The attorneys for Mr. Libby plan to argue that a senior official in the State Department leaked Mrs. Plame’s identity amid the administration’s defense of the U.S. failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The attorneys have sought to highlight heavy infighting between White House staff and the CIA and State Department amid criticism by Mrs. Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
“The media conflagration ignited by the failure to find WMD in Iraq and in part by Mr. Wilson’s criticism of the administration, led officials within the White House, the State Department and the CIA to blame each other, publicly and in private, for faulty pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s WMD capabilities,” papers filed by Mr. Libby’s defense team said.
They are kidding, right? What media conflagration are they talking about? I know people who STILL think Saddam planned 9/11 and that WMDs were found in Iraq…because of the media’s poor reporting. pfft.
And for those of you wondering who the attorneys are pointing fingers at:
They say the officials are: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman.
“They say the officials are: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman.”
Oh, yeah, that’s like at my house when we blame whoever isn’t home for the mess or lack of ice cream bars in the freezer. Only We’re kidding.
A Senate Republican (George Allen) wants an Army general who drew criticism for church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms to lead the U.S. special operations command…
…In 2003, Boykin gave speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he painted the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan and suggested that Muslims worship idols. Boykin later apologized for his characterizations as conservatives rushed to defend him.
A Pentagon investigation the following year found that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform. The probe also found Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.
I guess they really want to play up the Crusades aspect for their base this year…
BEIJING, Apr 4 (IPS) – A new five percent tax on disposable wooden chopsticks is a sure sign that the Chinese government is now ready to address growing charges that its rapid economic development is impacting the global environment.
Newly announced taxes on vehicles with engines of more than two litre capacity are aimed at calming fears that rapid proliferation of private cars would soon make China’s contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rival that of the United States — the world’s biggest contributor to global warming.
The chopsticks tax is intended to persuade people to buy reusable plastic versions and slow felling in South-east Asia and other regions. According to the finance ministry, China uses up some two million cubic metres of timber annually, to make disposable chopsticks and flooring.
Given long historic Chinese cultural/religious connections between a healthy environment and a just social order (that I discussed back in October) their government is under more pressure than we in the West may realize to address environmental issues, especially after the major chemical spill this past winter that forced cities to shut down their water supplies. Such things there are gut-level-culturally-horrific on a level that we in the US might find, say, abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Grahib.
Britain and other Western nations are using huge debt write-offs to Iraq to boost development aid statistics and give a misleading impression of their generosity to the Third World, campaigners say.
The UK, France, Germany and Italy have all bracketed debt cancellations to Iraq as part of their assistance to the world’s poorest nations.
Figures released today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are expected to show that most, if not all, of the 15 nations in the EU before its 2004 expansion increased aid contributions.
But the statistics will include massive write-offs to Iraq in 2005 when the UK cancelled €499m (£350m) of debt to Baghdad, France €1.6bn, Germany €1.28bn and Italy €925m.
A report released yesterday by non-governmental organisations said that, while the countries were not breaking international rules, they were misleading the public.
When seen as an accounting excercise, yes, it is aid.
However, part of the problem is that after the various nations were squeezed by James Baker to foregive debt for Iraq, then the regular aid budgets for other well-deserving countries were already drained.
No more for the hungry in Niger or the persecuted in Darfur.
Polling is taking place in a Kuwaiti council by-election in which women are allowed to vote for the first time.
Two women are also among eight candidates running for the seat in the Salmiya district, south of the capital.
The 28,000 eligible voters, 60% of whom are women, are voting in segregated polling booths, a condition demanded by Islamist and tribal MPs.
Women were granted equal political rights last year and will vote in full legislative polls in 2007.
How Harper’s government is walling off the press–and why Canadians should be concerned.
The relationship between the media and federal politicians has always been a love-hate affair. But since Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took control of Parliament Hill in January, the amorous part of the equation has been hard to discern. The friction edged up a level last Tuesday, when for the first time in years, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) failed to inform reporters about a full Cabinet meeting.
It is expected to include mention of the Conservative party’s commitments to military spending, and of the Canadian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, as well as the Prime Minister’s promise during the election campaign to make overtures to the Chinese head taxpayers.
