android photography

The Independent reports that the makers of genetically modified foods have begun inserting human genes into food crops:

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the body.



Present GM crops are modified with genes from bacteria to make them tolerate herbicides, so that they are not harmed when fields are sprayed to kill weeds. But most of them are only able to deal with a single herbicide, which means that it has to be used over and over again, allowing weeds to build up resistance to it.



But the researchers at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, have found that adding the human touch gave the rice immunity to 13 different herbicides. This would mean that weeds could be kept down by constantly changing the chemicals used.



Supporting scientists say that the gene could also help to beat pollution.



Professor Richard Meilan of Purdue University in Indiana, who has worked with a similar gene from rabbits, says that plants modified with it could "clean up toxins" from contaminated land. They might even destroy them so effectively that crops grown on the polluted soil could be fit to eat.



But he and other scientists caution that if the gene were to escape to wild relatives of the rice it could create particularly vicious superweeds that were resistant to a wide range of herbicides.

You know, there's another solution to the problem of all those nasty pesticides and chemicals: don't use them. Organic farmers have long since proven that their methods are better for both the land and the food, you stupid moronic *#@!. That's as polite as I can be about people who ignore the obvious and healthy so they can pursue the unnecessary and dangerous.

are the separatist groups in Manipur, India, who burned down a library of some 145,000 books, including "many of their most ancient texts."

Mbaye Diagne was a Senegalese Army captain and a member of the UN observation team during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Follow the link to see what he did when the killing started.

The time for reform of CEO compensation is long overdue. It's not just that these guys make the big bucks; it's that 1) their salaries are so exorbitant that they're being funded at the expense of employee salaries and benefits, and 2) compensation is not tied to company performance, so the CEOs get paid megamillions of dollars even if the business is failing. CEOs ought to be held to the same performance standards as their employees, and they ought to be compensated fairly.

Now, the AFL-CIO has provided a way to find out just how much CEOs in the U.S. got paid last year. Lots of good info at the site; check it out. Just take your antacids first.

(Background: this column by Jon Carroll.)

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Nunchuku of Courteous Debate.

Get yours.

Jeanne at Body and Soul has a beautiful post up about war, peace, and art in Mozambique. Go read.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there,

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight

On the ripened grain.

I am the gentle Autumn's rain.

When you awaken in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there.

I did not die.

My Spirit is still alive...

May all those who mourn be comforted.

David Neiwert over at Orcinus makes a good point. If, as some evangelicals like to argue, civil rights protection should not be extended to gays and lesbians because their sexuality is "chosen," and not something inborn and unavoidable like ethnicity--then we should also get rid of civil rights protection for religion.

This is nuts. A man whose National Guard obligation was supposed to be completely finished has been ordered to return to active duty under the military's "stop-loss" policy. Emilio Santiago is fighting the orders in court, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his case yesterday.

But the most insane part of it is that the Army has extended Santiago's service contract for another 27 years. WTF is that?? Stand up for your rights, and we'll just shanghai you and keep you as long as we want.

And they wonder why they're having so much trouble meeting their recruitment goals. To me it's amazing they can get anyone at all to sign up for this shit.

(via Eschaton and TalkLeft)

Pride goeth before a fall, as the good book sayeth. And judging by the number of frequent flyer miles the Bug Man has been racking up on Air Egomania lately, he's got one hell of a fall coming to him. I'm not even sure Satan has a circle of hell that deep, although I'm sure Halliburton would be happy to dig one if the terms were right.



--Billmon, on Tom DeLay.

The national office of Veterans For Peace makes it official:

Today the Veterans For Peace national office in St. Louis sent the news release (attached and pasted, below) to national news outlets, announcing it has sent a letter (attached) to every member of the U.S. House and Senate demanding the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.  The other attached documents briefly list (one page) several of the U.S. laws and treaties the administration has violated, and provide substantial documentation (six pages) for our claims. The documents are also available in pdf here.

Not that it'll do any good, but it's still nice to see someone stand up and say it out loud.

Some interesting stats about doctor specialization and quality health care in the U.S.:

Communities with more primary care physicians have lower mortality rates, according to a new study, confirming the advantages of wide access to primary healthcare services.

The problem is that fewer and fewer doctors are choosing to be primary care providers; instead, they want to be specialists.

At least 95% of the available residency positions in general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, plastic surgery, and emergency medicine were filled through the National Residency Matching Program, the results of which were released on March 17. However, the number of positions for family practice filled by medical students declined for the eighth straight year, officials of the program said.

Well, no real surprise; specialties are where the money is. Unfortunately, this bodes ill for most of us:

Today, the position of the U.S. on leading health indicators among industrialized countries (those in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD]) is at or near the bottom and has worsened during the past decade while the proportion of specialists has grown, according to the authors' analysis of health status. Although the U.S. has approximately the same number of physicians per 100,000 population as the OECD average, "this number masks a very different balance between generalists and specialists," the authors write. . . . The excess supply of specialist physicians in the U.S. compared with generalists fuels policymakers' concern about an increasing inequity in health services, the authors write. Because specialty care is more costly than primary care and the population receiving the care may have to share in some portion of that cost, services are more likely to be located in more economically affluent areas. "Thus, care will be preferentially available to the already advantaged, with increasing social disparities in health."

So the doctors will get richer, the rich will get healthier, and the poor (which will be an increasing percentage of the population) will get sicker. And die.

I just love it when I'm cheerful.

