Bush Is Not Above the Law - Duh

Bush Is Not Above the Law - New York Times
If only Bush had stuck with the High Times, and avoided the High Crimes.

LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen — someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion — the wheels of justice would have immediately begun to turn. The F.B.I. would have conducted an investigation, a United States attorney’s office would have impaneled a grand jury and charges would have been brought.

But under the Bush Justice Department, no F.B.I. agents were ever dispatched to padlock White House files or knock on doors and no federal prosecutors ever opened a case.

Analyzing Rosenfeld

After a foreword by David Harris, Rosenfeld starts off his essay with this, much of it quoting Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

“German fascism came and went. Soviet Communism came and
went. Anti-Semitism came and stayed.”1 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the
chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, offered these discerning words
in response to a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which the president of Iran denounced Israel as “a disgraceful blot” that
should be “wiped off the map.” A few days after this incendiary declaration,
the Iranian leader followed up with more of the same, dismissing
the Nazi Holocaust as a “myth” or “fairy tale.”2 Shocked by
such unabashed outpouring of anti-Jewish venom and by numerous parallels to it, Rabbi Sacks confessed that the reemergence of anti-
Semitism “is one of the most frightening phenomena in [my] lifetime–
because it’s happened after sixty years of Holocaust education,
anti-racist legislation, and interfaith dialogue.”
In light of this disturbing trend, this paper will reflect upon two
questions: (1) What, if anything, is new about the “new” anti-Semitism?
(2) In what ways might Jews themselves, especially so-called
“progressive” Jews, be contributing to the intellectual and political
climate that helps to foster such hostility, especially in its anti-Zionist
forms?3 Before proceeding to examine these issues, though, it
will be helpful to review some of the developments that give rise to
them in the first place.

Anti-Semitism began in the Twentieth Century? That is what this segment is implying. It didn't arrive with Hitler and Stalin, so why should we be "shocked" that is has remained. Racism is ancient and endemic. Why imply that it's not? He's shocked that Holocaust denial exists. Dude, it didn't start in Iran. Denial began during the Holocaust, has been popularized by Americans and Europeans, and has never left us. Ever heard of David Irving? If the Rabbi is concerned that myths and urban legends are too easily propagated and believed, he should look to religious thinking in general as one of the leading causes of mass delusion.
The paragraph then devolves into pure, Orwellian nonsense. Examine this sentence again:

In what ways might Jews themselves, especially so-called
“progressive” Jews, be contributing to the intellectual and political
climate that helps to foster such hostility, especially in its anti-Zionist
forms?

Be careful how you think! If you express yourself honestly, you may be encouraging the anti-Semites! The Israeli State must be allowed to do whatever it pleases, even engage in rogue behavior, without criticism! You'll be contributing to the climate if you do! Additionally, it implies, without any justification, that there are 'anti-Zionist' forms of anti-Semitism. Case closed, question sent begging. I reject any equation of anti-Semitism (racism) and anti-Zionism (political). Religion has always been insulated from criticism. It should not be, but that's the reality. Politics and policy, for healthy democracy, must never be insulated from criticism. The defense of your politics or policies on religious grounds is a strong sign of a dysfunctional state. Racists may engage in, or employ, anti-Zionism, but they are distinct things.

The next section seeks to emphasize the popularity of anti-Semitic literature in the Muslim world. I uses Hitler's Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Again, there is no evidence presented that this popularity of these works represents a 'new' anti-Semitism or a continuation of traditional Middle Eastern anti-Semitism. Both works are certainly deplorable, racist trash, but BOTH originated in Europe, one in the Nineteenth and one in the Twentieth century. So the trend that I see is (possibly) an increase in the popularity in the Middle East of old, European anti-Semetic works. Nothing new here.

The article then returns to Europe, where it claims that anti-Semitism is also on the rise. It cites some very limited statistics to bolster its case that there's a rising global tide of anti-Semitism:

In 2004, some 532 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Great Britain alone, including 83 physical assaults against individual Jews—a rise of 42 percent from the previous year. In 2005, the overall number of incidents declined somewhat, but authorities nevertheless recorded 82 violent assaults against Jews.

The rise from 2004 and steady rate in 2005, a three-point sample, do not imply a trend or pattern by any means. The source of these statistics is a very short article on 'Y-Net News', a Jewish news Web site. They were collected by an organization called 'Community Security Trust', a British group concerned with anti-Semitism. Apparently, most of their statistics are the result of citizen reports directly to the group. Even if their methodology is sound, and not skewed by partisanship, the limited extent of the statistics provides absolutely no basis for the dire hysteria expressed in Rosenfeld's article.
The next section attempts to describe what is different with the 'New anti-Semitism'. It begins:

What does all this anti-Jewish hostility tell us? Despite the huge scandal of the Holocaust, which most Jews probably thought would prevent public manifestations of anti-Semitism from ever appearing again, the genie is once more out of the bottle.

