Dean is first.

We need a new thread.

OK, I think I need to put my musings of the morning up on KOS.

You can find them, along with the Howardly, on Hannah

http://hannah.smith-family.com

Monica

John Edwards will need your support after he wins Iowa to keep it going in New Hampshire.

Gore gets a cold shoulder

Steve Lytte
October 14, 2007

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."

Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

LOL....yes, the trolls and their propaganda and lies are out in force.

199.

Monica Smith

LMAO....putting out...a force to be reckoned with. :)



...time for me to move some furniture.

bbl

Only a dedicated BORG could find this thread :~) or a TROLL. See y'all later on.

BTW Howard Dean and his friend Al Gore are FIRST!!!!

Personally, I don't think that humans are responsible for heating up the earth's atmosphere either. But, I think that the lifestyle which is wasting a lot of energy is actually detrimental to the species. To the extent that many humans are still dying shortly after reproducing but before their off-spring have reached maturity, we are reverting to primitive conditions and the potential of the human intellect is getting lost. We are breeding more predators than traders and not just in the impoverished class.

Phil, Edwards needs to come clean on Iraq. When I went to check on his service, along with kerry, on the intel committee, I saw that the Republicans had made an issue of it in 2004. He's got to explain how his position on our presence in the ME has changed. A mea culpa is not enough.

YES! Mainstresam media picks it up! YES!

Report: Mining Exec Funded Gore Film Trial
U.K. Paper: Industries Backed Parent's Court Case To Keep "Inconvenient Truth" Out Of Schools



Oct. 14, 2007

Report: Mining Exec Funded Gore Film Trial
U.K. Paper: Industries Backed Parent's Court Case To Keep "Inconvenient Truth" Out Of Schools

Comments 1

Oct. 14, 2007
Videos
Photos


The Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won a British court case brought by a parent who claimed showed the film in schools was tantamount to "brainwashin." Now a U.K. reports the case was supported by industry figures who have long fought efforts to curb greenhosue gas emissions. (AP/Paramount Pictures)

Related
Interactive

Global Warming

The greenhouse effect, a look at the Kyoto Protocol and a history of the Earth's climate.


Stories
U.K. Judge OKs Gore Film For Schools


(CBS) It was a curious connection of politics, science, education and the courts: A lawsuit brought by a British father who objected to his school's showing of the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" to his two children.

The documentary, authored by Al Gore, won critical praise, spectacular box office, and an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. But Stewart Dimmock, a school official and truck driver, charged that showing the film to students amounted to politically "brainwashing" them.

A U.K. court sided with the schools, allowing the screenings to continue, though the judge cited several what he termed "inaccuracies" in the film, saying some actions like the melting of snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not conclusively be linked to human activities, as Gore and climate scientists contend.

Gore's critics jumped on the judge's findings, as a means to further try to debunk the scientifically-accepted finding that man-made greenhouse gases are increasing the warming of the Earth.

But the story of a parent standing up to school administrators lost some of its "David vs. Goliath" overtone with an article today in The Observer, which reported that Dimmock was standing on well-funded shoulders.

According to the British paper, Dimmock credited an obscure Scottish party, the New Party, with supporting him in the case, without much elaboration. The party promotes lower taxes and an expansion of nuclear power.

The Observer has established that Dimmock's case actually received support from a network of business interests, including those with links to the fuel and mining industries, as well as a local Conservative Party figure.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/1...

4. Ted herzl
==========

I guess this refers to the author and playwright Theodore Hertzl (1860-1904), who became the father of political Zionism with his book "Der Judenstaat" (The Jewish State).

Probably one of the flat earth idiots that accomodates Neocon policies that promote the oil companies, but at the same time refuses to understand the Prinicples of Evolution that oil companies use every day to find oil.

Gotta wonder how much the incentive amounted to for the meteorologist who thinks anyone will believe his theory over the world's best scientists and Al Gore. Watta sad figure he is.

14. He got publicity didn't he? :)

15.

Including getting publicity here.

If it's not newsworthy, why comment on it ?  (just adds fuel and importance to the global warming deniers to do so)

If it's not newsworthy, why comment on it ?

That also applies to about 9 out of 10 posts about the prez wannabes -- and they're just as disinformative. 

John Edwards will need your support after he wins Iowa to keep it going in New Hampshire.

Hillary Clinton is now leading in Iowa, according to the latest Des Moines Register poll released within the past week.

The New York senator’s climb knocks former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards out of the top spot and further stabilizes her status as the national Democratic presidential front-runner.

She captured 29 percent of support from likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers who took part in the poll, an 8 percent increase from the last poll taken in May for the newspaper. Edwards captured 23 percent, down from 29 percent in May, according to the most recent poll. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s support remained relatively consistent from 23 percent in May to 22 percent this month.

But first he needs to stop hemorraging.
 

Well, Dave, looks like time was well spent for me to watch the game --

-- Pats 48, Cowboys 27

Week 6 Leaders  Passing  Rushing  Receiving  TDS  1. T. Brady NE388 yds

Pats have to get past the Colts in three weeks. One of the two will be there in January.

18. Sitka

Hillary Clinton is now leading in Iowa, according to the latest Des Moines Register poll released within the past week...

===================
One hypothesis is that she has been campaigning so long and so hard that everybody who is going to vote for her has decided to and vice versa. Those people may not feel a need to go to the polls if she is going to win anyway.

All those who would never vote for her may be a majority. If that vote were not split so many ways, she would lose. As people drop out, her climb may be more uphill.

how bout those Packers too, two games down one to go for me today, rain came here just in time for a day off and I'm grabbing it

Saints have to step it up a notch for this one

rd... to think I once favored Bledsoe over Brady...on the field that is. Politically I don't know where Bledsoe stands but Brady is a Bush boy...I try to seperate that from the game but it's hard.

phil...you sure have a slew of teams out there to cheer on...LOL 

What happened to the blog front and HQ? did I miss something?

Hillary has a well staffed campaign, probably the best State Director, good ads, and organizers in every county and the best crossover list with the help of Tom Vilsack, and a recognizable large interest group in women voters who sense something historic might happen. she is almost guaranteed a number near 30% (which mean two out of three still have reservations)

25.

Phil...amazing what money can buy, eh?

I've been following politics since 1968 and have never seen the "voters don't show because they think it's a shoe-in" phenomena actually happen. Or if it does, then just as many don't show because they're sure their favorite will lose as others don't becaue they're sure theirs will win.

If there is an anybody but Hillary cohort they do need to decide to group together on caucus night

why the IRV portion of realignment is so important to be the second choice of most

Hillary hasn't made any enemies since she started campaigning here either so she would naturally rise slowly with all that effort.

Reed

Hillary is spending millions here, just by herself. Why do you think the legislature wants to keep Iowa first as economic development.? lol

Romney is outspending her two to one though

Phil...amazing what money can buy, eh?

If that were exclusively true Dean would have won IA. The Clinton machine has been operating since the early 90s. It's a media as well as a political one. 

Obama has leveled off and no one else has taken off so if Hillary just keeps adding one out of three, as people decide, she ends up in at least second. The crowded field helps her.

Same with NH Phil, WMUR out of Manchester should be a rinky dink station for the population...but...lol also

Romney has to spend, spend, spend, he's on the repug ticket.  

rd... to think I once favored Bledsoe over Brady...on the field that is. Politically I don't know where Bledsoe stands but Brady is a Bush boy...I try to seperate that from the game but it's hard.

+++

Reed -

So is Schilling.

To me, I cheer the team over the individuals (but it was a tad nice to see Schilling eat some humble pie yesterday for Boston) but Go Red Sox tomorrow night with Dice K pitching !

Sitka...I include in the $$$ game the media...that's what it is all about imo, a vicious circle of having to raise the funds to get elected (need the corporations for the $$$), spending those $$$ on media...cha ching...and staying in line. Dean said he was going to break up the media monopolies and then came the Dean scream.

rd...I was telling my wife last night before the game started that I wish they'd got rid of Schilling...not only a Bush boy but doesn't have it anymore...two thumbs down from me.

yep, still cheering the Sox...me prediction could still come through with no more losses. 

Anyone know about mprov's live concert?

help, please.

http://leplacard.org/join/index.html

http://www.deletist.info/

"and a recognizable large interest group in women voters who sense something historic might happen."

Of course something historic is going to happen if Clinton's elected.

She'll put the final nails in the coffin of democracy.

Phil, what are these women thinking?  Do you have a sense of why they aren't learning about who she really is?   

Is this the live thread?

Is this the live thread? 

Well, being asleep is being alive.

Wake it up! 

12.

FRED from OR
Sun, 10/14/07
6:24 pm

Good eye Fred -- he also can't spell Ari ben Canaan, the protagonist in Leon Uris's Exodus.
===============================================
There is an interesting article in the Vanity Fair about the conflict between Gore and Hillary during Clinton's presidency and during Hill's and Gore's parallel campaigning for Senator/President. From this article, one gets the feeling that Hill's campaigning sucked a lot of money and energy out of Gore's and that Bill was supporting Hill's campaign.

White House Civil War
Promised real power as Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore found he had a rival for that role: the First Lady. And when Hillary decided to run for the Senate, a tense competition got ugly, writes Sally Bedell Smith.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/featu...

No can do tonight, sitka doll.   I tried out my legs and feet and after hardly dancing for 3 months, I'm sore and pooped.

Off to read the latest Dune book and then to sleep.   

I'm sore and pooped.

Of course something historic is going to happen if Clinton's elected. She'll put the final nails in the coffin of democracy.

In that case, the only hope is that Repos get control of Congress and suddenly decide they don't like all the powers they and their Dem collaborators allowed Bush to usurp. They won't be afraid to impeach.

payne, too late for us, but the festival's still going. go here and click the link.

http://www.thelab.org/

works with itunes, at least...

Cool stuff. Thanks mprov.

Good morning, BFA!

*****************

As most here suspect, T. Herzl is undoubtedly S. Jackson and also posts under the names of other RW Zionist supporters.

He (she/it?) does think well of Joementum, and that should tell us everything we need to know. The same drivel about Gore was posted on the last thread.

*****************
One good Monday antidote to the vitrol: EarlG's fabulous Top Ten.

=================
Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 310
October 15, 2007
Won't Somebody Think Of The Children? Edition

This week Sick Wingnuts (1) team up to trash a 12-year-old boy, Ann Coulter (3) and Tucker Carlson (4) give some fine examples of what passes for conservative thinking these days, and The Bush Administration (6) screws up the war on terror - again. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

[...]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...

Last Update: 3:27 AM ET Oct 15, 2007

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- December gold was last up $6.10 at $759.90 an ounce in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after reaching a high of $760.80. It's trading at the highest level a front-month contract has seen in nearly 28 years

Here's a great column by Frank Rich from yesterday's NYT. This is one that I should NOT have missed.

*********
Interesting too that he mentions that the two women gunned down in Baghdad by the so-called security firm contractors last week were Armenian Christians ... this at a time when Nancy Pulling-our-legs-see is insisting that Congress must get the Turkey Armenian genocide resolution passed.

Irony anyone?

Andy Nancy: you are a tremendous disappointment to this lifelong Democrat.

==============================
October 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us
By FRANK RICH
“BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.

Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: “This government does not torture people.” Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of “torture” is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.”

Still, the drill remains the same. The administration gives its alibi (Abu Ghraib was just a few bad apples). A few members of Congress squawk. The debate is labeled “politics.” We turn the page.

There has been scarcely more response to the similarly recurrent story of apparent war crimes committed by our contractors in Iraq. Call me cynical, but when Laura Bush spoke up last week about the human rights atrocities in Burma, it seemed less an act of selfless humanitarianism than another administration maneuver to change the subject from its own abuses.

As Mrs. Bush spoke, two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent. That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005. There has been no accountability. The State Department, Blackwater’s sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won’t even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinio...

Continental passive genocide? If so, lots of administrations share in it.

But most were Republican-run administrations.

Also, unlike most of the humanitarian programs managed by the UN, which are based in Geneva, the World Bank is based inside the DC Beltway. That in itself should have sent up red flags.

=====================
October 15, 2007
World Bank Neglects African Farming, Study Says
By CELIA W. DUGGER

The World Bank, financed by rich nations to reduce poverty in poor ones, has long neglected agriculture in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa, where most people depend on the farm economy for their livelihoods, according to a new internal evaluation.

The evaluation was posted late last week on the bank’s Web site at a delicate moment.

The bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, after 100 days in office, declared in a recent speech that a Green Revolution for Africa was among his top priorities. On Friday, as ministers from around the world gather for the bank’s annual meeting in Washington, it will release its flagship World Development Report, this year devoted to agriculture.

The evaluation of the bank’s role in African agriculture was conducted by an internal unit that assesses all of its operations and answers to the bank’s board and president, not its management.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when African governments faced severe fiscal crises, the bank pushed for the public sector — often badly managed and inefficient — to pull back from agriculture, incorrectly assuming that market forces would jump-start agricultural growth.

“In most reforming countries, the private sector did not step in to fill the vacuum when the public sector withdrew,” the evaluation found.

One result, it said, is that farmers face practical obstacles: exorbitant fertilizer prices and shortages of credit and improved seeds. In recent years, yields for cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa were less than half of South Asia’s and one-third of Latin America’s, the evaluation said.

At a time of growing debate about how to combat hunger in Africa, the evaluation team recommended that the bank, the single largest donor for African agriculture, concentrate on helping farmers get the basics they need to grow and market more food: fertilizer, seeds, water, credit, roads.

Two poverty analysts who often disagree — Professors Jeffery D. Sachs of Columbia University and William Easterly of New York University — read the evaluation and found it withering.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/...

Wily Putin knows just how to play Clueless Condi.

And yes, he will likely outlast this administration, which makes most Russians quite happy.

And Russia was supposed to be the area of her so-called *expertise.* What a bad joke she is! And yet, she is still by far the best that putzCo have.

What a sad joke on us all!

=====================
October 15, 2007
Diplomatic Memo
U.S. Frustrated by Putin’s Grip on Power
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

MOSCOW, Oct. 14 — At the gathering of leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations in Germany this year, President Bush turned to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and remarked that the two of them had outlasted most of their old colleagues from the group’s annual meetings, American officials recalled. Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi, Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair had left or were leaving.

“Next year,” Mr. Putin replied, “it will be only you.”

Mr. Putin’s response, for a time, persuaded the Bush administration that he would keep his word and step down as Russia’s president when his term ends next year, several months before Mr. Bush’s own presidency ends in January 2009.

Now, though, Mr. Putin’s plans are far from clear, and as a result, the administration’s hopes that Russia would move toward a freer, more democratic society have substantially diminished.

Mr. Putin’s surprise suggestion last month that he might yet remain in power — possibly as a newly empowered prime minister, possibly as the eminence atop the “party of power” — has left the White House stumped. The administration is uncertain how to deal with a man who has consolidated power almost exclusively in his own hands, even as Mr. Bush continues to call Mr. Putin “my friend.”

That is why a certain discomfort regarding Mr. Putin’s future hovered over two days of talks here attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/...

Today's Krugman (oh, how GLAD I am that he has been freed from NYT Select!) on some theories as to why our Al has the RW frothing at the mouth.

They are afflicted with GDS.

====================
October 15, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Gore Derangement Syndrome
By PAUL KRUGMAN

On the day after Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize, The Wall Street Journal’s editors couldn’t even bring themselves to mention Mr. Gore’s name. Instead, they devoted their editorial to a long list of people they thought deserved the prize more.

And at National Review Online, Iain Murray suggested that the prize should have been shared with “that well-known peace campaigner Osama bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance.” You see, bin Laden once said something about climate change — therefore, anyone who talks about climate change is a friend of the terrorists.

What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?

Partly it’s a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.

And now that Mr. Bush has proved himself utterly the wrong man for the job — to be, in fact, the best president Al Qaeda’s recruiters could have hoped for — the symptoms of Gore derangement syndrome have grown even more extreme.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient. For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinio...

Omigosh, Al Qaeda *in the last throes,* yet again.

And so it will continue for as long as we stay in Iraq.

Out. Now.

===================
Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
Many Officials, However, Warn Of Its Resilience
By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 15, 2007; A01

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Well, given BW's profile, this hapless journalist could as easily have been murdered by them.

================
Reporter For Post Is Fatally Shot In Baghdad
By Joshua Partlow and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 15, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD, Oct. 14 -- On Sunday afternoon, Salih Saif Aldin set out for one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods. He knew exactly where to go. He nodded, smiled, grabbed his camera. There was nothing he needed to say.

Saif Aldin always came back -- from death threats, from beatings, from kidnappings, from detentions by American soldiers, from the country's most notorious and deadly terrain -- but on Sunday he didn't. The 32-year-old Iraqi reporter in The Washington Post's Baghdad bureau was shot once in the forehead in the southwestern neighborhood of Sadiyah. He was the latest in a long line of reporters, most of them Iraqis, to be killed while covering the Iraq war. He was the first for The Washington Post.

"The death of Salih Saif Aldin in the service of our readers is a tragedy for everyone at The Washington Post. He was a brave and valuable reporter who contributed much to our coverage of Iraq," said Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Post. "We are in his debt. We grieve with his family, friends, fellow journalists and everyone in our Baghdad bureau."

At 2 p.m., Saif Aldin took a taxi from The Post's office to Sadiyah to interview residents about the sectarian violence there between Shiite militiamen and Sunni insurgents. It was his third trip to the embattled neighborhood within a week. For him, there were no red zones, no green zones, no neighborhoods out of bounds.

Two hours later, a man picked up Saif Aldin's cellphone and called a colleague at The Post to say he had been shot.

Residents of the neighborhood and Iraqi military officers at the scene said Saif Aldin was killed while taking photographs on a street where several houses had been burned. His wounds appeared to indicate he was shot at close range. His body was later observed lying on the street, covered with newspapers.

The area Saif Aldin was visiting is dominated by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Some residents at the scene said they feared that soldiers from the Iraqi army, believed to be infiltrated by the militia, were responsible for his death.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Yet another area where we are all being such *good Germans* ... and we WILL be called to account for it some day.

In fact, so long as this can happen to any person under our authority, it could happen to any one of us. It actually did happen, for a time, to a lawyer in Oregon who would probably still be *disappeared* if it were not for persistent Spanish authorities.

And that fact should be chilling for us all.

====================
Going to See a Ghost
Majid Khan and the Abuses of the 'War on Terror'
By Gitanjali S. Gutierrez
Monday, October 15, 2007; A15

Today at Guantanamo Bay, I am supposed to meet a ghost.

Actually, Majid Khan -- whom I represent in my work as a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights-- is still very much alive. Yet his legal status as a person entitled to basic rights is under grave assault. You see, Majid is one of dozens of people who have been held in secret CIA detention centers around the world. They are known as "ghost detainees" because our government hid them away from everyone, even the Red Cross. Their existence is an enduring reminder of the shocking abuse of power taking place in this nation.

Majid's story has become fairly well known. He was born in Pakistan; his family immigrated to the United States in 1996, when Majid was 16, and received asylum in our country. Majid went to Owings Mills High School, outside of Baltimore, where he learned about checks and balances and due process. He was an amateur DJ. And he was deeply attached to his Muslim faith.

In 2002, Majid went to Pakistan to marry. On March 5, 2003, he was kidnapped by Pakistani police, who turned him over to the CIA. Our government held him incommunicado at a secret CIA facility for more than three years. According to news reports, former CIA interrogators, government memos and admissions by President Bush, techniques such as simulated drowning, sleep deprivation, extreme temperature fluctuations, sexual humiliation and extended solitary confinement in cramped quarters -- practices that amount to torture under any reasonable definition -- were used at these facilities repeatedly, brutally and systematically. But during this entire period our government denied that Majid even existed. He was a ghost. His family did not know whether he was alive or dead.

Then, as abruptly as he disappeared, Majid reappeared. In September 2006, President Bush announced that Majid, along with 13 other "ghosts," would be transferred to Guantanamo Bay to face a military tribunal. The tribunals are meant to legitimize their detention but accomplish nothing of the sort. Any military commission Majid is to face will follow rules specifically designed to ensure that the government gets the outcome it seeks.

Moreover, the proceedings will be tainted with secrecy. A transparent trial would risk revealing the events surrounding Majid's detention and treatment while in CIA custody. The government's need for secrecy has nothing to do with Majid's alleged wrongdoing -- only the circumstances under which he was captured, hidden away and interrogated. He will continue to be held behind a shroud of secrecy to protect the CIA program under which he was originally detained. He is a prisoner being punished in order to protect his jailers. The logic is terrifying. And it is being done in the name of the American people.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

A checklist that putzCo certainly ignored ... and their press sycophants STILL do.

====================
Our rulers rely more on impulse than reason when they take us into war
A new book provides a check list for leaders considering military action, but the rest of us must make them heed it
Max Hastings
Monday October 15, 2007
The Guardian

Nations in general, and Britain in particular, go to war with astonishing insouciance. Since the consequences are so grave, it might be thought that decisions to fight would be subject to rigorous scrutiny and analysis before the tanks roll. Not so. Anthony Eden lunged towards Suez in 1956. Margaret Thatcher dispatched a task force to the Falklands in 1982 on the basis of a visceral political calculation, not a hard-headed military one. Tony Blair all but gave George Bush a blank cheque for support of US military action, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq.

Gordon Brown has assured the House of Commons that in future it will all be different. Parliament will be fully consulted in advance. We should hope he means this, if Bush attempts a last reckless stab at Iran before quitting the White House.

Meanwhile, the prime minister would do well to spend half an hour with Just War, a new book by Lord Charles Guthrie and Sir Michael Quinlan (no more time is needed, for it is very short). The authors - respectively Britain's best modern chief of defence staff and the cleverest defence civil servant of recent times - seek to provide a check list for national leaders contemplating military action.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...

Hmm ... wonder what the REAL story is here.

=================
Threat to kill Putin during trip to Iran
· Security agencies say they uncovered bomb plot
· Tehran insists allegations are invention of 'enemies'
Luke Harding in Moscow
Monday October 15, 2007
Guardian

Russia's security services last night claimed they had uncovered a plot to assassinate President Vladimir Putin during his trip this week to Iran.

Suicide bombers were planning to blow up Mr Putin, Interfax news agency said, citing a source in Russia's security agencies. Terrorists had been trained to kill the president, the source added.

The Kremlin last night confirmed that Mr Putin, who was on his way to Germany to meet chancellor Angela Merkel, had been informed of the alleged plot.

But there were few details. It was not clear why an Iranian terrorist group might target Mr Putin or how Russia's security agencies learned of the plot on the eve of his visit. "We cannot comment on this information but we confirm that the president has been informed," a Kremlin spokesman told the AFP news agency last night.

Mr Putin is due to travel to Tehran tonight after a Russian-German summit today in Wiesbaden.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33095...

Well, here's another one in the footsteps of Larry Craig ... not a politician, but with a creative excuse. Wonder whether the next hypocritical politico to be caught in flagrante delicto will use this one.

=================
Sex, lies and videotape: turmoil at the Vatican
· Official secretly filmed propositioning young man
· Bureaucrat claims he was investigating satanist plot
John Hooper in Rome
Monday October 15, 2007
Guardian

The Vatican was last night at the centre of an unusually public sex scandal after acknowledging it had suspended a senior official who was filmed apparently propositioning a young man in his office.

Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, a capo ufficio, or section head, at the Vatican ministry responsible for the clergy, insisted yesterday he was not gay. He said he had posed as a homosexual to research a plot by satanists.

The affair is the latest of several indications that the traditional immunity enjoyed by the Catholic church in Italy over sex scandals is gradually giving way.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33095...

This is really sad. Unfortunately, I see few signs for optimism these days.

=================
The land of optimism is in the dumps, but refuses to accept how it got there
Not since Watergate has such pessimism afflicted Americans. They want politicians to lift them without facing the cause
Gary Younge in New York
Monday October 15, 2007
The Guardian

On April 27 1968 the vice president, Hubert Humphrey, announced his presidential candidacy. It was a particularly troubled moment in America's recent history. Just three weeks after Martin Luther King's assassination, the cities were still scarred by riots while the country as a whole was deeply divided over the Vietnam war.

Presumably seeking to capture the mood of the nation, Humphrey started his speech thus: "Here we are, the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose, the politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out." Within six weeks Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated.

America's self-image as the home of unrelenting progress - a nation of historic purpose and unrivalled opportunity where tomorrow will always be better than today - is the linchpin of its political and popular culture. Optimism, it seems, is a truly renewable national resource. It was used to build Bill Clinton's "bridge to the 21st century" in 1992, and powered the alarm clocks for Reagan's "new morning in America".

[...]
This sense of optimism has been in retreat in almost every sense over the past few years. According to Rasmussen polls, just 21% of Americans believe the country is on the right track, a figure that has fallen by more than a half since the presidential election of 2004. Meanwhile only a third think the country's best days are yet to come, as opposed to 43% who believe they have come and gone - again a steep decline on three years ago. These are not one-offs. In the past 18 months almost every poll that has asked Americans about their country's direction has produced among the most pessimistic responses on record - a more extended period than anyone can remember since Watergate.

America, in short, is in a deep funk.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/...

Well, having said that I am pessimistic about things in the US, I am happy that our Aussie friends have finally seen through Howard ... another putz, according to my Aussie friends!

So perhaps there will be hope for us too.

================
Howard calls election as Australian voters desert him
Barbara McMahon in Sydney
Monday October 15, 2007
Guardian

Australia's prime minister, John Howard, called a general election yesterday as polls showed him heading for a landslide defeat after nearly 11 years in office.

Speaking in Canberra the 68-year-old insisted he was still the best man to lead the country despite many voters switching to his Labor opponent, Kevin Rudd.

Setting November 24 as the election date, Mr Howard argued that his strength and experience trumped those of his youthful challenger. "Love me or loathe me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the important issues of their future," he said. He played down his age and the fact that he is seeking a fifth term, saying the country "does not need new leadership. It does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership".

Mr Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks Mandarin, has been on a roll. He took over as Labor leader in December and is seen as a serious, policy-driven politician and the first real challenger to Mr Howard's authority.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33095...

Perhaps this is something that we too need to consider.

Seriously.

====================
Legalise all drugs: chief constable demands end to 'immoral laws'
By Jonathan Brown and David Langton
Published: 15 October 2007

One of Britain's most senior police officers is to call for all drugs – including heroin and cocaine – to be legalised and urges the Government to declare an end to the "failed" war on illegal narcotics.

Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales, advocates an end to UK drug policy based on "prohibition". His comments come as the Home Office this week ends the process of gathering expert advice looking at the next 10 years of strategy.

In his radical analysis, which he will present to the North Wales Police Authority today, Mr Brunstrom points out that illegal drugs are now cheaper and more plentiful than ever before.

The number of users has soared while drug-related crime is rising with narcotics now supporting a worldwide business empire second only in value to oil. "If policy on drugs is in future to be pragmatic not moralistic, driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral, to be replaced with an evidence-based unified system (specifically including tobacco and alcohol) aimed at minimisation of harms to society," he will say.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politic...

John Edwards appears to be going after Hillary.

I too am not optimistic about her having learned any lessons from her experience with putzCo after this particular vote.

==========
Edwards questions Clinton's sincerity
By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer
Sun Oct 14, 7:44 PM ET

HUDSON, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has spent two weeks questioning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's judgment in voting to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Last month, Clinton was one of 75 senators who voted for a resolution giving the president the authority to call the guards terrorists. She has characterized the vote as a way to gain leverage for U.S. negotiations with Iran, but some of her rivals, including Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, argue it amounted to giving Bush another blank check to go to war.

At several stops Sunday, Edwards referred to a New York Times column in which unidentified Clinton supporters say she voted for the resolution in part because she already has shifted from "primary mode," when she must appeal to liberals, to "general election" mode, when she must find broader support.

"I may have missed something — and you can tell me — have we already had the New Hampshire primary? Have we decided who's going to win the New Hampshire primary yet? I think we're going to actually have a campaign and an election," Edwards said at a town hall meeting in a school cafeteria.

[...]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071014/ap_p...

Yes, putzCo certainly are evidence of the Peter Principle at work, particularly when an administration with no principles at all is in charge.

I've been hanging around because today is the day when the subcontractors have been coming around to fix all the little defects that were found during the handover walk-throughs. So far, two have stopped by: one to replace a defective kitchen cupboard door; another to move a safe that was badly placed in the dressing area. A safe!! Can you believe it?

There are a couple of paint touch-ups, an electrical switch that buzzes when it's turned on, a couple of glass shelves that need to be installed, and some keys for the outside storage door on the balcony-terrace. Otherwise, things are in very good shape, except that for some reason, my hot water was not working over the weekend and I am not sure why not.

I have not wanted to get involved in any major project in the meantime. But there are some minor ones that I had better get going on.

So this is the last for now. I hope that the Blog starts showing the last thread on the front page again.

======================
Monday, October 15, 2007
Turkey Shells Iraqi Kurds;
Pilgrims Bombed in Baghdad;
Ammar Visits Sheikhs of al-Anbar;
Muqtada Condemns Soft Partition;

The sectarian civil war in Iraq left dozens of persons dead and wounded on Sunday. One major bombing targeted Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad heading to the shrine of Kadhimiya, in the north of the capital, killing 10 persons in a minibus, including women and children, and wounding two dozen. There were other bombings and firefights, including near Ramadi.

One US soldier was killed and three were wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. There were bombings or clashes in Kirkuk and Iskandariya. In Haswa, Shiite Mahdi Army militiamen clashed with Sunnis. Bodies were found near Baqubah.

Turkey shelled Iraqi Kurdish villages along the two countries' mutual border on Sunday, saying it was a reprisal for PKK radical guerrilla attacks on Turkish troops last week.

The severe tensions between Turkey and the PKK and its Iraqi Kurdish sponsors such as Masoud Barzani helped put petroleum prices up near $84 a barrel. The declining dollar contributed to the high price. Bush's policies are hurting millions around the world; it is incredible how much damage one person can do when the Peter Principle begins operating full time.

[...]
http://www.juancole.com/2007/10/turkey-s...

Good morning, everybody

I am mulling over whether to do another piece about the Edwards event yesterday. The reason I'm mulling is because I don't want it to impact on the candidate, but rather to focus on how hard it is for candidates to know who's a true supporter and who's not.
If I'd known the event was sponsored by the Friends of the Earth, I would not have gone. I can honestly say I hate the people who participate in that agenda. Perhaps that's unfair and it was only the Florida contingent I was involved with that was so hypocritical, but I'm thinking not.
I supposed it's my disillusionment that's coming out. I really thought that Friends of the Earth cared about the environment and were keen to end pollution and its general despoilation. But, what they turned out to be mainly about was keeping other people from using and enjoying the earth's prime spots. So, it was a selfish, self-centered cohort which demonstrated virtually no interest in the actual welfare of the earth or its human population. I'm not sure if there's an official connection, but the FOE were also big on ZPG (zero population growth), as if the despoilation of the planet was the result of the number of humans, most of them poor.
True, there are some people who argue that they have to pollute (with power plants and automobiles and chemical fertilizers) in order to improve the conditions of the poor, but it hasn't actually happened yet.
Anyway................I'm mulling

Well. let's see how this network works.

__________________________

On Tuesday there will be a special election to decide who will replace the MA-05 seat vacated by Rep. Martin Meehan. Niki Tsongas, wife of the late Senator and 1992 NH Primary winner Paul Tsongas, is in a tough fight for the seat. She needs our help and Carol wants us to do everything we can for her.


Why is sending Niki Tsongas to Washington worth taking a day off of work and driving down to Massachusetts?


Tsongas On Iraq
A change in course is long overdue. We need to bring our servicemen and women home quickly, safely and responsibly and we need to care for them once they are here. I support setting a timetable for the withdrawal of our troops requiring redeployment begin in 90 days after enactment of the timetable and that our commanders in the field have an additional six months to complete redeployment.
http://nikitsongas.com/iraq.php


Tsongas on Global Warming
Leadership, not excuses: I'm committed to making this issue a top legislative priority. Global warming is no longer an academic question for scientists to ponder. It's a very real crisis that requires Congress to take leadership.
http://nikitsongas.com/global_warming.ph...


Tsongas on Healthcare
I feel very strongly that every American deserves guaranteed access to the highest quality care and as a member of Congress, I'll work to make that happen.
http://nikitsongas.com/health_care.php


Her opponent Jim Ogonowski has closed to within single digits in the polls. We'd like to be able to tell you exactly what he stands for, but Ogonowski doesn't publish his policy positions on his website. We can guess this is because he knows his views don't represent the views of the people of his district, state, or country.


We do know Ogonowski opposes the SCHIP bill passed by Congress that would provide heathcare to millions of Children. And we also know he supports an open ended commitment to President Bush's War in Iraq.


If you can give any time at all on Tuesday to help with GOTV please reply to this email. Include your name, telephone number, and an email address we can contact you at tonight or tomorrow to let you know how to get involved. This is going to be a very close, very low turnout election and as we learned in 2006 your support will make all the difference.


It's been nearly a quarter century since a woman was a member of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation. Let's make history and bring that streak to an end by sending Niki Tsongas to Washington!

Have HQ staff just abandoned bloggie?

I see the clock's still~12 minutes slow

There is a new thread waiting for 9 eastern time John.

I think it might be a plot by Arshan to get us to use the whole blog space better, like we are doing. You really do have to come to browse all once in a while to get a sense of all the local activity.

I give my support to the National Resources Defense Council who actually sue polluters and governmental agencies that fail to follow environmental law, sort of like the ACLU and civil liberties.

but clearly six billion people are straining the planets resources now and if they all consumed at American rates the earth would be had

It is funny how our personal experiences color our politics, Monica, I wouldn't hold it against Edwards. I like his basic orientation of the need to take on the Corporations and powers that be causing our problems head on. Once you have that world view, you end up fighting for the people. 

Reggie Bush is one heck of an exciting skill player. Topped off an enjoyable rare day off for me.bbl 

68. No, I'm not holding it against Edwards. But Friends of the Earth and their partners, the Nature Conservancy, are in the business of locking up prime real estate, bundling public and private grants, often in the expectation that some "less ecologically sensitive parcel" will be able to be traded for something more valuable later, opening up what was set aside for later development after it's increased in value because of being set aside. It's a strategy for taking land off the market for a short period of time in order to make it more valuable later, all the while they are soothing their conscience with the mantra that they're doing it all for the environment.
The estate where the Friends of the Earth event was held is built on the edge of a river. A gigantic asphalted parking area in front of the house and the two car garage (which doubltess generates a lot of oily runoff--non-point-source pollution is what it's called) was reserved for the candidate and his audience whose vehicles were restricted to the 150' driveway, a few turn-offs into the woods and along the county road, where they interfered with bikeriders and Sunday morning church-goer traffic. Indeed, even the honored guest's vehicle was restricted to the driveway, lest the two acres of chemically fertilized lawn and the putting green be disturbed. The host had arranged for a traffic monitor (a kid in an organge vest on an ATV) to make sure no cars went where they weren't supposed to go.
Do you get the sense that the candidate was used? I do.

One more thing. The problem with corporations isn't the corporation as an entity; it's what corporations (both public and private) have been allowed to get away with under the guise of doing a public service or charity. Of course, individuals get away with making messes, too. The problem with the corporations is that their messes are so much greater and so much more pervasive. Indeed, one of the reasons for the "base closure" process undertaken by the DoD is the fact that many of these real estate holdings are seriously contaminated and present a large liability. BRAC is a divestment program designed to get rid of obligations that have been created by environmental regulations. Sometimes, the land is given away on the basis that the prior owners will be held harmless if the site needs to be cleaned up.

We've got almost a century of "externalities" to confront. Externalities are negative consequence whose cost to correct them is borne by someone who derives no benefit (the downstream neighbors of a removed mountain top, for example). It would be different, if everyone were better off. But they're not. 17% of our economy is now dealing with health issues. They weren't all created by environmental pollution, but the pollution didn't prevent them.
Consider this--migrants and their children are healthier than the norm during the first three or so years they're here. Then they get just as sickly. Why is that?

I think if the blog is to get more use, there's going to have to be a tad more information on the main page about what's available elsewhere. Instead of just the category headings, there should be a list of recent posts on the right, preferably with a comment count so people can see what's attracting notice.
I would not recommend a recommend function because people either don't use it or use it to promote their cronies. That's what happens on KOS.

72. YES.

I must be missing something...I don't see a thread set to be promoted. Hmmmm. do do do do do do

Anyhow. Will be off soon for my oral surgery. I asked hubby if I should ask for pics....every husbands dream to see his wife's mouth cut and stitched? LOL I got a resounding "NO!"

I'll be posting a pic in a second. It's just such a nice one showing Mr. Gore arrriving at the Alliance for Climate Protection offices. I hadn't seen it 'til this morning.

enjoy

...

I AGREE WITH RALPH ON THIS ONE

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader10132007.html

The Democratic Party line on impeachment is that Bush and Cheney are the most impeachable White House duo in American history (they believe this privately). The Democrats do not want to distract attention from their legislative agenda, and need Republican votes for passage. Moreover, they do not have the votes to obtain the requisite two-thirds of the members present for conviction in the Senate.

Strangely, none of these excuses bothered Republicans when they impeached Bill Clinton in the House for lying under oath about sex and proceeded to a full trial in the Senate where they failed to get the required votes. Can Clinton's "high crimes and misdemeanors" begin to compare with this White House crime wave?

Members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial branches-namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That Oath is supposed to transcend political calculations.

Maybe the Democrats think that Bush and Cheney are such wild and crazy guys that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the two draft-dodgers to launch a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the "war on terror," that would engulf the Democrats and throw them on the defensive for 2008.

In short, the Democrats may be viewing Bush and Cheney as being so defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts as to be unimpeachable. That is, with the White House harboring so much political nitroglycerine, don't even try to remove it.

Such a cowardly position would make quite a precedent for future Presidents who want to illegally elbow out the other two branches of government and our Constitution.

76. The function is still here. Hardly anyone uses it. I don't know how many people come to DFALink through the main page. I don't. I come to the blog.
If we had a visible traffic meter, we'd know more about how many people come to read. On DFNH, the ration between "visitor" and logged in members is anywhere from 100-400 to 1.
There are almost no comments from anyone other than me. LOL

Bluehampshire is about to register its 1000th member. There are maybe a dozen regular posters and commenters. BH is a lot more active than DFNH.

ration s/b relationship

KRUGMAN--GORE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?ref=opinion

 The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient. For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening.

 Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

78. Thanks for the response.  Yeah, I never liked the Rate this Comment feature (created too much game-playing of jumping on the pile  -- to either suppress a comment, or to lift up the comment like in a mosh party)

Cronyism at it's worse, lol

KUNSTLER ON ETHANOL

http://www.kunstler.com/

Out in Iowa last week, you could see that they had planted corn clear up to the highway on-ramps, and shiny new grain storage bins were everywhere. The ethanol program is in high gear there. It is, of course, a net energy loser when you figure in all the fossil fuel "inputs" and procedures needed in making the stuff. It was interesting to hear that a lot of "normal" Iowans regard the enterprise as exactly what it is -- an arrant government subsidy racket intended to enrich agribusiness, while blowing "green" smoke up the rest of America's ass.

82. It's my understanding that the left-over mash is still able to be used as animal feed--sort of like coal ash is used to make concrete blocks. The secondary products might have to be factored in. And then, there's the question of what comes out of the tailpipe when ethanol rather than gasoline is burned. It may be a net loss in terms of oil used and it may not. I'd like to see the figures and then compare them to the constructing and fueling of a nuclear power plant.

The only thing more inefficient than ethanol is the gasoline it replaces.

Think long and hard before you repeat oil company talking points.

a corn field is a carbon sink

there is, indeed, a new thread
http://blogforamerica.com/view/22556

The vast agricultural infrastructure is already all in place to use the surplus corn supply for fuel rather than dumping the surplus on the world market driving third world farmers out of business. It is not the answer it is just one little piece of the puzzle.

Believe me Americans jumping in an SUV to run to Walmart to buy goods shipped from China made from raw material shipped from America is the inefficient part of the equation, not whether or not 10% of the fuel is made from corn.

Farmers would give up all subsidies if the competition did too.

I support House Resolution 333 calling for the
impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney. I also
support the impeachment of George W. Bush. As your
constituent, I am writing to insist that you and the
rest of the House of Representatives carry out your
constitutional duties to defend the Constitution of
the United States. It is unconscionable that the House
has obstructed an open discussion of the activities of
the President and Vice-President. This administration
has taken this country into a criminal war, is
threatening to start a new war, and has violated the
constitutional rights of the American people. It is
time for the House to fulfill its constitutional
obligations in response to these impeachable offenses.

That was a "boiler plate" paragraph from an e-mail campaign calling for impeachment.

This is a barely modified version of a letter I sent
to Truthout.org on the 9th of December, 2006.

"What needs to happen in the aftermath of Nancy
Pelosi's call for the "tabling" of impeachment is for
Democrats to realize that the responsibility to uphold
the constitution REQUIRES impeachment proceedings to
be brought against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, et
al. Despite this administration's unprecedented level
of secrecy, the evidence is there, in the public
record, from multiple sources of high crimes and
misdemeanors. And, a Grand Jury investigation should
"unlock" any evidence that was attempted to be hidden
from public scrutiny. Bush has done away with
Congressional oversight to a level never attained by
any sitting president and this must end to restore
balance between the branches of government. Nancy
Pelosi's call for no impeachment must not stand. If
Americans across this nation call, write, e-mail and
talk, in person to their elected representatives in a
massive call for impeachment, the message will be
unmistakable and will have to be acted on.
Impeachment is mandatory, under our Constitution and
this is the most egregious example of violations of
public trust in my 50+ years on this planet.
Watergate will pale by comparison to the level of
manipulation and law-breaking committed by this
administration. This must result in impeachment and
nothing less will suffice."

Fast forward nearly a year... This needs to happen for
our nation to put this horrible period of history
behind us and set the record straight. There should
not be waffling on impeachment for political
expediency. Bush's abuse of power is egregious and
our constitutionally dictated mandate must be carried
out. Thank you, Jack