Via Medscape (registration required)

Greg Palast says that the Bolton and Wolfowitz nominations are part of a neocon purge in the Bush administration. Why? Because they dared to tangle with Big Oil:

The neo-cons wanted to use our control of Iraq's oil to smash OPEC, to smash the power of what they see as an Arab-controlled monopoly and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, that also meant smashing $56-a-barrel oil prices, and the oil industry was deeply unhappy. . . . You have to understand that the real levers of power are not in these public jawboning jobs. The real levers of power are behind those closed walls. So Wolfowitz had his power. He now has to take his hands off the levers, and Bolton is now in a position where he is told what to say, and he is not a person setting policy. The neo-cons understand what's happening here, and they are screaming bloody murder. But they’re all being purged. This is a very big change in U.S. policy toward people like Negroponte, who are State Department establishment, oil-friendly, OPEC-friendly, Saudi-friendly.

Not to mention death-squad friendly. But hey, that's just a little more collateral damage, something you have to accept in order to accomplish the greater good of ensuring ongoing enormous profits for the oil companies. W, of course, was himself an oilman, though a failed one, as with all his other endeavors. He and Cheney were willing to use the neocons for a time, but their ultimate loyalties are clear. Neither one of them has any ideals; they are the political version of the Mafia. The neocons, deluded as they are, actually believe(d) what they were pushing.

See Bill. Bill is a soldier.



See Bill interrogate Iraqi prisoners. See Bill torture Iraqi prisoners. (''I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! . . . Sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself – there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.' '') Torture, Bill, torture.



See Bill. See Bill cry. Why is Bill crying? Is he crying about the Iraqi prisoners he tortured? Oh, no. He is not crying about them. He is crying about Terri Schiavo. ("No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead.") Cry, Bill, cry.

This is too cool. A mathematician named Daina Taimina has found a way to construct physical models of hyperbolic geometric surfaces, using, yes, crochet. What are hyperbolic surfaces, you ask? Read this interview with her and her mathematician husband, complete with illustrations of some of Taimina's models.

(via Making Light)

Happy Easter. And on this day of mysteries, here is an article from NewScientist on 13 things that do not make sense, a fascinating glimpse into some of the research questions facing science today.

(via Making Light)

A site dedicated to tracking what the rest of the world thinks about us, complete with translations of foreign news articles.

(via TalkLeft)

What I finally had to confront was the fact that truth alone is impotent in the face of modern propaganda techniques.

--Billmon

Amazing:

The appointment of George Bush's leading hawk as head of the World Bank was [sic] heading for a crisis over his relationship with a senior British employee.

Influential members of staff at the international organisation have complained to its board that Paul Wolfowitz, a married father of three, is so besotted with Oxford-educated Shaha Riza he cannot be impartial.

Extraordinarily, they claim she played a key role in pushing the 61-year-old Pentagon official into the Iraq War. And the row comes amid claims that Wolfowitz's wife Clare once warned George Bush of the threat to national security any infidelity by her husband could cause.

So what led us into Iraq? The desire for oil? The desire for revenge? No, just desire of the most primitive sort: a man being led around by his dick starts a war to impress his mistress. It would be merely tawdry, merely pathetic and laughable, if it weren't for all the slaughter and destruction that has resulted.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers . . .

-William Wordsworth, 1806



(Via this commentary about too much stuff: Everything I Own, Owns Me)

My results:

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

That's all I can say to the news that Karen Hughes is being nominated to a Cabinet-level position in the State Department.



Tim Grieve at Salon has a little more to say:

George W. Bush's media advisor, confidante and alter ego will return to Washington soon -- apparently to become the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. If that's the job Bush picks for Karen Hughes, she'll have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. And if that's the case, we've got a few questions we'd like to see Hughes answer under oath -- and not just the one about how, exactly, her experience as a TV news reporter in Texas prepares her for the job of rebuilding the image of the United States in the Middle East.



1. When you abruptly ended a 1998 interview in which Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater was talking with Bush about his arrest record, were you trying to prevent Bush from admitting that he had been arrested for drunk driving in 1976 or were you covering up some other arrest?



2. In ghost-writing Bush's autobiography, "A Charge to Keep," you claimed that Bush took it upon himself to volunteer for the Texas Air National Guard and suggested that he continued flying for the TANG long after he actually did. Did you believe those statements were true when you wrote them? Did the president?



3. Did you out Valerie Plame? And if you didn't, who did?



4. When Wolf Blitzer asked you last year how abortion would factor into the presidential race, you said: "I think after September 11th the American people are valuing life more and realizing that we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life. . . . The fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life." Do you believe it is fair to equate Americans who support abortion rights with terrorists?



5. You know the president better than just about anyone. What was that bulge on his back?

This is what I want to be like when I'm older:

March 13, 2005 6:10 AM EST
The Seattle Times

SEATTLE - Call Helen Burcham Green one wired lady.

The Bothell, Wash., resident exchanges e-mail with relatives around the world. She writes books on her Mac computer and she advises people not to trust everything they find on the Internet.

'It's too easy to do the research, and you can't depend upon it,' she said. 'People want to take shortcuts today.'

Of the world's computer literati, Green could be the oldest.

She turned 103 on March 2.

She entered the computer world a decade ago after writing her first book, an extensive family genealogy that traces ancestors back to the 1400s.

Her grandson Jamie Green, a computer-science graduate, and her daughter-in-law Betty Green convinced her that editing would be simpler if she took advantage of today's technology.

So she's writing her current book - her life story - on a computer.

Green found the switch from typewriter to computer relatively easy. She keeps notes on how to do things until she masters the technique.

'I was an avid typist,' said the woman who once earned her living as a secretary back in the days of shorthand and manual typewriters. 'This is like typing.'

SeniorNet, a Bellevue, Wash., computer-learning center for people older than 50, often has people in their 70s and 80s sign up for classes, said registrar Louise Flora, but Green's age and computer knowledge make her a rarity.

'We had a woman in her 90s several years ago, but I don't know anyone 103 using a computer,' she said.