The genie was never in the bottle. Anti-semitic incidents have never stopped. Did most Jews think the Holocaust would put an end to public anti-Semitism? On what is this ridiculous statement based? I would have thought that the Holocaust would leave most Jews quite cynical, and rightly so.
The next paragraphs posit that anti-Semitism has been given a boost by the Internet (along with every other idea and philosophy, good or bad. Next!) and that the rhetoric has 'evolved' with modern parallels of blood-libel myths (so what?).
But the following paragraph is the crux of the article:

Four, and most prominently, some of the most impassioned charges leveled against the Jews today involve vicious accusations against the Jewish state. Anti-Zionism, in fact, is the form that much of today’s anti-Semitism takes, so much so that some now see earlier attempts to rid the world of Jews finding a parallel in present-day desires to get rid of the Jewish state.

It feels as if the bulk of the article is smokescreen verbiage to obscure the real point of the article: anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. There are several fallacies in these two sentences.
It assumes equivalence between anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
It accuses critics of Israel of attacking Jews.
It portrays anti-Zionism as a desire to eliminate the State of Israel.
It portrays simple criticism of Israel's policies with anti-Zionism.
The following section addresses the difference between criticizing Israel's policies and criticizing its 'essence'. I assume by essence, he means 'Israel's right to exist as a state'. He proceeds to describe Jews who, he feels, are proponents of this view. First up is Jacqueline Rose.

Rose typifies one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism—namely, the participation of Jews alongside it, especially
in its anti-Zionist expression. Her book is a disturbingly revealing
example of this tendency. More an indictment than an examination
of its subject, The Question of Zion, dedicated “to the memory of
Edward Said,” is fashioned as a companion piece to Said’s The Question
of Palestine. Rose is intrigued by Zionism, but claims to be
“appalled” by what she sees as its encouragement of gross wrongdoings.
As if it were foreordained from the start, “violence,” she writes,
“would be the destiny of the Jewish state” (p. 124). Moreover, the
“cruel powers” of this state have not only brought “injustice” to the
Palestinians, but have subverted “the moral mission of Israel”(p.
133), put at risk the Jewish nation’s own “safety and sanity” (p. 85),
and right now are even “endangering the safety of Diaspora Jewry”
by helping to provoke a new anti-Semitism (p. xviii). In sum, Israel
on its present course “is bad for the Jewish people” (p. 154) and also
bad for just about everyone else.

Did you see anything in that paragraph of quotes that called for an end to Israel or punishment of Israeli Jews. The way I see it, she's saying that fundamentalist Zionism would bequeath to Israel a legacy of violence. She says that wrongdoings by Israel would fuel anti-Semitism and endanger Jews around the world. This sounds very similar to the argument being advanced by Rosenfeld. Whereas she believes anti-Semitism would be boosted by the misbehavior of Israel, he thinks anti-Semitism would be boosted by Jewish criticism of that (perceived) misbehavior. Who is making a more rational argument?
The article then devolves into a partisan who's-who of Jewish history and Palestinian/Israeli tit-for-tat bullshit. I will not venture an opinion on this arcanery; it's possible that Rose is ill-informed, or is even a whacko. But Rosenfeld gave his best shot at proving, with her own quotes, that Rose is anti-Semitic, and fails miserably. And this is the 'anti-Semitic Jew' that so horrifies him.
He then quotes a Jewish Canadian philosophy professor, Michael Neumann. Neumann is apparently outraged by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and considers Israel's actions genocidal. Many of the quoted remarks seem extreme, and Neumann definitely has some issues. So Rosenfeld may have found the Jewish Ward Churchill. But do these people exert any real influence on the outside world? Mr. Neumann has works available opn the Web; here's an excerpt of one from 'CounterPunch', a left-leaning news and opinion site:

Well, let's be good sports. Let's try defining antisemitism as broadly as any supporter of Israel would ever want: antisemitism can be hatred of the Jewish race, or culture, or religion, or hatred of Zionism. Hatred, or dislike, or opposition, or slight unfriendliness.

But supporters of Israel won't find this game as much fun as they expect. Inflating the meaning of 'antisemitism' to include anything politically damaging to Israel is a double-edged sword. It may be handy for smiting your enemies, but the problem is that definitional inflation, like any inflation, cheapens the currency. The more things get to count as antisemitic, the less awful antisemitism is going to sound. This happens because, while no one can stop you from inflating definitions, you still don't control the facts. In particular, no definition of 'antisemitism' is going to eradicate the substantially pro-Palestinian version of the facts which I espouse, as do most people in Europe, a great many Israelis, and a growing number of North Americans.

