Mike's Blog Roundup
By Mike Finnigan Tuesday Nov 24, 2009 5:00amThe Washington Monthly: Reagan, Bush fail GOP's new 'Purity Test'
Taylor Marsh: Howard Dean: Dems will "rue the day they didn't go to budget reconciliation to pass this bill."
Amped Status: The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society
BAGnewsNotes: War grief in all its faces
They gave us a republic..: Nightowl Newswrap
HOLY CRAP: 'Rogue' Christianity...Prayer...The Scripture game...Bible slavery quiz...Pedophile cult attacks U.S Representative...Christianist Manifesto... Brimstone in the Religion section...Sabbath or else...Believers...He touched me...Demon obsession...Kirk Cameron Action Kit...Chuck Colson talks turkey...Vatican clerics claim monopoly on fairy tales...Muslim clerics claim monopoly on doomsday predictions...
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U.S. to Propose Emissions Cut Before Climate Talks - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/ear...
The Truth Behind the Hacked Climate Email Controversy - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/truth...
So you can debunk the Extinctionists/Deniers/'skeptics' out there acting like this is a rosetta stone....
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives...
WATER WARS & CLIMATE CHANGE SHOWING IN A TOWN NEAR YOU: Tomgram: The Ruins in Our Future: Red Snow Warning: The End of Welfare Water and the Drying of the West - http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175131/michae...
All of us have been watching drought in action this summer. When it hits the TV news, though, it usually goes by the moniker of "fire." As we've seen, California, in the third year of a major drought, has been experiencing " a seemingly endless fire that has burned more than 250 square miles of Los Angeles County" (and that may turn out to be just the beginning of another fire season from hell).
Southern California has hardly been the only drought story, though. For those with an eye out, the southern parts of Texas, the hottest state in the union this year, have been in the grips of a monster drought. Seven hundred thousand acres of the state have already burned in 2009, with a high risk of more to come.
Jump a few thousand miles and along with neighboring Syria, Iraq has been going through an almost biblical drought which has turned parts of that country into a dustbowl, sweeping the former soil of the former Fertile Crescent via vast dust storms into the lungs of city dwellers. - In Africa, formerly prosperous Kenya is withering in the face of another fearsome drought that has left people desperate and livestock, crops, and children, as well as elephants, dying.
And, if you happen to be on the lookout, you can read about drought in India, where rice and sugar cane farmers as well as government finances are suffering. Or consider Mexico, where the 2009 wet season never arrived and crops are wilting in a parched countryside from the U.S. border to the Yucatan Peninsula. --- Everywhere water problems threaten to lead to water wars, while "drought refugees" flee the land and food crises escalate.
It's a nasty brew. But here's the strange thing -- one I've commented on before: there has been some fine reporting on each of these drought situations, but you can hunt high and low in the mainstream and not find any set of these droughts in the same piece. There's little indication that drought might, in fact, be an increasing global problem, nor can you find anyone exploring whether the fierceness of recent droughts and their spread might, in part, be connected to climate change.
The grim "little" picture is now regularly with us. Whatever the big picture may be, it escapes notice, which is why I'm particularly glad that environmentalist and TomDispatch regular Chip Ward has written a drought piece in which, from his perch in Utah, he takes in the whole weather-perturbed American West.
Copenhagen talks ready for take off: 5, 4, 3…- http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-23-copen...
Suddenly -- and just in the nick of time -- next month's Copenhagen climate conference is starting to gain momentum.
Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7 - http://www.grist.org/article/copenhagen-u.s.-...
On Dec. 7, the opening day of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Americans from around the country will converge for a historic protest at climate change ground zero for our nation -- the Appalachian coalfields.
Solar energy industry brings a ray of hope to the Rust Belt - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rustbel...
Areas hard-hit by the U.S. automakers' slump are pitching themselves to green technology firms. Workers and machines that used to crank out cars are now making parts for solar and wind power plants.
State Secrets Privilege: The Puppets & Puppet Masters by Sibel Edmonds - http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/11/2...
"I want to revisit a topic which happens to be extremely important to me, both personally and politically, and even more important to our civil liberties. Some of you have already read my brief piece on Richard Horn & the CIA dishing out $3 million to buy silence in this narco scandal. Those of you who have not read it click here and read it – because this story also goes to the heart of a very significant and ongoing issue: The State Secrets Privilege."
US Group That Supported Overthrows of Democratically Elected Governments in Haiti and Venezuela Will Observe Elections - http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/...
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), organizations that receive funding from the U.S. State Department, are planning on sending delegations to observe the November 29 elections in Honduras, according to a statement issued by Republican Senator Richard Lugar.
