My Earthlink wouldn’t link - Oh the horror!

I wasn’t able to get online for about 20 hours. But here I am finally - although you won’t see the results until tomorrow. Not that it’s worth the wait. That and the Blogger site is driving me nuts - oh well, it’s free, so I suppose I get what I pay for, eh?

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Wednesday, 03/30/2005

In the last two days, we’ve lost two Americans and a Brit. So now we’ve got 32 dead Americans this month. 1390 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1530 since Bush’s War began. 1707 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,540 American men and women have been wounded, 98 between 3/23 and 3/29. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote of the Day...

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix, American musician

Speaking of pissing away money…

So I’m watching ABC news, presumably a charter member of the liberal elite. Laura “Pickles” Bush is apparently on her way back home. She spent six (count ‘em six) hours on the ground in Afghanistan doing First Lady stuff. Way back in 1986 -87, when I used to fly in the cockpit a lot, a two-engine 737 cost $2500 per hour to operate. You go ahead and take a guess what this politically motivated farce is costing the taxpayer.

Let’s also, while we’re contemplating political farces, wonder how much it cost to fly Dear Leader from Texas to Washington to sign the “Save Terri” bill (or whatever those assholes called it). A fax machine would have done the job just as well. Of course it wouldn’t have appealed to the Republican base - the brain dead.

I suppose Bill and Hillary did the same thing. Oh well, politics: "poli" in Latin meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures."

The local paper screwed up again.

Yep, they published a letter by one of those quiche eatin', latte-slurpin', tax raising, godless, comminist-pinko, librals:

What has a conservative done for you lately?
Monday, March 28, 2005, Greenville, NC Reflector Letter

It's tough being a liberal today. The spinners on the right – Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, even our “dear leader” Bush – have turned the term into curse word.

I'm a liberal; should I hide my head when I'm near conservative Republicans? Not a chance.

With apologies to liberal journalist Joe Conason, here are a few thoughts:

● If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you're paid (what used to be) a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour work week and are allowed to join a union to protect your rights – thank a liberal.

● If your food is sanitary and your water is drinkable – thank a liberal.

● If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family – thank a liberal.

● If the rivers are cleaner, and the air is, too; if we still have some protected wilderness, and our countryside is still green – thank a liberal.

● If people of all races can share the same public facilities and have the right to vote – thank a liberal.

Conservatives fought every single one of those programs then – and they're trying to undo them now.

Big business, the Bush administration, and the Republican Congress are trying to minimize or reverse most of these “liberal” programs.

Liberals protect “us” from “them.”

“They” really don't have your best interests at heart when “they” go to war or want to “privatize” or “contract out” something.

What has a conservative done for you lately?

BRUCE BERBERICH
Greenville

On rereading, it’s not a bad piece of work - by Joe Conason from Salon who supplied the bullets, which I edited slightly. Then again, I did acknowledge his work.

Good Frying Jesus (as opposed to “Good Freezing Jesus”)

From Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly, who used to be “Calpundit:”

GLOBAL DIMMING... This isn't new, but it's new to me and maybe to you too. Did you know that in the three days following 9/11 the average temperature range across the United States (the difference between the daytime high and the nighttime low) rose one degree Centigrade? That's the biggest, fastest climate change ever observed.

The reason, it turns out, is that American airspace was shut down, and no airplanes means no contrails. Since contrails absorb sunlight, getting rid of them allows more sunlight to reach the ground and causes a rise in surface temperature. When planes started flying again temperatures went back down.

As this BBC report says, this is a dramatic example of an effect called Global Dimming, something that scientists have recently concluded is far larger than they previously thought: since 1950, increased amounts of soot and ash have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth by an astonishing 10-30% in various parts of the world.

So shouldn't this cause global surface temperatures to decline considerably? Normally yes, but we've avoided this problem because during the same period greenhouse gases have been trapping ever more heat than before. These two effects cancel each other out, but greenhouse gases have been winning the race: overall surface temperatures have risen about .6 degrees Centigrade in the past century.

But here's the bad news: this means that the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming is probably stronger than we've previously thought. The only reason global temperature increases have been fairly modest so far is because of the cooling effect of global dimming.

So what happens if particle pollution is brought under control — via cleaner burning coal technologies, for example? It means that suddenly greenhouse gases will have no competition, and instead of temperatures rising only moderately, they'll start skyrocketing.

In other words, our current models, which assume that climate has only a moderate sensitivity to greenhouse gases, might have been fooled by the countervailing effect of particle pollution. Once particle pollution levels flatten out or decline, we may find that climate is far more responsive to greenhouses gases than we thought.

Cleaner burning cars, anyone?

Go to the link for the BBC report. The BBC material is long but frightening. Not for you and I, but for your grandkids and our planet. The administration, who apparently believe they are going to get “Raptured” any minute, don’t give a shit, but you and I should. My elected representatives are a lost cause until the next election. Yours may not be.

Finally, without comment, we have this:

Living Will Is The Best Revenge
By Robert Friedman, March 27, 2005, The St. Petersburg Times

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:

● In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semi existence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.

● I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

● I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

● I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

● I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.

● I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

● I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.

● I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.

● I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars, and all other hangers-on - to start calling me "Bobby," as if they had known me since childhood.

● I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a "Bobby's Law" that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.

● Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want Congress - especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.

● In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.

● And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.

● I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.

● Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I'd want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best "to err on the side of life."

● I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF's care.
● And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to argue.

Oh, and hey!

I'm much better, thank you. The headache is gone, the intestinal distress is gone, and I merely feel a tad lousy. Thanks for caring.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Monday, 03/28/2005

30 Americans died so far this month. 1388 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1528 since Bush’s War began. 1704 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,442 American men and women have been wounded, 98 between 3/15 and 3/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“The Dalai Lama visited the White House and told the President that he could teach him to find a higher state of consciousness. Then after talking to Bush for a few minutes, he said, "You know what? Let's just grab lunch." Bill Maher, American comedian

Thoughts about a thoughtful comment…

I posted a piece on the 23rd titled “Well, this is good enough for me.” In it I excerpted an article from Salon about a priest named John Paris from Boston University. The article’s headline read: "This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life:” The Rev. John Paris, professor of bioethics, says Terri Schiavo has the moral and legal right to die, and only the Christian right is keeping her alive.”

A reader named “Boston” commented on my post and I thought the comments are worth discussing. Here’s what Boston said:

"Interestingly, you and much of the world polarize this outcome as the Christian rightists' defeat. I don't.

I'm neither (I'm a way-left-o'-center Wiccan) and I take this case and its outcome as an enormous civil liberty violation.

Please know, it's frustrating the hell outta me that I'm on the side of an issue with the catholic pope and Jethro Bush. That's so uncharacteristic...I'm a Bushwhacker through and through...except this one time we agree on something for vastly differing reasons.

If an adult with compromised intellectual competence can swallow and a spouse elects to withhold all nutritional sustenance in an attempt to end their life, the spouse would be facing criminal abuse and neglect charges in the Health and Human Services Adult Protection Services arena and the dependent adult would be placed under surrogacy - adult "foster care."

