Uh-oh, looks like pharmacist refusal is branching out into other areas: WashPo
More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients’ rights.
About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and “morning-after” pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians.
I can’t say I’m surprised, but when is someone going to point out that these healthcare provider shield laws hurt patients, the very people these workers are supposed to be helping?
I want to school and lived for awhile in a city in where there were three hospitals run by religious origanizations (Catholic, Baptist, and Methodist) and not until the late 1950’s did any of them treat blacks. So call me skeptical about the delicate moral sensibilities of the hyper-religious.
Well, let’s face it — if you can say you are a believer in the teachings of Jesus and deny medical treatment to someone because of the color of their skin, deciding that it’s okay to deny treatment for just about any reason is going to be a snap.
The so-called deeply religious are experts at selective morality.
I was thinking this morning that someone needs to sue these “providers” for malpractice as a result of these laws if they are passed, and that the malpractice insurers need to start making “moral” refusal issues a costly proposition for these religious docs, nurses, and pharmacists.
but ooops……he’s a soldier and nobody told him to be one! So don’t be a fucking pharmacist, I don’t care…….get the fuck gone and go sell Amway vitamins or something you pharmafacist! Go work at the healthfood store! Pharmacists aren’t doctors and nobody knows exactly why a doctor is prescribing something for someone…..not even birth control, which is prescribed for women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome and without the B/C will suffer huge bone loss and have osteoporosis at 30 and eventually fucking die a horrible painful death after leading a horrible painful life! I just wish these people would bite my ass!
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East.
“I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. “It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.”
And she’s just now realizing this? We’ve known this administration was clueless for years. Cut me a break.
Hey! Didn’t you see Pat Lang’s crapola yesterday? That “occcupation” stuff is just material to be breezily laughed at, & if it’s on the front page of BoomanT it’s gotta be true, right?
NEWSWEEK 6 Feb. 2006 issue — Hamas emerges victorious in a Palestinian election that stuns the world. But what did the militants win? A mess–and they can’t fix it alone. Despite lofty aims, the Hamas landslide poses a bedrock dilemma for U.S. policymakers.
The most upbeat spin came from George W. Bush himself — “The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find health care. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories … That’s the great thing about democracy, it provides a look into society.”
Heh George, that’s even what Americans want for their kids and you have neglected them: see New Orleans after the Katrina disaster. You will leave the White House with a legacy: the Child Tax.
Laura made sense to me when I heard the story about when she was a teenager and had an argument with her dad. She got in the car and went for a drive – ran a stop sign and killed a man. Its clear to me that she lives with that guilt daily and probably vowed to NEVER challenge her father/husband/male again. There’s a part of me that sees the pain in her face – but another part of me that says – get over it!!
I have had to deal with survivor guilt also because all my sibs died with my mom in an accident when I was at school one day. I had panic attacks when I had my first child. It isn’t something that one just gets over but we can understand how it affects us and make different choices if we are aware of it, and we can seek out and find greater depths of spirituality and healing. She doesn’t seem to be in touch with such things though or have an avenue to finding them. Very sad! It explains so much though because the pain surrounding all the strange circumstances has got to be just enormous if she is without any form of honest relief. For me smoking was a way to kill myself a little bit everyday for living while everybody else died. With so much health awareness out there and so much help available I can only guess that chain smoking is much the same for her and that is her reason for not kicking the habit and not really wanting to.
. . . Let’s review who Mr. Abramoff is and what he did.
. . . So Mr. Abramoff is a movement conservative whose lobbying career was based on his connections with other movement conservatives. His big coup was persuading gullible Indian tribes to hire him as an adviser; his advice was to give less money to Democrats and more to Republicans. There’s nothing bipartisan about this tale, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections.
Yet over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post’s ombudsman to the “Today” show’s Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn’t given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff’s clients — those Indian tribes — gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he “directed” to Democrats.
But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans. A study commissioned by The American Prospect shows that the tribes’ donations to Democrats fell by 9 percent after they hired Mr. Abramoff, while their contributions to Republicans more than doubled. So in any normal sense of the word “directed,” Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them.
. . . Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn’t. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.
More important, this kind of misreporting makes the public feel helpless. Voters who are told, falsely, that both parties were drawn into Mr. Abramoff’s web are likely to become passive and shrug their shoulders instead of demanding reform.
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It’s not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.
NAIROBI, 30 Jan 2006 (IRIN) – Eastern Africa, which lies on the migratory path of birds that may be infected with avian influenza, must establish more effective preventive measures against the deadly virus, an official of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
“Several countries in East and the Horn of Africa – Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania – all the way down to South Africa, are on the migratory path of wild birds from Asia and Europe that are suspected to carry the virus,” said Michel Yao, WHO intercountry focal point for the Great Lakes and Central Africa.
Yao said because these countries also had very high populations of “backyard poultry”, people were also at increased risk OF coming into contact with sick birds
(more)
A report published today by the UK government says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below “dangerous” levels at which a “tipping point” is passed. It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven meters over 1,000 years.
Someday (but not right away) a vaccine to make you lose weight? Accumulating evidence suggests that human adenoviruses viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin.
Nature encourages diversity in tropical forests. You know about the wild diversity of life in tropical forests. A scientist looks at that and says: “Why?” “How?” An analysis of seven tropical forests around the world has found that nature encourages species diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees mature. The landmark study, which was conducted by 33 ecologists from 12 countries and published in this week’s issue of the journal Science, conclusively demonstrates that diversity matters and has ecological importance to tropical forests.
In a paper recently published in Conservation Biology (2006, Vol 20, pages 65-73), scientists used satellite data to demonstrate, for the first time, that rainforest parks and indigenous territories halt deforestation and forest fires responsible for the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture.
Not enough metals in earth to meet global demand: Yale researchers studying supplies of copper, zinc and other metals have determined that these finite resources, even if recycled, may not meet the needs of the global population forever.
Scientists document massive ecological and landscape changes along gulf coast after hurricanes Katrina, Rita. May be wave of the future in a climate-change world.
Advocates float wild ideas to save Northwest salmon: Give up on streams that no longer can sustain wild salmon. Throw open the fish hatchery gates. Create a Wild Salmon National Park. Build new waterways instead of tearing down dams. These are just a few of the conflicting, provocative and radical suggestions from a group of 33 scientists, salmon policy analysts and advocates who have been studying the future of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest since 2002.
A report published today by the UK government says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below “dangerous” levels at which a “tipping point” is passed. It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven meters over 1,000 years.
Excuse me, Mr. Blair. Those reports just confirmed what your scientists have been telling you for the past twenty years. They also said, very clearly, that the barriers to achieving the Kyoto goal, even now, are not technological or economic. From the BBC article:
It concludes that the biggest obstacles to the take up of technologies such as renewable sources of energy and “clean coal” lie in vested interests, cultural barriers to change and simple lack of awareness.
Translation: Blair doesn’t want to piss off his big-ticket campaign donors or international allies (IE, BUSH), he doesn’t want to risk telling voters that they’ll have to change their lives (even for the better), and he and his media enablers don’t want to spread knowledge about what’s actually going on.
Really, though, what possible excuse do people have for a lack of awareness? We got bombarded with environmentalism from Grade 5 through Grade 12 here in Canada. Are we unusual in this respect somehow?
In a paper recently published in Conservation Biology (2006, Vol 20, pages 65-73), scientists used satellite data to demonstrate, for the first time, that rainforest parks and indigenous territories halt deforestation and forest fires responsible for the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture.
Fascinating stuff… So there are actually good ways to slow deforestation. Good. Now let’s keep working on spreading sustainable agriculture down there, so people don’t feel the need to enroach on the forest.
Not enough metals in earth to meet global demand: Yale researchers studying supplies of copper, zinc and other metals have determined that these finite resources, even if recycled, may not meet the needs of the global population forever.
