people buy them. You might argue that all those people didn't own her previous CDs, which is why they bought this one. My reply to that brings me to my next point.

I think Congress should enact legislation to forbid all artist from releasing a greatest hits unless they already have a minimum of 10 albums to their name.

But this might stifle their creativity (for that lonely new track,) you might complain. To which I would reply, Perhaps, but it would save dumb consumers millions of dollars and a lot of frustration (for when thye'd realize they already own all those songs.)

And to those who'd argue that Congress has more pressing things to do than worrying about things like this, I'd like to point out that it's not like Congress doesn't already pass frivolous legislation (Freedom Fries anyone?)

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Sunday afternoon

Ray went to his parents with the kids, giving me some greatly appreciated "my time." The house is SO quiet. It sure is nice every now and then. Today I finally spoke on the phone with my friend Wayne, from the old New Haven neighborhood. He's such a good and funny guy. I really must try to stay more in touch with him.

Happy birthday monthday

Yes, today it's actually a month that my blog is alive, and I have to say that it's pretty well too!!

I'm so into it, I really hope I'll never lose interest.

My very best friend Vittorio also started his own blog, yesterday (Il Regno di Celluloide,) so we'll be commenting on each other's posts from now on :-)

He and I have been friends since the early nineties, and when we are together the world echoes with our laughs and screams. I can safely state that we are like a small hurricane when it makes landfall.

He is my dearest friend and I always cherish the time we spend together, which unfortunately now isn't much anymore, since he still lives in Italy.

I miss him, always. You don't find friends like that many times in a lifetime.

He'll be visiting in November though (that is, if I mail him the ticket he purchased through me...) and I can hardly wait. See you soon dear friend. Charge your inner batteries, you're gonna need them!!

That's all for now, see ya!

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Friday, August 26, 2005

8.10 PM and I'm already sitting down!! Amazing.

I vote McCain off the island now

Another nail in the coffin of the respect I had for John McCain, one of the few Republicans objective and principled left around.

He lost a good part of my respect when he campaigned with Bush last year. Bush didn't need his help, and McCain only did it to cozy up to the religious right so that he could run again in 2008 (without the Jesus freaks' support, Republicans need not apply anymore.)

Sickening. After the smearing Bush did to him and his wife in 2000 in order to win the nomination (that McCain almost wrestled away from him,) how could he join forces with such a sleazy person?

And now, to please the religious right again, he sides with Chimpie one more time. The topic? Intelligent Design:
McCain told the Star that, like Bush, he believes "all points of view" should be available to students studying the origins of mankind.

The theory of intelligent design says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and that a higher power must have had a hand in guiding it.
Unbelievable, another top ranking Republican (after Frist) who comes out in support of such bullshit.

I'm starting to feel like they'll make huge strides in the upcoming years.

Iraq Constitution update

So the third deadline passed yesterday, and still no agreement. The Sunnis are worried they'll be left behind, and it all comes down to the oil riches and the prominency of Islamic rule in everyday life:
Sunnis have expressed concerns that allowing for federalism may lead to the creation of an autonomous Shia area in southern Iraq - like the Kurdish north but under Iran's influence.

The Sunnis fear greater autonomy for the Kurdish north and Shia south could compromise their share of revenues from those oil-rich regions.
Can you imagine the disaster if Iraq turns into another Iran?

The Sunnis didn't vote in the January elections, so now they have a minority in Parliament.
Shias and Kurds could therefore, theoretically, approve the Constitution without Sunni consent, and send it to its scheduled October referendum... just to see it being rejected by 3 Sunni provinces.
This would in turn mean no Constitution, a dissolved Parliament, and new elections in which the Sunnis probably wouldn't commit the same mistake twice and actually go vote, which would give them a stronger voice in the next Parliament and in the future talks for a new Constitution.

What to do?

Well, apparently many are worried about the situation, including the Sunni-led countries neighboring Iraq and Bush, whose legacy depends on a successful, democratic, and free Iraq.

Right now, things don't look too bright for that legacy:
The draft of the new constitution describes Islam as "a main source" of legislation and stipulates that no law may contradict Islamic principles.

It also says a group of provinces is entitled to form a "region", which can then expect a specified share of the national budget.

[...]

[S]ecular-minded Iraqis - whether Sunni, Shia or Kurd - are deeply concerned about the direction the country is taking.

[...]

Mixed marriages between Sunni and Shia, once taken for granted, are becoming problematic.

In many parts of the country, women dare not walk bare-headed in the street.

And reports from parts of the lawless north-west paint a grim picture of Taleban-style rule by radical Sunni militants.
And this leaves Bush in a very tight spot.

He'd like for the democratization process to be sped up, so that he can start bringing troops home next year, in time for the fall's midterm elections, in order for the GOP to avoid losing too many races.