What difference does that make? Suppose, for example, an Israeli rightist says that the settlements represent the pursuit of aspirations fundamental to the Jewish people, and to oppose the settlements is antisemitism. We might have to accept this claim; certainly it is difficult to refute. But we also cannot abandon the well-founded belief that the settlements strangle the Palestinian people and extinguish any hope of peace. So definitional acrobatics are all for nothing: we can only say, screw the fundamental aspirations of the Jewish people; the settlements are wrong. We must add that, since we are obliged to oppose the settlements, we are obliged to be antisemitic. Through definitional inflation, some form of 'antisemitism' has become morally obligatory.

Why, do I detect quote-mining on the part of Mr. Rosenfeld? When saying, "some form of 'antisemitism' has become morally obligatory," you can see that Neumann is playing games with the definition of anti-Semitism. That's certainly not the impression you get from Rosenfeld's description. If Neumann's so bad, and so wrong, why must Rosenfeld play games like this to discredit him?

Rosenfeld himself knows that there have always been critics of Israel:

Opposition to political Zionism is not a new development within Jewish thinking, of course, and, especially in the prestate period, was even a pronounced tendency within certain political, religious, and intellectual circles.

Why, therefore, does modern opposition to Israel's existence comprise a 'New anti-Semitism'? Sounds like more of the same to me.

Next into the stew-pot is historian Tony Judt:

“The time has come to think the unthinkable,” he writes, and that
is to replace the Jewish state with “a single, integrated, binational
state of Jews and Arabs.”14
Far from being new, this is an old idea and, by now, a properly
discredited and discarded one; everyone knows that such an entity,
were it ever to come into being, would before long be an Arab-dominated
state in which a residual Jewish presence would, at best, be a tolerated minority. In promoting such an obsolescent scheme, which would spell an end to a territorially-based Jewish national existence, Judt, as Benjamin Balint persuasively argues, unwittinglyaligns himself with older forms of Christian opposition to Jewish
particularism: “Israel is merely the new ground upon which the old
battle over Jewish distinctiveness is being waged.”15 Nevertheless,
Judt has his followers, and talk of dissolving the Jewish state and
replacing it with a binational state is once again in the air in certain
intellectual circles.

Here, Rosenfeld just plain disagrees with the guy, so he must be an ant-Semite, right? Note, also, the racist insinuation that 'naive Jews would be instantly made into an underclass if Arabs got any power in Israel'.

This post is already way too long, so I'll continue it in another.

NYT Discusses Wild Anti-Semitism Accusations

American Jewish Committee - Anti-Semitism - New York Times

An essay the committee features on its Web site, ajc.org, titled “ ‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” says a number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent anti-Semitism by questioning whether Israel should even exist.

In an introduction to the essay, David A. Harris, the executive director of the committee, writes, “Perhaps the most surprising — and distressing — feature of this new trend is the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State.” Those who oppose Israel’s basic right to exist, he continues, “whether Jew or gentile, must be confronted.”

My take:

• Anti-zionism is not anti-Semitism


• It must be acceptable to criticize any state, including Israel, when it's warranted.


• Israel does NOT get a free pass for its behavior by conflating politics and civics with religion.


• Knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to suppress criticism of Israel and the Neocons.


• Allowing the Palestinians to have a fair chance at dignity and proseprity is the single most effective way to bring peace to and advance democracy in the Middle East.


• I don't give a shit about anyone's ancient enmity. Get along or get fucked.


• Very, very, very few Jews are actually anti-Semitic. Anyone who believes otherwise is deeply deluded or deeply dishonest. Disagreement does not constitute anti-Semitism.


• There have been Jews who opposed the existence State of Israel from Day One.

For Java Geeks

Pet Store 2.0 (early access) is available! It sports an Ajax UI, user-driven content and tagging. How they work those last two into a Pet Store front end I'll have to see.

Pet Psychics!

Nooooooooo, not the llama!

Excerpt from Bullshit!

Is Disney 'Punishing' Progressive Bloggers?

Fox to air controversial excerpts from 'Path to 9/11'

With Hannity's help:

In a move that could rekindle a heated political debate, Fox News said Thursday that it planned to broadcast footage from ABC's controversial miniseries "The Path to 9/11" that was edited out of the docudrama amid criticism that it inaccurately portrayed the Clinton administration's response to the terrorism threat.

The outtakes, scheduled to air Sunday, depict then-national security advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger refusing to approve a CIA request to attack Osama bin Laden, an event that Berger and the Sept. 11 commission say did not occur.

