Fri, Jun 30 2006
THIS IS WHAT A LIFETIME OF NO SEX DOES TO YOU
Nun arrested on charges of improperly spending more than $300K on casinos, gifts
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) A 71-year-old nun who co-wrote a popular marriage-preparation program was arrested on charges of improperly spending more than $300,000 on casinos, gifts and air travel.
Sister Barbara Markey, who was fired in January as director of the Omaha Archdiocese's family life office, turned herself in Wednesday and was released on her own recognizance.
According to the arrest warrant, an audit found that Markey spent $307,545 for her own use or without documentation. Some of the money was spent on cash advances, casinos, gifts and airfare, the audit said.
Defense attorney John Stevens Berry Sr. said the case stems from a disagreement about ownership and funding priorities related to the FOCCUS marriage preparation program, which Markey helped develop. The program is widely used in the Roman Catholic Church.
Markey was charged with theft by deception, a felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Fri, Jun 30 2006
HANG UP THE PHONE AND DRIVE, ASSHOLE!
Mobile phone driving as bad as being drunk
'I think you've talked enough...'
Reuters - People who talk on mobile phones while driving, even using 'hands-free' devices, are as impaired as drunk drivers, researchers have said.
Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Utah who worked on the study, said: "If legislators really want to address driver distraction, then they should consider outlawing cell phone use while driving."
The researchers used a driving simulation device for their study, published in the summer 2006 issue of Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
They studied 40 volunteers who used a driving simulator four times - while undistracted, using a handheld mobile phone, using a hands-free mobile phone and while intoxicated to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level (the average legal level of impairment in the US) after drinking vodka and orange juice.
Three study participants rear-ended the simulated car in front of them. All were talking on mobile phones and none was drunk, the researchers said.
Motorists who talked on either handheld or hands-free mobile phones drove slightly more slowly, were 9 per cent slower to hit the brakes and varied their speed more than undistracted drivers.
Drivers with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level drove a bit more slowly than both undistracted drivers and phone users, yet more aggressively.
"Driving while talking on a cell phone is as bad as or maybe worse than driving drunk," said Drews.
Just like many people who have been drinking, the mobile phone users did not believe themselves to be affected, the researchers found.
Thu, Jun 29 2006
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
This is just freaky. How could you not know there's something like this up your ass?:
Operation removes lightbulb from anus
MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.
Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.
"Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else," Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.
"We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation."
Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.
"When I woke up I felt a pain in my lower abdomen, but later in hospital, they told me this," Mohammad said.
"I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners."
The doctor treating Mohammad said he'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon's story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose.
Thu, Jun 29 2006
SUPES ACTUALLY MAKE A DECENT DECISION
BushCo's lapdogs all predictably went along with the crap, but for a change, the majority of the Supes saw the wisdom in not allowing King George to rule with impunity.
----------------
Supreme Court blocks Bush, Gitmo war trials
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying in a strong rebuke that the trials were illegal under U.S. and international law.
Bush said there might still be a way to work with Congress to sanction military tribunals for detainees and the American people should know the ruling "won't cause killers to be put out on the street."
The court declared 5-3 that the trials for 10 foreign terror suspects violate U.S. law and the Geneva conventions.
The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of the approximately 450 men still being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.
It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court, said the Bush administration lacked the authority to take the "extraordinary measure" of scheduling special military trials for inmates, in which defendants have fewer legal protections than in civilian U.S. courts.
The decision blocked a trial for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for
Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
It was a broad defeat for the government, which two years ago suffered a similar loss when the high court held the president lacked authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
Thursday's ruling overturned that decision.
The administration had hinted in recent weeks that it was prepared for the court to set back its plans for trying Guantanamo detainees.
The president also has told reporters, "I'd like to close Guantanamo." But he added, "I also recognize that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous."
The court's ruling says nothing about whether the prison should be shut down, dealing only with plans to put detainees on trial.
"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Kennedy wrote in his opinion. "Concentration of power (in the executive branch) puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."
The prison at Guantanamo Bay, erected in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, has been a flash point for international criticism. Hundreds of people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban including some teenagers had been swept up by the U.S. military and secretly shipped there since 2002.
Three detainees committed suicide there this month, using sheets and clothing to hang themselves. The deaths brought new scrutiny and criticism of the prison, along with fresh calls for its closing.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent from Thursday's ruling and took the unusual step of reading part of it from the bench something he had never done before in his 15 years. He said the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."
The court's willingness, Thomas wrote in the dissent, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."
Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also dissented.
In his own opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said, "Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check.'"
"Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary," Breyer wrote.
Justices also rejected the Bush administration's claim that the case should be thrown out on grounds that a new law stripped the justices' authority to consider it, and that Hamdan should not have been allowed to appeal until after the conclusion of his trial.
"It's certainly a nail in the coffin for the idea that the president can set up these trials," said Barbara Olshansky, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents about 300 Guantanamo detainees.
Hamdan has claimed he is innocent and worked as a driver for bin Laden in Afghanistan only to eke out a living for his family.
Stevens suggested that the administration would be best off trying Hamdan and others before regular military courts-martial trials.
The case is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184.
___
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/Wed, Jun 28 2006
A FREE FUCKING MARKET, GODDAMIT! NO MONOPOLIES, NO CRONYISM, NO NATIONALIZATION, ETC
Capitalism spreads freedom even as democracy falters
By Carl J. Schramm
With the Fourth of July approaching, many politicians and pundits have been asking: What would the Founders do in our situation?