Again, we have the technology to turn this around. Our current use of copper, for example, is extremely wasteful. If memory serves, it’s primarily used for long-distance wires for the telecom network. It’s not particularly good for this, as it’s fairly low-bandwidth and requires a lot of servicing. But established telco monopolies “know” copper, and have business plans built around exploiting the limitations of copper. Fiber is probably a more sustainable alternative. Cheaper transmission, cheaper installation, more durable, more bandwidth… Less power for the telco.
San Francisco is the latest battleground in the fight to save urban trees.
I don’t know if it was posted here, but there was recently a case in BC where a nutty retired urban designer was convicted (but not punished) of poisoning a couple of ancient trees. Why? She thought they were spoiling the “feng shui” of her house and causing her recent run of bad luck.
Damn good to finally see urban trees getting some love.
Did anybody happen to notice that all those damned rabble activist freakos at Booman Tribune have earned themselves a spot listed at Democrats.Com as one the best blogs for the Alito Filibuster. You guys know Democrats.com right? The guys who kept breaking all the headlines and scooping everything on Kerry and the Teddy going Comando and the Alito 8. Congratulations you psychos!
Are we in an alternate universe?? I want out of it!! I just picked this up from a quickie at Atrios’ place. He didn’t link it, so I don’t know where it’s from. If anybody else sees it somewhere, let me know, okay?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — Millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by Congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of Medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report.
The Senate has already approved the measure, the first major effort to rein in federal benefit programs in eight years, and the House is expected to vote Wednesday, clearing the bill for President Bush.
I didn’t know she was such an admirer of Ductape Fatwa’s writings… 😉
From the WaPo: in response to “Reverend” Fred Phelps and his icky “church”, five states are considering bans on protests at funerals; ACLU has “free speech” concerns…
there were no complaints when Phelps and his in-bred ilk were protesting at funerals of gays, like Matthew Shepherd’s or Randy Shilts’, but now that they’re targeting military casualties, everyone’s up in arms…
Like the overwhelming majority of people who oppose marriage equality for gays, the Republicans in Alaska have decided that preventing us queers from marrying just isn’t enoughbigotry for their state constitution, so they’re seeking to add an additional amendment to prevent us from qualifying for any sort of partner benefits that would be paid by the state.
Nine gay or lesbian government workers and their partners sued the state and the city of Anchorage on the grounds that denying the benefits was a violation of the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection clause. Last October the state Supreme Court agreed and ordered the benefits to commence.
Let me break that down for you: Alaska has a constitutional amendment barring gays from exercising our civil right to the marriage contract, so the Alaska Supreme Court basically said, “Hey yeah, you know, it’s really not an equal arrangement of things that we tie certain benefits to marriage and then legally bar you from getting married, so the state should still have to extend the same benefits to you as it does to the heterosexual couples it allows to marry.” So now the wingnuts are on the march with a new constitutional amendment that will shut those benefits down, and they have the support of Governor Frank Murkowski.
Okay, so: WTF? This obviously isn’t about marriage, since they won that fight already. Can’t see as to how this “protects families” even from the wingnut pov. And it can’t possibly be about money because Alaska is far from broke. Alaska is doing so well financially that it has no income tax, it has no sales tax, and yet it still pays its citizens a dividend check every year just for living there. Last year every Alaskan got $845.76. Nope, this is all solely about bigotry, and it’s getting to be very openly so. The next escalation of this ugly little war against gay people is going to be very nasty.
United Nations – Human rights organizations and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus protested on Thursday a decision by the Bush administration to back a measure introduced by Iran denying two gay rights groups a voice at the United Nations.
In a vote Monday, the United States supported Iran’s recommendation to deny consultative status at the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council to the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians and the International Lesbian and Gay Association, based in Belgium.
Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents to meetings of the council.
Among countries with which the United States sided were Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, nations the State Department has cited in annual reports for their harsh treatment of homosexuals. Original
”This vote is an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard,” said Scott Long, director of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
”It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran, and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic,” Long said. Original
The company said its average sale price for crude oil in the U.S. during the quarter was $52.23 a barrel, compared with $38.85 a year earlier. It sold natural gas in the U.S., on average, for $11.34 per 1,000 cubic feet, compared with $6.61 during the same period a year ago.