There is doubt about the veracity of the husband, there is doubt about the validity of the family's observations and interpretations ... and in my mind, it's not up to any of us to determine where we benchmark "a life worth living" for another.

So many say, "I wouldn't want to live like that, impose that on my family." Don't count me out of that. But that's no rationale to support permitting a severely brain damaged human from being starved to death because she cannot speak and swallow."

I would sympathize with Boston’s comments except that I understand how far the Florida courts have gone to protect Mrs. Schaivo. The most important protection is probably the designation of something called a “Guardian Ad Litem.” A GAL is an independent person assigned by the courts to represent the interests of a person. Normally the protectee is an abused child or the like. Mrs. Schaivo, who has had two GALs at different times, is certainly the subject of some tug of war here, and a disinterested party, appointed by the courts to protect her seems like a good idea.

Both GALs supported the husband. Nineteen or so courts support the husband. The doctors who actually examined her, as opposed to the ones who looked at the parent’s video tapes, found that her cerebral cortex has mostly been replaced with spinal fluid. She has no, repeat, no higher brain function, she will never get better, she will only get worse. She expressed a wish to her husband to not be kept alive artifically. That was confirmed, under oath, by others - her husband’s sister and one other person, as I recall, but nonetheless, under oath.

Mrs. Schaivo is not someone who is developmentally disabled; she is not brain damaged with trouble swallowing. In essence, Mrs. Schaivo has no brain, her brain is destroyed - it’s shrunken and useless. Her brain stem keeps her motor functions alive, her soul - I’d like to think we have them, has been gone for 15 years. It’s time to let her body go.

Rebuttals? Keeping in mind that I've had a couple of days to think about this and Boston was doing some "real time" response to a post on a blog. Not fair, really.

Ted Rall explains it all!

I think we knew this, but we just needed Ted to articulate it for us. What Bush, Frist, DeLay and the rest of the gang were doing with the Schiavo affair is taking care of their base: the brain dead.

Check Monday’s cartoon here - and while you’re at his cartoon site, check his previous ‘toon about what AmeriKa would be like if Christianity were not the dominant religion. Two in a row isn’t bad.

Why does the NY Times hate Christians?

An Unexpected Softness
March 28, 2005, New York Times Editorial

There are always two tensions in scientific exploration. One is the effort to consolidate the known facts into a stable theory. The other is to discover new facts - with no guarantee whether they will reinforce or undermine the old consolidations. Last week a dinosaur bone upset everyone's expectations in ways that may ripple outward for a long time.

Workers at a field site in Montana had broken the 70-million-year-old fossilized thighbone of a Tyrannosaurus rex in half for purely logistical reasons - huge bone, small helicopter. When scientists examined the bone fragments in the lab, they discovered something no one expected to find - unfossilized soft tissue, including blood vessels and the cells that line them.

Just how these tissues were preserved is a very good question, one that may lead scientists to re-examine their theories of fossilization. This discovery has also led at least one of the scientists on the study team to speculate that there may be more dinosaur soft tissue hidden inside the large but unbroken dinosaur bones that already repose in museum collections. There’s a lot more at the link.

But, Dear Reader, how can a paper with the reputation of the Times show such a lack of respect for our right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged bible-banging brothers and sisters who don’t buy that whole evolution “theory.” I mean, come on here, 70 million years old? When they know the world is only - what - 6,000 years old? Oh, the shame!

Giving credit where credit is due, I got the idea for the headline from Fark.com, a wonderfully zany and tasteless place.

This from a Conservative Newspaper:

The first paragraph is incredible - a conservative paper!

Disgraceful DeLay: Politician twists Schiavo case for own ends
March 25, 2005, San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial

Congressional Democrats probably would love to divide the GOP, undermine the conservative agenda, and turn Americans against the Republican majority. But, frankly, they don't have that kind of power. A job that big calls for the handiwork of Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Looking back on Congress' handling of the Terri Schiavo controversy – which included passing an emergency bill aimed at prolonging Schiavo's life – it's hard to decide which of DeLay's comments was more offensive.

Was it when DeLay referred to Michael Schiavo's lawyer as "the embodiment of evil"? Or when he accused those who disagreed with him of being "so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks"?

No, what took the prize was what DeLay said when he let his guard down at what he obviously thought was a private meeting of like-minded social conservatives. After insisting that Congress' intervention in the Schiavo case had nothing to do with politics, DeLay used the issue to rally the faithful at a meeting of the Family Research Council. DeLay went so far as to describe the anguishing plight of this 41-year-old woman as a gift from God and a boost to the cause of Christian conservatives.

"One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America," DeLay told his audience.

DeLay believes that part of what is "going on" is that his political opponents are out to get him and other conservatives with what he considers frivolous charges. DeLay, the House majority leader, was admonished last year by the Ethics Committee for three separate issues, and he now faces questions about foreign trips funded by outside groups.

How distasteful that DeLay would try to use the heart-wrenching Schiavo story to try to explain away the ethical cloud that now follows him. It's no wonder so many conservatives around the country feel so uneasy with how congressional Republicans have conducted themselves in the Schiavo case. They should. [snip]

Politics shouldn't be so confusing. And shame on politicians like Tom DeLay for making it so.

L’affair Schiavo has offended the “base.” DeLay has made ethical Republicans queasy for quite a while. Destruction of Social Security isn’t flying worth a damn. What’s next?

Oh crap, literally!

I'm not doing well physically. I appear to have a flu-like malady, despite getting a flu shot. Don't look for a lot for the next few days - not that there is ever a lot.

Meanwhile, try to behave. I'll be here, close to the throne.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Friday, 03/25/2005

While reserving the usual finger for Mr. Bush, let's keep another couple crossed for our men and women trapped over there. We are losing them a a rate lower than usual. Let's hope that continues.

27 Americans died so far this month. 1385 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1525 since Bush’s War began. 1701 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,442 American men and women have been wounded, 98 between 3/15 and 3/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Hanlon’s Razor

This just in - a while ago:

No getting stoned in new Bible
Jamie Doward, Sunday March 13, 2005, The Observer

For centuries scholars have argued over the most delicate nuances of biblical texts, passionately debating whether key words should be tweaked to reflect cultural changes.

But, despite the fervent exchange of such learned views, there has been no fretting about whether the Bible endorses dope-smoking. Until now.

A 15-strong panel of eminent theologians and linguists was so concerned that young people reading the Bible today are confusing the phrase 'stoned' not with Old Testament executions but with drugs, that it has suggested a radical clarification to a forthcoming edition of the sacred text.

In an attempt to clear up any confusion on the part of Britain's youth, Today's New International Version Bible, published by Hodder & Stoughton on Tuesday, updates the original edition, published 27 years ago, so that people are 'stoned to death', rather than 'stoned'.

'We wanted to keep it from being confused with drug addiction,' Professor Ronald Youngblood, who chaired the panel, told the Church Times newspaper.

Well, I’m glad they cleared that up. I’d been worried all this time. There’s more at the link.

Hot damn, it’s Friday! Rapture time!

As you all are aware, our loony right-wing-fundamentalist friends at www.raptureready.com publish a weekly “Rapture Index” indicating how likely it is that the Second Coming is, well - coming.