The IRI is a group that has supported the ouster of democratically elected presidents in Haiti and Venezuela in recent years. Both groups are apparently planning to assist with observation of the elections, despite the fact that the electoral process will be effectively controlled by thousands of military troops and police officers - the same forces who have committed innumerable human rights violations, including killings, rapes, beatings and thousands of detentions, since the June 28 coup d'etat.
2010 Tax Returns & Gun Registration....VERY IMPORTANT READ - http://hillbillyreport.org/diary/904/2010-tax...
Below is a copy of a email I received entitled: (2010 Tax Returns & Gun Registration....VERY IMPORTANT READ) The email is false according to Snopes. See the Snopes screen shot after the hump. I believe this is just another example of how the right wing Tea Baggers work with their false email chains to excite their less than educated, hate Obama, rural neocon base. Reckon the NRA had something to do with this?
The email reads as follows: "Guns must be listed on 2010 tax return. More good news from our beloved administration........ Now 'all Guns' must be listed on your next (2010) tax return! As if we didn't have enough to get upset about! If you have a gun, I hope it isn't registered! Senate Bill SB-2099 will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own.
It will require fingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun. This bill was introduced on Feb.. 24, 2009, by the Omama staff. BUT this bill will only become public knowledge 30 days after the new law becomes effective! This is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Act of 1986. This means that the Finance Committee has passed this without the Senate voting on it at all. Trust Obama? ..... you must be kidding!"
Matt Taibbi: Sarah Palin, WWE Star - http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/20/sa...
What happened to our dollar: Tax havens & currency speculation - http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=co...
Limbaugh: Climate Scientists Are "Whoring Themselves Out For Money, Abandoning Science" - http://mediamatters.org/research/200911230036
Wasting no time as usual, Rush joined Glenn Beck in calling Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) "the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution." Rush then claimed that the hacked emails that were reportedly stolen from the University of East Anglia "are the real deal" and baselessly claimed that they were "leaked" by a "whistleblower." As classy as ever, Rush used these possibly illegally obtained emails to continue his long-running claim that global warming is a hoax.
For con-servatives its always about money...greed vs reality/sanity/truth/science....
David Sirota: How the Media's Proud Know-Nothingism Helped Create the American Idiocracy - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25084
Because infotainment = advertising revenues!!! Yippee...'Fourth Estate' for sale... News is expensive....
The Coal Industry's $47 Million PR Spending Spree - http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/11/ameri...
But for all their expensive efforts to sell the public on the wonders of clean coal, ACCCE isn't working quite as hard to make the technology a reality. The coalition's members have committed the comparatively paltry sum of $3.6 billion to research the technology between 2003 and 2017, according to an April report from the Center for American Progress. That's just $257 million on average each year to develop the technology to capture and sequester carbon.
To put that in perspective, ACCCE's members made a combined total of $297 billion in profits between 2003 and 2008—meaning, as the report notes, that they're spending less than two cents on clean coal research for every $1 of profit.
Howard Dean Says HCR is So Diluted that Any More Compromise Would Make It Virtually Worthless. He Encourages Reid to Move to Reconciliation (50 Votes). So Does BuzzFlash.
- http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/n...
Bailed out banks are going to spend $1 Billion outsourcing jobs to India. - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091123/bs_nm/us_...
And yet con-servatives 'stick-up' for them at every turn....
UK Charging Ahead with £30 Million Investment in EV Charging Stations - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/uk-in...
37% of All US Sewers Are Polluting Rivers and Lakes (Video) - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/us-se...
Massive Civil Disobedience in Australia Over Climate Inaction - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/civil...
The international climate negotiations that begin in just a few short weeks may be in trouble, but that's not stopping activists around the globe from showing their leaders that they demand strong action. This was evident today in Australia after police arrested approximately 150 climate protesters taking part in a sit-in at Federal Parliament.
I think the Pedophile cult is a much better name than the Catholick church. It is the law in Vatican City that you may lick boys as young as 12. Unless you are in a position of power over them. Then you have to wait until they are 15. Not the Onion there. Supposedly that is the will of God. Thy will be done. Thy Kingdom cum.
Not sure where they have the moral high ground to lecture Kennedy.
... ban people like George W. 'Rack 'em, Pack 'em, and Whack 'em' Bush, who practically ran his state like an execution mill *AND* has the added distinction of doubting a woman's last-minute conversion.
upset by Swords of Sphincter in bid for open slot in World Crusades.
[O/T] Just awoke to a {{{scary}}} commercial from these folks, so I had to follow my hunch to see their true agenda. For what it's worth, this ad aired in CT.
AD
Some background
Some more
Dean is right about reconciliation.