[snip]
To put that into perspective, Exxon’s revenue for the year exceeded Saudi Arabia’s estimated 2005 gross domestic product of $340.5 billion, according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.
I would love to see an analysis of the profits the oil traders have been making the past 5 years.
There was an article some years ago, maybe in BusinessWeekly (?), that describes how the oil traders make out like bandits in times of instability. It looks closely at Scooter Libby’s one-time client Marc Rich & his protégés who profited heavily in dealings with both Iraqi & Iranian oil, whose “owners” may change several times as a tanker makes its way from one port to another.
The NY Times had a long article this weekend on the US role in removing President Aristide & & US complicity with the thugs who have been running the country ever since. The International Republican Institute’s invovlement (tied to the Republican party) is detailed & names are named; for the establisment media, it appears at first glance ot be decent. I’ve only had time so far to skim it, so am not sure as to what might be objectionable in it, but the title isn’t half bad:
I’d urge everyone who thinks it’s a good idea for the US to interfere in & influence political events in other countries –to pursue ‘our’ interests — to take a close examination at what has happened & is happening today in Haiti, the poorest country in the hemipshere, often described as a “laboratory” for US policy in the third world. I’ve had a few other diaries here on the subject.
Roman Catholic priest Gerard Jean-Juste, jailed on charges his supporters say are politically motivated, left Port-au-Prince and flew to Miami, where he was to be treated for leukemia at the Jackson Memorial hospital, said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of interim President Boniface Alexandre.
His release followed weeks of pressure from U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups on Haiti’s unelected interim authorities to free Jean-Juste, who is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Jesse Jackson had threatened the interim “government” that he would be flying to Haiti if Jean-Juste wasn’t released. Nice on a dark day like today to have little positive news & proof that people’s dissident voices can make a difference:
From activist & reporter Brian Concannon (has several good articles on Haiti at Counterpunch & is Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti):
Today’s victory proves the Haitian proverb, “men anpil, chay pa lou-: many hands makes the load light. This mobilization has been by far the strongest and most persistent Haiti advocacy effort in the ten years that I have been involved in Haiti work. Everyone who called, faxed, wrote or emailed Haitian and US officials, everyone who signed a petition, everyone who forwarded information about Fr. Gerry to their church, their friends, and their family, should be proud. Close to a dozen human rights groups, over 50 members of the US Congress, and hundreds of religious, political and human rights leaders from all over the world joined together to make this moment possible.
Together we demonstrated that the world does care, that justice is possible, and that collective action does work. No small accomplishment.
Fr. Gerry said in a letter from prison on Friday: “understand that I wish you all to extend your support not only to me but to as many political prisoners as possible wherever on planet earth. Probably, you are aware that there are quite a number of political prisoners around the world. Think of them and keep them in your heart…. I am very grateful to Amnesty International and to all of you for helping fight for the human rights of all political prisoners, here in Haiti and across the world. Let’s keep the momentum on for justice, peace, love, and sharing to prevail all over the world as God wants it.”
Uh-oh, looks like pharmacist refusal is branching out into other areas: WashPo
I can’t say I’m surprised, but when is someone going to point out that these healthcare provider shield laws hurt patients, the very people these workers are supposed to be helping?
I want to school and lived for awhile in a city in where there were three hospitals run by religious origanizations (Catholic, Baptist, and Methodist) and not until the late 1950’s did any of them treat blacks. So call me skeptical about the delicate moral sensibilities of the hyper-religious.
Don’t even get me started on the limitations of Catholic medical centers…
Well, let’s face it — if you can say you are a believer in the teachings of Jesus and deny medical treatment to someone because of the color of their skin, deciding that it’s okay to deny treatment for just about any reason is going to be a snap.
The so-called deeply religious are experts at selective morality.
I’m ducking out to throw up now. We are a sick, sick country.
