An Ohio woman, who did not leave her name, called The Washington Post in tears yesterday, saying she could not keep her phone line open to hospice workers caring for her terminally ill mother because of nonstop political robo-calls.
Pamela Lorenz, a retired nurse in Roseville, Calif., called her own experience “harassment as far as I’m concerned” and said, “If I were voting right now, the opponent who’s doing this, he’d be off my list for throwing that much trash.”
Hour after hour and day after day for two weeks, Lorenz’s home has received the same NRCC recorded message attacking Charlie Brown, the Democrat who is challenging Rep. John T. Doolittle (R) in a hard-fought battle in northeastern California. “It is a recorder calling,” Lorenz said. “I can’t call it back to get them to stop.”
Don’t you just love that the vaunted 72-hour Rove ‘GOTV’ plan involves millions of crank calls?
And they got in trouble for this crap in NH last time. But of course, no one really got in trouble for it, and I guess they figure that by the time they get called on it, they’ve already done what they set out to do.
I saw on the today show this mroning that they were talking about Republican robo-calls to GOTV, but of course, they neglected to mention that these calls are really harassment designed to look like it’s coming from the other team.
If his readership, letters to the editor and the emails he has been posting holds true, we’re in for a landslide. Do hope they go and vote.
Go read, warm your heart here, The Paleo-Cons
and here ‘on smashed axioms’
An axiom is defined as a statement that is widely recognized as true; a known truth. With today’s Republican Party, all axioms have been smashed.
Their axiom of fiscal responsibility has been smashed. Their commitment to limited government has been abandoned. A sound and prudent foreign policy is a distant memory. The effective and efficient execution of armed conflict is no longer theirs to claim. A strict adherence to constitutional constraints on state power is flotsam and jetsam. The ethical governance and personal responsibility of public officials such as former U.S. Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.; Bob Ney, R-Ohio; and Tom Delay, R-Texas, has been exposed as mere mythology.
[.]Why reward this in November? Save apple-pie authoritarians and White House adviser Karl Rove’s useful idiots, principled conservatives have no business sanctioning this perfidy. Absolute power corrupts absolutely indeed.
I’ve got my axioms, and I await and welcome the purge with bated breath.
Climate Heating Most Serious Threat Facing Humanity
NAIROBI, Kenya, November 6, 2006 (ENS) – Energized by a warning that climate change is one of the greatest challenges in the history of humankind, the United Nations Climate Change Conference – Nairobi 2006 opened today with calls for action to limit global warming and assistance for developing countries that must adapt.
“Climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious threats that humanity may ever face,” said the president of the conference, Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana.
NEWCASTLE, UK, November 6, 2006 (ENS) – Stem cell scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by combining human DNA with cow eggs. Their research aims to develop new therapies for human ailments such as strokes, Alzheimer’s and tissue damage suffered by spinal trauma victims. Critics say the mixing of animal and human DNA is unethical and should be illegal.
Dr. Lyle Armstrong, who is based at the North East England Stem Cell Institute at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, today submitted an application for a three year license from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, HFEA, for the work.
Stem cells are the body’s master cells and each cell has the potential to grow into any type of tissue such as liver, heart and muscle cells.
Scientists eventually hope to take a cell from a patient and re-program it so that stem cells can be extracted to grow new tissue for damaged body parts without fear of immune rejection.
Boeing Co. will earn $67 million to administer the so-called “Project 28” in Arizona, which it will use to evaluate the SBInet and improve it for implementation along 6,000 miles of northern and southern border. The final costs of the project are unknown, but experts have predicted it could cost about $2 billion over six years.
Program managers arrived in Arizona last week to begin planning and are aiming for spring rollout of tower-mounted sensors, cameras, radars and satellite communication that officials believe will allow Border Patrol agents to cover more ground, said Robert Villanueva, Boeing Co. spokesman. – linkage
Ocean waves could provide an energy-efficient way to desalinate seawater, say UK researchers. While conventional purification plants have high energy demands, the rocking motion of floating buoys could be used to drive a pump system for desalination. Such devices would be welcome in the Middle East, Africa, and India (where monsoons may weaken or fail due to climate change).
A groundbreaking statistical analysis demonstrates that the preservation of biodiversity —- both the number and type of species —- is needed to maintain ecological balance and “services.” The concern about losing numbers of species versus types of species has been an area of scientific controversy for over a decade. “By combining the results of more than a hundred studies performed over two decades, we were able to conclusively show that the extinction of species from our planet will change the way pests and diseases are controlled, organic wastes are broken down and recycled, food is produced by ecosystems, and water is purified,” said Bradley J. Cardinale, an author of the study. Diane S. Srivastava, the study’s second author added, “Ecosystems with more species function better, that is, they are more efficient in moving energy and matter. In practical terms, this means that diverse ecosystems are better at, for example, controlling pests, breaking down organic matter, and absorbing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.”
The percentage of males among newborn Japanese babies has been decreasing since the 1970s, especially in the Tokyo metropolitan area, according to the findings of researchers at Juntendo University School of Medicine. Temporary declines in the ratio of newborn males have been seen amid extreme environmental deterioration in such incidents as dioxin contamination in Italy in the 1970s and Minamata mercury disease in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, in the 1950s. The cause of this long-term decline has not yet been pinned down, however.
makes the WashPo
Don’t you just love that the vaunted 72-hour Rove ‘GOTV’ plan involves millions of crank calls?
And it’s not really torture.
The New Hampshire AG called RNC to shut down their robo-calling statewide. OR Else.
And they got in trouble for this crap in NH last time. But of course, no one really got in trouble for it, and I guess they figure that by the time they get called on it, they’ve already done what they set out to do.