But if he pushes too hard, he might push the whole thing off a cliff, and then he'll be the one who's screwed... in the history books.

Adoption update

More papers have come in for us to sign and send back. The social worker will be on vacation next week, but all considered I think we're looking at a finalized adoption happening sometimes around mid September.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the State legislature did pass legislation providing for free college education at any Connecticut public college for all children adopted from DCF (Department of Children and Families) after December 31, 2004, which means that our kids will be able to go to college FOR FREE (unless of course they want to go to a private institution... or in another state...)

Now, that's great news!! Do you have any idea how much college tuition costs these days?

A lot.

HRC votes Roberts off the island

I just got an email from HRC (Human Rights Campaign) in which they come out agains the Roberts nomination to Supreme Court Justice because of:
John Roberts' extremely skeptical view of the constitutional right to privacy—a view that could seriously endanger our rights as defined in Lawrence v. Texas; his hostility towards enforcement of civil rights; his severely limited view of the role of the courts to protect individual rights and liberties and his views about the separation of church and state.
Can't say I disagree with their position. I'm fairly sure he'll eventually get the job, but who knows how he'll turn out as a judge.

Let's just hope he's not worse than Scalia.

The conspiracy widens

Just read this post on AMERICAblog (I'm a little behind...) and it's shocking to read that:
“Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.”

"The result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection.”
And now we're stuck with Chimpie for 3.5 more years. Thanks a lot.

Poor dears at TIME magazine... we wouldn't want you to be concerned, oooooh.

Excuse me but, what exactly is your job? I thought you guys were reporters, that is those people who report the news to the public, especially when it's explosive.

I can't believe that they would even admit to something like that. So now what, you're only gonna report on ordinary, plain, boring, unimportant, non-explosive stories, like the Michael Jackson trial or the Runaway Bride?

Pathetic assholes. I'm happier and happier I cancelled my subscription to that crappy magazine. I hate them. We'd certainly have President Kerry right now in the White House were it not for these morons.

Thanks a lot.

Voyager's trip to infinity

Yesterday I didn't have time to post about this BBC article on the Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune, 16 years ago.

Fascinating.
Scientists at Mission Control in Florida have called it the "culmination of the greatest journey of exploration this century."

[...]

Scientists have been astounded by the discovery of a storm the size of Earth hovering over Neptune.

[...]

Voyager 2 is due to leave our solar system soon and begin a journey of exploration of the stars - it is the last we will hear of it for many years.

Voyager 1 [its twin spaceship] is already on its way to conduct studies of interplanetary space.
Imagine how far away those two probes are right now. In the immense expanse of the universe.

It must be so cold. So lonely. So fascinating.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Will Rove undo Bush's legacy?

After having successfully orchestrated Bush's election to Governor first and then President, will Rove be responsible for tainting the man's legacy?

Or maybe even for bringing down the administration he so valiantly fought to create?

And if that sweet vision were to become reality, how will the Republican party be affected by the fall?

This article, by Thomas Pauken, a Republican, is very enlightening. This is the crucial passage:
If there is any truth to these charges, the lid will blow off Washington — and the Bush administration will be history.

Richard Nixon must have spent much of his life after the presidency wondering what went wrong — why such an insignificant matter in the grand scheme of things ended his career. I suspect he never fully appreciated how the cultivation of an environment in which the ends justifies the means infected those associated with his administration.

In my judgment, George W. Bush's White House has much more in common with the Nixon administration than with his father's. The same mind-set of the ends justifying the means is at work here, and it may have caught up with Rove and others in the Plame Affair.
We'll see what Fitzgerald has uncovered.

Bush vs. Science

This interesting editorial by Harold Evans illustrates how dangerous this administration's disregard for science is and what its consequences could be.

Chief among them, the decline of the US as the worldwide leader in the scientific community.
Like others I spoke with, he is less concerned with the international league tables and the familiar salami processes of the budget, than the well-documented readiness of the Bush administration to manipulate and suppress scientific findings - manifestly to appease industrial interests and religious constituencies.

This is not just on global warming and stem cells, currently in the news, but on a whole range of issues - lead and mercury poisoning in children, women's health, birth control, safety standards for drinking water, forest management, air pollution and on and on.

[...]

Of similar mind is Russell Train, an administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford. He says: "How radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data... to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations."
God only knows how history will regard Bush and his tenure. Surely, his legacy will be tainted by all this muddling.

And the conclusion of the article:
"Science relies on freedom of inquiry, and one of the hallmarks of that freedom is objectivity - government relies on the impartial perspective of science for guidance..." Those are the words of President Bush in 1990 - George Herbert Walker, the father - not the son.
Big surprise there. We always knew the father is a better man and was a better President.

American Legion turns anti-American

How can an organization that fought for all the freedoms we enjoy today turn around and say that although we have those freedoms, we shouldn't use them, for fear of helping the enemy.

