The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

http://www.nytimes...

The Bush administration's War on Science hurts our country. Our nation's success has been built on the ingenuity of our scientists and engineers. Most of the great inventions and discoveries of the last 150 years are American. Attacking and limiting scientific discussion on topics from global climate change to evolution to stem cell research and even geology holds our nation back at a time when the creation of intellectual property is the USA's only growth industry. Some conservatives fight for teaching religion in place of science in our schools and universities. Try and imagine an astrophysicist that maintains that the earth was formed 4,000 years ago. Try and imagine a biologist trying to figure out how all the species on the earth could fit into Noah's Ark and repopulate after the flood with the only available sexual partners being siblings! Just think how much it would help America's biotech industry if the Chinese government decreed that schools teach biology according to the bible. The tragedy here is that science and religion are on totally different planes. Science doesn't heal the soul and religion doesn't tell you how to calculate a flight path to Mars. Heck, even the Vatican realizes this. Their chief astronomer, Rev. George Coyne, expresses that "Intelligent design does not belong in science class" and he finds God in the laws of nature of a world beautiful because of its predictable patterns.

http://www.livescience...

Render unto Ceasar folks....

Posted by Bill (edited by Geoff)

Goes something like this:

Intercepted communication between Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. George Casey.

Rummy: So George, I've been getting a lot of flack about this report by Krepinevich that says that my military is stretched to the limit and may break.

General: Yes, I've heard. Krepinevich is a good man.

Rummy: Well he's wrong, I'm a specialist in these matters and, I tell you, the military is not broken.

General: I don't think he was saying that it is broken but that it is getting there...

and sir, I must agree.

Rummy: OMG! You're sympathizing with the enemy! That is an anti-American thing to say, dissenting from the Presidents propaganda like that. Don't you understand that this is a war? Your job is to carry water for this administration, nothing else!

Your relieved of duty soldier!

(click!)

Gen Casey now resides on a waterboard in Cuba.

Posted by Geoff

They taught us in employment school that the best predictor of future performance is a candidate's past performance. Great. Just great. Judge Alito told the Judiciary Committee that he expects to be the same kind of justice on the Supreme Court he had been as a judge on the Circuit Court. Nothing is safe. Bush-Abramoff photos. How nice. I hear Abramoff was no stranger to Number 1600, either. He served as one of W's top fundraisers and assisted the Interior Department in 2000.

If you love looking at W's mug, sans Abramoff, check this out: http://www.bushorchimp.com/

If raising a pint this week isn't enough to work out your frustrations with Chimpy McHitlerburton's antics, try rolling ............. not that ........ a bowling ball. Sounds like Bill & Larry have Bowling Liberally well underway:

Elks Lodge
Sam Rittenberg
Friday night
7:30 until 11 (if you want a chance to win $$)
$1.75 games, free shoes, $1 beer
FOR MORE INFO, CATCH'EM AT VOODOO THURSDAY OR EMAIL LARRY AT:
larry_carter_center at yahoo dot com

Watch for the little green men tomorrow night!

Drinking Liberally is an informal, non-programmatic gathering of like-minded left-leaners, an opportunity to share your ideas while you share a pitcher. You don't need to be a seasoned activist or policy wonk to join us in meeting new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and enjoying a stiff mix of socializing with a dash of politics.

Voodoo Lounge
15 Magnolia Dr
Every Thursday
5:30 pm until the thoughts run dry
FREE PARKING BEHIND THE BAR

I'm going just to see what the little green men are all about.

Posted by Geoff

3 things in the news today that shocked me; one (the first one) is genuine the others are meant to be satirical.

1) The fill-in for Ariel Sharon was quoted Tuesday admitting that for genuine peace in Palestine (including Israel) his nation would need to give up more occupied land.

"In order to ensure the existence of a Jewish national home, we will not be able to continue ruling over the territories in which the majority of the Palestinian population lives"

Let's hope this third party can pull through the upcoming elections in Israel, they're our best hope at this point.

2) It seems those photos that the papers have claimed show Bush and Jack Abramoff together have come from...

Jack Abramoff. He's turned on his President and party!

3) Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

Duhhh!

Posted by Geoff

FYI, The 4^th Amendment reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of National Intelligence with the Office of National Intelligence, must have missed that part. This is illustrated well here:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause."

And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.

In other news, this conservative outfit notes that the White House is planning for Impeachment hearings:

"A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.

Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

February should be interesting.

Posted by Geoff