The final version of the movie that aired on ABC in early September still included the scene, but it had been toned down after protests from top Democrats.

Several minutes were culled, including an exchange in which Berger is depicted hanging up on then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, according to a Fox News producer who has seen both versions.

The previously unaired footage is scheduled to be broadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday on "Hannity's America," a new show with Sean Hannity, one of the cable news network's most popular hosts.

h/t to Digby
Bill's on it. More from Americablog

The Real Nuclear Threat

Georgia: Uranium Case Underscores Nuke Safety Fears

The incident marks a new low in already strained Russian-Georgian relations and raises fresh fears worldwide that some of Russia's huge nuclear stockpiles could fall into terrorist hands.

Last February in Tbilisi, a Georgian undercover agent, aided by the CIA, posed as a rich foreign buyer interested in purchasing weapons-grade uranium for a Muslim man from "a serious organization."

The mission: seize Oleg Khinsagov, a Russian man trying to sell a small amount of highly enriched uranium, and confiscate his merchandise.

The operation was a success and Khinsagov was sentenced to 8 and 1/2 years in prison.

Although the purity of the uranium seized is ideal for making nuclear weapons, the quantity is too small. A nuclear bomb requires at least 15 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

Both the trial and the incident itself were kept secret until Thursday (January 26), when Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, who was visiting Washington this week, revealed the case in comments published by U.S. media.

There will always be a demand. Secure the supply.

Christy Moore does 'Fairytale of New York'

MOJO!

Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child

Burn Down the Malls

Libby Lobbies for Tom?!?

In a bizarre confluence of events, 'Scooter' Libby apparently complained about the treatment of Scientology in Germany (go, Germany!!) on behalf of some clam celebs.

'Crooks and Liars' post here.

Heavily redacted PDF here.

This trial is turning out to be more fun than I thought it would be.

Reverend Wormtounge Makes His Move

The odious megalomaniac Sun Myung Moon has fired his opening volley in the fight to keep the Democrats out of the White House in 2008. Through his organ, Insight Magazine, a sibling of the propaganda organ Washington Times, he has engineered a political smear, based on innuendo, racism and falsehood, of two major Democratic candidates for President in 2008.

Moon has long employed the Useful Idiocy of the Republican Party and the Bush family. Now he's enlisted Fox News in his latest strategy, to simultaneously smear Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama using what he perceives to be their inherent weaknesses.

He has evidently decided that the perception of Obama as African-American is not a vulnerability, but his connections to Islam and the sound of his name are (everyone with 'Hussein' as a name must be evil, right?).

By blaming the leakage of the Obama 'Indonesian madrassa' story on Clinton's campaign, he leverages the meme that Hillary is a Machiavellian bitch who will do anything to further her personal agenda. A win-win!

By painting Obama as 'some kinda raghead' this early, he hopes to plant that seed of bigotry in the minds of the Moron-American constituency firmly enough that it will continue to hurt him in November, 2008 or even eliminate as a primary contender.

If you need an example of the evil uses to which religion can be put, you need look no further than the Bad Reverend. Won't someone rid us of this pestilential priest?

Shitstains Moon and Nixon

Why are these men smiling?

The Infinite Mercy of Tom

This Should Boost Their Credibility

Cruise 'is Christ' of Scientology

TOM Cruise is the new “Christ” of Scientology, according to leaders of the cult-like religion.

The Mission: Impossible star has been told he has been “chosen” to spread the word of his faith throughout the world.

And leader David Miscavige believes that in future, Cruise, 44, will be worshipped like Jesus for his work to raise awareness of the religion.

A source close to the actor, who has risen to one of the church’s top levels, said: “Tom has been told he is Scientology’s Christ-like figure.

“Like Christ, he’s been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise he was right.”

Bwaaaah-hahahahahahaha! Tom is just a misunderstood visionary who's ahead of his time. Oh, that's too much! Jesus walked on water, Tom jumped on Oprah's sofa; they are alike!
(h/t to Wo'C)

In My Dictionary,

the current definition of "idiot" is:

a gasbag pundit or corporate whore who, every time a cold snap or winter storm occurs somewhere, publically wonders if it's the end of all those 'ridiculous claims of global warming'.

Usually, they hide behind The Question Mark of Cowardice, which attempts to potray their statements as questions, knowing full well that the audience asssumes their unvoiced answer. It goes something like this:

Does Rush Limbaugh love Ann Coulter's big schlong jammed up his fat ass? I think we all know thw answer to that.