I was thinking this morning that someone needs to sue these “providers” for malpractice as a result of these laws if they are passed, and that the malpractice insurers need to start making “moral” refusal issues a costly proposition for these religious docs, nurses, and pharmacists.
I’m sorry, I’m still throwing up and can’t talk now. What has the medical profession sunk to that these people aren’t drummed out on their butts?
but ooops……he’s a soldier and nobody told him to be one! So don’t be a fucking pharmacist, I don’t care…….get the fuck gone and go sell Amway vitamins or something you pharmafacist! Go work at the healthfood store! Pharmacists aren’t doctors and nobody knows exactly why a doctor is prescribing something for someone…..not even birth control, which is prescribed for women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome and without the B/C will suffer huge bone loss and have osteoporosis at 30 and eventually fucking die a horrible painful death after leading a horrible painful life! I just wish these people would bite my ass!
Response to Hamas political win: NYT
And she’s just now realizing this? We’ve known this administration was clueless for years. Cut me a break.
finds out they’re against the occupation, too!
I’m sure her eyes will widen in surprise, and she’ll have to head for the nearest high-end shoe retailer to recover…
Shoeless Condi? erm, Oh My, clueless.
Hey! Didn’t you see Pat Lang’s crapola yesterday? That “occcupation” stuff is just material to be breezily laughed at, & if it’s on the front page of BoomanT it’s gotta be true, right?
.
NEWSWEEK 6 Feb. 2006 issue — Hamas emerges victorious in a Palestinian election that stuns the world. But what did the militants win? A mess–and they can’t fix it alone. Despite lofty aims, the Hamas landslide poses a bedrock dilemma for U.S. policymakers.
The most upbeat spin came from George W. Bush himself —
“The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find health care. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories … That’s the great thing about democracy, it provides a look into society.”
Heh George, that’s even what Americans want for their kids and you have neglected them: see New Orleans after the Katrina disaster. You will leave the White House with a legacy: the Child Tax.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Makes you wonder just how many drugs our prez is on, doesn’t it? And don’t even get me started on his wife, the Thorazine queen…
Laura made sense to me when I heard the story about when she was a teenager and had an argument with her dad. She got in the car and went for a drive – ran a stop sign and killed a man. Its clear to me that she lives with that guilt daily and probably vowed to NEVER challenge her father/husband/male again. There’s a part of me that sees the pain in her face – but another part of me that says – get over it!!
Her vacant look just creeps me out. It’s like she was born to be a Stepford wife.
But I guess the guilt thing might be part of the problem, as you say.
(sneaking in)
(CabinGirl — check E4T)
when she “ran” the stop sign back in 1963 when she was 17. The driver of the other car, whom she killed, was her boyfriend.
Now, what are the odds of that happening by accident? <smirk>
Just think, if the boyfriend had been George…
I have had to deal with survivor guilt also because all my sibs died with my mom in an accident when I was at school one day. I had panic attacks when I had my first child. It isn’t something that one just gets over but we can understand how it affects us and make different choices if we are aware of it, and we can seek out and find greater depths of spirituality and healing. She doesn’t seem to be in touch with such things though or have an avenue to finding them. Very sad! It explains so much though because the pain surrounding all the strange circumstances has got to be just enormous if she is without any form of honest relief. For me smoking was a way to kill myself a little bit everyday for living while everybody else died. With so much health awareness out there and so much help available I can only guess that chain smoking is much the same for her and that is her reason for not kicking the habit and not really wanting to.
Just add that to the list the things the Bush administration couldn’t see coming from a mile away:
9/11
The Iraq insurgency
The levies breaking after Rita
What else am I missing?
Ooops, I meant the levies breaking after Katrina. Hadn’t had enough coffee yet…
Mondays do come fast — but the best part is waking up to the News Bucket. Thank you so much for inventing this!
[bf mine]
Can we just plaster that on Katie Couric’s forehead, please?
From BBC – Stark warning over climate change
BBC – Exxon profits surge to new record
IRINNews – EASTERN AFRICA: More effort needed to prevent avian flu
A report published today by the UK government says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below “dangerous” levels at which a “tipping point” is passed. It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven meters over 1,000 years.