How would Presidents George Washington, John Quincy Adams or Thomas Jefferson handle
Iraq? Afghanistan? The war on terror? The search for global peace?
One overlooked "founder" offers enduring answers: Adam Smith. Smith published the Wealth of Nations in 1776, the same year the Continental Congress declared American independence. By the time of the Constitutional Convention 11 years later, his ideas had been incorporated into the thinking of the new nation's leaders.
Smith's great revelation was that political freedom would most likely emerge and persist under conditions of economic freedom, what we now call capitalism. Our democratic system as defined in our Constitution incorporated respect for this economic system.
Like Smith's invisible hand in the market, the Framers saw an invisible hand in our politics. They believed that, if allowed to work freely, these hands together would shape America into the land where invention, creativity and entrepreneurial activity would flourish.
There would be no danger of an aristocracy of wealth because the instruments of financial success were available to every person.
In the two centuries since then, Smith's proposition has served to advance all of civilization. America has become the hope of the oppressed, the "mother of exiles" and the cradle of modern commerce.
Twice, America considered turning away from economic freedom. In the Depression, nationalization was seriously considered, and Presidents Roosevelt and Truman did attempt to take over several industries. In the late 1970s, in the face of low growth and high inflation, the nation nearly followed the advice of such economists as Harvard's Wassily Leontief and John Kenneth Galbraith to establish government central planning.
Instead, in the 1980s, we returned to our origins and bet on individual entrepreneurs rather than on government bureaucrats. The result has been today's extraordinary economic engine - Smith's entrepreneurial capitalism at work.
Indeed, research from the University of Maryland and Census Bureau shows that net jobs created by businesses less than five years old exceeded 20% per year during the '80s and '90s (equating to millions of jobs), while jobs created by more mature businesses remained essentially flat.
Even so, what do we do now in the face of a new enemy to freedom, driven by a notion that our democratic way should be eliminated?
More than the export of democracy, it is the export of entrepreneurial capitalism that can produce a new birth of peace and freedom around our globe. Entrepreneurial capitalism is based on individual invention, and because wealth comes from one's own initiative, it advances human dignity.
And here is the good news. Virtually every country, whatever its political system, wants to embrace it. They have seen the success of the American economy.
It has been said that when goods cross borders, armies don't. Today, China and India are the world's two largest countries racing toward entrepreneurial capitalism. They are the example and test of that thesis. Several decades ago, their armies clashed. Now no one talks of war, only of their economic emergence. Capitalism has promoted peace and, in China, better - though still inadequate - respect for rights.
If, with our assistance, Adam Smith's entrepreneurial capitalism were to become ubiquitous, the cross-border investment in the success of our brothers and sisters around the world, and theirs in us, would cause people everywhere to see the futility of ancient struggles, whether based on plunder, conquest or theocratic fervor.
In the insight of our invisible founder is the secret for achieving a future of global peace.
-----------
Carl J. Schramm is president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,which focuses on advancing entrepreneurial success.Wed, Jun 28 2006
GIVE THE LARDASSES WHAT THEY WANT: A HEART ATTACK SPECIAL
Beefy strategy helps Hardee's, Carl's Jr.
Hardee's "Monster Thickburger" contains two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun. It weighs in at a whopping 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
ST. LOUIS, Associated Press - In the past few months, McDonald's Corp. announced it would push healthy meals like salads while Wendy's International Inc. said it would fry foods in a healthier oil with less trans fats. And CKE Restaurants Inc.? The operator of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. unveiled a jumbo-sized cheeseburger smothered in sliced steak.
"I think the health craze is happening mostly among journalists," said Andrew Puzder, CKE's president and chief executive.
A lean man with an athletic build, Puzder laid out CKE's decidedly un-health-conscious business strategy during the company's annual shareholders meeting Tuesday in St. Louis.
The key strategy is simple: give people what they want, not what they think is good for them.
"The way people like to think they eat, and the way they actually eat is usually very different," Puzder said.
He pointed out that CKE puts salads and low-carb burgers on its menus. "We sell very few of them," he said.
CKE's strategy has worked well for shareholders this year, with its stock rising 20 percent so far in 2006. Shares closed at $16.21 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Puzder said the growth is especially strong considering CKE's position. The company has been revamping its chain of nearly 2,000 Hardee's restaurants that Puzder called dirty, poorly run and dogged by bad customer service for years.
Hardee's turnaround has pivoted on the Thickburger, Puzder said. CKE knocked 40 items off the menu and centered its offerings around the Monster Thickburger, with its 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
But the beef-at-all-costs strategy carries a risk. Puzder conceded the company's national television ads have garnered some complaints. The ads show customers mostly young men biting into huge burgers with an amplified crunch.
McDonald's and other companies have highlighted their healthier options in anticipation of this summer's release of "Chew On This," a book aimed at teenagers that is co-authored by Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation."
Early reports about the book say it holds fast-food companies responsible for the nation's childhood-obesity epidemic. A movie version of "Fast Food Nation" is scheduled for release this fall.
Perhaps more alarming for shareholders is the specter of lawsuits pinning the blame for obesity on fast food chains. Such cases have been filed against McDonald's, with most courts dismissing obesity claims. A federal court in New York reinstated part of an obesity case last year after it was dismissed twice by lower courts.