I believe they're missing several points.
[T]he group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war.
Is he God? Or the Dictator of the United States?
The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."
Well, at least we know they definitely got the memo from the White House with the right talking points. And what exactly would those means be? Is this the Soviet Union, where you couldn't voice your dissent or else risk being sent to Siberia? Are they gonna send us to Alaska?
He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies."
Correspondence to their elected officials?! Is he kidding me? So if we disagree with the White House policies we should send them a letter? Has he lost his mind? We see how much the White House respects written requests: Representative Conyers sent the President a petition signed by more then 500,000 people asking for an explanation about the Downing Street Minutes' contents. The answer? We're still waiting, thanks for asking though.
"We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm's way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies."
See, what he misses here is the other lesson we should have learned from Vietnam, that is, Do not attack and invade a foreign country if it didn't attack you first. And don't think that if you do invade, they won't fight you back. With all they got. For years. Bloodily.

He concludes:
Cadmus advised: "Let's not repeat the mistakes of our past. I urge all Americans to rally around our armed forces and remember our fellow Americans who were viciously murdered on Sept. 11, 2001."
Too bad he's too late for not repeating the same mistakes of our past. Where was he when the White House was secretly planning to invade Iraq while still pretending it wasn't even thinking about it?

Iraqi Constitution

Five more hours to go before the second extension to agree on a Constitution expires. According to the BBC, it doesn't look likely that there will be an agreement in time.

Although this sounds good:
A copy of the draft constitution circulated earlier in the week says that Iraq's future lies in a democratic, federal, republican system - free of sectarian or racial discrimination and with a fair distribution of wealth.
The details to work out are still quite dicey:
The outstanding issues from the Shia-Kurdish draft submitted on Monday included:
  • federalism, and the way to form [federal] regions
  • the terminology used in eradicating the influence of the former Baath regime - whether to use the term Baath party or Saddam's Baath
  • structuring of authority between the presidency, parliament and the government.
The second point seems quite trivial to me, but it must be very important to them if they haven't agreed on a definition yet.

We'll see what happens.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Why the Democrats need to step up to the plate

Very good article by Gary Hart, former Democratic Senator from Colorado, on the crucial steps Democrats should take now in order to gain a real and lasting advantage in upcoming congressional battles and the next Presidential election.
History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
Bush never said, and never will say, he was wrong. On anything. Although we all now know he was and is, and surely will be again.

So are most other Republicans. Probably the smarter part of the electorate will punish them in the next election cycle. Hopefully.

Now, let's also hope someone among the Democrats reads this article.

Maureen Dowd's latest editorial

I love her, she's so well spoken and such a straight shooter. She really tells it as it is and isn't afraid to piss people off.

A few quotes from her latest column on The New York Times:
Mr. Bush is acting positively French in his love of le loafing, with 339 days at his ranch since he took office - nearly a year out of his five. Most Americans, on the other hand, take fewer vacations than anyone else in the developed world (even the Japanese), averaging only 13 to 16 days off a year.

America has caved on Iraqi women's rights. In fact, the women's rights activists supported by George and Laura Bush may have to leave Iraq.
But, as a former C.I.A. Middle East specialist, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said on "Meet the Press," U.S. democracy in 1900 didn't let women vote. If Iraqi democracy resembled that, "we'd all be thrilled," he said. "I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

[T]he president hailed the constitution establishing an Islamic republic as "an amazing process," and said it "honors women's rights, the rights of minorities." Could he really think that? Or is he following the Vietnam model - declaring victory so we can leave?

[T]he president has a history of silence on America's war dead. But he finally mentioned them on Monday because it became politically useful to use them as a rationale for war - now that all the other rationales have gone up in smoke.
"We owe them something," he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion). "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for."
What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.

Isn't she great?!

What should Bush tell Cindy Sheehan?

Very heartfelt editorial that pushes the President to meet with Cindy and then goes on suggesting what he could say, just in case he doesn't know it.

My favorite parts:
Begin by apologizing to her for misleading our nation into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

[A]s Harry Truman said in his farewell address, "The buck stops here." You misled us, and you should just flat out admit it.

[T]ell Sheehan you didn't mean it when you said during the final 2000 presidential debate that U.S. forces should be deployed abroad only when the mission is "clear," the force is "strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished" and the exit strategy is "well-defined."

What a fraud we have for President.

COMICS

Wow, today's comics by Ben Sargent and Pat Oliphant are just TOO good to pass on!!


Fetuses feel no pain up to 29 weeks

This report isn't gonna please anyone on the religious right, let me tell you, but it will definitely help the pro-choice side of the debate.

I'm clearly pro-choice.

A woman shouldn't be forced to have a baby if she doesn't want to. This is not the Middle Ages.