Note: h/t to XTC for 'personal dictionary' concept

For Your Edification

All Things Dull And Ugly
(to the tune of 'All Things Bright and Beautiful')

All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot

Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all

Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
[ed.: Major slam on squid outta nowhere! Sorry, PZ)
Who made the spiky urchin
Who made the sharks? He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all

Amen

MONTY PYTHON

Manage This!

Will DRM die a natural death, or will the record companies fight the inevitable until the last gasp?

NYT - Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Digital Music

Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.

If they do release naked audio files, please god let it be something better than the shitty, archaic MP3 format. Ogg, AAC, Lossless, anything but MP3! I'll pay full price for full CD quality.

Live Spew

Theocracy Watch

Sam Brownback, dangerous theocrat, intends to ride the Jesus train into the White House:
NYT - Kansas Senator Announces Bid for Presidency

“The last thing we need in America is to take God out of our public lives and institutions,” Mr. Brownback said during his speech in Topeka, Kan. “We need to embrace our nation’s motto, ‘In God we trust,’ and not be ashamed of it.

“To walk away from the Almighty is to embrace decline for a nation,” he said. “To embrace him leads to renewal, for individuals and for nations.”

From Wikipedia:

"In God We Trust" is the current national motto of the United States. It was declared as such by an act of Congress in 1956, displacing the existing national motto, E Pluribus Unum.

One origin of the current motto can be found in the final stanza of "The Star-Spangled Banner," written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key (and later adopted as the U.S. National Anthem), contains one of the earliest references to a variation of the phrase: "...And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

In 1956, the Cold War was in full swing, and the anti-Communist suspicion of the McCarthy era was at its height. Partly in reaction to Communism (which was officially atheist), the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution to replace the existing motto with "In God we Trust." According to United States Code, Title 36, Section 302, the new motto officially displaced the original 180 year-old national motto "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One) when President Eisenhower signed the resolution into law on 30 July 1956.

GUI-Oriented Comparison of Vista and Mac OS X

Review: Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista

I could keep bringing up examples, but I think you get the idea. At the UI level, the human level, Vista is different far more often than it is better. Even so, I think it must be said that Vista is indeed an improvement on Windows XP. Honestly, I think that's the only metric that really counts when you think about it: Is Vista better enough than XP to be worth the upgrade? I'll say yes. This may be more of a comment on how bad XP really is more than how good Vista is.

However, is it significantly, or even slightly better than Mac OS X? Maybe in a couple of low-level ways, like the randomizing memory address usage function, or being able to use USB memory sticks as additional RAM, but at the human level? Not even close.

I've yet to see anything in Vista that blows away the Mac OS, even a version of the Mac OS that's over a year old. Microsoft still can't manage to make something simple and easy to use. Vista reeks of committee and design by massive consensus, while OS X shines from an intense focus on doing things in a simple, clear fashion and design for the user, not the programmer.

Ouch.

More Asshole Words (and phrases)

• cuppa (as in 'cuppa coffee')


• follow your bliss [Update: I just know some Wiccan is gonna totally kick my ass]


• dish (as in 'gossip'. No mercy here.)


• coinkydink (occasional use OK, consult a doctor if symptoms persist)


• labradoodle (sorry, that's just the way it is)

The Forbidden Latte

Report: China palace Starbucks may close

BEIJING - Managers of China's vast Forbidden City palace are deciding whether to close a Starbucks outlet on its grounds after protests led by a state TV personality, a news report said Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Forbidden City, built in 1420, is a 178-acre complex of villas, chapels and gardens that was home to 24 emperors before the end of imperial rule in 1911. It is China's top tourist attraction, drawing some 7 million visitors a year.
....
A news anchor for China Central Television has led an online campaign to remove Starbucks, which opened in the palace in 2000 at the invitation of its managers, who are under pressure to raise money to maintain the vast complex.

The anchorman, Rui Chenggang, wrote in a CCTV blog that Starbucks' presence "undermined the Forbidden City's solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture."

Will Wudy da Weasel Win?

No, sez Rothenberg.

Giuliani’s strong showing in GOP polling reflects his celebrity status and the reputation he earned after the terrorist attacks. But if and when he becomes a candidate, that will change. He will be evaluated on the basis of different things, including his past and current positions and behavior, and he’ll be attacked by critics and opponents. A Giuliani nomination would also generate a conservative third-party candidate in the general election and tear the GOP apart, thereby undercutting Giuliani’s electability argument.

So, the former mayor might make a terrific general election candidate, but I don’t see how he can get there as a Republican.

Secrets of the 1918 Flu Virus Revealed

Toronto Star -

Canadian scientists have helped unlock a key secret to history's deadliest influenza outbreak and how it killed so quickly and efficiently.

The savage Spanish Flu pandemic that swept the globe at the end of the First World War killed about 50 million people - many in a matter of hours - when their immune systems began attacking their own lungs, a paper published today in the journal Nature says.

The paper, which studied monkeys infected with a reconstructed version of the 1918 flu at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, may also offer clues on how to stem future outbreaks.

"This research provides an important piece in the puzzle of the 1918 virus, helping us to better understand influenza viruses and their potential to cause pandemics," said Darwyn Kobasa, a research scientist with the Public Health Agency of Canada in Winnipeg and the lead study author.

"Thanks to recent technological advancement, we are able to study this virus and how it wreaked havoc around the globe," Kobasa said in a statement.

In the early 1990s, University of Toronto geographer Kirsty Duncan, then at the University of Windsor, located seven young coal miners who had died in 1918 and were buried in a permafrost cemetery in the village of Longyearbyen, Norway

Duncan was able to isolate bits of viral RNA from the miner's preserved flesh, which has been used to construct copies of the original 1918 virus.

But scientists at the "Level 4" Winnipeg lab - which can house and study the earth's most lethal pathogens - used viral RNA from archived tissues of first war soldiers to resurrect the 1918 pathogen, Kobasa said in an interview.

Prosecution Persecution

Gonzales: No Politics Behind Prosecutor Firings

In his AP interview, Gonzales explained his expanded powers were necessary because federal judges -- who previously had appointed replacement U.S. attorneys -- were susceptible to cronyism and might appoint unqualified candidates.

All together, now: BULLSHIT!
The Republican Mafia ensures that no one dare prosecute one of their made guys.

Bag man Arlen Specter continues in his role of Bush Admin assboy.

Iraqi Hangings Spark Regional Tensions

NYT News Analysis - Hangings Fuel Sectarian Split Across Mideast

The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein and two lieutenants in Iraq by its Shiite-led government has helped to accelerate Sunni-Shiite sectarianism across an already fragile Middle East, according to experts across the region.

The chaotic executions and the calm with which Mr. Hussein confronted the gallows and mocking Shiite guards have bolstered his image among many of his fellow Sunni Muslims.

But something else is happening too: a pan-Muslim unity that surged after the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, is waning.

And while political analysts and government officials in the region say the spreading Sunni disillusionment with Shiites and their backers in Iran will benefit Sunni-led governments and the United States, they and others worry that the tensions could start to balkanize the region as they have in Iraq itself.

Bait & Switch Joe

From Salon - Lieberman: A surge of buyer's remorse?

Tempers are little frayed here in Connecticut because our junior senator spent last summer fighting for his political survival by insisting, among other things, that the policies he supported would result in troop withdrawals. Lieberman said some American troops would be able to leave Iraq by the end of 2006, and more than half would be out by the end of 2007. According to exit polls on Nov. 7, more than 60 percent of Connecticut voters opposed the war in Iraq and/or favored withdrawal of some or all troops, and nearly four out of 10 of those antiwar voters supported Lieberman. Lieberman had barely digested the food from his victory party before he spun 180 degrees and added his voice to the "surge" chorus.

Connecticut voters = suckers!

Satire is Fair Use

Self-parody is a tragedy.

See here for details

NYT on David Byrne

Indie Rock’s Patron Saint Inspires a New Flock

Yet the show (which has closed, but is documented at davidbyrne.com) was consistent with the idiosyncratic tone of Mr. Byrne’s whole post-Talking Heads career, which has balanced playfulness and erudition with a dollop of disorientation. He has been an author and photographer (the book “Strange Rituals”), a film director (the documentary “Ilé Aiyé” and the feature film “True Stories”), a television host (the sadly defunct PBS performance series “Sessions at West 54th”), a PowerPoint programmer (the DVD/book “E.E.E.I. (Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information),” which documents his attempt to recast the Microsoft presentation software as an art medium), a record producer, a soundtrack composer.

Flying Blind

From President Kill's speech:

"Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering."

...and we'll be making every effort to ensure that you don't see those images. See no evil and all that. There's something deeply wrong with what you're doing if you're more concerned with the witnessing than you are about the carnage.

If someone's liver gets blown out, and there are no civilians there to see it, it didn't happen, right?

Ain't democracy wonderful?
Them russians tairists can't win!
Ain't democracy wonderful?
Lets us vote someone like that in.

Here comes President Kill again,
From pure White House to Number 10.
Taking lives with a smoking pen,
President Kill wants killing again.

- XTC - President Kill, Oranges & Lemons - 1989

Elections Matter

Democratic-led House votes to raise minimum wage

A bill to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade won passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday as newly empowered Democrats moved quickly to keep campaign promises.