OK, Rapture fans, unbelievable as it may seem, I may have screwed up. According to the bible-bangers, the index last week was 151 vs. what I had as 152. Not likely.

Nonetheless, they say it’s down three to 148. That’s great news unless you’re looking forward to getting their stuff when they disappear heavenward. Remember, the record high is at 182 set the week of September 24, 2001 and the record low is at 57 and was set during the week of December 12, 1993.

The changes were due to a decrease of one in the indices for the Occult, the Peace Process and Beast Government. "Beast Government," right, but you probably guessed that, didn’t you?

If the rapture comes, all the right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged biblebanging bigots will disappear and we’ll get their stuff. That’s surely not a bad thing.

The bad news is that a substantial number of those right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged biblebanging bigoted buttheads are running our nation. These people believe that the rapture is going to happen sooner rather than later, so why not rape the earth.

Read all about the index and the values that go into the final value here.

Achtung - Attention - Attenzione - Yo, Listen up!

I'm going to be out of service again. I'll endeavor to be cranky again by Saturday. Check back then please. Meanwhile, try to behave!

It’s 10:16, here’s an update:

The appeals court upheld Mrs. Schiavo’s right to die and denied Congress’ right to pander. The AJC was there and has this:

Case will go first to Justice Kennedy
By Bill Torpy, March 23, 2005, 09:52 AM, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thomas J. Perrelli, an attorney for Michael Schiavo, said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the Terri Schiavo by late afternoon today.

“My sense is (the parents’s lawyers) will file by midday and then we’ll literally file as fast as we can” in response, he said.

The case would first go to Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who has staked a moderate position on social issues.

Kennedy would have the option to act on the petition alone, although on previous emergency requests involving Terri Schiavo he has referred the matter to the entire nine-member court.

Michael Schiavo won court orders to have his brain-damaged wife’s feeding tube removed.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Tuesday, 03/22/2005

26 Americans died so far this month. 1384 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1524 since Bush’s War began. 1700 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,442 American men and women have been wounded, 98 between 3/15 and 3/22. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Louis Dembitz Brandeis, late Supreme Court Justice

Well, this is good enough for me:

"This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life:” The Rev. John Paris, professor of bioethics, says Terri Schiavo has the moral and legal right to die, and only the Christian right is keeping her alive.
By Andrew Leonard, March 22, 2005, Salon

The decision on whether to allow Terri Schiavo to die has sparked endless controversy over what is legal and ethical when patients are unable to make their own wishes. One observer who brings both legal and moral authority to the debate is the Rev. John Paris, the Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College.

Paris has served as an expert witness on numerous cases involving patients who were being kept alive by artificial means. He is equally capable of discussing the legal details of the Schiavo case and the Catholic Church's view of it. According to Paris, every relevant legal issue has already been decided; the only thing keeping the case alive is the fact that the Christian right has made Schiavo a cause célèbre.

Paris did not serve as an expert witness in the Schiavo case. However, when the case was reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court, he signed an amicus brief on behalf of Michael Schiavo, who wants to take his wife off life support. Salon spoke to Paris by phone on Monday morning. "This case," he says, "is bizarre."

Why is the case bizarre?

In most cases, the court has a theory, you have an appellate review, and that's the end. But this case, the parents keep coming back with new issues -- every time that they lose, they come in with a new issue. We want to reexamine the case. We believe she's competent. We need new medical tests being done. We think she's been abused. We want child protective services to intervene. Finally, Judge George Greer denied them all. He said. "Look, we have had court-appointed neutral physicians examine this patient. You don't believe the findings of the doctors but the finding of the doctors have been accepted by the court as factual.” There have been six reviews by the appellate court. [snip]

The court said, "Remove the feeding tube," and the family protested. Of course, the family has the radical, antiabortion, right-to-life Christian right, with its apparently unlimited resources and political muscle, behind them.

So what do you think this case is really about?

The power of the Christian right. This case has nothing to do with the legal issues involving a feeding tube. The feeding tube issue was definitively resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 in Cruzan vs. Director. The United States Supreme Court ruled that competent patients have the right to decline any and all unwanted treatment, and unconscious patients have the same right, depending upon the evidentiary standard established by the state. And Florida law says that Terri Schiavo has more than met the standard in this state. So there is no legal issue. [snip]

Isn't the underlying social issue here one that says the law doesn't have authority over this kind of life-or-death matter?

Let me give you a test that I've done 100 times to audiences. And I guarantee you can do the same thing. Go and find the first 12 people you meet and say to them, "If you were to suffer a cerebral aneurysm, and we were able to diagnose that with a PET-scan immediately, would you want to be put on a feeding tube, knowing that you can be sustained in this existence?” I have asked that question in medical audiences, legal audiences and audiences of judges. I'll bet I have put that question before several thousand people. How many people do you think have said they wanted to be maintained that way? Zero. Not one person. Now that tells you about where the moral sentiment of our community is. [snip]

As a priest, how do you resolve questions in which the "sanctity of life" is involved?

The sanctity of life? This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. The Roman Catholic Church has a consistent 400-year-old tradition that I'm sure you are familiar with. It says nobody is obliged to undergo extraordinary means to preserve life.

This is Holy Week, this is when the Catholic community is saying, "We understand that life is not an absolute good and death is not an absolute defeat.” The whole story of Easter is about the triumph of eternal life over death. Catholics have never believed that biological life is an end in and of itself. We've been created as a gift from God and are ultimately destined to go back to God. And we've been destined in this life to be involved in relationships. And when the capacity for that life is exhausted, there is no obligation to make officious efforts to sustain it.

This is not new doctrine. Back in 1950, Gerald Kelly, the leading Catholic moral theologian at the time, wrote a marvelous article on the obligation to use artificial means to sustain life. He published it in Theological Studies, the leading Catholic journal. He wrote, "I'm often asked whether you have to use IV feeding to sustain somebody who is in a terminal coma.” And he said, "Not only do I believe there is no obligation to do it, I believe that imposing those treatments on that class of patients is wrong. There is no benefit to the patient, there is great expense to the community, and there is enormous tension on the family." [snip]

Of course Boston College is run by them Commie Jesuits, so you probably can’t trust ‘em. Nonetheless, he is where I’ve been all along. The Schindler’s - the family, are grasping at any straw, and I suppose they’ve been deluded and/or are deluded. But they are aided in those delusions by some of the slimiest people on earth. Randall Terry, the guy who ran Operation Rescue and who is almost surely behind blowing up abortion clinics is frequently at their side. They are being used, just as the whores in congress used them and will continue to use them. Is this a great country or what?

This is good for a sort of pained chuckle…

George W. Bush, man of action
By Tim Grieve, March 21, 2005, Salon

On Aug. 6, 2001, George W. Bush was given a Presidential Daily Brief that carried the headline: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The president went fishing. On Sept. 11, 2001, Andy Card told Bush: "America is under attack.” The president continued to listen to a second-grade class read "The Pet Goat.” On Dec. 26, 2004, Bush learned that a massive tsunami had caused unimaginable devastation all around the Indian Ocean. The president waited three days before making any public comment.

But let the record show, when important issues demand presidential action, George W. Bush is a man of action. The House of Representatives passed emergency legislation in the Terri Schiavo case just after midnight this morning, and the president was on it immediately. Here's the blow-by-blow from Scott McClellan's gaggle today on Air Force One:

Question: Can you go over what went on last night, in terms of the President signing the bill and how it went down?

McClellan: Sure. I guess the bill -- the House passed it shortly after midnight, and then the President signed it at 1:11 a.m., in the morning. The Staff Secretary, Brett Kavanaugh, walked the legislation over to the residence for the President to sign. He came outside his bedroom and signed it in the residence.

Question: Had he been asleep?

McClellan: Yes, he was woken up after it was passed, when it was ready to be signed.

Question: I heard you describe it earlier, he came out of his bedroom and literally signed it standing up in the hall; is that how it went?

McClellan: That's correct, yes. He was just standing in the hall in the residence and signed the legislation then.

Question: Was he wearing . . . is it safe to assume he wasn't wearing a suit and tie at the time? (Laughter.)

And so on… I wonder if someone has trademarked the BushBarfBag?

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Monday, 03/21/2005

25 Americans died so far this month. 1383 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1523 since Bush’s War began. 1699 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,344 American men and women have been wounded, 59 between 3/09 and 3/14. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"She talks and she laughs and she expresses likes and discomforts. It won't take a miracle to help Terri Schiavo. It will only take the medical care and therapy that patients require." Tom DeLay, Speaker of the US House of Representatives and opportunistic liar.

Talking about Terry:

Here’s an excellent analysis about Mrs. Schiavo’s condition by one of my favorite bloggers, a PhD psychologist who calls herself Rivka. Her blog is Respectful of Otters. Here are some excerpts from her commentary:

I have a doctorate in clinical psychology. I have completed a year-long practicum in clinical neuropsychology. I'm not qualified to evaluate Terri Schiavo myself - that would take a board-certified neurologist or neuropsychologist - but I am certainly qualified to evaluate the adequacy or inadequacy of someone else's evaluation. And so I have read every one of the 17 affidavits, plus the report of the examining physician on whose findings Schiavo's parents are basing their case, plus the rulings from the trial court and the court of appeals.

None of the 17 affidavits are by providers who examined Schiavo. Only one of the 17 providers claims to have reviewed her medical records. The remaining 16 providers apparently based their statements primarily on six snippets of videotape, totaling 4 minutes and 20 seconds, which have been posted on Schiavo's parents' website and broadcast repeatedly on the news. Several of them explicitly say that they viewed these clips on the net, and the others all refer to the same short samples of behavior (e.g., Schiavo's eyes tracking a balloon). Many of them say they read news stories about Schiavo. One admits to only seeing news stories and photographs. They all reference their experience with "similar patients," but without qualifying what they mean by "similar.” For example, one doctor draws comparisons to catatonic patients - but catatonia simply refers to an absence of voluntary motion or interaction, and can be caused by any number of things. Another references stroke patients, and two more talk about patients with Alzheimer's.

[none of the affidavit providers] mention the specific degree and type of brain damage that Schiavo has, as documented by her CAT scans: Theresa's brain has deteriorated because of the lack of oxygen it suffered at the time of the heart attack. By mid 1996, the CAT scans of her brain showed a severely abnormal structure. At this point, much of her cerebral cortex is simply gone and has been replaced by cerebral spinal fluid. Medicine cannot cure this condition

Although the physicians are not in complete agreement concerning the extent of Mrs. Schiavo's brain damage, they all agree that the brain scans show extensive permanent damage to her brain. The only debate between the doctors is whether she has a small amount of isolated living tissue in her cerebral cortex or whether she has no living tissue in her cerebral cortex. [emphasis added]

[snip] The 17 affidavits all put considerable weight on the fact that, in the video snippets on Schiavo's parents' website, she appears to be responding to stimulation. Her eyes track a balloon. She smiles in response to her mother's voice. The affidavits therefore conclude that Schiavo is appropriately responsive to external stimuli, and that she is at least minimally conscious - not in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) at all. Yet none of the exhibited behaviors are, in themselves, unusual for patients with PVS. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke:

“Individuals in such a state have lost their thinking abilities and awareness of their surroundings, but retain non-cognitive function and normal sleep patterns. Even though those in a persistent vegetative state lose their higher brain functions, other key functions such as breathing and circulation remain relatively intact. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. They may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh. Although individuals in a persistent vegetative state may appear somewhat normal, they do not speak and they are unable to respond to commands.”

So the presence of smiles, grimaces, vocalizations, and eye movements alone is not relevant to the question of whether Schiavo has retained any degree of consciousness or may benefit from therapy. They may be in part reflexive - as when she "smiles" when her cheek is stroked - and they may be completely random. The key to the 4 minutes and 20 seconds of video is that Schiavo seems to be responding in a meaningful way to specific stimuli. All 17 experts who reference the videos take for granted that they demonstrate meaningful emotional or communicative responses. Could they really all be wrong?

Oh, yes. All you need to know to illuminate the question is that the six snippets of video were selected from 4 1/2 hours of tape. As do most people with PVS, Schiavo emits random behaviors and noises. If a person gives enough commands or makes enough interaction attempts over the course of several hours, by sheer coincidence some of Schiavo's random behaviors will appear to coincide with their commands. Both the trial court and the appeals court viewed the entire 4 1/2 hour tape, and both concluded that her responses were indeed random. [snip]

So what we have, in Mrs. Schiavo, is a living, breathing automaton. She's not home any longer. Her brainstem is hale and healthy and keeps her breathing and responsive to some stimuli. Her brain is a liquid. She told her husband she didn’t want to live like that. Her parents dispute that - and it turns out that in a deposition that they alleged that when she was 11 or 12 she said something that might have disputed what she told her husband - when she was 11 or 12! Her parent’s medical “experts” and the medical “experts” in congress, having viewed the four minutes and 20 seconds of video excerpted from four and one half hours of tape have concluded that she’s just slow and merely needs a little therapy to come up to speed and become a useful member of society - despite the fact that her cerebral cortex is a liquid. Right!

Meanwhile, the malpractice settlement that her husband got has apparently been keeping her alive - Bush wants to cap malpractice settlements, so that wouldn’t work in the future, and off course he’s all for gutting Medicare and Medicaid. He also apparently signed a bill in Texas when he was governor that would pull the plug on indigent patients if their money ran out.

In Texas, whether you like it or not, after 10 days, there is no obligation to provide life-sustaining treatment - unless of course you’ve got the money. Here’s the link: http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=480. Scott McClellan, the White House spinner-in-chief tried to explain it and failed - and Jeff Gannon/Guckert wasn’t there to save him. Pity.

In other related news:

The Prince of Slime, Presidential Wanna-Be Rick Santorum’s office generated these talking points for his Republican co-conspirators to use on their constituency of morons:

* This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.

* This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida - has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.

So it’s not about Terry at all, it’s about lookin’ good in the political neighborhood! Convince your right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged biblebanging bigoted butthead supporters that their values are your values.

No greater love hath a man than not to impale his neighborhood politician on a sharp object. (Note to Secret Service: This is a parody of a threat, no real threat is implied or intended.)

Oops, hot damn!

I was out of service yesterday and I'm similarly indisposed today. Nonetheless, I'll try to be cranky and post something worth reading by tomorrow AM. Sorry - no, really!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Saturday, 03/19/2005

Two years ago today, Dubya’s debacle debuted. We invaded those poor Iraqi bastards on false pretenses and we’ve flattened their country and killed perhaps 100,000 thousand of them. Terrific - freedom’s on the march at a cost of over 1500 American dead and 11,000 American wounded!

My casualty counters have inexplicably revised their totals down by one - from the standpoint of the non-dead person, that’s a good thing. We now have 22 Americans dead this month. 1380 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1520 since Bush’s War began. 1696 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,344 American men and women have been wounded, 59 between 3/09 and 3/14. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“Magnificent! Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!” George Smith Patton, General, United States Army

Pay attention here people!

The Do-Nothing Conspiracy
By David Brooks, March 19, 2005, The New York Times

If you want an image that captures what American politics will be like over the next few decades, imagine two waves crashing down upon us simultaneously, each magnifying the damage caused by the other.

The first wave is the exploding cost of the entitlement programs. The second wave is the ever-increasing polarization of the political class. The polarization will make it impossible to reach an agreement on how to fix the entitlements problem. Meanwhile the vicious choices forced on us by entitlement costs will make the polarization even worse.

The realities of the first wave - the looming fiscal crisis - are pretty well known. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will consume 14 percent of national output in 2030 and 21 percent in 2075 - up from about 8 percent today. Partly as a result, the federal government will have to come up with an extra $50 trillion just to pay for the promises it's made as of today.

To cover these costs, federal officials will have several options, all of them horrible. If they acted immediately, according to the economists Kent Smetters and Jagadeesh Gokhale, they could increase federal income taxes by 78 percent; they could double payroll taxes; they could cut Social Security and Medicare in half; or they could do some combination. [emphasis added]

Tax increases on that scale would decimate the economy. Benefit cuts would cause pain. Doing nothing would lead to enormous deficits, an immobilized government, and stratospheric interest rates. It would mean the end of the United States as a great economic power.

The realities of the second destructive wave - polarization - are also widely recognized. They can be measured by the increase in party-line voting in Congress, the bitter political atmosphere in Washington, the political segmentation of media outlets and the emergence of rigid donor and activist bases in each party that use their power to inflict Stalinist party-line orthodoxy on potentially independent leaders. [snip]

I wouldn't be surprised if many of today's politicians decided to reorient their careers. I meet too many who are quietly alarmed by the looming fiscal catastrophe and who know that if their party doesn't tackle this problem, it simply won't be relevant to the issue that will dominate politics for years to come.

David Brooks is the other Times conservative. Amazingly, he’s saying what a lot of us have been saying for a long time. There is no free lunch. What smilin’ Ron Reagan started in the 1980’s has to stop somewhere or America as we know it will cease to exist. We have to pay our bills. Paying our bills means paying taxes. Taxes mean that our politicians must actually tell the citizens that they have to be responsible.

The last person to do that was Walter Mondale, who said that he wouldn’t rule out a tax hike. His opponent, George the First, said “Read my lips, no new taxes.” We know who won. Now our “leaders” routinely run on a policy of cutting taxes and convincing Americans that there really is a free lunch.

The bill for that lunch is coming due - the longer we put it off, the bigger it will be. The Chinese may be holding it.

About the same on STD’s and more oral and anal sex - say it ain’t so!

Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says
By Ceci Connolly, March 19, 2005, The Washington Post

Teenagers who take virginity pledges -- public declarations to abstain from sex -- are almost as likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease as those who never made the pledge, an eight-year study released yesterday found.

Although young people who sign a virginity pledge delay the initiation of sexual activity, marry at younger ages and have fewer sexual partners, they are also less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with oral and anal sex, said the researchers from Yale and Columbia universities.

"The sad story is that kids who are trying to preserve their technical virginity are, in some cases, engaging in much riskier behavior.” [snip]

[The study on “virginity pledges] published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that 20 percent of those surveyed said they had taken a virginity pledge. Bearman and co-author Hannah Bruckner broke them into two categories -- "inconsistent pledgers" and "consistent pledgers" -- to reflect the fact that some changed their status or their responses between interviews. Among those youngsters, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying or prior to 2002 interviews.

Almost 7 percent of the students who did not make a pledge were diagnosed with an STD, compared with 6.4 percent of the "inconsistent pledgers" and 4.6 percent of the "consistent pledgers.” Bearman said those differences were not "statistically significant," although Robert Rector, who studies domestic policy issues at the conservative Heritage Institute, said he interpreted the data to mean that young people committed to the abstinence pledge were less likely to become infected. [snip]

In terms of high-risk behavior, the raw numbers were small, but the gap was statistically significant, Bearman said. Just 2 percent of youth who never took a pledge said they had had anal or oral sex but not intercourse, compared with 13 percent of "consistent pledgers." [emphasis added]

[snip] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., chairman of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, said the study offers an incomplete picture because it could not say whether sexually active teens who did not take a pledge had been pregnant or treated for an STD before the 2002 testing. The analysis "doesn't prove or disprove" assertions that virginity pledges are flawed, he said.

On the other hand, Bill Smith, public policy vice president for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said, "Not only do virginity pledges not work to keep our young people safe, they are causing harm by undermining condom use, contraception and medical treatment." [snip]

President Bush has requested $206 million in federal funding for abstinence-only programs this year.

Once again, abstinence-only is shown to be a useful goal - but a goal is what it should be. Young adults need the knowledge to deal with what will happen if they fail to achieve the goal of total abstinence until marriage just like the failure to meet any goal. Abstinence-only training doesn’t do that.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Friday, 03/18/2005

Two American deaths reported today. 23 Americans died this month. 1381 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1521 since Bush’s War began. 1697 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,344 American men and women have been wounded, 59 between 3/09 and 3/14. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"As I said publicly before, and I know for a fact, that torture is not - it's not productive. That's not professional interrogation. We don't do torture." Porter J. Goss, former Congressman and Director of Central Intelligence. (How does he know it’s not productive, do you think?)

Random thoughts:

The country is financially well on its way to being in the toilet; oil is getting close to $60 per barrel; a united Europe wants to start dealing with China in a more concrete way; we’ve got record trade deficits, even with our dollar in the toilet. Our President is touring the nation selling us a pig in a poke. Our military is busy with the Iraqi quagmire, costing us lives, limbs, and lots and lots of dollars. We’ve got troubles, right?

What is Congress doing? Darn, I’m glad you asked.

For starters, they’re dealing with that enormous national problem, baseball players shooting up with steroids. Damn, that was really worrying me. Ya’ know if Barry Bonds’ shoulders got any bigger, that chap would probably explode - and gosh, is he grouchy!

If that wasn’t obscene enough, we’ve got poor Terry Schiavo down in Florida. She’s been a veggie for 15 years, chowing down through a tube. One of the idiots in Congress actually stood in the well today and announced on TV that no one had ever been allowed to die before, as she will be. Duh! Only, according to the medical experts, several hundred thousand people! The dirty lying SOB - then again, he’s a member of Congress, what was I thinking? So the same whores in Congress who are so eager to preserve the life of one brain-dead woman wouldn’t provide any consideration, a while back, for the life of the mothers who reluctantly agreed to have a dilation and extraction, aka a “partial-birth abortion.” They were only worried about the fetus. Go figure.

Then we have one of my favorite comedians, Louis Black. He was on Comedy Central’s Daily Show on Thursday night. He was commenting on Wayne LaPierre. Wonderful Wayno is the NRA president. He recently defended the policy of NOT messing with the rights of folks on the terrorist watch list to buy all the guns they want. Mr. Black said: “law enforcement officials worry people might be stocking up on weapons to use in a terrorist attack. It’s kind of cute really; terrorists think they can attack us with conventional weapons? Listen up Osama, I don’t care how long you plan, I don’t care how far you go there’s no way you can kill more Americans with your guns than we already do with our own. This is the big leagues baby!”

Really, Americans are so heavily armed that the terrorists don’t stand a chance of killing more of us than we already kill. What al-Qaeda should do is buy Colt or Smith & Wesson and cut their prices by 50% so that more lunatics could buy more handguns and more assault weapons more cheaply. Damn, AmeriKans would do the killing for them. What’s not to like?

Finally, we have my least favorite retailer, WalMart. The Department of Fatherland Security recently trumpeted the a settlement with ‘ol Wallyworld wherein they paid $11 million for employing contractors who used illegal aliens to clean their stores - entirely without their knowledge of course. $11 million for the world’s largest retailer is probably less than they spend for toilet paper each day - really.

Yee-haw! Friday, time for the Rapture!

As you all are aware, our loony right-wing-fundamentalist friends at www.raptureready.com publish a weekly “Rapture Index” indicating how likely it is that the Second Coming is, well - coming.

OK, Rapture fans, the index is down one from last week’s value of 152 to 151. Remember, the record high is at 182 set the week of September 24, 2001 and the record low is at 57 and was set during the week of December 12, 1993. The change was due to a decrease of one in the “Tribulation Temple” value, which has something to do with lack of activity with the antiChrist and the temple. I guess Dick Cheney’s been out of sight for a while.

If the rapture comes, all the right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged biblebanging bigots will disappear and we’ll get their stuff. That’s surely not a bad thing.

The bad news is that a substantial number of those right-wing-fundamentalist-reality-challenged biblebanging bigoted buttheads are running our nation. These people believe that the rapture is going to happen sooner rather than later, so why not rape the earth.

Read all about the index and the values that go into the final value here.

To hell with them all.

Say good night Bruce.

Hie thyself off to read...

Friday's Daily Scribble. It's a hoot.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Thursday, 03/17/2005

No deaths reported today. 21 Americans died this month. 1379 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1519 since Bush’s War began. 1695 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,285 American men and women have been wounded, 65 between 3/02 and 3/08. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“I remember the time that I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.” Rodney Dangerfield, American comic who never receiver any respect.

This is pretty remarkable, when you consider the author:

Homeland Insecurity
By Thomas L. Friedman, March 17, 2005, The New York Times

Bush officials have always been eager to pose as the tough guys willing to make the tough decisions. On Iraq and Afghanistan, they did. But when it comes to China, the Bush administration is engaged in one of the greatest acts of unilateral disarmament ever seen in U.S. foreign policy.

National security is about so much more than just military deployments. It is also about our tax, energy, and competitiveness policies. And if you look at all these areas, the Bush team has not only been steadily eroding America's leverage and room for maneuver vis-à-vis its biggest long-term competitor - China - but it has actually been making us more dependent than ever on Beijing. Indeed, if the Bush policies were wrapped into a single legislative bill it could be called "The U.S.-China Dependency Act."

The excessive tax cuts for the rich, combined with a total lack of discipline on spending by the Bush team and its Republican-run Congress, have helped China become the second-largest holder of U.S. debt, with a little under $200 billion worth. No, I don't think China will start dumping its T-bills on a whim. But don't tell me that as China buys up more and more of our debt - and that is the only way we can finance the tax holiday the Bush team wants to make permanent - it won't limit our room to maneuver with Beijing, should it take aggressive steps toward Taiwan. [snip].

On energy, the Bush team's obsession with drilling in the Alaskan wilderness to increase supply is mind-boggling. "I am sure China will be thrilled with the Bush decision to drill in Alaska," said the noted energy economist Philip Verleger Jr. "Oil in Alaska cannot easily or efficiently be shipped to our Gulf Coast refineries. The logical markets are on the West Coast of the United States and in Asia. Consumers in China and Japan, not the U.S., will be the real beneficiaries of any big Alaska find.

"With a big find, China and Japan will be able to increase imports from a dependable supplier - the U.S. - while consumers in the U.S. will still be at the mercy of unreliable suppliers, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is simple geography. [Also], a big find will lead to lower prices in the short term, promoting more emissions and more warming."

Moreover, focusing exclusively on squeezing out a little more supply will only discourage conservation, Mr. Verleger added, setting the stage for higher prices again in three or four years - "when exhausting oil reserves and burgeoning demand from China and India will drive the price of oil to well above $100 a barrel.” That will put even more money in the pockets of some of the world's worst governments. [snip]

I am not a China basher. We need to engage China, and help accommodate its rising power with the world system, but the only way to do that is from a position of strength. But everything the Bush team is doing is ensuring that it will be from a position of weakness.

Tom Friedman is one of the Times’ token conservatives. If he’s saying things like this, imagine how bad things really are.

Thursday - time for something completely different:

This just in from a source even more credible than either the Weekly World News or Fox News, The Borowitz Report. Eat you heart out, Bill O’Reilly.

U.S. LIST OF POSSIBLE TERROR PLOTS “NOT DETAILED ENOUGH,” COMPLAINS BIN LADEN: Rips ‘Shoddy’ List on Al-Jazeera
Thursday, March 17, 2005

Hours after a Homeland Security Dept. list of ideas for terror attacks against the U.S. appeared on several public websites, al-Qaeda terror kingpin Osama bin Laden took to the airwaves to blast the list for being “not detailed enough.”

Appearing on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera network, a visibly angry Mr. bin Laden held up a copy of the list of terror attacks and said, “You call this a terror attack list? I could do a better terror attack list in my freaking sleep.”

Mr. bin Laden said that the government’s suggestion that terrorists try to spread pneumonic plague in public bathrooms was “less than helpful,” adding, “It doesn’t even say where I’m supposed to get the pneumonic plague in the first place.”

Ditto, the madman said, for the government’s suggestion of blowing up chlorine storage tanks: “It would have been kind of nice to know where those tanks are, guys – ever hear of Mapquest?”

Speaking from his home, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge defended the quality of his department’s work: “It may not meet Mr. Osama bin Laden’s high standards, but we worked darn hard on that list.”

For his part, Mr. bin Laden called the list “shoddy,” adding, “Right now, this thing reads like my wish-list at Amazon.”

Elsewhere, moments after President Bush nominated him to head up the World Bank, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz accused the International Monetary Fund of possessing weapons of mass destruction and said he would lead a coalition of other banks to invade it.

Yup, some days it’s almost not worth getting out of bed - I mean, jeez, you can’t please anyone. Holy crap!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Wednesday, 03/16/2005

OK, we lost a day. I couldn’t get to the casualty count last night and couldn’t get to the blogger software this morning. Go figure. So, we’ve got two day’s worth of Bush mayhem and murder to report:

Three Americans and one Italian are reported dead. 21 Americans died this month. 1379 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1519 since Bush’s War began. 1695 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,285 American men and women have been wounded, 65 between 3/02 and 3/08. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals.

If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals.

If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals.

If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals.

If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals.

Joe Conason, American author and journalist

You have to wonder about the agenda here.

Armed and Dangerous: The NRA squashed legislation that would have helped keep firearms away from suspected terrorists.
By David Lieber, 03.11.05, The American Prospect

In January 2004, Congress stripped from the FBI the authority to retain firearm background-check records of presumptively legal gun buyers for more than 24 hours. The policy, championed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, seemed particularly unwise in light of the warnings from Bush administration officials that terrorism could manifest itself in any number of ways.

At the time, the National Rifle Association (NRA) chided gun-control proponents for seeking to sneak their political agenda under the rubric of terrorism policy. The implications of this policy, however, were difficult to ignore.

On Tuesday, March 8, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study that documented dozens of instances where suspected terrorists on federal watch lists were able to purchase firearms with impunity. In 47 of 58 instances over a nine-month period in 2004, suspected terrorists were approved by the FBI to purchase firearms because the background check revealed no disqualifying characteristic (such as a conviction for a felony). [snip]

Prior to February 2004, when a firearm was mistakenly given to an individual who's prohibiting from purchasing one, law-enforcement officials could initiate what is called a "firearm-retrieval action" to obtain the weapon from the individual who has purchased it, as well as prosecute him or her. Under prior law, the FBI was able to retain the records of approved gun purchasers for up to 60 days. [snip]

That such a development could come to fruition seemed intuitively obvious to the FBI Agents Association, which, prior to the enactment of the 24-hour destruction policy, opined that “the more the retention period is reduced, the more difficult it would become to use the paperwork to investigate or prosecute crimes related to the use of sales of the firearms in question.”

Osama bin Laden has been a fugitive on the run since September 11, 2001. If we can’t catch the most wanted criminal on earth in less than 40 months, how can we expect the FBI to catch a terrorist with a gun in 24 hours?

The power that the NRA wields over congress is remarkable! Then again, the NRA’s gang of single-issue voters is large indeed and when asked to jump, only asks “how high?” They really wield clout galore. Wayne LaPierre (oooh! French sounding!), the NRA’s president, was just on the tube defending the rights of folks on the terrorism watch list to freely buy guns, no questions asked. Personally, I’d prefer that they wait a day or two extra and be asked a few questions. How about you?

Biblebanging bigots beget bullcrap.

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens
By Peter Slevin, March 14, 2005, The Washington Post

WICHITA – Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.

The growing trend has alarmed scientists and educators who consider it a masked effort to replace science with theology. But 80 years after the Scopes "monkey" trial -- in which a Tennessee man was prosecuted for violating state law by teaching evolution -- it is the anti-evolutionary scientists and Christian activists who say they are the ones being persecuted, by a liberal establishment. [snip]

A prominent effort is underway in Kansas, where the state Board of Education intends to revise teaching standards. [snip]

Polls show that a large majority of Americans believe God alone created man or had a guiding hand. Advocates invoke the First Amendment and say the current campaigns are partly about respect for those beliefs.

"It's an academic freedom proposal. What we would like to foment is a civil discussion about science. That falls right down the middle of the fairway of American pluralism," said the Discovery Institute's Stephen C. Meyer, who believes evolution alone cannot explain life's unfurling. "We are interested in seeing that spread state by state across the country."

Some evolution opponents are trying to use Bush's No Child Left Behind law, saying it creates an opening for states to set new teaching standards. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a Christian who draws on Discovery Institute material, drafted language accompanying the law that said students should be exposed to "the full range of scientific views that exist."

"Anyone who expresses anything other than the dominant worldview is shunned and booted from the academy," Santorum said in an interview. "My reading of the science is there's a legitimate debate. My feeling is let the debate be had." [snip]

The efforts are not limited to schools. From offices overlooking Puget Sound, Meyer is waging a careful campaign to change the way Americans think about the natural world. The Discovery Institute devotes about 85 percent of its budget to funding scientists, with other money going to public action campaigns.

Discovery Institute raised money for "Unlocking the Mystery of Life," a DVD produced by Illustra Media and shown on PBS stations in major markets. The institute has sponsored opinion polls and underwrites research for books sold in secular and Christian bookstores. Its newest project is to establish a science laboratory.

Meyer said the institute accepts money from such wealthy conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives," and the Maclellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture."

"We'll take money from anyone who wants to give it to us," Meyer said. "Everyone has motives. Let's acknowledge that and get on with the interesting part." [emphasis added]

[snip] The idea was to sow doubt about Darwin and buy time for the 40-plus scientists affiliated with the institute to perfect the theory, Meyer said. Also, by deferring a debate about whether God was the intelligent designer, the strategy avoids the defeats suffered by creationists who tried to oust evolution from the classroom and ran afoul of the Constitution.[snip]

Fox -- pastor of the largest Southern Baptist church in the Midwest, drawing 6,000 worshipers a week to his Wichita church -- said the compromise is an important tactic. "The strategy this time is not to go for the whole enchilada. We're trying to be a little more subtle," he said.

To fundamentalist Christians, Fox said, the fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda would advance.

"If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot harder to get rid of that baby," Fox said. "If you can cause enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die.” [emphasis added]

Like Meyer, Fox is glad to make common cause with people who do not entirely agree.

"Creationism's going to be our big battle. We're hoping that Kansas will be the model, and we're in it for the long haul," Fox said. He added that it does not matter "who gets the credit, as long as we win."

So, Dear Reader, we see the slimy hand of Rick Santorum, again, the über-Christian who would be president while cheating the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania out of their tax dollars.

But I digress - it’s ironic that evolution is not inconsistent with the thought that a supreme being may have created the world. All one has to do is allow God’s day to be longer than 24 hours. Sadly, our biblebanging bigoted brethren think that the bible is a fax directly from God; they can’t even make that reasonable compromise. And - I presume a number think the bible was written directly in English for their reading enjoyment; never translated or interpreted, much less dozens of times. If each of God’s days were an eon or two, evolution and creation can coexist fairly peaceably. Oh well, the Rapture is surely coming, or not?

Sadly the Bush constituency seems to want to ensure that America becomes a second-class power in virtually every way. Our profligate borrowing is going to ensure our economic doom. Our enthusiasm to force our head into the sand scientifically adds more kindling to the national funeral pyre. Already our standing vice other nations on standardized tests is lousy. I’m sure such enlightened science education will help bunches. What’s next? The “stork-based” theory of procreation? God help America.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Monday, 03/14/2005

No coalition deaths reported today. 18 Americans died this month. 1376 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1516 since Bush’s War began. 1691 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,285 American men and women have been wounded, 65 between 3/02 and 3/08. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell." Aleister Crowley, late British mystic and occultist

Can you imagine?