A PMO official said yesterday that there will be a number of Canadian soldiers in attendance for the reading of the speech, as well as a number of elderly Chinese immigrants who were forced to pay the controversial head tax when they arrived in Canada.
Most Canadians might be shocked to see a new government sponsored internet site CanadianAlly.com http://www.canadianally.com that is being advertised throughout bus stops in Washington D.C on posters that have been described as a “Canadian military ad blitz”.
The top of the site features the blending of the American and Canadian flags to create what can only be described as an “Ameri-Canadian” banner.
If our government were concerned about the growing anti-Bush sentiment in this country, a site like this would never have been authorized.
Mr. Harper and his ministers are not responding to questions from the press. So it is difficult for anyone to determine who authorized the posters and the site or for what purpose.
Lovely. At least we all know how this plays out. It seems that Canada is following Bush/Rove’s lead.
The front page posters at Kos are participating in the smearing of Cynthia McKinney, so if you ever miss the place, think again! It is like being at a dittohead convention. Some of the posts are from the kkk. They are saying “she needs to be put in her place!”
I don’t miss it at all, in fact I don’t even know my password since I switched computers a few months back, precisely because of the kind of comments you linked to. Many there including front-pagers seem to really enjoy insulting each other with petty name-calling. That is the first of the type I have seen from DHinMI, who seemed very level-headed to me before.
BOSTON, March 30 — Massachusetts’s highest court, which legalized same-sex marriage here two and a half years ago, ruled Thursday that gay couples who live in states where such marriages are prohibited cannot marry in Massachusetts.
But the ruling left open the possibility that gay couples from states like New York and Rhode Island that do not explicitly ban same-sex marriage might be able to marry in Massachusetts.
A technology little changed since its invention by Ben Franklin is due for an update: Bifocal eyeglasses that change from “long distance” to “reading” mode at the flick of a switch. Researchers have developed a prototype that uses liquid crystals to change focus in an instant, thus preventing the eye strain induced by wearing conventional bifocal glasses. Focusing through specific portions of a bifocal lens causes many users to become dizzy or disoriented, while others report increased eye fatigue. For some of us more seasoned frogs, this would be almost as good as the news about Tom DeLay! Or our next headline:
Environmentalists hailed victory Monday as key Japanese firms quit the whaling business after a pressure campaign, although the government vowed no change to its controversial annual hunt. Environmental group Greenpeace had launched a letter campaign and threatened to blacklist non-whale products distributed worldwide by Nissui.
You know how sometimes you get a shopping cart with a bad wheel that won’t spin? NASA can relate: Mission managers have given up hope of fixing a broken wheel on NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars and will simply have to drag the wheel on future drives. The glitch means NASA must avoid terrain with loose soil as it maps out a route to a safe winter haven for the rover. The rover’s right-front wheel stopped turning about two weeks ago – apparently because of a broken circuit in the motor that powers the wheel. The same wheel had experienced a surge in current in 2004 but later returned to normal.
Last week, it was a look at lack of security at chemical plants. Today, both the NY Times and the Christian Science Monitor weigh in on the lack of security at nuclear plants.
The latest supercomputer models predict that containment of pandemic influenza would be ineffective given today’s mobile society, so greater effort should be directed towards development of a broad-spectrum vaccine. Closing schools and restricting travel would slow the spread across America to six months, allowing time for a mass vaccination program to occur.
More unrest from the insubordinate employees at EPA (yay!): A proposal to revise how the EPA regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency’s regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be “detrimental to the environment.” Heh heh heh…
Tom Delay’s stepdown is framed by him in Time article as nothing to do with Abramoff probe or his Texas indict.!!
But Bucky’s (Ed Buckham) role, (and imho, that’s a biggie) is yet untold. Buck is Delay’s spiritual and political adviser.
Two tidbits caught my eye.
Over at firedoglake, this..that the probe is getting too close to Delay and to home – his wife, Christine Delay and daughter.
[..]Investigators are looking into whether Rudy aided Abramoff’s lobbying clients while he was working on the Hill, the sources said, and are reviewing payments from Abramoff clients and associates to Liberty Consulting, a political firm founded by Rudy’s wife, Lisa. The Washington Post reported last month that Rudy, while on DeLay’s staff, helped scuttle a bill opposed by eLottery Inc., an Abramoff client, and that Abramoff had eLottery pay a foundation to hire Liberty Consulting.[..]
The New York Times reported Wednesday that DeLay’s wife and daughter have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by DeLay’s political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Texas….[..]
The Times said the payments to DeLay’s wife, Christine DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as “fund-raising fees,” “campaign management” or “payroll,” with no additional details about how they earned the money.[..]
Second, in today’s Wapo: “Federal Probe Has Edged Closer to Texan” that reveals in stepping down now,
[.]DeLay himself was formally designated as “Representative #2” in the documents, a title that cannot be considered a good omen. The lawmaker designated in the same documents as Representative #1 — Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) — has been cited by the Justice Department as having received “things of value” for performing official acts.[.]
As of Feb. 15, when his campaign filed its most recent report with the Federal Election Commission, DeLay had $1,295,350 on hand. But that was two weeks before the Texas primary in which DeLay bested three Republican rivals to win renomination, and the pot of money available to him now may be considerably less.[..]
By stepping aside so early in an election year, a lawmaker “wouldn’t be spending to be reelected” and could transfer the funds immediately to fend off any federal charges, said lawyer Kenneth A. Gross, a former head of the FEC’s enforcement division. The last lawmaker to gain the FEC’s formal approval for such a transfer was Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), who resigned last November after pleading guilty to evading taxes and accepting bribes.
While Condoleezza Rice said this was not the time to try and come to a conclusion about what the next step on Iran’s nuclear defiance might be, those who assured us Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a walk in the park are now telling us Operation Silence Mullahs would be casualty-free — at least for the good guys.
A prominent “neocon,” still in good odor at the White House and OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense), speaking privately, assured us that by the time president Bush leaves office in January 2009, Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions would be history. [snip]
“B-2s,” this prominent armchair strategist replied. “Two of them could do the job in a single strike against multiple targets.” With a crew of two per bomber, only four American lives would be at risk, an all-time record in the history of warfare.
[snip]
The neocon informant says there is “absolutely no way” Bush will accommodate to an Iranian nuke or two, the way he blinked first with North Korea. His uncompromising view of the Iranian nuclear danger and his determination to prevent it by force of two B-2s if necessary is “as solid as his resolve to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.” [snip]
Neocons are unfazed by the fact that Iran is an ancient civilization of 70 million people with retaliatory assets that range from a choke-hold on the world’s most important oil route in the Strait of Hormuz, to an anti-U.S. Shiite coalition in Iraq with two private militias, funded and armed by Iran, to terrorist groups throughout the Middle East that have a global reach.
OY. Neocons are truely myopic mental midgets. They can do a lot more damage in 3 years. Of all the articles I’ve read about Bush’s push to attack Iran, this one disturbed me deeply. The offhanded way neocons think about involving us in war with Iran, with no thought to consequences, is still shocking to me. One neocon in the White House puts us all at risk. Having a nest of them in the White House for 3 more years virtually guarantees more tragedy for the US and the world.
The lack of thought about consequences by obviously intelligent people continues to amaze me. It was true of Iraq and it is even more true of Iran. It boggles the mind how any thinking person could believe that attacking Iran is anything other than a disastrous idea.
This is what happens when people delude themselves into believing that the only thing that went wrong in Iraq was the execution. What kind of oblivious morons are they? Bush will already go down in history as our worst President, are they really going to try for worst world leader of any country ever?
“The lack of thought about consequences by obviously intelligent people continues to amaze me.”
Shalimar, you hit it. It may be that most Bush neocons are intelligent on paper, but it’s that all important “emotional quotient” that keeps the intellectual from becoming a raving lunatic. Those egos push them to believe all sorts of things that follow their “logic”… like the idea that the problem with Iraq is execution, or attacking Iran involves virtually no risk. They’re all nuts.
Would that it were only Bush & the neocons thinking this way. I have yet to hear a SINGLE dem challenge the administration’s premise that Iran is a problem that must be dealt with now. No suggestion that our policy to not even talk with the Iranians or to isolate them in the UN might not be the best way to go. They’re buying the whole schtick hook line & sinker again. At least a few dems (led by Byrd) are willing to challenge the nuclear technology with India.
You are so right. The Dems should deal with this now, and call it like it is. Declare that no war action should be taken before December 1, 2006. Otherwise the Rethug plan to keep Congress is to roll in the thanks, watch gutless D’s wet themselves with the ferocity with which they test the wind, watch us rise up in rage and fail to support GOTV for a bunch of useless wankers.
Is there anyone on this blog that does not expect this? And gosh golly the high-paid Dem leadership will be shocked.
Prof. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the “One Laptop Per Child” nonprofit, says he’s undeterred by skepticism from Intel and M$crosoft…work continues to develop a computer for use as an educational tool for children throughout the world.
Senior China official urges cut in US debt holding
BEIJING (Reuters) – China should gradually reduce its holdings of U.S. debt and can stop buying dollar-denominated bonds, a Hong Kong newspaper on Tuesday quoted Cheng Siwei, a vice chief of China’s parliament, as saying.
With China a leading financier of the U.S. current account deficit, Cheng’s comments sent the dollar lower against the euro and yen and also pushed down prices of U.S. government bonds.
The Chinese won’t dump US debt all at once, we’re too large a trade partner for them to allow the US economy to collapse. They’ll do it slowly. Kind of like twisting in the wind. Look at what happened to the dollar when a Chinese official just approached the subject.
Scooter Libby’s latest defense tactic: Insight
They are kidding, right? What media conflagration are they talking about? I know people who STILL think Saddam planned 9/11 and that WMDs were found in Iraq…because of the media’s poor reporting. pfft.
And for those of you wondering who the attorneys are pointing fingers at:
“They say the officials are: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman.”
Oh, yeah, that’s like at my house when we blame whoever isn’t home for the mess or lack of ice cream bars in the freezer. Only We’re kidding.
Than I thought: AP/Yahoo
I guess they really want to play up the Crusades aspect for their base this year…
Tax on Chopsticks Shows Environmental Concern
Given long historic Chinese cultural/religious connections between a healthy environment and a just social order (that I discussed back in October) their government is under more pressure than we in the West may realize to address environmental issues, especially after the major chemical spill this past winter that forced cities to shut down their water supplies. Such things there are gut-level-culturally-horrific on a level that we in the US might find, say, abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Grahib.
West accused of fiddling figures on Iraq aid
I wish I were surprised by this…
I dunno, if I paid off all your credit card bills would you consider that aid? I would.
But it may still be misleading.
When seen as an accounting excercise, yes, it is aid.
However, part of the problem is that after the various nations were squeezed by James Baker to foregive debt for Iraq, then the regular aid budgets for other well-deserving countries were already drained.
No more for the hungry in Niger or the persecuted in Darfur.
Kuwaiti women vote for first time
Controlling The Message — This is a huge story here in Ottawa.
Tories pledge ‘no frills’ Throne Speech today — This is the first throne speech for the new government.
Love Hates New Website — Has anybody here seen these ads in the US?
Lovely. At least we all know how this plays out. It seems that Canada is following Bush/Rove’s lead.
Wow! an official government website toadying up to the Bush junta. My sympathies.
I’m rather in shock right now. Hadn’t heard anything about it — and I can just imagine all the behind-the-scenes stuff that is going on.
The front page posters at Kos are participating in the smearing of Cynthia McKinney, so if you ever miss the place, think again! It is like being at a dittohead convention. Some of the posts are from the kkk. They are saying “she needs to be put in her place!”
I don’t miss it at all, in fact I don’t even know my password since I switched computers a few months back, precisely because of the kind of comments you linked to. Many there including front-pagers seem to really enjoy insulting each other with petty name-calling. That is the first of the type I have seen from DHinMI, who seemed very level-headed to me before.
From a couple of days ago:
NYT Link
An extra heaping helping of science headlines today to welcome the new frogs to the pond!
Europe’s Alps could lose three-quarters of their glaciers to climate change during the coming century due to predicted changes in climate from the greenhouse effect. Meanwhile, back in North America, melting ice is opening up the Northwest Passage and reviving a dispute between the United States and Canada over who controls the potentially lucrative shipping route. (You knew that was coming!)