Puzder said CKE should be safe from such litigation for two reasons. First, it doesn't hide health information about its products. Fat and calorie figures are readily available so customers know exactly what they are eating. Second, the company doesn't market to kids, but focuses on young adults.
"As a former trial attorney myself no, I'm not worried," he said.
Shareholder David Skroup said he's confident in the company's plan to boost revenue and locations worldwide. A retired Air Force pilot who lives in Belleville, Ill., Skroup said he's pleased with CKE's decision to sell big burgers regardless of health-food fads.
"They know what they're doing," Skroup said. "It hasn't knocked the price down and it's increased the number of restaurants."Wed, Jun 28 2006
SHOOT, SON - DONTCHA KNOW IT AIN'T WHAT YA SAY, IT'S HOW YA SAY IT?
U.S. not 'most generous' by many calculations
Wed Jun 28, 7:57 AM ET
USA TODAY presents data on foreign aid and asserts that "the United States is the most generous country in the world when it comes to foreign aid." It is a slogan repeated often by our presidents ("2 lessons on foreign aid," Editorial, Friday).
By that logic, however, the United States is also the most athletic nation in the world because it regularly wins more medals in the Olympics than do tiny nations such as Israel or Denmark.
If you adjust the dollar figures on foreign aid that USA TODAY presents for population size or gross domestic product, then Denmark, for example, is found to devote 1.12% of its GDP and $385 per capita to foreign aid, both in purchasing power parity dollars. The comparable figures for the United States are only 0.22% of GDP and $92 per capita.
Any college freshman would judge the Danes to be the more generous people when it comes to foreign aid, and so should USA TODAY. I invite you to make similar calculations for other nations, and you'll discover that the United States is way down in the rankings on foreign aid.
signed,
Uwe Reinhardt,
James Madison Professor of Political Economy
Princeton University
Princeton, N.J.Tue, Jun 27 2006
BE A LOYAL AMERICAN
Tue, Jun 27 2006
THE FLINSTONES DREAMT OF STAR TREK
Tropical Stonehenge may have been found
SAO PAULO, Brazil, Associated Press - A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.
The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.
On the shortest day of the year Dec. 21 the shadow of one of the blocks, which is set at an angle, disappears.
"It is this block's alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory," said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapa State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. "We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture."
Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.
"Transforming this kind of knowledge into a monument; the transformation of something ephemeral into something concrete, could indicate the existence of a larger population and of a more complex social organization," Cabral said.
Cabral has been studying the site, near the village of Calcoene, just north of the equator in Amapa state in far northern Brazil, since last year. She believes it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not yet been submitted to carbon dating, she says pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older as much as 2,000 years old.
Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on Dec. 21.
While the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs built large cities and huge rock structures, pre-Columbian Amazon societies built smaller settlements of wood and clay that quickly deteriorated in the hot, humid Amazon climate, disappearing centuries ago, archaeologists say.
Farmers and fishermen in the region around the Amazon site have long known about it, and the local press has dubbed it the "tropical Stonehenge." Archeologists got involved last year after geographers and geologists did a socio-economic survey of the area, by foot and helicopter, and noticed "the unique circular structure on top of the hill," Cabral said.
Scientists not involved in the discovery said it could prove valuable to understanding pre-Columbian societies in the Amazon.
"No one has ever described something like this before. This is an extremely novel find a one of a kind type of thing," said Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida's Department of Anthropology.
He said that while carbon dating and further excavation must be carried out, the find adds to a growing body of thought among archaeologists that prehistory in the Amazon region was more varied than had been believed.
"Given that astronomical objects, stars, constellations etc., have a major importance in much of Amazonian mythology and cosmology, it does not in any way surprise me that such an observatory exists," said Richard Callaghan, a professor of geography, anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary.
Brazilian archaeologists will return in August, when the rainy season ends, to carry out carbon dating and further excavations.
"The traditional image is that some time thousands of years ago small groups of tropical forest horticulturists arrived in the area and they never changed (that) what we see today is just like it was 3,000 years ago," Heckenberger said. "This is one more thing that suggests that through the past thousands of years, societies have changed quite a lot."Tue, Jun 27 2006
HOW ABOUT MAKING THAT LITTLE RATFUCK MUSHARRAF COUGH UP OSAMA?
"Stalwart fighters in the fight against terrorism", my ass! Pakistan houses and subsidizes Osama Bin Laden, Al-Queda, Taliban, and a host of other cockroaches. Why aren't we squeezing these two-faced rodents? Because they have nukes, that's why. And don't think Iran doesn't see this.
Rice pushes Pakistan on 2007 elections
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Associated Press - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised two key Muslim allies who are sometimes at odds, calling Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai stalwart fighters in the fight against terrorism.
"Our view is that we have two good friends and two fierce fighters in the war on terror," the top U.S. diplomat said Tuesday following meetings with Musharraf and Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri.
But, Rice added, she expects Pakistan's military leader to fulfill his promise to hold democratic elections next year.
Rice will see Karzai on Wednesday for talks on that country's political progress and the international military campaign to quell terrorism in the south.
She also planned to meet with counterparts from the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Moscow on Thursday, where the topic was expected to be Iran's disputed nuclear program.