Someday (but not right away) a vaccine to make you lose weight? Accumulating evidence suggests that human adenoviruses viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin.
Nature encourages diversity in tropical forests. You know about the wild diversity of life in tropical forests. A scientist looks at that and says: “Why?” “How?” An analysis of seven tropical forests around the world has found that nature encourages species diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees mature. The landmark study, which was conducted by 33 ecologists from 12 countries and published in this week’s issue of the journal Science, conclusively demonstrates that diversity matters and has ecological importance to tropical forests.
In a paper recently published in Conservation Biology (2006, Vol 20, pages 65-73), scientists used satellite data to demonstrate, for the first time, that rainforest parks and indigenous territories halt deforestation and forest fires responsible for the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture.
Not enough metals in earth to meet global demand: Yale researchers studying supplies of copper, zinc and other metals have determined that these finite resources, even if recycled, may not meet the needs of the global population forever.
Scientists document massive ecological and landscape changes along gulf coast after hurricanes Katrina, Rita. May be wave of the future in a climate-change world.
Advocates float wild ideas to save Northwest salmon: Give up on streams that no longer can sustain wild salmon. Throw open the fish hatchery gates. Create a Wild Salmon National Park. Build new waterways instead of tearing down dams. These are just a few of the conflicting, provocative and radical suggestions from a group of 33 scientists, salmon policy analysts and advocates who have been studying the future of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest since 2002.
San Francisco is the latest battleground in the fight to save urban trees.
Excuse me, Mr. Blair. Those reports just confirmed what your scientists have been telling you for the past twenty years. They also said, very clearly, that the barriers to achieving the Kyoto goal, even now, are not technological or economic. From the BBC article:
Translation: Blair doesn’t want to piss off his big-ticket campaign donors or international allies (IE, BUSH), he doesn’t want to risk telling voters that they’ll have to change their lives (even for the better), and he and his media enablers don’t want to spread knowledge about what’s actually going on.
Really, though, what possible excuse do people have for a lack of awareness? We got bombarded with environmentalism from Grade 5 through Grade 12 here in Canada. Are we unusual in this respect somehow?
And post-outrage, reaction to the other articles:
Fascinating stuff… So there are actually good ways to slow deforestation. Good. Now let’s keep working on spreading sustainable agriculture down there, so people don’t feel the need to enroach on the forest.
Again, we have the technology to turn this around. Our current use of copper, for example, is extremely wasteful. If memory serves, it’s primarily used for long-distance wires for the telecom network. It’s not particularly good for this, as it’s fairly low-bandwidth and requires a lot of servicing. But established telco monopolies “know” copper, and have business plans built around exploiting the limitations of copper. Fiber is probably a more sustainable alternative. Cheaper transmission, cheaper installation, more durable, more bandwidth… Less power for the telco.
I don’t know if it was posted here, but there was recently a case in BC where a nutty retired urban designer was convicted (but not punished) of poisoning a couple of ancient trees. Why? She thought they were spoiling the “feng shui” of her house and causing her recent run of bad luck.
Damn good to finally see urban trees getting some love.
Did anybody happen to notice that all those damned rabble activist freakos at Booman Tribune have earned themselves a spot listed at Democrats.Com as one the best blogs for the Alito Filibuster. You guys know Democrats.com right? The guys who kept breaking all the headlines and scooping everything on Kerry and the Teddy going Comando and the Alito 8. Congratulations you psychos!
Link? Please?
A-CHOO! link
Thanks, Manny…do you have a cold?
just an uncanny ability to sneeze out url’s. It’s a symptom of blogitis.
Are we in an alternate universe?? I want out of it!! I just picked this up from a quickie at Atrios’ place. He didn’t link it, so I don’t know where it’s from. If anybody else sees it somewhere, let me know, okay?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — Millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by Congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of Medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report.
The Senate has already approved the measure, the first major effort to rein in federal benefit programs in eight years, and the House is expected to vote Wednesday, clearing the bill for President Bush.