A technology little changed since its invention by Ben Franklin is due for an update: Bifocal eyeglasses that change from “long distance” to “reading” mode at the flick of a switch. Researchers have developed a prototype that uses liquid crystals to change focus in an instant, thus preventing the eye strain induced by wearing conventional bifocal glasses. Focusing through specific portions of a bifocal lens causes many users to become dizzy or disoriented, while others report increased eye fatigue. For some of us more seasoned frogs, this would be almost as good as the news about Tom DeLay! Or our next headline:
Environmentalists hailed victory Monday as key Japanese firms quit the whaling business after a pressure campaign, although the government vowed no change to its controversial annual hunt. Environmental group Greenpeace had launched a letter campaign and threatened to blacklist non-whale products distributed worldwide by Nissui.
Ocean acidification from CO2 emissions threaten deep ocean cold water coral reefs, as well as warm water tropical reefs, new research indicates.
You know how sometimes you get a shopping cart with a bad wheel that won’t spin? NASA can relate: Mission managers have given up hope of fixing a broken wheel on NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars and will simply have to drag the wheel on future drives. The glitch means NASA must avoid terrain with loose soil as it maps out a route to a safe winter haven for the rover. The rover’s right-front wheel stopped turning about two weeks ago – apparently because of a broken circuit in the motor that powers the wheel. The same wheel had experienced a surge in current in 2004 but later returned to normal.
Bladders engineered in the laboratory from patients’ own cells and then implanted into the body have succeeded in their first clinical trial. The feat was accomplished by Anthony Atala, at Wake Forest University Medical School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues. He says that while scientists have had success with skin transplants grown on scaffolds in the past, this is the first time they have grown and transplanted a discrete, complex organ.
Antarctic seabirds may be breeding later in response to climate change, according to a scientific study. French researchers analysed records stretching back to the 1950s and think the breeding delays are linked to changes in East Antarctic sea ice.
Over the history of life, biodiversity increases as the planet warms, in part due to increased area covered by tropical forests in a warmer world.
Researchers have created a “molecular diode” of only a few dozen atoms, 1000 times smaller than today’s diodes, potentially allowing computers to become incredibly small yet powerful in the future.
Last week, it was a look at lack of security at chemical plants. Today, both the NY Times and the Christian Science Monitor weigh in on the lack of security at nuclear plants.
Researchers have discovered that the biochemical steps that cause females to produce eggs and males sperm are controlled by vitamin A derivatives.
The latest supercomputer models predict that containment of pandemic influenza would be ineffective given today’s mobile society, so greater effort should be directed towards development of a broad-spectrum vaccine. Closing schools and restricting travel would slow the spread across America to six months, allowing time for a mass vaccination program to occur.
The University of Maine is opening a “bioproducts research center” to develop ways of manufacturing high value chemicals now made from petroleum using wood chips. And improved ways of generating ethanol from agricultural byproducts has been developed. A pilot plant generating alcohol from switchgrass may soon start operations in Virginia.
More unrest from the insubordinate employees at EPA (yay!): A proposal to revise how the EPA regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency’s regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be “detrimental to the environment.” Heh heh heh…
While prayer doesn’t help heart surgery patients recover, apparently weekly attendance at religious services is nearly as effective as statins and exercise in extending life, a study reported yesterday. Rest assured, the Department of HHS is probably already planning a new faith-based medical initiative based on this research… (Seriously, though, one wonders if it has to do with the increased social interactions – someone might notice you’re not looking well and suggest you see a doctor, for example.)
Tom Delay’s stepdown is framed by him in Time article as nothing to do with Abramoff probe or his Texas indict.!!
But Bucky’s (Ed Buckham) role, (and imho, that’s a biggie) is yet untold. Buck is Delay’s spiritual and political adviser.
Two tidbits caught my eye.
Over at firedoglake, this..that the probe is getting too close to Delay and to home – his wife, Christine Delay and daughter.
Second, in today’s Wapo: “Federal Probe Has Edged Closer to Texan” that reveals in stepping down now,
Delay gets to keep campaign funds for his legal defense?
Poor Tom is leaving the District of Corruption.
from the Houston Chronicle (via huffpost)
The Tom Delay Chronology of Events since election 1984 or at second link
link
While Condoleezza Rice said this was not the time to try and come to a conclusion about what the next step on Iran’s nuclear defiance might be, those who assured us Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a walk in the park are now telling us Operation Silence Mullahs would be casualty-free — at least for the good guys.