I'm sorry, every life is worthy of utmost respect, but that should include the woman's life too, which gets changed forever by motherhood. And if the woman isn't ready or doesn't want that change to happen, she shouldn't be forced to, she should be allowed to opt out of it.

The argument that she should have thought about it before having sex or that she shouldn't have sex outside of wedlock if she doesn't want to risk becoming pregnant is idiotic, and it only underscores how far out of the mainstream pro-lifers who make it really are.

Why don't they ever tell the man who has sex with the woman that becomes pregnant that now he has to marry her and care for her and their baby, since he's responsible too? And that if he doesn't like it, he should have tought about it before having sex!!

Should Robertson be investigated?

It looks like Chavez is pissed off, and with good reason. According to his deputy:
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said this was a "criminal statement" and the way Washington responded to the remarks would put its anti-terrorism policy to the test.

"It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country there are entirely terrorist statements like those."

The vice-president also said the Organization of American States could take up the case, saying an inter-American anti-terrorism accord includes provisions against inciting others to kill.
I'd love to see some kind of investigation on this guy take place.

What would Jesus do?

Pat Robertson Crazier Than Ever

Check this out. Apparently someone else either takes too much of his medication (like Rush Limbaugh) or not enough. Whatever the case may be, I think it's dangerous to give someone so crazy an outlet to express his madness. ABC should drop his program in a second.

Can you imagine someone who has run for President (thank God he didn't win!!) calling for the assassination of a democratically elected foreign head of state?

These evangelists, like Jerry Falwell before him, often forget that there are limits to what you can actually say in public and get away with it. Let's just hope Robertson gets some heat from his latest rant.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Good article on the issue of who is in charge of the Internet and who should be allowed to make its rules and regulations.

Apparently ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,) the body in charge of it now, isn't able to do its job independently because US agencies like the Department of Commerce, bowing to pressure from the religious right, can interfere and block its actions.

This is the main point on the .xxx domain issue:
When it comes to .xxx I am not at all convinced that it is needed or that it will be useful. It may help some people find online porn, but this does not really seem to be a problem without it.

More worrying is that it could be used to create an online ghetto, with countries passing laws that require adult content to register under .xxx so they can be filtered, with the danger that this will be extended to cover anything deemed "unsuitable" for children.
And we all know who will be in charge to decide what's suitable and what's not, especially if this administration (or, God forbid, another one like it) is still in charge when the decision is made.
Another great attack on Bush's war from two grieving parents:
"President Bush had said he wants to support the 1,800 [troops] who've died by continuing the war until we win.

"Well, continuing the same thing without changing what you're doing is like the classic definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

"So if we're not going to do it differently, it's just going to be throwing 1,800 more bodies on the same scrap heap."
The article goes on talking about the secret attempt by the Bush administration to test the waters in light of a change of course that they clearly see as inevitable now that the public's mood about the war has shifted:
Only the slightest of hints suggest that the Bush administration is in the process recalculating its position on Iraq.

A front-page story in the Washington Post last weekend reported that US policy makers are indeed re-evaluating what is possible there.

An unnamed "official" was quoted thus: "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground...

"We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

[...]

Some saw it as evidence that the Bush administration really is accepting that Iraq will not achieve democracy and constitutional government, and that the United States will accept something short of that as constituting victory.

But one reader who is deeply involved in Iraqi politics saw it as a sort of temperature-taking exercise: The unnamed official, he said, was putting out the idea of re-evaluating Iraq policy in order to see what sort of reaction it received.
Whoever is right, Iraq doesn't seem likely to end up a free, democratic country any time soon.

I'm afraid Bush will have to wait a long time to see what his legacy is really going to be.
I reported about this in an earlier posting. I'm glad that several gay organizations, like HRC, are picking up on it.
Written in September 1985, the memo urged that language be deleted from a package of briefing materials for President Reagan. Roberts specifically targeted this sentence: "As far as our best scientists have been able to determine, [the] AIDS virus is not transmitted through casual or routine contact."
It's astounding that someone would tell the President to ignore scientific data that, if shared with the public, would have helped avoid the spread of panic and homophobia that ravaged the '80s.

Unless of course, Roberts is a homophobe himself.
This was in an email I got from my ex chiropractor. Very interesting, scary, and anger inducing:
Americans are Medicating Themselves to Death
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control 130 million Americans swallow, inject, inhale, infuse, spray, and pat on prescribed medication every month - more per person than any other country. So many Americans die from drug reactions and mistakes each year that pharmaceuticals are the fourth-leading cause of death after heart disease, cancer and stroke.
"We are taking way too many drugs for dubious or exaggerated ailments," says Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and author of The Truth About the Drug Companies. "What the drug companies are doing now is promoting drugs for long-term use to essentially healthy people. Why? Because it's the biggest market."
RAY ...
I just read this article on the BBC NEWS website. Great news, I believe, for our fight for equality.