On a vote of 315-116, the Democratic-led House brushed aside some corporate concerns and approved legislation to increase the minimum wage over two years to $7.25 per hour from $5.15 per hour.

"Passing this legislation today ... is simply a matter of doing what's right, what's just and what's fair," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.

With the gap between rich and poor widening, Democrats promised a minimum wage increase as a part of their campaign that saw them win control the U.S. Congress in last year's elections from President George W. Bush's Republicans.

"What a difference an election makes," said Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat. He ripped Republicans for stopping earlier efforts to raise the minimum wage.

Struggling by on minimum wage

Industry opponents also say raising the salary floor would actually hurt low-skilled workers because higher salaries would attract more skilled workers.

They argue most minimum-wage workers are in entry-level jobs from which employees move up quickly.

And they say just a tiny minority of minimum-wage workers are the sole support of families.

Mrs Walters is also typical in that respect. She has only herself to support - her children are grown and not living with her.

"I have a boyfriend, but we are pretty much taking care of ourselves. I don't ask nothing from him and he don't ask nothing from me.

"He buys me toilet paper when I say I ain't got money for toilet paper, but he's poor too. I think he's poorer than me but I don't ask."

She says she has never collected unemployment compensation and would not know how to apply.

"It's my responsibility for me to take care of myself and show up for work every day and be kind to people.

"I know there are others who are poorer than me. I am poor but I am not going to lay down and act like I am dying. I am going to get back up and do something wonderful because I have a life and that's expected of me."

Stars of Diamond

Diamond star thrills astronomers

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

I'm gettin' me a spaceship and the world's biggest towin' cable!
47th Street, look out!

Gee, that musta hurt

Bush-Cowed Federal Agency Manages To Almost Tell The Truth

A lot of government scientists have said it.

But until yesterday, it appeared that no news release on annual climate trends out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Bush White House had said unequivocally that a buildup of greenhouse gases was helping warm the climate.

The statement came in a release that said 2006 was the warmest year for the 48 contiguous states since regular temperature records began in 1895. It surpassed the previous champion, 1998, a year heated up by a powerful episode of the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean by El Niño. Last year, another El Niño developed, but this time a long-term warming trend from human activities was said to be involved as well.

“A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases,” the release said, emphasizing that the relative contributions of El Niño and the human influence were not known.

The only people left who doubt the influence of human activity on the climate are Bush true-believers, the oil industry and the people who love to suck up to them.

See some real science here. The recent increases in CO₂, the most significant greenhouse gas, are ALL due to human activity.

Get'yer Engrams Out!

I thought I'd post a comment from a Scientologist on a previous post and my reply because ...well, because I like to hear myself talk (I do have a blog, you know).

The comment:

Anonymous said...

I think it's strange that you say you embrace diversity, that you're tolerant and all that, and yet you jump at the chance to join the "let's ridicule Scientology" bandwagon.

For your info, Scientology is not the kooky cult the media enjoys portraying it as. It's a philosophy of self-improvement, and a movement to make the world a better place. We're not alien-obsessed weirdos, we're people like you and me. My wife and I have been Scientologists for over a decade. We are members of the PTA, we pay our taxes, and I volunteered for weeks in Louisiana after Katrina. (See http://www.volunteerministers.org)

Instead of mocking and ridiculing what you don't understand, how about showing some TRUE tolerance and understanding, and reaching out to members of your community who just happen to have different beliefs?

Sincerely,
Greg
Scientologist and proud of it
http://www.liveandgrow.org

The reply:

Hi, Greg, sorry it took me so long to reply; I had a really busy time of it the last few days.

I do embrace diversity; I believe it's one of the factors that moves human society forward. It's sort of like random mutation's role in evolution: it provides unpredictable grist for the mill of natural selection.

That being said, I do not think that every product of diversity is valid or admirable. I'm sure you feel the same way. There are many creeds, belief systems, or philosophies that I reject as nonsensical, fictitious or pernicious. Perhaps you can think of a group of people or school of thought whose tenets you find offensive or ridiculous. It is a common reaction.

My particular bias lies with the Scientific Method. I think that the process it defines provides the best framework humanity has to evaluate what is true and what is not. Others may place their trust in a theological framework, and I support their right to do so even as I think they're incorrect.

I'm probably not as ill-informed about Scientology as you think I am. I have done much research into Scientology, some of it using sources that Scientology officially disapproves of. This official disapproval does not imply that these sources are inaccurate, however. All historical and materials must be weighed for possible bias, both those originating with L. Ron Hubbard and the Church, and those which are critical of Scientology. After evaluating much of this information, I have come to certain conclusions about The Church of Scientology and its founder.