Long before the computer era arrived, Green lived through the rise of the automobile, airplanes, space exploration, radio, television, modern movies and microwaves. She remembers eating barley bread during World War I when flour was rationed, and she has ration books from World War II.

Her grandfather was a builder and came to Seattle after the 1889 fire to help rebuild the city. Drive Green to the Green Lake, Wash., area, and she'll point out houses he built and a church he helped found.

She recalled her family home at the south end of Lake Union in Washington. In the early 1900s, it was in the woods. She was number seven of 10 children, the last surviving sibling. Her father later moved the family to a farm near Yakima, but she hated the country life.

When she finished high school, she moved to San Francisco.

'My mother and brother fought it. They said that when girls went to San Francisco, they went bad,' Green said.

She went to business college and became a stenographer. When Bertha Landes, Seattle's first woman mayor, was elected in 1926, Green announced she was moving back to Seattle. She wanted to work for Landes.

Instead, she landed a job across the hall from the mayor's office.

She met her future husband at a dance and was married two years later. When the Depression hit Seattle, Green lost her job and the young couple lost their first home.

'That broke my heart,' she said. Eventually the couple, who had two sons, built another house in Lake City, Wash.

Together they traveled around the country one month each year so Green, a longtime Daughters of the American Revolution member, could do genealogy research. Her husband, Robert Green, died in 1976 before he saw his wife's book completed.

The inconveniences of aging, including hearing loss and dimming eyesight, have caught up with Green's body but not with her mind.

She lives with a son and daughter-in-law and uses an electric wheelchair because she's unsteady on her feet. She still reads, particularly Seattle history books.

Dainty, meticulous in dress and wearing pink polish on her manicured nails, she insists on helping with chores around the house. She does her laundry and gardens by tending pots on the patio. She clapped for joy when daughter-in-law Betty Green handed her a $103 gift certificate for Molbak's, a gardening center, so she can get more plants and pots.

Those pots will sit on the patio outside her office window. She'll sit at her computer, turning stacks of notes into chapters of her memoirs and watching the flowers bloom.

(Reprinted from the Seattle Times, distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.)

Rivka at Respectful of Otters (great name) talks about the realities of debt:

My household once made the mistake of assuming, based on our quaint 1990s expectations of the economic world, that an intelligent and personable individual with good work habits would be able to find a job in a major city. On the basis of that assumption, we signed a lease for an apartment which, when a job failed to materialize, we couldn't afford. Was it ridiculous for us to be paying $950 in rent with a combined annual income of somewhere around $24,000? Yes. Was it ridiculous of us to assume, when we signed the lease, that two working adults would be able to pull in more than $24,000? I don't think so. We had not adjusted our expectations to the bold new rules of the new economy, the 'ownership society' in which it was our responsibility to plan ahead for such common eventualities as a year of un- and underemployment. But even if we had adjusted our expectations, it's hard to imagine what we could've done to cushion ourselves against such a severe economic shock.

What did we do instead? We borrowed money from our parents, and we maxed out my credit card. (That's my generation's version of unemployment compensation, after all.) Eventually, we fell behind in our bill payments. At that point we were flooded by new credit card offers, far more than ever before or since, all of them bearing stratospheric interest rates and enormous penalties for late payments. Five or six offers a day. We were terrible credit risks at that point, and the credit card companies were falling all over themselves to sign us up for more debt.

But they would've been shocked, shocked if we'd defaulted on our loans. We would've been one more example of why Congress needed to protect them from the economic risks of their poor decision-making. And no one would've made speeches to them about their need to take 'ownership' of anything... but our assets.

Welcome to the new economy.

Credit card debt has replaced the safety net. As Rivka says, no wonder people are declaring bankruptcy at record rates. And our good friends in Congress have just made it a lot harder for people caught in that trap to ever escape from it.

The Veterans Affairs Secretary has resigned, and depleted uranium may be the cause. Look at these statistics from Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law:

"Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!" The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

We've all heard the horror stories about Agent Orange, and the long-term suffering of Vietnam vets from its effects, as well as PTSD. If that was only a 10% disability rate, how is a 56% disability rate going to effect us? And remember that DU is still being used in the current Iraq war; we can expect similar rates of long-term disability in the future, or possibly even higher due to the DU that is still in the Iraqi environment from a decade ago.

And, of course, the people who are suffering most from DU are the Iraqi people themselves, who are exposed to it on an ongoing basis. Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years.

Can you say "war crimes"? Because I sure can.

Teresa, over at Making Light, has posted some fairly well-known texts, translated into Anglo-Saxon. Here's the first one:



On frymðe wæs Word, and þæt Word wæs mid Gode, and God wæs þæt Word. þæt wæs on fruman mid Gode. Ealle þing wæron geworhte ðurh hyne; and nan þing næs geworht butan him. þæt wæs lif þe on him geworht wæs; and þæt lif wæs manna leoht. And þæt leoht lyht on ðystrum; and þystro þæt ne genamon.



See if you can guess the other ones (there's a bonus entry down below the first three).

Very interesting--this graphic maps book purchases by political affiliation.

"This" being, of course, the pseudo-grammatical insistence that "their" should only be used with a plural antecedent. This site bursts the pedantry bubble. Send the link to your eighth-grade English teacher, and be free.

A brief meditation.

That's what the new bankruptcy bill in Congress will do to ordinary Americans. Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School, and three of her law students have started a site (an adjunct blog to the excellent Talking Points Memo) to track the bill. Here, she delineates some of its worst features:

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The bill is more than 500 pages long, all in highly technical language. But the overall thrust is pretty clear:

• Make debtors pay more to creditors, both in bankruptcy and after bankruptcy, so that a bankruptcy filing will leave a family with more credit card debt, higher car loans, more owed to their banks and to payday lenders.

• Make it more expensive to file for bankruptcy by driving up lawyers’ fees with new paperwork, new affidavits, and new liability for lawyers, so that the people in the most trouble can’t afford to file.

• Make more hurdles and traps, with deadlines that a judge cannot waive even if someone has a heart attack or an ex-husband who won’t give up a copy of the tax returns, so that more people will get pushed out of bankruptcy with no discharge.

• Make it harder to repay debts in Chapter 13 by increasing the payments necessary to confirm in a repayment plan, so that more people will be pushed out of bankruptcy without ever getting a discharge of debt.

There are people who abuse the system, but this bill lets them off. Millionaires will still be welcome to use the unlimited homestead exemption. And if they don’t want to buy a home there, they can just tuck their millions of dollars into a trust, a “millionaire’s loophole” that lets them keep everything—if they can afford a smart, high-priced lawyer.
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In the furor over Social Security (and a well-justified furor it is), some truly horrible bills like this one are getting passed with almost no attention paid. Contact your Congresscritters (just enter your zip in the box on the first page) and urge them to oppose the bankruptcy bill.

Tomtech at Daily Kos muses about historical precedent:

*******************************************************************************
I want to tell you about how a *quaint document which came into being when a group of insurgents, who had enflamed a native population to the point of engaging in an *armed revolt, came to power and wanted to ensure that revolt would never again be required. They also wanted to ensure that another revolt would be possible if the people decided it was necessary. The government was an occupying *imperialist nation.

One of the main reasons for the revolt was because the government placed large numbers of *troops in the homeland of the insurgents. The government was not seated in the country that revolted but used local officials and their own representatives to allow them to rule from abroad. The army's reason for being in the land was supposedly to protect them from foreign forces.

The government proposed a *tax system that was intended to make the inhabitants more reliant on the Empire. The government forced the nation to provide support for the occupying army by *economic control. As unrest was increasing government troops were sent into an insurgent stronghold to quell the rebels. When some children threw snowballs at the troops the troops responded with force. The number of casualties that included children who tried to resist the troops. This event actually was referred to as a *Massacre since the locals did not actually propose a significant threat to the troops. Two troops were actually convicted in a trial afterwards. Propagandists immediately capitalized on this incident to incite further rebellion.

The insurgents formed *secretive local committees to inform others around the world about the atrocities committed by the occupying army. The Government empowered a *corporation with subsidies in an attempt to show how benevolent they actually were. The insurrection began with an act of *economic sabotage where a group of disguised insurgents destroyed valuable economic assets of the subsidized corporation. The government responded with *economic sanctions and *increased oversight.

An *insurgent leader obtained intelligence that the occupying army was going to attack and after determining the method of attack arraiged for an ambush of occupying troops. The insurgents were severely outmatched by the occupying power but they formed an active resistance that led to *open warfare. The insurgents even organized a *military leadership structure even before the announced their intention to drive out the occupying army and form an independent government.

This insurgents formed a council* to generate demands and economically isolate the occupying government. These insurgents actually formed agreements* with other governments* that were antagonistic to the government. *Foreign soldiers were actually working with the insurgents. The Government hired *mercenaries and gave them unlimited authority to fight the insurgents. There were a large percentage of *loyalists who actively fought for the government forces. Complete revolt occurred after the occupying government declared a form of *martial law and declared that certain regions were in open revolt.

After the insurgents drove off the occupying army and then they actually created laws to *protect themselves in case rebellion again became necessary.

The insurgents used an unregulated press and vocal speakers to argue against the government which led to the uprising and they wanted to ensure that they could combat the government again if necessary.

The insurgents actually wanted to ensure their weapons could not be taken away from them so that they could have a local army. They actually thought that the local armed groups had to be available to protect themselves from government forces.

These insurgents wanted to prevent the government from finding proof of their complicity in terrorist acts.

The insurgents wanted to protect criminals so they could not be forced to admit their crimes and identify their co-conspirators

These insurgents wanted to force the government to make public the specific methods used to find evidence used against them.

These insurgents actually wanted rules in place to force the government to release them until the government proved their crimes in open court.

(*Link in original)
********************************************************************************

What's that saying about people who ignore history?

Ian Welsh over at BOPNews explains why the bankruptcy bill about to be passed by Congress is such a bad thing:

What creditors want is for the government to assume the responsibility for enforcing their bad loans. They want a nanny state - not one that looks after the little guy, but one which makes sure Shylock gets his pound of flesh - no matter what. They want to be able to loan to anyone, at any ridiculous rate of return, and for there to be no escape. Someone who is unlucky in their health, or makes some bad decisions, or loses their job, should become their slave until the debt is paid off. This is an old tradition - you used to be able to sell yourself into slavery to pay off debts.

Fairly generous bankruptcy laws are actually good for the economy. Want people to take economic risks? They aren't going to if they know that failure will mean a lifelong debt chain. Want a robust economy? One of the things that contributes to that is the ability of people to get out from under crushing debt. A person whose finances are so encumbered as to be a candidate for bankruptcy is an economic cripple unable to form new economic relationships and who often loses all incentive to work (since they see none of the benefits of their own labor).

There's a reason why Athens entered its golden age after Solon forgave all debts. If the US, with a citizenry struggling under record debt, needs anything, it is not tightened bankruptcy laws - it is laws against usury and laxer bankruptcy laws so that lenders begin to take some responsibility for who they lend to again.

Health experts say it is so widespread that their only option now is to try to control it--that is, manage new cases so as to keep death rates as low as possible, and try to keep it from spreading further.



The first is an uphill battle, as the virus has a 70% mortality rate. So far, the virus has not mutated into an easily transmissable human form, which is the only thing that is holding back a pandemic.



Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway reminds us what to do:



Plan and prepare for this now. We think of the flu as a winter bug, but the pathology of H5N1 can easily break the season model. The Spanish flu of 1918 did its deadly work in the summer and fall of that year.



I've told you before some of the things to do to get ready: get your own supply of Tamifu, obtain nanomasks, protect your business with additional insurance, and prepare for a time of possible civil disruption (what would happen in your locality if half of the public servents, cops to public health nurses were among the sick or dying? if the banks couldn't open?) at the level of being hit by a hurricane. I'm stockpiling food, water and cash--greenbacks, that is: what if the credit card verification systems can't work because there is no one to service the data lines? No, not in my house, so don't come looking for me, crooks. I've got a propane stove and camp lanterns (I'm a camper) which will all be recharged and ready in case we have power outages because there is no one to service the grid and the lines themselves. I'm getting a physical and updating all of my prescriptions now, finding doctors who can work and pharmacies which are open may be a problem later. I wouldn't want to find out I've got heart disease or other serious chronic problem under the circumstances, I want to know about it now.



Will my face be red if this all doesn't happen? No. I'll be well prepared for the next east coast hurricane, however.



Remember that the Spanish flu of 1918 had a lethality rate of 2-5% and 50 to 100 million died when the population of the planet was only 1.8 billion and air transportation was not commercially available. If this bug breaks out into human to human transmission, and the genetic odds favor it, this will be a major event in the history of civilization.

“A country that is now aspiring to an 'Ownership Society' will not find happiness in – and I’ll use hyperbole here for emphasis – a 'Sharecropper’s Society.' But that’s precisely where our trade policies, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us.”

Warren Buffett (via Just a Bump in the Beltway)

This diary at Daily Kos is a must-read. It's not too long; go read it now. Please.

I really like this site, which features cool time-lapse movies of plants.

Fun with cheesy romance novel covers.

Last December, it turns out, Congress repealed the 34-year ban on slaughtering wild mustangs for food. The reversal was tacked onto a spending bill, like so many other laws that sneak through below the radar. Ranchers are complaining that the horses eat forage needed by their cattle. And goodness knows, America doesn't eat enough beef.

The Bureau of Land Management is trying to find homes for the almost 9,000 horses expected to be killed.

Update: A bill has been introduced to reinstate the ban. You can sign a petition to support it at the link.

"WICHITA, Kan.: The attorney general of Kansas wants to know the detailed history of the sex lives of nearly 90 women who received late-term abortions.

"Court documents show that Phill Kline wants to search the documents for evidence of crimes under laws that limit late-term abortions and require mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse.

"Under the order signed by a judge, the attorney general would get records that would include each patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.

"The Wichita Eagle says two medical clinics have asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intercede."

And the renegade U.S. wants to go even farther into cowboy mode (Washington Post, registration required):

The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said.

The plan would weaken the long-standing "chief of mission" authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the president's top representative in a foreign country, decides whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on political and diplomatic considerations.

The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from the foreign country, if any.

The change is included in a highly classified "execute order"-- part of a broad strategy developed since Sept. 11, 2001, to give the U.S. Special Operations Command new flexibility to track down and destroy terrorist networks worldwide, the officials said.

"This is a military order on a global scale, something that hasn't existed since World War II," said a counterterrorism official with lengthy experience in special operations. He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal is classified.

*************************************************************************************
How long before our self-proclaimed right to kill anyone we want, anywhere we want, goes into all-out CIA/military black ops? Yes, there's now an Executive Order prohibiting assassinations; but if Bush can declare the fscking Geneva Conventions irrelevant, is he really going to pay any mind to a piddly little EO? I don't think so.

(via Just a Bump in the Beltway)

Rest in peace.

Update: Best obituary of Hunter I've seen.

The BBC provides pictorial proof of the phenomenon the Bush administration insists doesn't even exist.



(via Just a Bump in the Beltway)

A blog called Rigorous Intuition has a complex and very disturbing post about the connections between (among other things) international crime, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Christian missionary organizations, U.S. intelligence agencies, assassins, 9-11, and the modern GOP.



No, I'm not kidding. And neither is he. It's long, but read the whole thing.

Ringkasan ini tidak tersedia. Harap klik di sini untuk melihat postingan.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and its Institute for Legal Reform, spent $53.38 million lobbying the federal government during 2004, more than any other group. Which explains why the GOP is all in a lather about "tort reform"; they're being well-paid to serve corporate interests by depriving the public of one of its only weapons against malfeasant corporations.



And the 800-pound gorilla of malfeasant corporations, Wal-Mart, has just reached a settlement over its violation of child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the settlement, "the Labor Department agreed to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before [it] investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime."



Fifteen days' notice. Wouldn't you love to get a special tipoff when you were about to be investigated, so you could (temporarily at least) "cure" the relevant violations? Travesty, thy name is Bushco.



(Both via Daily Kos)

If you remember, a few weeks ago Lawrence Summers stirred up controversy with his ill-advised comments about "innate differences" contributing to women's underrepresentation in mathematics and science careers. Now the presidents of Stanford, MIT, and Princeton have added their voices to the debate.

The AFL-CIO has set up a handy reference page that details the various ways that Wal-Mart is helping to destroy our economy . From the extra costs handed on to taxpayers, to the small, local companies forced out of business when the Big Box comes to town, to their mistreatment of their employees and the harm they do to the environment, it's all here. The next time someone tries to tell you Wal-Mart is good for America, you'll have the facts at your fingertips.

So remember those allegations back during the debates that Bush was wearing a listening device? Well, some reporters did some actual investigating, and confirmed that Bush was, indeed, cheating (the GOP's stringent list of conditions for the debates included an explicit prohibition of the use of any electronic devices).



Why didn't we hear about it? Because the New York Times killed the story. And why did it do that? Because the editors were afraid that revealing that Bush was an incompetent cheat before the election might, well, affect the election. If that sounds like a reasonable decision, just ask yourself one question: if the allegations, and the proof, had concerned Kerry rather than Bush, would we have heard about it, and would that have been fair? Of course we would, and of course it would. But Bushco expect to be treated by a different set of rules.



As David Neiwert at Orcinus points out, the Times' behavior amounts to "a gross dereliction of its Fourth Estate role as a public watchdog." As if that were anything new from our puppet press. (See Neiwert's coverage for all the pertinent links.)

"No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration."

--Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor, now Secretary of State, in a March 22, 2004 column in the Washington Post.



"We urgently need . . . a principals-level review on the al-Qaeda network."

--Richard Clarke, in a declassified memo written to Rice on January 25, 2001 (emphasis in original).

"'Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling . . . You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.'"



--Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, USMC

Great rant from an honest-to-goodness conservative.

Some of my Daily Kos compatriots show their PhotoShop chops and have a little fun with Sponge Bob . . .

Here. (Sample proverb: "Whoever desires is better than money in the chest.")

(via Mâvarin and Other Inspirations)

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has rebuffed pleas to join a European diplomatic drive to persuade Iran to give up any ambitions to add nuclear bombs to its arsenal, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats say."



Yeah, real men countries shoot first and send in inspectors later.



(Yahoo! News, via James Wolcott)

"You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick."



--Seymour Hersh, discussing the future prospects of the United States. More here.

"Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it: hoping that raw military power will be sufficient to intimidate other great powers alienated by its belligerence."



ex-neocon Michael Lind, in the Financial Times



(via Daily Kos)

Ripped directly from Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway, this is the latest information from CIDRAP, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota:



# If an influenza pandemic were to occur in the near future, vaccine for the pandemic strain would not be readily available for a number of months, as noted in the previous section. Even though some developed countries have stockpiles of antiviral agents effective against influenza, supplies of these agents would be extremely limited (see References: Hayden 2004). It is unlikely that they would have a significant effect on curtailing spread of the pandemic unless a mobile stockpile with adequate supplies was created for use in the area where the virus emerges (see References: Monto 2005; WHO: Influenza pandemic preparedness and response 2005). Therefore, prevention and treatment options would essentially not be available during the initial wave of the pandemic.



# Once a vaccine is available, the current plans do not adequately address how the vaccine will be distributed globally. This is of great concern, since vaccine is only produced by a few countries and those countries are likely to not release vaccine until the needs of their populations are met.



# If the next pandemic strain is highly virulent (such as the 1918 strain) the global death toll could be dramatic. The current plans generally do not address the social, political, or economic issues that would likely be associated with an ongoing influenza pandemic. It is very possible that substantial disruption of basic services (such as health care, food, clothing, provision of utilities [eg, water, electricity], and transportation will occur. Furthermore, international trade will likely be impacted, which could have serious global economical and societal consequences. (emphasis mine)



The people who know the most about this situation are also the ones who are the most concerned. That should tell you something.



Update: The first documented case of human-to-human transmission has been reported.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Agonist notes that this "is likely to be the last major anniversary while living memory survives."

A father's thoughts.

Here (can't post it, too big)

How does Americans' view of themselves and their country square with the rest of the world?



The gulf between how Americans view themselves and how the world views them was summed up in a poll last week by the BBC. Fully 71 percent of Americans see the United States as a source of good in the world. More than half view Bush's election as positive for global security. Other studies report that 70 percent have faith in their domestic institutions and nearly 80 percent believe "American ideas and customs" should spread globally.



Foreigners take an entirely different view: 58 percent in the BBC poll see Bush's re-election as a threat to world peace. Among America's traditional allies, the figure is strikingly higher: 77 percent in Germany, 64 percent in Britain and 82 percent in Turkey. Among the 1.3 billion members of the Islamic world, public support for the United States is measured in single digits. Only Poland, the Philippines and India viewed Bush's second Inaugural positively.



And it's not just perception:



The truth is that Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do others not share America's self-regard, they no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievements . . . Countries today have dozens of political, economic and social models to choose from. Anti-Americanism is especially virulent in Europe and Latin America, where countries have established their own distinctive ways—none made in America.



Then there's our legal system:



Much in American law and society troubles the world these days. Nearly all countries reject the United States' right to bear arms as a quirky and dangerous anachronism. They abhor the death penalty and demand broader privacy protections. Above all, once most foreign systems reach a reasonable level of affluence, they follow the Europeans in treating the provision of adequate social welfare is a basic right. All this, says Bruce Ackerman at Yale University Law School, contributes to the growing sense that American law, once the world standard, has become "provincial." The United States' refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to certain terrorist suspects, to ratify global human-rights treaties such as the innocuous Convention on the Rights of the Child or to endorse the International Criminal Court (coupled with the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) only reinforces the conviction that America's Constitution and legal system are out of step with the rest of the world.



The article has it right. We're living in a dream world, a self-imposed bubble of media-style fantasy in which both the world and we agree that we are quite wonderful. The truth is something else: while we are not altogether as bad as our worst moments, and the worst actions of our government, we are not wonderful, and the rest of the world knows it. If we don't realize it too, we'll wind up the hapless witnesses to our own national demise--one that's already taking place, while we fiddle away.

Well, first SpongeDob Stickypants bravely alerted us to the secret agenda of a certain cartoon character. Now James Wolcott has discovered that there are even worse temptations being disseminated via your TV wavelengths, in the seemingly harmless guise of '50s and '60s westerns:



. . . Goodlife has also saw fit [sic] to resurrect a batch of Warner Brothers Westerns that exude a musky aroma of a bunkhouse where the wrong kind of bunking has been going on after sundown.



Bronco, starring Ty Hardin. Bronco. Ty. You tell me those aren't gay-sounding names. Then there's Sugarfoot, starring Will Hutchins. Sugarfoot--another name that sounds awfully fey to me. In the title song, he's described as "easy lopin'" (the sagebrush version of crusing), and joggin' along "with a heart full of song." Show tunes, no doubt. Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker, whose title tune asks the haunting musical question, "Cheyenne, Cheyenne where will you be camping tonight?" Camping, indeed! The song has him dreaming "of a girl you may never love," and I think I know why he may never love her, and why he needs to go "camping."



But no Warner Brothers Western promotes the gay lifestyle more than Lawman, starring John Russell and Peter Brown. "John Russell, a 6'4" ramrod straight, ex-Marine with the most compelling steely gaze on television, embodied the courageous, no-nonsense Marshal Dan Troop," says a Lawman fan site. Peter Brown played his young deputy, and theirs was a stern daddy/ relationship seething with subtext. "The series generally avoided sentimentality, but for those who looked for it, the bond between the two characters was even stronger than the words exchanged would suggest." The nature of that bond is indicated in the opening credits, where sheriff would toss his rifle to his handsome deputy, who "hefted it with approval." Oh I just bet he hefted it with approval.



Wolcott goes on to explain exactly how unsuspecting heteros everywhere are about to be seduced. Oh, the horror.

Washington: The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.



[ . . . ]



The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations" . . . Human intelligence operations . . . range from interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed.



[ . . . ]



[G]uidelines issued this month by Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone state that special operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations . . . before publication" of a deployment order, rendering [Congressional] notification unnecessary. Pentagon lawyers also define the "war on terror" as ongoing, indefinite and global in scope. That analysis effectively discards the limitation of the defense secretary's war powers to times and places of imminent combat.



[ . . . ]



Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas O'Connell, who oversees special operations policy, said Rumsfeld has discarded the "hide-bound way of thinking" and "risk-averse mentalities" of previous Pentagon officials under every president since Gerald R. Ford.



"Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld's Domain" (Washington Post, emphases mine)





Washington: Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before.



[ . . . ]



The role of the armed forces in the United States has been a contentious issue for more than a century. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts military forces from performing domestic law enforcement duties, like policing, was enacted after the Civil War in response to the perceived misuse of federal troops who were policing in the South.



[ . . . ]



The commandos here this week were the same type of Special Operations forces who are hunting top insurgents in Iraq and Osama bin Laden in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But under the top-secret military plan, they are also conducting counterterrorism missions in support of civilian agencies in the United States.



"Commandos Get Duty on U.S. Soil" (New York Times)



Update: TalkLeft has more on the civil liberties implications.

Further proof that that Ecclesiastes dude was one smart guy: there's a fifteen-point primer explaining how to change "A Limited Republican Government Into An Unlimited Hereditary One." Its first point of advice is to "Get rid of constitutional shackles and popular prejudices" by "all possible means."



The pamphlet's author is one Philip Freneau, and it was published right here in the USA . . . in 1792.



The good people at BOP News have posted it in its entirety; go take a look, and see how much rings true today.

An Iraqi girl screamed Tuesday after her parents were killed when American soldiers fired on their car when it failed to stop, despite warning shots, in Tal Afar, Iraq. The military is investigating the incident. (New York Times)



"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom."



--George W. Bush, Inauguration Speech, January 20, 2005

I've written before about the avian flu that's sweeping parts of Asia. The latest update about the flu's status does not bode well.



First of all, it turns out that there have been repeated negative tests for patients who were eventually found to be infected. This suggests several things: that the current tests are inadequate; that this virus, the H5N1 virus, mutates quickly; and that there may be many more infected people than is currently suspected.



Second, and even more alarming, is the news that there may finally be a confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of the virus; all previous cases, with one possible exception, have been bird-to-human transmission. In the current case, three brothers in the same family have been diagnosed. It is possible that all three were infected from eating the same bird; however, the second brother did not fall ill until two weeks after his older brother, for whom he had been caring, and the third brother's diagnosis was even later. So there is a strong likelihood that the brothers have infected each other.



Airborne transmission is what will make the H5N1 virus a real disaster. As Charles says in this post, the average flu has a mortality rate of 1%. The great flu epidemic of 1918, which killed over a million people worldwide, had a mortality rate of 2% - 5%. The H5N1 virus has a mortality rate of about 70%. If it does mutate into an easily transmittable human-to-human form, we are in deep trouble. (Remember, in 1918 we didn't have widespread air travel.)



Our best protection against infection is the NanoMask. It filters airborne particles of a significantly smaller size than other masks, and also forms a tight seal around the face, unlike most masks. It is reusable, with a replaceable filter, and is currently available for order by phone (702-558-5164) for only $4 (thanks to Melanie for the info). If an epidemic hits, expect demand to exceed supply, and expect the price to go up. If you belong to an at-risk group, or you work with or care for a member or members of an at-risk group, it's worth the investment to buy one (or more) of these now.



I'm deeply grateful to Melanie and Charles at Just a Bump in the Beltway for tracking this story, which is being largely ignored by the U.S. press. I will keep you informed of any updates as they come along.



Update: The press is finally paying some attention. U.S. health officials have plans including quarantine and rationing of vaccine. Death estimates range from a conservative 2 to 7 million people, to as many as 50 million people, depending on the rate of infection and availability/effectiveness of vaccines. As Melanie points out, a serious epidemic could disrupt basic services, including banks and stores; so if you starting hearing that the avian flu is spreading, get ready to batten down the hatches, with essential supplies and cash on hand, as if you were going to wait out a massive snowstorm or other natural disaster.