A case involving the custody of 3 lesbian couples' children was in front of the California Supreme Court, which has decreed that despite their differing circumstances each woman has custody rights and monetary obligations just as parents of the opposite sex do.

Now, that's huge. I bet there are tons of Jesus freaks right now downing antacids like there is no tomorrow!!
A panel of state Supreme Court justices ruled for the first time that those laws which hold estranged fathers to account should also apply to gay and lesbian couples who have children together.

[...]

"The court is now protecting the children of same sex parents in gay families in the same way children are protected with heterosexual couples in heterosexual families," said Jill Hersh, a lawyer for one of the women.
I think I can hear them scream... that's how schadenfreude must feel like.

Sweet.
So, the Iraqi Constitution is almost finished (the White House must be fuming it isn't yet -- what are they doing over there?? Sitting on their thumbs!?) but important details remain to be hammered.

Mostly over federalism (are we gonna have 3 Iraqs?) and who has more power and/or control over the country and its immense riches.

Will they be able to come to an agreement in 3 days? Yes, if the White House presses hard enough. After all, they need to show the public that something good is happening over there, not just more American military deaths.

We'll see...

One thing is certain, there is a big risk Iraq will turn into a subsidiary or a clone of Iran. And that would be disastrous... for everyone.
Oh God, don't tell me that thanks to global warming we're gonna have a dispute (let's not call it war yet, after all the nations involved are considered among the most civilized) on one of the final frontiers in terms of pristine areas left in the world.

Areas that, mind you, up to a decade ago nobody cared about at all...

Global warming??! What global warming?? Someone quick, call the President!!
Well, this article was a shocker!! Some quotes from Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel:
A leading Republican senator and prospective presidential candidate said Sunday that the war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and is looking more like the Vietnam conflict from a generation ago.
Can you believe he's actually a REPUBLICAN!! And it goes on:
Senator Hagel [...] reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing.

"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said.

Hagel said "stay the course" is not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq ... we're not winning," he said.

[N]ow we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam," Hagel said. "The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."

"What I think the White House does not yet understand - and some of my colleagues - the dam has broke on this policy," Hagel said. "The longer we stay there, the more similarities (to Vietnam) are going to come together."

"I don't know where he's going to get these troops," Hagel said. "There won't be any National Guard left ... no Army Reserve left ... there is no way America is going to have 100,000 troops in Iraq, nor should it, in four years."

Hagel added: "It would bog us down, it would further destabilize the Middle East, it would give Iran more influence, it would hurt Israel, it would put our allies over there in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a terrible position. It won't be four years. We need to be out."
WOW!! Didn't he get the memo with the White House talking points??

Clearly, hat tip to Senator Hagel for having the guts to go against the President and his policies. And all this at the same time when Bush is starting another push to rally the country together in support of a war he got us into by lying and fixing intelligence and for which Americans are growing weary, finally.

Well, clearly things are starting to look quite eery for Bush and the Republicans if they start to come out against their up-to-now race horse, the Iraq war/quagmire.
This is an interesting article about cloning wildcats, which holds promise for saving several species threatened by extinction:
"By improving the cloning process and then encouraging cloned animals to breed and make babies, we can revive the genes of individuals who might not be reproductively viable otherwise, and we can save genes from animals in the wild," commented Dr Betsy Dresser, who led the scientific team at the Audubon Center in New Orleans.
But not all conservationists believe that cloning has much value in preserving threatened species:
"While cloning is an intriguing scientific breakthrough that may enhance captive breeding in the years to come, it currently has no value for conservating endangered species in the wild," said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF's Species Programme.

"Cloning does nothing to reduce the most pressing threats to endangered species and their habitats; conservation requires work on entire populations and their habitats."
Certainly cloning by itself isn't the answer. You can repopulate a species, but if you destroy their environment, then they have nowhere to go and will eventually die again.

Only cloning together with animal sanctuaries and protected areas can really make a difference in the long run.
So it looks like that coward pig of Frist is caving to the pressure. Being the only doctor in Congress and given the promise of stem cell research (after all, he went to medical school,) he previously said he would support legislation to further such research.

That caused an uproar among the Christo-Fascist-Zombie-Brigades, who, in retaliation, said they would remember about it in 2008, when Frist, is widely thought, will pursue the Presidency.

So now, he decided to shun centuries of scientific research and bow to the religious right by advocating teaching intelligent design (now that is an oxymoron) in school, side by side with real science.

Can you believe that? He's a doctor, a scientist in a sense, and still comes out with this crap, just so that he can get back on the Presidency carousel.

Pathetic. He sure isn't improving his standing in the scientific community with comments like that.