Rice's back-to-back visits were meant to temper tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan over responsibility for securing their chaotic border and routing Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists presumed to be hiding there.
Karzai has criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to go after terrorists along the mountainous border between the two nations. A clearly frustrated Karzai last week also criticized the U.S.-assisted coalition anti-terror campaign in his chaotic country, deploring the deaths of hundreds of Afghans and appealing for more help for his government. The coalition has killed hundreds, mostly Taliban militants, since May.
"Which country has a greater stake in peace and stability in Afghanistan?" Kasuri asked during a long and emotional defense of his nation's military and other efforts along the border.
Pakistan wants cross-border oil and gas pipelines, more regional trade and other development that it is not possible without more stability in Afghanistan, he said. He described recent talks with the Afghan foreign minister as productive, but said he asked his counterpart what possible motive Pakistan would have to destabilize its neighbor.
He challenged Afghanistan to prove militants are hiding out in Quetta, as some officials have claimed, or elsewhere in Pakistan. Previous tips from Karzai himself about militant whereabouts were out of date, he added.
"Tell us where they are hiding," he said. "We promise to investigate and take action."
Rice smiled tightly during Kasuri's monologue, adding only that the United States considers both nations to be strong allies and that all sides are trying to coordinate.
Before arriving in Pakistan, Rice said she had spoken several times with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and also with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about defusing the tension in Gaza, where Palestinian militants killed two Israeli soldiers and abducted another.
She urged patience to give diplomacy a chance to win the release of the Israeli soldier.
"There really needs to be an effort now to try and calm the situation, not to let the situation escalate," Rice said during a news conference aboard her plane.
Musharraf became an unlikely ally of the Bush administration following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when he pledged cooperation against terrorists who passed easily between Pakistan and the lawless Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan has come an enormously long way in a period of four years," Rice said aboard her plane. "We are fortunate there too that you have a leadership that is committed to putting Pakistan on a course toward moderation rather than a course toward extremism."
Rice had even stronger praise for Karzai.
"This is an extraordinary leader and we're going to back him and back him fully," Rice said. "When he has problems we're going to sit with him and we're going to find ways to resolve those problems. But any implication that anybody thinks that he is somehow not up to the job or not living up to his responsibilities is simply false."Tue, Jun 27 2006
KING GEORGE CAN DO ANY GODDAM THING HE WANTS, MOTHERFUCKER!
Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress
WASHINGTON , Associated Press - The White House on Tuesday defended President Bush's prolific use of bill signing statements, saying they help him uphold the Constitution and defend the nation's security.
"There's this notion that the president is committing acts of civil disobedience, and he's not," said Bush's press secretary Tony Snow, speaking at the White House. "It's important for the president at least to express reservations about the constitutionality of certain provisions."
Snow spoke as Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman Arlen Specter opened hearings on Bush's use of bill signing statements saying he reserves the right to revise, interpret or disregard a measure on national security and consitutional grounds. Such statements have accompanied some 750 statutes passsed by Congress including a ban on the torture of detainees and the renewal of the Patriot Act.
"There is a sense that the president has taken signing statements far beyond the customary purview," Specter, R-Pa., said.
"It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," he added. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick."
A Justice Department lawyer defended Bush's statements.
"Even if there is modest increase, let me just suggest that it be viewed in light of current events and Congress' response to those events," said Justice Department lawyer Michelle Boardman. "The significance of legislation affecting national security has increased markedly since Sept. 11."
"Congress has been more active, the president has been more active," she added. "The separation of powers is working when we have this kind of dispute."
Specter's hearing is about more than the statements. He's been compiling a list of White House practices he bluntly says could amount to abuse of executive power from warrantless domestic wiretapping program to sending officials to hearings who refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.
But the session also concerns countering any influence Bush's signing statements may have on court decisions regarding the new laws. Courts can be expected to look to the legislature for intent, not the executive, said Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas., a former state judge.
"There's less here than meets the eye," Cornyn said. "The president is entitled to express his opinion. It's the courts that determine what the law is."
But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush is doing an end-run around the veto process. In his presidency's sixth year, Bush has yet to issue a single veto that could be overridden with a two-thirds majority in each house.
"The president is not required to (veto)," Boardman said.
"Of course he's not if he signs the bill," Specter snapped back.
Instead, Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret or ignore laws on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the Patriot Act.
"It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed," said David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues. "This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?"
Signing statements don't carry the force of law, and other presidents have issued them for administrative reasons, such as instructing an agency how to put a certain law into effect. They usually are inserted quietly into the federal record.
Bush's signing statement in March on Congress's renewal of the Patriot Act riled Specter and others who labored for months to craft a compromise between Senate and House versions, and what the White House wanted. Reluctantly, the administration relented on its objections to new congressional oversight of the way the FBI searches for terrorists.
Bush signed the bill with much flag-waving fanfare. Then he issued a signing statement asserting his right to bypass the oversight provisions in certain circumstances.
Specter isn't sure how much Congress can do to check the practice. "We may figure out a way to tie it to the confirmation process or budgetary matters," he said.Mon, Jun 26 2006
REAL ISSUES
Mon, Jun 26 2006
READ HIS LIPS
Mon, Jun 26 2006
HOW MUCH YOU WANNA BET THE BUSHCO BOYS SHOOT THIS ONE DOWN IN FLAMES
High Court mulls greenhouse gas regulation
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Supreme Court plunged on Monday into the acrimonious debate over global warming and whether the government should regulate "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide from cars. The ruling could be one of the court's most important ever on the environment.
Spurred by states in a pollution battle with the Bush administration, the court said it would decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency is required under the federal clean air law to treat carbon dioxide from automobiles as a pollutant harmful to health.
The decision could determine how the nation addresses global warming.
President Bush has rejected calls by environmentalists and some lawmakers in Congress to regulate carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas going into the atmosphere. Bush favors voluntary actions and development of new technologies to curtail such emissions.
But a dozen states argued that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping chemicals from automobile tailpipes should be treated as unhealthy pollutants. They filed a lawsuit in an effort to force the EPA to curtail such emissions just as it does cancer-causing lead and chemicals that produce smog and acid rain.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take the case after a divided lower court sided with the administration. Arguments will be late this year, with a ruling by next June.
"This is going to be the first major statement by the Supreme Court on climate change. ... This is the whole ball of wax," said David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club, one of a number of environmental groups that joined the states in their appeal to the high court.
While the case doesn't specifically involve carbon releases from power plants, environmentalists said a court decision declaring carbon dioxide a harmful pollutant would make it hard for the agency to avoid action involving power plants which account for 40 percent or the carbon dioxide released into the air.
Cars and trucks account for about half that amount.
The EPA said in a statement that the agency "is confident in its decision" not to regulate the chemical under the federal Clean Air Act and plans to argue its case vigorously before the high court
Recently, Bush told reporters he views global warming as a serious problem and has "a plan to be able to deal with greenhouse gases" short of regulating their use. It includes developing new technologies for cleaner burning coal, using alternative motor fuels such as ethanol as substitutes for gasoline and expanding nuclear power to produce electricity.
Critics argue that carbon emissions have continued to increase though the rate of increase has declined and only regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will stem the amount going into the atmosphere.
"It is encouraging that the high court feels this case needs to be reviewed," said Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., who has campaigned in Congress to regulate carbon dioxide. "It is high time to stop relying on technicalities and finger pointing to avoid action on climate change."
The states involved, which together account for more than a third of the car market, say the Clean Air Act makes clear carbon dioxide is a pollutant that should be regulated if it poses a danger to public health and welfare. They argue it does so by causing a warming of the earth.
The administration maintains that unlike other chemicals that must be controlled to ensure healthy air, carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is not a dangerous pollutant under the federal law. And, officials argue, even if it is, the EPA has discretion over whether to regulate it, considering the economic costs involved.
The agency should not be required to "embark on the extraordinarily complex and scientifically uncertain task of addressing the global issue of greenhouse gas emissions" when voluntary ways to address climate change are available, the administration argued in its filing with the high court.
While a federal appeals court sided with the administration, its ruling was mixed.
One judge said the states and other plaintiffs had no standing because they had not proven harm. A second judge said even if the law gave the EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide, the agency was not obligated to do so. A third judge, in the minority, said the EPA was violating the law by not regulating the chemical.
In their appeal, the states maintained the case "goes to the heart of the EPA's statutory responsibilities to deal with the most pressing environmental problem of our time" the threat of global warming.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit were California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. They were joined by a number of cities including Baltimore, New York City and Washington D.C., the Pacific island of America Samoa, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth.
The case is Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120
____
On the Net: EPA: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarmingMon, Jun 26 2006
INSTEAD OF NOT CREATING POLLUTION, LET'S BURY IT!
Bass-ackwards solution:
Japan has ambitious plan to fight warming
TOKYO, Associated Press - Japan hopes to slash greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming with a plan to pump carbon dioxide into underground storage reservoirs instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, an official said Monday.
The proposal aims to bury 200 million tons of carbon dioxide a year by 2020, cutting the country's emissions by one-sixth, said Masahiro Nishio, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Introduced last month, the plan is still under study.
Underground storage of carbon dioxide underlines the new urgency felt by industrialized countries trying to rein in the effects of global warming. But capturing carbon dioxide from factory emissions and pressurizing it into liquid form, scientists can inject it into underground aquifers, gas fields or gaps between rock strata, safely keeping it out of the air.
Scientists have been studying the process for years, and an experimental project began in Canada in 2005. In the Canadian project a joint effort by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Canadian government and private industry carbon dioxide was piped from the Great Plains Synfuels plant in Beulah, N.D., where it is a byproduct of coal gasification, to the Weyburn oil field in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Japan has no commercial underground carbon dioxide storage operations, Nishio said. But the proposed Japanese project would dwarf the similar operations in Norway, Canada and Algeria, each of which pump about 1 million tons a year.
Tackling carbon dioxide is a top priority for Japan, the world's second-largest economy. The country expels 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, making it one of the world's top offenders, despite being a key driver behind to the Kyoto Protocol an international agreement to cut global output of carbon dioxide by 2012.
Underground storage could begin as early as 2010, but there are still many hurdles to overcome, Masahiro said.
Capturing carbon dioxide and injecting it underground is prohibitively expensive costing up to $52 a ton, Nishio said. Under the new initiative, the ministry aims to halve that cost by 2020 under.
"It's still very expensive, so we have much to study in development," Nishio said.
Safety concerns must also be addressed, to ensure that earthquakes or rock fissures do not allow a sudden release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that when stored properly, 99 percent of the carbon dioxide will likely remain stable for up to 1,000 years.
Long-term plans call for capturing emissions from steel mills, power plants and chemical factories. But the beginning stages will target natural gas fields, where large amounts of carbon dioxide are a byproduct of gas extraction, Nishio said.Mon, Jun 26 2006
LET 'EM KILL SOMETHING, THEY'LL FEEL SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT HAVING HAD THEIR ASSES SHOT OFF IN WAR
What the fuck, okay? This is a National Park, and this slimeball congressman wants to make it a hunting preserve for whacked-out veterans to vent out their frustrations over getting their lives fucked up in BushCo's vanity wars by killing innocent animals. WHAT ABOUT THERAPY, ASSHOLES? Or better yet, stop having wars for profit, DUH!
Lawmaker wants Calif. island for hunting
CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK, Calif., Associated Press - Brush-covered and wind-swept, accessible only by boat or plane, Santa Rosa Island seems worlds removed from the crowded Southern California coastline let alone Washington, D.C.
Yet the 53,000-acre public island 40 miles from Santa Barbara is in the middle of a political tugging match between a powerful House committee chairman, the National Park Service and congressional Democrats.
Under a federal court settlement in place for close to a decade, private deer and elk hunts now staged on the island must end by 2011 and the nonnative game must be removed.
But San Diego-area Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record) wants to keep the trophy animals on the island and allow military veterans to hunt them.
"This is a wonderful opportunity for paralyzed veterans and severely disabled veterans to have an opportunity for a high-quality outdoor experience," said Hunter, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.
The plan has drawn vehement protests from the Park Service and Democratic lawmakers, who said hunting blocks public access and interferes with indigenous plants and animals.
"What we need to be focusing on are the purposes for which national parks were set aside, and hunting is not one of those purposes," said Russell Galipeau, superintendent of Channel Islands National Park.
Hunter's plan, which would mandate that the deer and elk stay on the island indefinitely, was approved by the House last month as part of a major defense programs bill. A version of the bill approved by the Senate last week does not contain the provision, and California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer hope they can keep it out of the final bill.
A 30-minute plane ride over the blue-green Pacific from the mainland, Santa Rosa Island is a breathtaking vision of unspoiled sandy beaches and low-lying beach cliffs dotted with cormorants and pelicans. A stand of Torrey Pines one of only two locations for the trees in the world hug a hillside, and endangered manzanita plants cover patches of ground.
On one side of the island the second-largest of five in the Channel Islands park an archaeology professor is studying well-preserved island cliff formations. Elsewhere, large cages hold endangered island foxes the Park Service is trying to breed to increase their numbers.
Even Park Service officials who want the deer and elk removed said the animals can make a stunning sight for hikers and campers in this wild environment.
But the agency said the deer and elk trample native vegetation, and fawns and carrion left behind after the hunts attract golden eagles that prey on the island foxes.
During the August-December hunting season, more than three-quarters of the island is off-limits to the public for safety reasons.
Hunter has never been to the island and said that to avoid conflict-of-interest accusations he'll never go. He argued that hunting isn't much of a nuisance because the island has so few visitors about 5,000 a year.
Compared to the herds of cattle that once occupied the island, the deer and elk are hardly invasive, he added. "This isn't like importing a giraffe," Hunter said.
Hunter's legislation doesn't say how the herds would be managed after the 2011 deadline, or how the hunts which now cost from $1,800 to $17,000 would be made affordable for veterans. Hunter said it would not be difficult to run free hunts at no cost to taxpayers, which his opponents dispute.
Doug Warren, an official with Paralyzed Veterans of America, said Santa Rosa would provide a uniquely contained environment for disabled vets, and questioned the need to remove the animals.
"It adds so much to have them here," Warren said. "Otherwise what are you going to look at?"
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On the Net:
Channel Islands National Park: http://www.nps.gov/chisMon, Jun 26 2006
BEING QUEER IS BIOLOGICAL, SO QUIT THUMPING ON THEM
Men with older brothers more likely to be gay
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Having several older brothers increases the likelihood of a man being gay, a finding researchers say adds weight to the idea that there is a biological basis for sexual orientation.
"It's likely to be a prenatal effect," said Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, "This and other studies suggest that there is probably a biological basis for" homosexuality.
S. Marc Breedlove of Michigan State University said the finding "absolutely" confirms a physical basis.
"Anybody's first guess would have been that the older brothers were having an effect socially, but this data doesn't support that," Breedlove said in a telephone interview.
The only link between the brothers is the mother and so the effect has to be through the mother, especially since stepbrothers didn't have the effect, said Breedlove, who was not part of the research.
Bogaert studied four groups of Canadian men, a total of 944 people, analyzing the number of brothers and sisters each had, whether or not they lived with those siblings and whether the siblings were related by blood or adopted.
He reports in a paper appearing in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences that having several biological older brothers increased the chance of a man being gay.
It's an effect that can be detected with one older brother and becomes stronger with three or four or more, Bogaert said in a telephone interview.
But, he added, this needs to be looked at in context of the overall rate of homosexuality in men, which he suggested is about 3 percent. With several older brothers the rate may increase from 3 percent to 5 percent, he said, but that still means 95 percent of men with several older brothers are heterosexual.
The effect of birth order on male homosexuality has been reported previously but Bogaert's work is the first designed to rule out social or environmental effects.