Every change demanded by the Republicans only makes the bill weaker, and for what? Not a single one of them will vote for it anyway. Ditto for the Blue dogs.
We have enough votes to pass HC reform with a STRONG Public Option that ANYONE can buy into, using Reconciliation. Anything less is doomed to failure, won't reduce costs or expand coverage, make Democrats look incompetent and give Conservatives something to crow about for the next 20 years.
Hell of a move GOP! When your party can camp under a pup tent it's a great time to make up a litmus test for who can run in your party. Idiots! Purity test my ass. It's a test to see if one qualifies to be an asshole. Good luck with that when it comes to growing your party.
Reagan, Bush fail GOP's new 'Purity Test'
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boosh had been buggering ray gunn's corpse?
During a short week when my son is complaining about school benchmark tests, I am pleased to hold over him the fact that I made a perfect score on the Landover Baptist Biblical slave ownership test. I shall rub his nose in it, pierce his ear with an aul, and kill his ox. Too bad I do not have a daughter with which to raise extra holiday cash.
Re. 'Rogue' Christianity / Washington Post. That rag seems to play both sides... not a bad idea from a marketing perspective I guess? I've often held the opinion they were (R)-leaning and associated with that, the often attributable symptom of being disingenuousness. In any case, thanks for that link... I would not have gone looking otherwise. ;)
And to think... it all depends on what ya think :-/
... I'm not a big fan of Rick Warren, either, whom Sally Quinn apparently thinks is the bee's knees.
That would support my initial impression of the rag then. With that article, I would of never guessed she'd side with any cleric. ;)
"The controversial things about the film are, first, in Islam doomsday should not be visualised or predicted, it's the secret of God, council chairman Amidhan told AFP: For the common people, the portrayal of doomsday in this film could distort their faith -- that's what I'm worried about."
Islam needs to concentrate more on the critical distinction between an ox which kills a slave and an ox which gores a free man before worrying about Hollywood movies or Danish cartoons.
I went to that link (I loved it) looking for a video repeat of lasts nights hardball.Tweety gave Card Tobin a near death experience -it was surprisingly refreshing.I want to watch it again.lolz
In His Book “Now Let Me Tell You What I Really Think,” Matthews Asserted That The Criminal Code Is “Not The Right Instrument” By Which To End Abortion- “On abortion, Matthews writes that polls showing The American people will not exact a token punishment from a woman who seeks an abortion’ should tell pro-lifers something very basic.” The criminal code,’ he opines, “is not the right of instrument here.”
Rather , the solution is for foes of abortion to make common cause with proponents to find ways to reduce the numbers of abortions while keeping abortion constitutionally protected. Safe, legal, and rare, remember?’ (Jeremy Lott, “Review of Chris Matthews’ ~Now Let Me Tell You What I Really Think,”’ Chronicles Magazine, June 2002)
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In 1998 John Paul II appointed O'Malley to the Special Assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops. In 2003, he became the archbishop of Boston, succeeding Cardinal Bernard Law, who had resigned as a consequence of the scandal there.
Law submitted his resignation to the Vatican and Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation on December 13, 2002.
==Move to Rome== Beats facing up to his responsibilities over the abuse scandals After his resignation, John Paul appointed Law to a post in Rome, putting him in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of Archpriest.
Thomas Joseph Tobin... Now why did Kennedy have to go and open his big mouth... I wanted to keep it a secret. You know that seems like the MO the diddling priests use on their victims.
Dear Sarah Palin
Your personal god is not my personal god.
my personal god says that you do not have my gods permission to represent Radically Moderate, his family, or his friends.
Failure to adhere to the the precepts of my personal god will disrupt the parameters of this whole personal god thingee.
Annoint youself with blood of the moose, finger a few beads, and move on to the mall.
There is no such thing as a "personal" god. There is the One God.
And he has rules for the use of your personal thingee.
My personal god can take your personal god any time.......;-)
Noam Chomsky (1928– ), American linguist, MIT professor, and left-wing political activist. The most important theoretical linguist of the past century. Grew up immersed in Hebrew culture and literature. An anarcho-syndicalist from the age of 12 or 13—when most boys are still Spartacist-Trotskyist. Especially critical of U S. foreign policy.
That's just being deliberately obtuse.
Absolutely.
Is that the same as mocking?
Even scientists sometimes refer to a First Cause or a First Principle, and even look for the things like Unified Field Theories, and SETI.
It's just that they don't necessarily anthropomorphize
the two former concepts, but then neither do some religions, and as for the latter concept while they're scanning the "heavens" (so to speak), for alien life they haven't come across any God.
The aliens are clipping his bushes.
Benen should be read every week, but that post on purity is especially relevant.
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