Monday, August 22, 2005

I read this article on the Washington Post's website, and this paragraph made me want to grab the Democrats by their shoulders and shake them vigorously:
Although Bush's approval ratings have sunk, the Democrats have gained no ground at his expense. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in June, just 42 percent of Americans approved of congressional Democrats, a figure even lower than Bush's.
How can the Democrats not jump on the Iraq bandwagon?! The war in Iraq, sad as it may be the situation over there, has turned into the proverbial gift that keeps on giving, and the single most promising issue for them to take back at least one house of Congress next year.

Don't they understand that the reason people don't approve of them is because they look spineless and wimpy? Because they don't attack Bush's failure to make us safer, to find Osama bin Laden, to defeat Al Qaeda, to improve our economy, to create new jobs, to protect our environment, to improve our image abroad?

Don't they get it that people want some kind of action, not just inertia and a wait and see attitude from the people in charge?

WAKE UP ALREADY!!
This post on AMERICAblog links to this article on The New York Times' website about that other moron of the triad: Rumsfeld.

So now the Bush administration is claiming that the freely elected leader of Venezuela is a menace to the region's democracy.

WAR!!

Would that have anything to do with the fact that Hugo Chávez recently threatened to reduce his country's export of oil toward the US:
[according to] the Government Accountability Office [...] a sharp decrease in Venezuelan oil imports might affect the U.S. economy.
Imagine what that would do to our gas prices and to Bush's numbers...

Do I hear the sound of a falling object?

How many wars does he think this county can (and wants) to fight?
Goodness, I read this quip from the World Briefing on The New York Times' website:
NORWAY: ARCTIC RESEARCHERS SAVED FROM POLAR BEARS Three unarmed Polish researchers stranded for 15 hours on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, a Norwegian territory in the Arctic, were rescued by helicopters as polar bears were closing in on them, officials said. "It was the worst imaginable situation," said Peter Braaten of the Svalbard governor's office. The three men, from the Polish research ship Horyzont, had set out in a small inflatable boat to pick up equipment on one of the islands, but it capsized. They swam and clambered over chunks of ice to get to the island of Edgeoya. At least three polar bears where within 20 yards of the men when the helicopter picked them up. "That is dangerously close," Mr. Braaten said. (AP)
NO WAY!! REALLY?! I would let them closer! Can you imagine the scare of having 3 hungry polar bears coming at you on chunks of ice, which means that it's not a surprise visit at all, you see them coming from far away!!
I read this article from The Washington Post, and this paragraph stroke me:
Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."
I wonder what his wife thinks of this view he holds. Or his mother. I know he has kids, don't know if he has a daughter, but if he does, would he really want her to only have the role of housewife and mother as option for her future? Actually, not even an option, since that's all she could and should have, according to him.

And to think that this view of his, an intelligent lawyer who studied in progressive universities in modern cities, only go back 20 years or so. Imagine what they think of women in the Bible belt.

A few more gems of his:
He concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."
God forbid we pay women the same as men!! What an outrageous demand!!
Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done.
So we also have to thank him for Reagan's disregard of the AIDS epidemic for years, which caused a delayed intervention on the part of the government, which set the stage for far more deaths than was necessary. But who cares, they were mostly homosexuals anyway. The fewer the better, right?
He also, the documents illustrate, played a bit role in the Reagan administration's efforts in Nicaragua to funnel assistance to CIA-supported "contras" who were trying overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.
Shouldn't this cause concern? The Iran-Contras scandal was huge, and certainly tainted the Reagan administration's legacy. If he was part of it, shouldn't we know more? And shouldn't people be more offended by his involvement with state sponsored terrorism?
Roberts singled out three ideas for particular criticism: what he characterized as a California requirement that employers take into account affirmative action, in addition to seniority, when laying off workers; another California proposal to require women to be paid the same as men for state jobs considered of comparable worth; and a Florida proposal to charge women lower tuition than men at state colleges because their earning power was less.
Again:
  • don't help minorities in any way (discrimination? What discrimination?);
  • screw women, they don't work as hard as men, and if they do, they're still women, they don't deserve equal treatment;
  • what?? Because we pay them less than men, we should charge them less for education? What if then they learn as much as men do and become better then men are at their jobs? Plus, that would most certainly be a form of discrimination towards men, and we absolutely cannot allow for that to happen!!

Finally:
He was asked to review a draft speech to be given by then-Education Secretary William J. Bennett to the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization. Other White House officials had said the speech was too divisive, as it criticized Supreme Court rulings that had blocked the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and prohibited public school teachers from giving remedial classes at parochial schools. "Bennett's point is that such decisions betray a hostility to religion not demanded by the constitution," Roberts said. "I have no quarrel with Bennett on the merits."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, settles the dispute on his views on the separation between church and state which is clearly established in the Constitution and that he would start chipping away at from his first day on the job.
It's over.

Last night Ray and I watched the series finale of Six Feet Under. It was very sad, but we both liked the episode very much. We especially liked the end, showing the end of each character, which, after all, is the basis of the show.

I have to say, I'll miss this show. Like I said before, I had grown to love it more and more with every season (although the fourth one wasn't as exciting as the others,) and this one was really good.

I loved all the characters, more or less, so I'll miss them all. I'm glad Willa made it, I felt horrible for Keith's demise, loved his wedding to David, liked Claire's wedding to Ted, and generally felt really sad for everyone's death, especially Brenda's.

Again, I'm still very sad, and my heart his heavy as if I had lost a good friend.

I guess the only good thing about the end of the show is that Alan Ball, its creator, will now be able to produce another great movie like American Beauty or another amazing show like Six Feet Under.
The weekend at Nancy went very well. Saturday night her son, Cliff, joined us for dinner. He's funny and nice, and we had only seen him once before many years ago, so it was nice to see him again. Nancy is doing well and has two more weeks before she starts working again (she'll teach two classes.) She made tacos for dinner, and gorgeous frozen margaritas, always a welcome addition if you ask me. ;) The kids were good pretty much the whole time, and both Nancy and Cliff were very impressed of how well mannered they are. Ray and I were very pleased and proud of them. Unfortunately, our friend Joe, who was supposed to check on the dogs while we were away, couldn't get in the house (key issues,) which meant that the girls were locked inside, with neither food nor water (they had water, but Mina always dumps it out and Diablo doesn't drink if we're not there -- she must have a pause mechanism someplace that gets engaged whenever we leave!!), and above all without medication for around 24 hours!!! Incredibly, they held whatever they had to do (Mina pooped like 7 or 8 times once we finally let her out!!) and didn't make any mess... well, if you don't consider the mess Mina makes every time we leave now because of her separation anxiety. Poor dear, I wish I could make her feel better. Anyway, we let them out, fed them, gave them their meds, and they were fine, althoug Mina drank so much, she threw up twice (I'm sure her nerves were wound like a spring by then, and that's what caused her to feel sick.) All back to normal now. Kids in daycare, Ray and I at work, dogs at home. Same old routine. How amazingly boring and welcome a routine can sometimes feel.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Going to Nancy for the weekend. Gonna be fun.

My yoga teacher Deb is back. Great class today!

Friday, August 19, 2005

This post by Michael pointed me to this article on The New York Times, which frankly was quite saddening.

A couple quotes:
[T]he simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
I was speechless. I already knew it, but seeing it printed like that, like the truest of facts, hurts deeply. This is supposed to be America, the land of the free, the pillar of democracy, and we can't even expect our vote will count for something, anything.
But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy.
And for this the press should be forever ashamed. Michael Jackson might make you sell more ads, but where is your integrity as a journalist? No wonder people are growing less and less trustworthy towards the media.

And the most worrisome quote:
Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
Democrats right now have the excuse (truthful, I must admit) that they can't do much against Bush or the Republicans who commit crimes (Rove) or ethical violations (DeLay) because they don't control either house of Congress. I'm not so sure they would do anything even if they were in charge of one, but if they did, you can rest assured that many more scandals would come to light, and it would be disastrous for the Republicans and for the image of the US abroad.

Nevertheless, morality, justice, and ethics (not to speak of vengeance) would require them to expose the GOP's lies, crimes, and misdemeanors.

Unfortunately, having seen the Republicans in action in the past few election cycles, I don't really see how the Democrats, who are mostly spineless when it comes to frontal attacks, will be able to prevail, either in 06 or in 08.
I just read this article on the Washington Post about Cheney's latest rant.

What a moron.

Here's his quote:
The vice president cited the darkest days of the American Revolution, when the war was going badly and ragtag rebels were ready to go home until George Washington rallied them. "They stayed in the fight, and America won the war," he said. "From that day to this, our country has always counted on the bravest among us to answer the call of duty."
There is so much wrong about this sentence. First of all, how dare he compare the American Revolution, when the people leaving on this side of the Atlantic were fed up of having their lives sucked up by the Crown of Britain and decided to fight back, with the war in Iraq, which was started because of a desire for vengeance or a thirst for oil, or both.

Second, is he comparing our men and women currently fighting in Iraq to ragtag rebels? Because that's what he said. Mr. Vice President, our military is supposed and believed to be the best trained and organized in the world. How can you call them ragtag rebels?!

Third, is he trying to compare George W. Bush (who should be impeached and removed from office for sending this country to war based on lies and for attacking a sovereign country that had not attacked us instead of going after the harder to fight but real enemy that was, and alas still is, Osama bin Laden,) to George Washington?!!? So Reagan and Lincoln are not enough anymore, now we're going directly to the guy at the top of the list?