WashPo article
Like we didn’t have enough people without healthcare already?
Thank you, CG. I had looked there, but didn’t see it. The callousness of these people is off the charts.
I may be busy today — but don’t think I didn’t notice this.
I didn’t know she was such an admirer of Ductape Fatwa’s writings… 😉
From the WaPo: in response to “Reverend” Fred Phelps and his icky “church”, five states are considering bans on protests at funerals; ACLU has “free speech” concerns…
(and Ductape didn’t even notice… :::sniff:::)
You have to be the lowest form of scum to protest at a funeral…I can’t believe we have to make a law to get these crazies to stop.
there were no complaints when Phelps and his in-bred ilk were protesting at funerals of gays, like Matthew Shepherd’s or Randy Shilts’, but now that they’re targeting military casualties, everyone’s up in arms…
sigh
Like the overwhelming majority of people who oppose marriage equality for gays, the Republicans in Alaska have decided that preventing us queers from marrying just isn’t enough bigotry for their state constitution, so they’re seeking to add an additional amendment to prevent us from qualifying for any sort of partner benefits that would be paid by the state.
Let me break that down for you: Alaska has a constitutional amendment barring gays from exercising our civil right to the marriage contract, so the Alaska Supreme Court basically said, “Hey yeah, you know, it’s really not an equal arrangement of things that we tie certain benefits to marriage and then legally bar you from getting married, so the state should still have to extend the same benefits to you as it does to the heterosexual couples it allows to marry.” So now the wingnuts are on the march with a new constitutional amendment that will shut those benefits down, and they have the support of Governor Frank Murkowski.
Okay, so: WTF? This obviously isn’t about marriage, since they won that fight already. Can’t see as to how this “protects families” even from the wingnut pov. And it can’t possibly be about money because Alaska is far from broke. Alaska is doing so well financially that it has no income tax, it has no sales tax, and yet it still pays its citizens a dividend check every year just for living there. Last year every Alaskan got $845.76. Nope, this is all solely about bigotry, and it’s getting to be very openly so. The next escalation of this ugly little war against gay people is going to be very nasty.
Can someone show me where it says in the bible that job benefits are only for sharing between people of the opposite sex?
This is disgusting. And their governor supports it. Guess he’s getting a call from me today.
from TruthOut:
In non-Alito, filibuster, gang of 14, conservatives uber ales news…
A pair of stories in the newspaper tell the sad truth about America today (along with a quote from a third story):
Chaplain shares reality of Iraq;
Exxon sets record profit;
From the Exxon story:
Disgusting.
& that’s just one oil company’s profits.
I would love to see an analysis of the profits the oil traders have been making the past 5 years.
There was an article some years ago, maybe in BusinessWeekly (?), that describes how the oil traders make out like bandits in times of instability. It looks closely at Scooter Libby’s one-time client Marc Rich & his protégés who profited heavily in dealings with both Iraqi & Iranian oil, whose “owners” may change several times as a tanker makes its way from one port to another.
The NY Times had a long article this weekend on the US role in removing President Aristide & & US complicity with the thugs who have been running the country ever since. The International Republican Institute’s invovlement (tied to the Republican party) is detailed & names are named; for the establisment media, it appears at first glance ot be decent. I’ve only had time so far to skim it, so am not sure as to what might be objectionable in it, but the title isn’t half bad:
Democracy Undone | Back Channels vs. Democracy
Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos
I’d urge everyone who thinks it’s a good idea for the US to interfere in & influence political events in other countries –to pursue ‘our’ interests — to take a close examination at what has happened & is happening today in Haiti, the poorest country in the hemipshere, often described as a “laboratory” for US policy in the third world. I’ve had a few other diaries here on the subject.
from Reuters AlertNet:
Jesse Jackson had threatened the interim “government” that he would be flying to Haiti if Jean-Juste wasn’t released. Nice on a dark day like today to have little positive news & proof that people’s dissident voices can make a difference:
From activist & reporter Brian Concannon (has several good articles on Haiti at Counterpunch & is Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti):