Showing posts with label My God What Have We Done. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My God What Have We Done. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Hoist. Petard. Even...
From the 2008 platform of the Republican Party, presented at its convention early in September:
"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."
"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Arctic Climate Tipping Point Happening Now! Sea Ice in Its “Death Spiral” Scientist Claims
from Treehugger and BBC:
After yesterday’s ominous news that North American permafrost (and presumably European and Asian, as well) stores 60% more greenhouse gases than we thought, here’s another siren announcing that we are rushing full speed ahead towards a climatic tipping point:
Scientists are reporting that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic is at the second lowest point on record. Currently ice covers 2.03 million square miles; last year's sea ice coverage, 1.59 million square miles, set the record. In the past ten years Arctic sea ice has declined 10 percent.
Given the seriousness of the situation, I’ll let the scientists speak for themselves:
We Are Watching the Tipping Point Happen
Climate Change Happening More Quickly Than Models Have Predicted
As a commenter pointed out in my post on permafrost from yesterday, this is really the sort of news that should be on the front page of every newspaper, at the top of the broadcast of every nightly news service. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.
It's hard to not sound shrill with this: Climate change is happening more quickly than we thought in the Arctic and the frozen soils in the region contain a lot more stored carbon than the models used so far. Unless we get a handle on this now (yesterday would've been even better) global warming could very well overtake our efforts to slow it. That's not to say that we should throw in the towel (as no doubt some people will think) but rather is another sign that we have to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a global level.
After yesterday’s ominous news that North American permafrost (and presumably European and Asian, as well) stores 60% more greenhouse gases than we thought, here’s another siren announcing that we are rushing full speed ahead towards a climatic tipping point:
Scientists are reporting that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic is at the second lowest point on record. Currently ice covers 2.03 million square miles; last year's sea ice coverage, 1.59 million square miles, set the record. In the past ten years Arctic sea ice has declined 10 percent.
Given the seriousness of the situation, I’ll let the scientists speak for themselves:
We Are Watching the Tipping Point Happen
Mark Serreze, a scientist from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado was quoted by Reuters:
Serreze also told the AP that:
We could very well be in that quick slide downward in terms of passing a tipping point. It’s tipping now. We’re seeing it happen now.
Climate Change Happening More Quickly Than Models Have Predicted
The same article quoted NASA ice scientist Jaw Zwally as saying that within 5-10 years the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer. He added that this also means that:
As a commenter pointed out in my post on permafrost from yesterday, this is really the sort of news that should be on the front page of every newspaper, at the top of the broadcast of every nightly news service. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.
It's hard to not sound shrill with this: Climate change is happening more quickly than we thought in the Arctic and the frozen soils in the region contain a lot more stored carbon than the models used so far. Unless we get a handle on this now (yesterday would've been even better) global warming could very well overtake our efforts to slow it. That's not to say that we should throw in the towel (as no doubt some people will think) but rather is another sign that we have to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a global level.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study
from TerraDaily:
Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday.
And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account.
Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen permafrost covering one fifth of the world's land mass would, if thawed, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But until now they simply did not have a good idea of how much carbon is actually locked inside this Arctic freezer.
To find out, a team of American researchers led by Chien-Lu Ping of the University of Alaska Fairbanks examined a wide range of landscapes across North America.
They took soil samples from 117 sites, each to a depth of at least one metre, in order to provide a full assessment of the region's so-called "carbon pool."
Previous estimates of the Arctic carbon pool relied heavily on a relative handful of measurements conducted outside of the Arctic, and only to a depth of 40 centimetres (15.5 inches).
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent of one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere.
And that is just for North America. The size and mix of landscapes in the northern reaches of Europe and Russia are about the same, and probably contain a comparable amount of carbon-dioxide producing matter currently held in check only by the cold, the study said.
And the danger of a thaw is real, note climate scientists.
The Nobel Prize-winning UN panel of climate change scientists project temperature increases by century's end of up to six degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic region, which is more sensitive to global warming than any other part of the planet.
Commenting on the research, Christian Beer of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, pointed out that the climate change models upon which future projections are based, do not include the potential impact of the gases trapped frozen Arctic soils.
"Releasing even a portion of this carbon into the atmosphere, in the form of methane or carbon dioxide, would have an significant impact on Earth's climate," he noted in his commentary, also published in Nature Geoscience.
Methane, another greenhouse gas, is less abundant than carbon dioxide but several times more potent as a driver of global warming.
And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account.
Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen permafrost covering one fifth of the world's land mass would, if thawed, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But until now they simply did not have a good idea of how much carbon is actually locked inside this Arctic freezer.
To find out, a team of American researchers led by Chien-Lu Ping of the University of Alaska Fairbanks examined a wide range of landscapes across North America.
They took soil samples from 117 sites, each to a depth of at least one metre, in order to provide a full assessment of the region's so-called "carbon pool."
Previous estimates of the Arctic carbon pool relied heavily on a relative handful of measurements conducted outside of the Arctic, and only to a depth of 40 centimetres (15.5 inches).
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent of one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere.
And that is just for North America. The size and mix of landscapes in the northern reaches of Europe and Russia are about the same, and probably contain a comparable amount of carbon-dioxide producing matter currently held in check only by the cold, the study said.
And the danger of a thaw is real, note climate scientists.
The Nobel Prize-winning UN panel of climate change scientists project temperature increases by century's end of up to six degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic region, which is more sensitive to global warming than any other part of the planet.
Commenting on the research, Christian Beer of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, pointed out that the climate change models upon which future projections are based, do not include the potential impact of the gases trapped frozen Arctic soils.
"Releasing even a portion of this carbon into the atmosphere, in the form of methane or carbon dioxide, would have an significant impact on Earth's climate," he noted in his commentary, also published in Nature Geoscience.
Methane, another greenhouse gas, is less abundant than carbon dioxide but several times more potent as a driver of global warming.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Earth Near Tipping Point, Climatologist Warns
from the Toronto Star:
WASHINGTON-James Hansen returned to Capitol Hill a hero yesterday, but certainly not a conquering hero.
The soft-spoken scientist, hailed as the “whistle-blower for the planet,” tried to quiet a standing ovation from environmentalists here with a typically blunt admonition.
“It is not a time to celebrate,” said Hansen, 20 years to the day since he became the first leading scientist to warn of the dangers of global warming before a congressional committee.
He returned not to bask in any adulation, but to warn that the Earth is nearing a tipping point, to call for a national carbon tax and to say that CEOs of energy companies may be guilty of crimes against humanity and nature.
On June 23, 1988, by most accounts, the temperature in the committee room hovered at 38C and the U.S. was in the midst of a historic drought when Hansen told a Senate committee he was “99 per cent certain” that humans were warming the global climate.
His comments brought the issue to American consciousness.
The following day, The New York Times carried an account under the headline:
Global warming has begun, expert tells Senate.
Although global warming alarms had been sounding for more than a decade and Canadian scientists were warning of the greenhouse effect in the early 1980s, Hansen’s testimony seemed to crystallize the concern and provide the first jolt to the mass media in this country.
Two decades later, now 67 and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, his message has not changed.
“We have reached a point of planetary emergency,” he said.
“There are tipping points in the climate system, which we are very close to, and if we pass them, the dynamics of the system take over and carry you to very large changes which are out of your control.”
During a speech at the National Press Club, he rambled, as if his ideas were sprinting well ahead of his words, but he kept an overflow ballroom audience rapt.
Already, he said, the world’s safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been exceeded.
Yet, in the 20 years since he first testified, no major U.S. law restricting greenhouse gas emissions has been passed, 21 new coal-fired generating units have been built at power plants in this country and total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have climbed by about 18 per cent.
“If there is any single moment that marked the turning point where the climate issue became a serious public policy issue, June 23, 1988, had to be seen as that moment,” said Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute.