I saw on the today show this mroning that they were talking about Republican robo-calls to GOTV, but of course, they neglected to mention that these calls are really harassment designed to look like it’s coming from the other team.
Andrew Sullivan urges hard core Repubs-true conservatives and Indies: Hold your nose, grit your teeth, vote Democratic. Bush needs a 2 x 4 in the face.
What’s at stake today.
We’ve become Fortress America: a.k.a the GDR.
DHS proposes to screen ALL people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism profile and retain the info for 40 years…. All Americans and foreigners. While long known to scrutinize air travelers, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to apply new technology to perform similar checks on people who enter or leave the country “by automobile or on foot,” the notice said.(h/t:cursor.org)
The Andrew Sullivan link is great. DO you think any of them will listen to him?
If his readership, letters to the editor and the emails he has been posting holds true, we’re in for a landslide. Do hope they go and vote.
Go read, warm your heart here, The Paleo-Cons
and here
‘on smashed axioms’
My bad, I’ve reposted your cow story below.
Well, you can always post another (hint, hint)…
Did you vote yet?
Here’s a cheery one.
Link
I’ll be running out to vote shortly. How about you?
I went about 7:30, I just couldn’t wait any more.
it’s a compliment, we’re on the same page.
Up here in cow country (VT) we’re pondering what to do… super cows that glow!… saves electricity in the barn but may need bigger barns and more hay.
The human-cow embryo? that’s a whole UDDER story… we prefer the cows that only moo – not cows with long tongues.
I can’t wait hear what the fundies have to say.
Link
Sad…
if you’re out in the woods today, wear reflectors or better yet, kevlar vest and hemlet.
Cheney’s spending the day hunting. Location undisclosed.
…Because the universe goes on, even if it is Election Day…
Scientists using NASA’s Swift satellite has spotted a stellar flare on a nearby star so powerful that, had it been from our sun, it would have triggered a mass extinction on Earth. The flare was perhaps the most energetic magnetic stellar explosion ever detected. The flare was seen in December 2005 on a star slightly less massive than the sun, in a two-star system called II Pegasi in the constellation Pegasus.
Organic haze in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan, is similar to haze in early Earth’s air — haze that may have helped nourish life on our planet– according to a NASA Astrobiology Institute study released Nov. 6, 2006. Study scientists simulated both the atmospheric conditions of early Earth and those of present-day Titan.
What’s wrong with this picture? Australia is considering using vast sunshades to stop global climate change further damaging the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral system, a government minister said Friday. But they won’t sign Kyoto…
Ocean waves could provide an energy-efficient way to desalinate seawater, say UK researchers. While conventional purification plants have high energy demands, the rocking motion of floating buoys could be used to drive a pump system for desalination. Such devices would be welcome in the Middle East, Africa, and India (where monsoons may weaken or fail due to climate change).
A groundbreaking statistical analysis demonstrates that the preservation of biodiversity —- both the number and type of species —- is needed to maintain ecological balance and “services.” The concern about losing numbers of species versus types of species has been an area of scientific controversy for over a decade. “By combining the results of more than a hundred studies performed over two decades, we were able to conclusively show that the extinction of species from our planet will change the way pests and diseases are controlled, organic wastes are broken down and recycled, food is produced by ecosystems, and water is purified,” said Bradley J. Cardinale, an author of the study. Diane S. Srivastava, the study’s second author added, “Ecosystems with more species function better, that is, they are more efficient in moving energy and matter. In practical terms, this means that diverse ecosystems are better at, for example, controlling pests, breaking down organic matter, and absorbing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.”
A journalist reporting for Environmental Science and Technology, published by the American Chemical Society, was fired after an industry-based ACS board member objects to his investigative reports on industry manipulations of science. [Yours truly will be firing off a nasty letter to the ACS, threatening to cancel my membership if this is not reversed!]
The world could be dependent on “dirty, insecure and expensive” energy by 2030, an influential report has warned. Current trends showed that demand for power was set to grow by 53% by 2030, the International Energy Agency said. And if 2030 sounds like a long way off, consider this: China will surpass the United States in 2009, nearly a decade ahead of previous predictions, as the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas linked to global warming.
The percentage of males among newborn Japanese babies has been decreasing since the 1970s, especially in the Tokyo metropolitan area, according to the findings of researchers at Juntendo University School of Medicine. Temporary declines in the ratio of newborn males have been seen amid extreme environmental deterioration in such incidents as dioxin contamination in Italy in the 1970s and Minamata mercury disease in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, in the 1950s. The cause of this long-term decline has not yet been pinned down, however.
The eon known as the Phanerozoic, a lengthy span from the present to 550 million years ago, the dawn of complex life, typically bore concentrations of carbon dioxide that were up to 18 times the levels present in the short reign of Homo sapiens. The implications of this for predicting the future degree of climate change is a hot topic of debate among paleoclimatologists.
The Federal Communications Commission drew praise from a wildlife conservation group Monday for considering a plan to make communications towers less deadly for migrating birds. The current lighting and support wires on some towers that carry broadcast and mobile phone signals kill up to 50 million migratory birds a year in the United States, said Darin Schroeder of the American Bird Conservancy. Modifications could include structural or lighting changes, and putting more antennae on each tower.
And since it’s election day, here’s one more issue for you to watch tonight: A California statewide ballot initiative, Prop. 87, seeks to raise $4 billion by taxing oil production in California and using the funds for research and development, production and distribution of alternative fuels. The ultimate goal is to slash California’s petroleum consumption by 25 percent by 2017. Anyone know if this is expected to pass?