A prominent “neocon,” still in good odor at the White House and OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense), speaking privately, assured us that by the time president Bush leaves office in January 2009, Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions would be history.
[snip]
“B-2s,” this prominent armchair strategist replied. “Two of them could do the job in a single strike against multiple targets.” With a crew of two per bomber, only four American lives would be at risk, an all-time record in the history of warfare.
[snip]
The neocon informant says there is “absolutely no way” Bush will accommodate to an Iranian nuke or two, the way he blinked first with North Korea. His uncompromising view of the Iranian nuclear danger and his determination to prevent it by force of two B-2s if necessary is “as solid as his resolve to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.”
[snip]
Neocons are unfazed by the fact that Iran is an ancient civilization of 70 million people with retaliatory assets that range from a choke-hold on the world’s most important oil route in the Strait of Hormuz, to an anti-U.S. Shiite coalition in Iraq with two private militias, funded and armed by Iran, to terrorist groups throughout the Middle East that have a global reach.
OY. Neocons are truely myopic mental midgets. They can do a lot more damage in 3 years. Of all the articles I’ve read about Bush’s push to attack Iran, this one disturbed me deeply. The offhanded way neocons think about involving us in war with Iran, with no thought to consequences, is still shocking to me. One neocon in the White House puts us all at risk. Having a nest of them in the White House for 3 more years virtually guarantees more tragedy for the US and the world.
The lack of thought about consequences by obviously intelligent people continues to amaze me. It was true of Iraq and it is even more true of Iran. It boggles the mind how any thinking person could believe that attacking Iran is anything other than a disastrous idea.
This is what happens when people delude themselves into believing that the only thing that went wrong in Iraq was the execution. What kind of oblivious morons are they? Bush will already go down in history as our worst President, are they really going to try for worst world leader of any country ever?
“The lack of thought about consequences by obviously intelligent people continues to amaze me.”
Shalimar, you hit it. It may be that most Bush neocons are intelligent on paper, but it’s that all important “emotional quotient” that keeps the intellectual from becoming a raving lunatic. Those egos push them to believe all sorts of things that follow their “logic”… like the idea that the problem with Iraq is execution, or attacking Iran involves virtually no risk. They’re all nuts.
Would that it were only Bush & the neocons thinking this way. I have yet to hear a SINGLE dem challenge the administration’s premise that Iran is a problem that must be dealt with now. No suggestion that our policy to not even talk with the Iranians or to isolate them in the UN might not be the best way to go. They’re buying the whole schtick hook line & sinker again. At least a few dems (led by Byrd) are willing to challenge the nuclear technology with India.
You are so right. The Dems should deal with this now, and call it like it is. Declare that no war action should be taken before December 1, 2006. Otherwise the Rethug plan to keep Congress is to roll in the thanks, watch gutless D’s wet themselves with the ferocity with which they test the wind, watch us rise up in rage and fail to support GOTV for a bunch of useless wankers.
Is there anyone on this blog that does not expect this? And gosh golly the high-paid Dem leadership will be shocked.
from Riverbend on Sunday
How appropriate! I am always glad to hear of her posting. At least I know she is alive.
Prof. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the “One Laptop Per Child” nonprofit, says he’s undeterred by skepticism from Intel and M$crosoft…work continues to develop a computer for use as an educational tool for children throughout the world.
Latest here from Wired News
Check out who is and is not supporting this, also see link to One Laptop per Child.
There is hope.
Peace
link
BEIJING (Reuters) – China should gradually reduce its holdings of U.S. debt and can stop buying dollar-denominated bonds, a Hong Kong newspaper on Tuesday quoted Cheng Siwei, a vice chief of China’s parliament, as saying.
With China a leading financier of the U.S. current account deficit, Cheng’s comments sent the dollar lower against the euro and yen and also pushed down prices of U.S. government bonds.
The Chinese won’t dump US debt all at once, we’re too large a trade partner for them to allow the US economy to collapse. They’ll do it slowly. Kind of like twisting in the wind. Look at what happened to the dollar when a Chinese official just approached the subject.