Bogaert said he concluded the effect was biological by comparing men with biological brothers to those with brothers to whom they were not biologically related.
The increase in the likelihood of being gay was seen only in those whose brothers had the same mothers, whether they were raised together or not, he said.
Men raised with several older step- or adopted brothers do not have an increased chance of being gay.
"So what that means is that the environment a person is raised in really makes not much difference," he said.
What makes a difference, he said, is having older brothers who shared the same womb and gestational experience, suggesting the difference is because of "some sort of prenatal factor."
One possibility, he suggests, is a maternal immune response to succeeding male fetuses. The mother may react to a male fetus as foreign but not to a female fetus because the mother is also female.
It might be like the maternal immune response that can occur when a mother has Rh-negative blood but her fetus has Rh-positive blood. Without treatment, the mother can develop antibodies that may attack the fetus during future pregnancies.
Whether that's what is happening remains to be seen, but it is a provocative hypothesis, said a commentary by Breedlove, David A. Puts and Cynthia L. Jordan, all of Michigan State.
The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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On the Net:
PNAS: http://www.pnas.orgSun, Jun 25 2006
THE RIGHT STUFF FROM THE ORACLE OF OMAHA
Warren Buffet has always been a righteous dude and an example of what a good man can do with the capitalist system.
Buffett giving billions to Gates charity
OMAHA, Neb., Associated Press - The world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett, became one of the world's biggest philanthropists Sunday with the announcement that he would bequeath the bulk of his roughly $44 billion fortune to the foundation established by billionaire Bill Gates and his wife.
The decision to start giving next month through annual stock donations represents a stark reversal for the investment wizard, who for years had said his wealth would be pledged to philanthropies after his death.
Buffett's gift will radically boost the resources of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is already the world's largest philanthropy with assets of more than $29 billion.
Earlier this month, the world's richest man and Microsoft Corp. co-founder decided to give up his daily duties at the software company in 2008 to spend more time at his foundation, which is considered a leader in international public health, particularly in the fight against HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.
Gates also serves as a board member of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Buffett's investment conglomerate, and the men socialize regularly.
The 75-year-old Berkshire chairman and CEO had been expected to leave his vast holdings of Berkshire stock largely to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, begun by Buffett and his late wife. That foundation has given millions of dollars to hospitals, universities and teachers, as well as to Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.
Buffett said he plans to give away 12,050,000 Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the foundations, but he will have to convert some of his 474,998 Class A shares to complete the gifts. One Class A share, which sold for $92,100 on Friday, can be converted into 30 Class B shares, which sold for $3,071 Friday.
The gifts would be worth nearly $37 billion based on Friday's closing share price.
Buffett's assistant Debbie Bosanek said Buffett would not be available to comment Sunday. But letters outlining the gifts were posted on the company's Web site, and Buffett explained his decision in an interview with a Fortune magazine editor, Carol Loomis. She has edited Buffett's annual letter to shareholders for several years.
Buffett told Fortune that he decided to start giving his money away now because he has been impressed with Bill and Melinda Gates and the work they've done through their foundation. And he decided it would be easier to give to a large foundation instead of trying to expand his own foundation.
"What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it?" Buffett told the magazine. "Who wouldn't select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That's how I feel about this decision about my money."
Andy Kilpatrick, a stockbroker who wrote "Of Permanent Value, the Story of Warren Buffett," called the announcement remarkable, but said he always expected something more to develop from the relationship between Buffett and Gates.
"It's Buffett and Gates merging in a way for charitable purposes," Kilpatrick said.
Buffett has long said limiting the spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest challenge facing mankind. And Kilpatrick said Buffett probably agrees with the Gateses' concerns about population control, disease and education.
In a statement, Bill and Melinda Gates applauded Buffett's decision.
"We are awed by our friend Warren Buffett's decision to use his fortune to address the world's most challenging inequities, and we are humbled that he has chosen to direct a large portion of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the couple said.
Buffett suggested that his children should focus their charitable resources on needs that would not be met otherwise.
"Focus the new funds and your energy on a relatively few activities in which HGB (Howard G. Buffett Foundation) can make an important difference," Buffett wrote. He included the same paragraph of advice in the letters to each of his children.
Buffett said he plans to earmark 10 million B shares for the Gates Foundation, 1 million B shares for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation named in honor of his wife and 350,000 shares for the three foundations run by each of his children.
Buffett plans to give each foundation 5 percent of his total pledge each year in July.
In the interview with Fortune, Buffett acknowledged that the foundations may sell off the Berkshire stock to raise cash. But Buffett said he doesn't think that will affect the price of the stock because the gifts will be spread over time.
"I would not be making the gifts if they would in any way harm Berkshire's shareholders," Buffett told Fortune. "And they won't."
But Kilpatrick said this announcement is still likely to prompt some people to sell Berkshire stock on Monday morning. Kilpatrick said he doesn't think this will hurt the company in the long run especially because it might be added to the S&P 500 index in the future, which would help the stock.
Buffett's health has been the subject of speculation. He has said a succession plan is in place at Berkshire but refuses to name a successor.
In the letters, Buffett wrote, "My doctor tells me that I am in excellent health, and I certainly feel that I am."
Berkshire owns a diverse mix of more than 60 companies, including insurance, furniture, carpet, jewelry, restaurants and utility firms. And it has major investments in such companies as H&R Block Inc., Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Coca-Cola Co.
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On the Net:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, http://www.gatesfoundation.orgSun, Jun 25 2006
IT'S NOT TOTALLY FUCKED UP FASCIST CRAP IF IT'S LEGAL, RIGHT?
Specter: Agreement on eavesdropping near
WASHINGTON - The White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write President Bush's warrantless surveillance program into law, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday.
Bush and senior officials in his administration have said they did not think changes were needed to empower the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without court approval on communications between people in the U.S. and overseas when terrorism is suspected.
But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and other critics contend the program skirted a 1978 law that required the government to get approval from a secretive federal court before Americans could be monitored.
"We're getting close with the discussions with the White House, I think, to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Specter told "Fox New Sunday."
The administration has asserted that a post-Sept. 11, 2001, congressional resolution approving the use of military force covered the surveillance of some domestic communications.
Specter has said that the president "does not have a blank check" and he has sought to have administration ask the special court to review the program.
After the program was disclosed by The New York Times in December, the White House opposed changing the law. Over time, that position has shifted gradually.
When the president's nominee to head the CIA had confirmation hearings in the Senate in May, Michael Hayden told Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that he would support a congressional debate on modifying the law.
"We're having a lot of conversations about that," Specter said Sunday. He added that he and Vice President Dick Cheney have exchanged letters and that Cheney has indicated that he was serious about discussing the issue.
"I've talked to ranking officials in the White House, and we're close," Specter said. "I'm not making any predictions until we have it all nailed down, but I think there is an inclination to have it submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and that would be a big step forward for the protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties."Sat, Jun 24 2006
CONGRESSIONAL PRIORITIES
Sat, Jun 24 2006
DING-DONG-DIDDLY-NABBIT!
Rats rats RATS.
The blog software broke and the new iteration won't port the archives. That suck-diddly-UCKS.
So, rather than kissing 3 years worth of rants and news reports and comix goodbye, I'll hand-code an index for them and post them as "Older Archives". Hopefully that will work.
Newfangled technowhizzies - add some shiny geegaws and there goes your real functionality.
Sat, Jun 24 2006
NOT-TOO-SWIFT
SWIFT tracks global financial transactions
NEW YORK, Associated Press - The U.S. Treasury Department's disclosure that it has been subpoenaing international financial records as part of its anti-terrorism program has put the spotlight on a little-known institution that plays a big role in global finance. Here are some questions and answers about it.
Q. The Treasury says it has been getting information about suspected terrorists for the past several years from an organization called SWIFT. Just what is SWIFT?
A. SWIFT is an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a cooperative owned by the financial industry that's headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The consortium operates a secure electronic messaging service that some 7,800 financial institutions including banks, brokerages and investment managers use to communicate with their counterparts in more than 200 countries.
Spokesman Euan Sellar said the network handles some 9 million transfer instructions and confirmations a day with a value of about $6 trillion. The transactions can range from "paying for a holiday rental to buying goods from abroad to investing in foreign securities."
Q. How does the SWIFT service work?
A. Financial institutions use SWIFT to facilitate the transfer of money internationally. Say, for example, that General Motors wants to send $1 million to Germany so its subsidiaries there can pay their suppliers. GM's American bank would log onto the SWIFT system and message a German bank that a transfer was to be made; the German bank would then credit the subsidiaries' account and collect the funds from the American bank.
Q. Why would this be of interest to U.S. investigators?
A. Peter Morici, a professor of business at the University of Maryland in College Park, described SWIFT as "a choke point" where a lot of information comes together. "Basically, it's almost impossible to wire money (internationally) without going through SWIFT unless you're moving suitcases of cash around," Morici said.
The message traffic on the SWIFT system contains customers' names, account numbers and other identifying information. Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told reporters on Friday that "at least tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands" of transaction searches had been made. Treasury Secretary
John Snow said the data was being used to locate suspected terrorists, their accomplices and their financiers.
Q. What has SWIFT's reaction been to the disclosure?
A. SWIFT said in a statement posted on its Web site at http://www.swift.com that "SWIFT has to comply with valid subpoenas." It described the requests it received from the U.S. Treasury as "compulsory subpoenas for limited sets of data" and said it "negotiated with the U.S. Treasury over the scope and oversight of the subpoenas."
The statement noted that "SWIFT is overseen by a senior committee drawn from the G-10 central banks and has informed them of this matter." The G-10, or Group of 10, is made up of the world's major industrialized countries.
Q. Have there been reactions from member banks?
A. SWIFT's board of directors is made up of 25 representatives from financial institutions and is chaired by Yawar Shah, an executive vice president in the Worldwide Securities Services division of JPMorgan Chase & Co., which is based in New York. The deputy chairman, Stephan Zimmermann, is from the global wealth management and business banking division of UBS AG in Zurich, Switzerland.
Spokesmen for both JPMorgan Chase and UBS declined comment.
James Nason of the Swiss Bankers Association said his group was "surprised to discover that this activity was going on." He noted that Swiss banks adhere to agreed-on international standards to counter money laundering.
Edward Yingling, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association in Washington, D.C., said in a statement that U.S. banks also were complying with regulations governing money laundering and other "suspicious activity" and added: "Banks will continue to work hard to achieve the right balance between privacy and security in a manner that best serves the interest of our customers and country."