I have no problems with individual Scientologists. People choose what to believe and what not to believe, and more power to them. But I have concluded that the Church itself, as an organization, is evil. They exist to drain money from the membership and have very few compunctions on how they go about it. It's also fairly obvious that L. Ron Hubbard was both a lunatic and a genius of sorts, to varying degrees throughout his life. He was a grand and habitual confabulator along the lines of P.T. Barnum. His story is fascinating and his decline and fall to the malodorous Miscaviage rather sad.

I think the revealed tenets of the Scientology religion have no foundation in reality; it's a mix of bad science fiction and warmed-over pop psychology that has no scientific validity whatsoever. Whether or not it has spiritual validity I leave to the determination of the individual. Being an avowed atheist, I also hold this opinion of all religions that I'm familiar with, so don't feel singled out. But you're perfectly free to feel that my beliefs and opinions are nonsense, and to say so in public. I don't hide from criticism by calling 'Religion!, You can't criticize someone's religion!'

I also don't fall for the 'deep mysteries' argument so popular with religious folks. That's been part of the religion con-game since day one. Just string the suckers along with the 'heavy mystery' stuff until you've got them sufficiently brainwashed so that they think they're an insider. The Catholic Church loves to keep them guessing with the Trinity debate, but to those of us who reject their basic premises, it's all just theological masturbation.

As for volunteer work, I sincerely appreciate any humanitarian work performed by anyone, including Scientologists. I don't doubt the charitable propensities of the individuals. I do greatly question the motivations of the Church, however. I believe the volunteer efforts the organize are set up solely to suck more people into the Church and, subsequently, suck the cash from their wallets (or have them sign over their assets, or engage in volunteer work that is tantamount to slavery). I was deeply offended by their efforts to apply pseudo-scientific claptrap to 9/11 World Trade Center volunteers. It's like they just had to get a slice of the post-9/11 action for their marketing portfolio. Perhaps the Church of Scientology has mended its ways to some degree from the older days, but they've got a really bad reputation to overcome, and I'm not inclined to trust them. Particularly not after the fairly recent 9/11 nonsense.

Another aspect of the Church that deeply offends me is their litigiousness and the use of subpoenas to suppress free speech. This behavior is well documented and there is no excuse for it. It exists only because the Church has traditionally felt that it is terribly vulnerable to public criticism.

No, I do not believe that members of the Church are UFO cultists and I don't doubt that most members lead perfectly normal, productive lives. This is a straw-man argument intended to undermine the credibility of critics, and is a standard Scientology tactic (and those tactics are well-documented by L.Ron himself). I do believe that Hubbard himself though some of the wilder claims of Scientology were best hidden from novices. But even the outlandish claims are no more outlandish than those of Christianity. The Christian wackiness is just widely accepted because it's been around longer. So take heart, within a hundred years or so, Scientology will be in the mainstream! Just ask the Mormons. Heck, with rampant religious correctness that prevents people from saying the emperor is naked, it may happen much sooner.

So, to recap, diversity is good even if we don't appreciate all its products. Tolerance is good unless what is being tolerated is harmful to others. Respect has to be earned.

And, please, don't assume you know what I do or do not understand.

Does this qualify as 'reaching out'?

The 51st Skeptics' Circle is open for business!

Check it out here!

It includes a modest entry by me, and a lot of good stuff as well.

And thanks to our host, Babbler at See You at Enceladus.

Scientology: You know, for the kids

Also via David Byrne, a satirical pageant telling the story of L. Ron Hubbard performed by children.

Technology and Musical Performance

comments from David Byrne

Double Irony

I received this:

For Christmas.
From a person named Faith.

It is my considered opinion...

...that Dr. Mike Adams has the potential to become a legendary mass murderer or psychotic incestuous pederast of the highest order. Is Dr. Mike a slavering, dogmatic, clueless asswipe with delusions of grandeur? Well, I just don't know for sure, but it's certainly something that needs to be investigated.

Shiver me Timbers!

An etymology and a definition.

Shiver: Middle English; akin to Old High German scivaro splinter
: one of the small pieces into which a brittle thing is broken by sudden violence

Payback's a Bitch

Bipartisanship ends before it begins in Congress

Broken promise, my ass. Besides, Grover Norquist thinks bipartisanship's like date rape.

They now say they need to sideline the Republicans, much as they were set aside, to assure their goal of passing half a dozen top-priority bills within the first 100 hours of legislative business. They'll move the bills straight to the House floor without putting them through committee review, where Republicans could challenge them, and without permitting Republicans to offer amendments or alternatives on the floor.

Republicans held a news conference to complain.

All together, now: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The Horror Continues

The violence MUST END!