“(Yesterday) may mark a second kind of turning point.”
Tim Wirth, the onetime Democratic Colorado senator who organized the hearing that day, said he knew he had made much progress with Hansen’s testimony when a report made the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.
“It was a brave and lonely leadership role he played then, and he hasn’t stopped one day since,” Wirth said.
Hansen’s second Capitol Hill appearance in 1989 was before a committee chaired by a Tennessee senator named Al Gore, but the White House edited his statement before Gore’s committee, throwing into question his certainty about the link between human activity and global warming.
Hansen was told he could accept the revisions, or he would not be able to testify.
So, in advance of the hearing, he asked Gore to question him on the edited parts, he then revealed the White House edit and the story led all U.S. network newscasts that evening. Hansen then moved out of the political spotlight for 15 years.
Yesterday, Hansen warned of greater forest fire risk in Canada, the extinction of polar and alpine species, danger to the coral reefs and the ocean life that depends on them because of carbon dioxide in the oceans, and refugees from melting ice sheets in Greenland and the western Antarctic.
He called for a phase-out of all coal-burning power plants by 2030 except those in which carbon dioxide is captured and buried and he called for a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas.
The tax, he said, should be returned in full to the public - not used by government - in equal amounts for each adult and a half-share for children, deposited directly into bank accounts or credited to debit cards.
Such a non-regressive tax, Hansen says, will spur low and middle-income people to limit their tax while profligate users will pay for their excesses.
He also accused corporate America of a “greenwash” in which their environmentally friendly words are not backed by actions and he supported criminal charges against CEOs of corporations such as ExxonMobil who are smart enough to know the situation but are intent on continuing their fossil fuel ways.
“When their descendants look back on them, they should not to be able to pretend that they didn’t know,” Hansen said.
“They do know.”
They are also guilty of funding and promoting contrarian views from scientists, furthering a charade that confuses the public into believing there is debate among scientists in this country, Hansen said.
“There is no debate,” he said.
Next year, with a new president, a new direction is desperately needed, Hansen said.
He said a call for offshore drilling, sounded last week both by U.S. President George W. Bush and Republican presumptive nominee John McCain is “crazy.”
“To go around drilling for the last drop of oil on the continental shelf will extend our addiction a little bit, but it will put us past the tipping point,” he said.
WASHINGTON-James Hansen returned to Capitol Hill a hero yesterday, but certainly not a conquering hero.
The soft-spoken scientist, hailed as the “whistle-blower for the planet,” tried to quiet a standing ovation from environmentalists here with a typically blunt admonition.
“It is not a time to celebrate,” said Hansen, 20 years to the day since he became the first leading scientist to warn of the dangers of global warming before a congressional committee.
He returned not to bask in any adulation, but to warn that the Earth is nearing a tipping point, to call for a national carbon tax and to say that CEOs of energy companies may be guilty of crimes against humanity and nature.
On June 23, 1988, by most accounts, the temperature in the committee room hovered at 38C and the U.S. was in the midst of a historic drought when Hansen told a Senate committee he was “99 per cent certain” that humans were warming the global climate.
His comments brought the issue to American consciousness.
The following day, The New York Times carried an account under the headline:
Global warming has begun, expert tells Senate.
Although global warming alarms had been sounding for more than a decade and Canadian scientists were warning of the greenhouse effect in the early 1980s, Hansen’s testimony seemed to crystallize the concern and provide the first jolt to the mass media in this country.
Two decades later, now 67 and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, his message has not changed.
“We have reached a point of planetary emergency,” he said.
“There are tipping points in the climate system, which we are very close to, and if we pass them, the dynamics of the system take over and carry you to very large changes which are out of your control.”
During a speech at the National Press Club, he rambled, as if his ideas were sprinting well ahead of his words, but he kept an overflow ballroom audience rapt.
Already, he said, the world’s safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been exceeded.
Yet, in the 20 years since he first testified, no major U.S. law restricting greenhouse gas emissions has been passed, 21 new coal-fired generating units have been built at power plants in this country and total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have climbed by about 18 per cent.
“If there is any single moment that marked the turning point where the climate issue became a serious public policy issue, June 23, 1988, had to be seen as that moment,” said Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute.
“(Yesterday) may mark a second kind of turning point.”
Tim Wirth, the onetime Democratic Colorado senator who organized the hearing that day, said he knew he had made much progress with Hansen’s testimony when a report made the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.
“It was a brave and lonely leadership role he played then, and he hasn’t stopped one day since,” Wirth said.
Hansen’s second Capitol Hill appearance in 1989 was before a committee chaired by a Tennessee senator named Al Gore, but the White House edited his statement before Gore’s committee, throwing into question his certainty about the link between human activity and global warming.
Hansen was told he could accept the revisions, or he would not be able to testify.
So, in advance of the hearing, he asked Gore to question him on the edited parts, he then revealed the White House edit and the story led all U.S. network newscasts that evening. Hansen then moved out of the political spotlight for 15 years.
Yesterday, Hansen warned of greater forest fire risk in Canada, the extinction of polar and alpine species, danger to the coral reefs and the ocean life that depends on them because of carbon dioxide in the oceans, and refugees from melting ice sheets in Greenland and the western Antarctic.
He called for a phase-out of all coal-burning power plants by 2030 except those in which carbon dioxide is captured and buried and he called for a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas.
The tax, he said, should be returned in full to the public - not used by government - in equal amounts for each adult and a half-share for children, deposited directly into bank accounts or credited to debit cards.
Such a non-regressive tax, Hansen says, will spur low and middle-income people to limit their tax while profligate users will pay for their excesses.
He also accused corporate America of a “greenwash” in which their environmentally friendly words are not backed by actions and he supported criminal charges against CEOs of corporations such as ExxonMobil who are smart enough to know the situation but are intent on continuing their fossil fuel ways.
“When their descendants look back on them, they should not to be able to pretend that they didn’t know,” Hansen said.
“They do know.”
They are also guilty of funding and promoting contrarian views from scientists, furthering a charade that confuses the public into believing there is debate among scientists in this country, Hansen said.
“There is no debate,” he said.
Next year, with a new president, a new direction is desperately needed, Hansen said.
He said a call for offshore drilling, sounded last week both by U.S. President George W. Bush and Republican presumptive nominee John McCain is “crazy.”
“To go around drilling for the last drop of oil on the continental shelf will extend our addiction a little bit, but it will put us past the tipping point,” he said.
Monday, June 23, 2008
As for you Mr Bush, you and your little cabal of thieving, duplicitous venal war criminals are not fit to lick the boots of a true patriot like General Taguba.
From McClatchy:
General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.
The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.
A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.(more)
WASHINGTON — The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.
The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.
A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.(more)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day, 2008
Memorial Day reminds us to support the troops in the best way possible by BRINGING THEM HOME NOW!!!
Do not be misled.
This war is about oil.
It is about once again having the poor die to grow the wealth of the rich.
The powerful have cynically chosen to kill the weak to gather a few dollars more.
We need to stand tall and not back down.
The troops are being misused, mistreated and mislaid by those in power.
We must not forget their sacrifice and we must honor their service.
Do not be misled.
This war is about oil.
It is about once again having the poor die to grow the wealth of the rich.
The powerful have cynically chosen to kill the weak to gather a few dollars more.
We need to stand tall and not back down.
The troops are being misused, mistreated and mislaid by those in power.
We must not forget their sacrifice and we must honor their service.
Bring them Home Now!
Support the New GI Bill.
And never forget the fools who chose money over their precious lives.
(I found this poem on a public poetry site. It expresses its truth so much better than I can.)
______________________________________________
The Patriot Game by kendall thomas
~I am the grass that covers all
And sucks summer through their teeth~
I come to his grave beneath its bright pennon,
but I do not wonder why he went. I know.
It is because he was young and didn’t believe that old men lie.
That’s why young men die.
I stand by his grave and want to hold his hand once more,
as I did when he was a child, to stare into his eyes and to see his
smile.
But that can never be, for the game is done.
I do not wonder why he went. I know.
Because he heard the siren call and believed it was Liberty that called.
And being young and naive, he wanted to fight for Victory and Glory-
but only the mountebanks have won.
I cannot speak to him; for he no longer hears; so I whisper to the grass
which covers all young men and sucks summer through their teeth:
It is not your fault for having gone.
It is ours who kept silent and let you go for fear of drawing attention
to ourselves.
It is to parents who would not say “No more; not this one, you evil
bastards! ”
But all are cowards when ‘Liberty’ raises her flaming sword,
and the wealthy, like jaded whores, get richer off the blood that young
men pour.
And we pretend on Memorial Day that some great deed was done.
But I stand above this grave and know that nothing’s won.
One smile again from my dead son would cancel out all the bombs
that madmen have ever flung. But the game is done.
Ah,
how little I must have valued those trusting arms around my neck when
he was young.
No more kisses for your daddy now.
No more my warm, soft son.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
He's Dead!
"[T]hrowing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen." Falwell on the 700 Club shortly after 9/11
You can still kiss my ass, you bigoted scum-sucking hypocrite. Hope you enjoy the hell out of hell!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Poverty Gap in US Has Widened under Bush
People wonder why I get so angry about BushCo and its policies. These are real people living in real pain. Having grown up in circumstances similar to those described here, I can assure you that it wasn't because my Dad was lazy or didn't try' or that we were expendable. Neither are these folks.
Poverty deepens when the wealthy don't care. Poverty deepens when the super wealthy simply get greedy. No other explanation is possible.
Published on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 by the Independent / UK
by Andrew Gumbel
The number of Americans living in severe poverty has expanded dramatically under the Bush administration, with nearly 16 million people now living on an individual income of less than $5,000 (£2,500) a year or a family income of less than $10,000, according to an analysis of 2005 official census data.
The analysis, by the McClatchy group of newspapers, showed that the number of people living in extreme poverty had grown by 26 per cent since 2000. Poverty as a whole has worsened, too, but the number of severe poor is growing 56 per cent faster than the overall segment of the population characterised as poor - about 37 million people in all according to the census data. That represents more than 10 per cent of the US population, which recently surpassed the 300 million mark.
The widening of the income gap between haves and have-nots is nothing new in America - it has been going on steadily since the late 1970s. What is new, though, is the rapid increase in numbers at the bottom of the socio-economic pile. The numbers of severely poor have increased faster than any other segment of the population.
"That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began," one of the McClatchy study's co-authors, Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, said. "We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty."
The causes of the problem are no mystery to sociologists and political scientists. The share of national income going to corporate profits has far outstripped the share going to wages and salaries. Manufacturing jobs with benefits and union protection have vanished and been supplanted by low-wage, low-security service-sector work. The richest fifth of US households enjoys more than 50 per cent of the national income, while the poorest fifth gets by on an estimated 3.5 per cent.
The average after-tax income of the top 1 per cent is 63 times larger than the average for the bottom 20 per cent - both because the rich have grown richer and also because the poor have grown poorer; about 19 per cent poorer since the late 1970s. The middle class, too, has been squeezed ever tighter. Every income group except for the top 20 per cent has lost ground in the past 30 years, regardless of whether the economy has boomed or tanked.
These figures are rarely discussed in political forums in America in part because the economy has, in large part, ceased to be regarded as a political issue - John Edwards' "two Americas" theme in his presidential campaign being a rare exception - and because the right-wing think-tanks that have sprouted and thrived since the Reagan administration have done a good job of minimising the importance of the trends.
They have argued, in fact, that the poverty statistics are misleading because of the mobility of US society. A small number of left-wing think-tanks, such as the Economic Policy Institute, meanwhile, argue that the census figures are almost certainly lower than the real picture because many people living in extreme poverty do not answer census questionnaires.
United States poverty league: States with the most people in severe poverty
California 1.9m
Texas 1.6m
New York 1.2m
Florida 943,670
Illinois 681,786
Ohio 657,415
Pennsylvania 618,229
Michigan 576,428
Georgia 562,014
North Carolina 523,511
Monday, February 05, 2007
Another day that will live in infamy.
from Axis of Evel Knievel:
Powell has since described the speech as a "blot" on his record and the "lowest point in my life."
On 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations Security Council to present the United States’ case for disarming Saddam Hussein. Among the many fabulous details conveyed by the general that day, Powell warned that
our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly 5 times the size of Manhattan.Let me remind you that, of the 122 millimeter chemical warheads that the U.N. inspectors found recently, this discovery could very well be, as has been noted, the tip of the submerged iceberg.
The question before us, all my friends, is when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg?
Powell has since described the speech as a "blot" on his record and the "lowest point in my life."
Jesus Christ on a raft!
from Lawyers, Guns & Money:
Answering questions from students at Moscow University in late May 1988, Ronald Reagan offered these observations:
Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land. We have provided millions of acres of land for what are called preservations—or reservations, I should say. They, from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life, as they had always lived there in the desert and the plains and so forth. And we set up these reservations so they could, and have a Bureau of Indian Affairs to help take care of them. At the same time, we provide education for them—schools on the reservations. And they're free also to leave the reservations and be American citizens among the rest of us, and many do. Some still prefer, however, that way—that early way of life. And we've done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in . . . wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, no, come join us; be citizens along with the rest of us. As I say, many have; many have been very successful.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Climate change moves 'Doomsday Clock' closer to midnight
from BBC:
Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind.
As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to midnight.
The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, now stands at five minutes to the hour.
The clock was first featured by the magazine 60 years ago, shortly after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.
Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand so close to midnight. (more)
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
What he said......
from MSNBC via Crooks & Liars:
Keith Olbermann spits in The Chimp's smirk ridden face, removes his pointy little head and hands it back to him.
A bravura performance that speaks truth to power the way all of us, the media included, should be doing all the time.
Watch it.
Pass it forward.
Draw strength from it, the time for direct action may be coming soon .
Keith Olbermann spits in The Chimp's smirk ridden face, removes his pointy little head and hands it back to him.
A bravura performance that speaks truth to power the way all of us, the media included, should be doing all the time.
Watch it.
Pass it forward.
Draw strength from it, the time for direct action may be coming soon .
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
My God, What Have We Done?
from the New York Times:
And for what in the end? So that a psychopathic narcisistic loser could show the world that his dick was bigger than his Daddy's?
Sadly, there are not many websites large enough to post the pictures of the half a million Iraqis who have died as a result of our "Liberation.
Not that anyone would make the effort to do so in any case.
It is to weep.
A listing, with photos, of the 3000 plus American service personel who have died so far in Iraq.
Do your duty. Call up the dead from your state. Memorize their faces. Salute them for their sacrifice. Do not forget them in the coming years.
Do your duty. Call up the dead from your state. Memorize their faces. Salute them for their sacrifice. Do not forget them in the coming years.
From Pennsylvania:
144 lives, 141 men, 3 women.
Ages 19 to 51.
Mainly Army. Some Marines. A few Navy.
Mostly they come from small dead or dying ex-industrial burghs scattered all over the state. Strangely, none are from the rich suburbs of Philly or Pittsburgh.
Many of these brave and wonderful people were probably looking for the way out of poverty so gloriously promised by the lying ass recruiters. They didn't live long enough to find those promises turning to ash in their mouths.
And for what in the end? So that a psychopathic narcisistic loser could show the world that his dick was bigger than his Daddy's?
Sadly, there are not many websites large enough to post the pictures of the half a million Iraqis who have died as a result of our "Liberation.
Not that anyone would make the effort to do so in any case.
It is to weep.
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