Update II: Melanie, in comments, corrects my stats on the 1918 epidemic; it killed somewhere from 50 to 100 million people worldwide--at a 2% to 5% fatality rate. If the H5N1 virus mutates into a form that's easily spread from person to person, while retaining its current fatality rate of 70% . . . well, you do the math.

Something shocking happened during the Faux News Network's inaugural coverage: one of their guest commentators told the truth.



Yes, I hear you scoffing even now: "Come on! On Fox News? I don't believe it." Well, there's a video, and you can watch it here.

Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, remarked a few days ago that "innate differences in sex may explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers." Then David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, displayed his superior wisdom by generously explaining to women why they should make a "greater effort to marry early" and dedicate 15 years to staying home and having kids before they think about anything like having a career.



Jennifer Saba, who clearly lacks the maturity to appreciate such sage advice, responds to both gentlemen. Check it out.



Update: PZ Myers, an XY scientist, goes to bat on behalf of his XX colleagues.

Roger Lowenstein, writing in the The New York Times (registration required), looks at the history of Social Security, as well as the so-called "crisis" currently being manufactured by the Bush Administration with the aid of a compliant media.



(via Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo; if you don't want to mess with registering at the Times, Josh has a good summary of Lowenstein's article.)



And for more straight shooting on the issue, check out There is No Crisis.

"[Los Angeles] is also the wet dream that red-state bluenoses are afraid to admit they've had, causing them to vote, alone in the voting booth, for moral values that, alone with their consciences, they know they betray.



"It's a flaming target for the guilt-ridden and envious, an enormous beast, difficult to kill, not because it lacks a heart, but because it has so many."



CaliBlogger, whose blog is here.



The comment occurs in a Daily Kos discussion thread; kid oakland's musings on the city, and the Kos community's responses, are also worth a look.

One of the shining lights of the lefty blogosphere, Billmon, suffered so much outrage fatigue and burnout around the time of the elections that he shut down his blog. But he's back--at least for now.



Go read his recent posts, from "The Salvadoran Option" to "Sounds Like Victory." Even when they don't contain a single word he wrote himself (except sometimes the title), they're the most trenchant, thought-provoking commentary around. I humbly suggest that you appreciate him while you can.

Billmon, one of the best bloggers to ever wield a keyboard, and who now blogs only occasionally, has a post up about the Pentagon's current debate about whether to send Salvadoran-style death squads into Iraq.



It's classic Billmon. Go read.

I've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.



In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.



In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to 'man on dog' sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms.



In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a 'good man' who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers.



Read the rest here.

If you haven't heard of Michael Savage, well, you're lucky. If you have, you know he's a rabid right-wing radio talk show host. Here he is talking about the tsunami relief effort:



We shouldn't be sending as much as we're sending. Bush has a lot of gall writing a check for 135 million dollars. This is more a UNICEF deal, it's a U.N. deal, it's a Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, George Soros, Bill Clinton bleeding-heart-liberal deal. I don't want to send them any money. You know, a few airplanes with some medical supplies and a little lip service would have been fine for me.



Note that this was before the administration was shamed into upping its aid to $350 million. But Savage has more to say on the subject:



If you are a God-believing, God-fearing person . . . You could argue, maybe this is God's hand, because some of their brethren struck Christian America. Maybe God speaks the truth but waits. Seeks the truth and waits. I don't know. You could argue: God struck them. Now, I don't argue that because I'm not a theologian. Nor do I believe that God is omnipotent. I believe God is omnipresent. But I don't think God has control over every act because there would be no free will and I don't believe in that. ... But then again, who knows? I'm one man amongst billions of people, with one man's opinion.



[...]



Many of the countries and the areas in these countries that were hit by these tidal waves were hotbeds of radical Islam. Why should we be helping them destroy us? ... I think what we're doing is feeding our own demise. ... I truthfully don't believe in foreign aid.



[...]



We shouldn't be spending a nickel on this, as far as I'm concerned. ... I don't want one nickel of my money going over there. ... I am sick of being bled to death by every damn incident on the earth.



David Neiwert, author of the excellent blog Orcinus (where I got these quotes), dissects the Savage commentary:



The ignorance that abounds here really is astonishing . . . The epicenter of the quake was near Sumatra, one of the islands of Indonesia, a largely Muslim nation. (In case anyone has forgotten, it was also a noteworthy victim of an Al Qaeda attack, namely, the bombing in Bali.) Most of the rest of the victim nations are Hindu or Buddhist.



What's dangerous about these remarks is the way they play right into the hands of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. As I long ago remarked, people who make all of Islam out to be our Enemy are furthering bin Laden's hopes, which is to draw us into an all-out global religious conflict pitting Islam against the West.



Neiwert also recognizes that Savage represents an ominous trend in more ways than one:



Fortunately, no one really takes Savage that seriously. He remains firmly embedded in the public mind as a representative of far-right conservatism.



The flip side of this caveat is the fact that he's the third-most popular talk-show host on right-wing radio. If he's on the fringe, it's become a mighty big damned fringe.



The amount of hostility, and the rhetoric of outright violence, being directed against anyone perceived as "liberal" in this country is increasing significantly. And "liberal" is increasingly being defined as a) anyone who criticizes the administration, and b) therefore synonymous with the "enemy."



How long until the fringe becomes the center of public discourse?

A Spokane woman trying to divorce her estranged husband two years after he was jailed for beating her has been told by a judge she can't get out of the marriage while she's pregnant. [ . . . ]



Hughes' husband, Carlos, was convicted in 2002 of beating her. She separated from him after the attack and filed for divorce last April. She later became pregnant by another man and is due in March.

[ . . . ]



"It's not the child's fault that mom got pregnant," [Judge Paul] Bastine said. "The answer is, you don't go around doing that when you're not divorced."



(via Eschaton)