Women voters grill Blair on television
By Agence France Presse via Yahoo, March 13, 2005

LONDON (AFP) - Women voters grilled Prime Minister Tony Blair on live television over his justification of the Iraq war and the crucial issue of trust in his leadership. With an election looming as soon as May, Blair faced an audience of disenchanted women who voted Labour in 2001 -- but might not in the future.

Blair was repeatedly challenged over the Iraq war and was asked by one audience member to apologise for the conflict in order to regain public trust. One woman told Blair: "Will you have the humility to tell us you actually made a mistake, because if you did I would vote for you again."

Blair responded: "I'm very sorry, if you want me to say I regret the decision to go to conflict, I can't do that for you". "All I can do is tell you it was the toughest decision I ever had to take ... I still believe it to be right."

He also insisted he had not misrepresented intelligence on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. "I have apologised for the intelligence being flawed although I honestly represented the intelligence to people that we had at the time," he said.

Other women did not mince their words on the programme, broadcast on the ITV network.

"You have lost my respect," one said, while another stated: "You're constantly failing to meet the criteria you set yourself in 1997" after Labour's first election win.

The female electorate is considered crucial in the run-up to elections, as historically women change their party allegiance more easily than men.

An opinion poll published Sunday suggested that female voters are turning increasingly against Blair.

According to the survey conducted for the News of the World newspaper, only nine percent of female voters want Blair to carry out his stated intention of serving a third consecutive term in office.

In AmeriKa, you have to sign a loyalty oath and get approved by the Rethuglican Party to even enter the hall, much less ask the “President” a question. Will Dear Leader ever face a hostile crowd like this? Not in your lifetime.

I’m tired.

Say goodnight Bruce!

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Sunday, 03/13/2005

Two Americans reported dead today, 18 Americans for the month. 1376 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1516 since Bush’s War began. 1691 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,285 American men and women have been wounded, 65 between 3/02 and 3/081. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Bunches of Iraqis were reported slain today, but we generally don’t give a damn, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

"If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?" John Cleese, British comedian and acrobat in Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Cynthia Tucker is always worth reading.

She’s the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Editorial page. No dummy she!

Bush cheats those he owes
By Cynthia Tucker, 03/13/05, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Opinion

President Bush didn't campaign on a promise to make it harder for average Americans to regain their financial footing after filing for bankruptcy. Even if he had, he probably would have been re-elected anyway.

Most Americans haven't noticed the president's relentless assault on programs and policies that protect the middle-class against the caprice of the marketplace. If average Americans are living with a higher degree of financial anxiety, they blame outsourcing or high taxes or illegal Mexican immigrants. They haven't recognized that the Republicans have middle America in their cross hairs and that Bush has given the order to fire. [snip]

Financial industry lobbyists claim they are only going after deadbeats who can afford to pay, but the research suggests otherwise. A few deadbeats may indeed file for bankruptcy to get out of paying for cars or big-screen TVs they knew they couldn't afford. But the vast majority, experts say, have been forced into substantial debt by some unforeseen personal catastrophe — death of the major breadwinner, job loss or medical crisis, for example.

Meanwhile, the rich will not be held to the same standard. They are free to be deadbeats. Senators defeated an amendment to the bill that would have closed loopholes allowing the wealthy to hold onto their mansions and other assets when they file for bankruptcy. They also turned back an amendment that would prevent corrupt companies, such as Enron, from sheltering assets that ought to go to former employees. But the Senate wouldn't accept an amendment that would have allowed the not-rich elderly to keep their houses if they go bankrupt.

More than a hundred bankruptcy experts sent a letter to Congress predicting that the people most likely to be hurt by the new bankruptcy law live in the red states that always vote for the GOP, including Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. With many of their residents struggling to stay afloat, those states have a substantial number of personal bankruptcy filings. The letter made not one bit of difference.

Years from now, sociologists and political scientists may be able to explain how Republicans persuaded so many voters to act against their own economic interests. Even as the GOP heaps more and more benefits on the wealthy and Big Business — tax breaks, so-called tort reform, anti-union policies — and strips them from average workers, the party continues to get much of its support from those same workers.

It's a mystery.

[snip] The rewrite of the bankruptcy laws comes after a series of other developments that have frayed the safety net for average families. Even as job security declines, unemployment compensation has been reduced. Guaranteed pensions are disappearing, as is employer-provided health insurance. While wealthy Americans are coddled, working Americans are being subjected to the whims of a rapacious capitalism.

But Bush didn't say that during the last campaign. Instead, he talked about an "ownership society.” He neglected to explain that most of the owning would be done by the rich.

I bolded the text above. I worked for years with guys who were basically blue-collar guys. Their folks didn’t go to college, their kids generally haven’t gone to college, they didn’t go to college. Through good fortune, the military, and Uncle Sam, we all made a lot of money as air traffic controllers. When I retired in 1999, I was earning $100K per year - pretty good money for 80-hours per week and all we needed was a GED and military service when we came to work in the late 1960’s.

Most, no, virtually all of my former co-workers just love George Bush. They think he’s virtually the second coming of Christ. Yet he’s destroying everything their blue-collar kids have protecting them. He’s destroying most of the things their middle class kids have protecting them. Go figure - it’s a mystery.

Here’s a letter I wish I’d been clever enough to write:

A Succinct Analysis

Here’s a succinct analysis of the past election:

The Democrats’ mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war, national bankruptcy, erosion of liberties, corporate takeover of government, environmental destruction, squandering our economic and moral leadership in the world, and systematic administration lying would be of concern to the electorate.

The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion.

Karla Helmick
Winchester, Virginia
Winchester Star, February 22, 2005

Is that great or what? Sadly the Star’s letters are not available on line. I got the hard copy on Friday from a friend. I love it.

Iraq Casualty Count as of 9:00 PM EST, Saturday, 03/12/2005

No coalition deaths reported today, 16 Americans for the month. 1374 Americans have perished since the “Mission Accomplished” sign was hung on the aircraft carrier; 1514 since Bush’s War began. 1689 men and women from the participating nations have died since the onset of Bush’s war.

11,285 American men and women have been wounded, 65 between 3/02 and 3/081. These data come from Iraq Coalition Casualties who can use your financial support.

Iraqis continue to be blown to bits and otherwise slaughtered by the score, with tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed and the infrastructure virtually destroyed.

Quote for the Day

“For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.” Albert Camus, French-Algerian philosopher and author

This just in:

Courtesy of John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

Bush Aide Will Aim to Repair U.S. Image
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush will nominate one of his closest longtime advisers to a key State Department post in an effort to help repair the United States' image abroad, especially in the Arab world, a senior administration official said Saturday. [snip]

She will be responsible for improving U.S. diplomats' face-to-face contact overseas and will oversee an array of programs, such as radio broadcasts that place American ideas and news before foreign audiences.

The post has been vacant since last summer.

Sooo, Karen Hughes, former local Texas anchorperson, Bush buddy, advisor, and administration hotty is going to fill this KEY POSITION - THAT’S BEEN VACANT SINCE LAST SUMMER!

What’s wrong with this picture?