Preposterous. Bush is not even worthy of admiring a portrait of George Washington. Not that he'd recognize one if he saw it...

Finally, when he talks about the "bravest among us to answer the call of duty," does he realize that neither he nor Bush are among them, since they never served?
Space Shuttle Discovery left California a little while ago piggybacked on a specially modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet to go back to Florida.

The images are just amazing, and speak for themselves.

Just came back from a lunch-date with my hubby. It was good. We had sushi. I'm liking it more and more. It's his last day of vacation, so I feel bad for him, especially since he didn't really do anything special or went anywhere. But at least he enjoyed a couple of days to himself, and this afternoon he's treating himself to a nice hot-stone massage. Good for him. He deserves it. It's Friday, so tonight, supposedly, is my movie night, but I haven't decided if I wanna go or not yet.
Quite an eventful night yesterday. Just before leaving work, Ray called me to let me know the doctor was looking for me. I had a physical last week, and was waiting for my test results. I called, and a nurse (the doctor is on vacation this week) told me my cholesterol isn't too good (201 total, just 1 above the limit, not too bad, but my HDL -the good one- is 39, 1 lower than the minimun, and my LDL -the bad one- is 142, 12 above the maximum; overall not good.) Unfortunately, she also told me my heart is inflamed, which can't be a good thing (my Cardio CRP is 8.7 on a scale of 1.0 to 10.0, where anything above 3.0 is considered a high cardiovascular risk.) The doctor ordered me to start taking the baby aspirin (81 mg a day,) which gave me pause because that's usually what's prescribed to older people with a heart condition or something like that, and I'm only 33. :-( I have another appointment with my doctor in two weeks, at which point I'll find out more about this. Can't wait to know more. I hope I can get better, that it's not irreversible, but I really don't know what to think. I've discovered I have high cholesterol around 7 years ago and ever since I've tried to lower it, but nothing works, not dieting, not exercising, nothing. And I'm not a junk food eater, so it must be genetic for me, which wouldn't be a terrible thing, I guess, since in that case the body would probably adapt to it. But this, I'm afraid it's much worse, and if I can't lower the inflammation, it could spell trouble for me ahead. We'll see. ... Anyway, for the good news, last night the kids' social worker brought us the final documents to sign for the adoption. So now we're just waiting for the judge to approve it, and that's it. It all should happen within a month. :-) ... Oh, one more good thing: Nicole yesterday didn't have any accidents and wore the same underpants all day long!! That's a lot of progress. Our little girl might be getting it already! Let's hope...

Thursday, August 18, 2005

In recent days I've come across a few quotes by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that frankly left me totally floored. Here's one from this article from The New Yorker:
“The Constitution is not a living organism,” Scalia has said.
This opinion is unfortunately shared on the Supreme Court by Justices Rehnquist and Thomas and I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with them. Here's why.

The American Constitution is such a brilliant document, I cannot imagine its framers meant for us to interpret it not according to the times we live in, but according to those in which it was written. Society changes, people's needs and views change, laws supposedly adapt. Why then, not the Constitution?

Moreover, why stop at the Constitution? If we are supposed to live according to the way the framers thought and lived, then are we supposed to get rid of our cars, electricity, heating and air conditioning, voting rights for blacks and women (which weren't contemplated by the original document), and so forth? God forbid. Then why should we run our lives and business according to the lifestyles of 200 years ago? It just doesn't make sense.

Of course the Constitution is a living organism. How sad it would be, and how miserable would we all be, if it weren't.

And here's another one, this one from latimes.com:
In the blistering dissent, Scalia, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, said "Coloradans are entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct." Scalia added that the majority opinion had "no foundation in American constitutional law, and barely pretends to."
I think I have to agree with Scalia that Coloradans, and whoever else for that matter, are entitled to be hostile toward homosexuals, just as I am entitled to be hostile toward the NRA, the religious right, Bush, Osama bin Laden, and whoever else is hostile towards me or my family and friends. That doesn't mean that that hostility can or should be made into a law, which is precisely what Coloradans had done.

Being entitled to feel hostility toward something or someone is nothing more than a personal feeling, an opinion if you will. There is a big difference between having an opinion (which falls under the protection of the Constitution) and making it the law of the land, so that everyone else now has to obey and live by that opinion.

That's called tyranny.

Alas, Justice Scalia is on his way to become the next Chief Justice if or when Rehnquist quits or dies (which I'm sure Scalia prays for every single day,) and I quiver at the thought of having such a troglodyte sitting on the most important judicial seat in the country.

Some have suggested that his ascension to Chief Justice might actually be a good thing because his opinions will be more widely spread and heard, and so more and more people will be aware of his radicalism. However, the power that comes with being Chief Justice will still be in his hands, and the damage he might do with it far outweighs the benefits of exposing his degenerate mind.