Do people like Texas Gov. Rick Perry keep their
brains turned off because they're afraid the battery will run down

video details and more


One of the iconic moments in the Fawlty Towers canon: Basil -- after grappling, or attempting to grapple, with the beyond-hideous, unhearing Mrs. Richards -- asks an impertinent question.

BASIL: Madam, don't think me rude, but may I ask, do you by any chance have a hearing aid?
MRS. RICHARDS: A what?
BASIL [shouting]: A HEARING AID.
MRS. RICHARDS: Yes, I do have a hearing aid.
BASIL [still shouting]: WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO GET IT MENDED?
MRS. RICHARDS: Mended? It's working perfectly all right.
BASIL: No, it isn't.
MRS. RICHARDS: I haven't got it turned on at the moment.
BASIL: Why not?
MRS. RICHARDS: The battery runs down.

by Ken

Surely you remember Mrs. Richards, the monstrous, profoundly hard-of-hearing old crone --profoundly hard of hearing except when money is involved, that is -- from the "Communications Problems" episode of Fawlty Towers.

THE ROLE SHE'LL ALWAYS BE KNOWN FOR

If you scrounge around YouTube enough you can probably find the entire "Communications Problems" episode, including the glorious scene of miscommunications between Mrs. Richards and Manuel in which, channeling the spirit of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first," she concludes from his acknowledgment, "Si, 'che' 'what," that the name of the hotel manager is C. K. Watt. Here's a bit more of Mrs. Richards, and here she is, even more hilariously, with the infamous hearing aid turned on.

This is, we might note, such a frighteningly complete, totally commanding performance that I think we're apt to forget that there's an actress in there making it all happen. Joan Sanderson (1912-1979) had a long and productive career on stage, screen, and TV, but there's no question which role she will permanently be remembered for.

I know that most people think the neanderthals of the Hard Right -- at least the ones who aren't bought off, pathologically dishonest, or plain nuts -- are simply too stupid to understand the matters they regularly maul in their public utterances. And certainly there is no detectable brain function behind the blitherings of, say, Glenn Beck, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Sen. Jim DeMoron. Yet I have a deep reluctance to let them off the hook by assuming that the poor dears' brains are incapable of rational thought.

Which may be why, confronted with yet another outburst from that dimmest of guber-natorial bulbs, Texas's Rick "Hair Makes the Man" Perry, I always think of Mrs. Richards, holding out the possibility that when our Rick flaps his gums, the stuff that comes out is what it is because he simply hasn't got his brain turned on, perhaps for fear, like Mrs. Richards, that the battery will run down.

I realize that a brain doesn't work exactly like a hearing aid, and with that consideration in mind have formulated a related explanation: People like our Rick avoid using the brains this God right-wing Crap Christians keep talking about gave them because it hurts. Yes, thinking requires real effort, and a kind of effort that -- as I tried to suggest in my brief sketch of Howie's and my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Fulmer, who insisted that we use the word "think" only in connection with actual thinking -- many people go through their entire lives without attempting.

In the case of our Rick, as Reggie Perrin's old boss at Sunshine Desserts, C.J., might say, he didn't get where he is today by keeping his brain turned on. All indications are that in Texas state politics it can be "smart" to keep your brain firmly locked in the "off" position -- it's certainly the strategy the governor is hoping will earn him renomination over the formidable obstacle of a primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Governor Rick's current woes have to do with a very bad thing he did back in 2004, and then another bad as well as really, really stupid thing he just did to try to cover up the bad thing from before.

The bad thing he did was to allow, as governor of Texas, a convicted murderer named Cameron T. Willingham to be executed on February 17, 2004. How, you wonder, how could that be a bad thing, especially in Texas? Aren't executions the state pastime, practically their favorite sport? Why, the funnest times that Governor Rick's predecessor, a dribbling fool named George W. Bush, had as governor.

What could be more fun, more law-and-orderish, more downright manly than giving the signal to string 'im up? Or fry the sumbitch. Or whatever the hell we do with 'em now. Nuke 'im? In the name of the majesty of the law, your gawd-fearing pro-life Crap Christian gets to for gawd's sake make some guy die!!! Hot damn! Does it get any better than that?

The problem at the 2004 end of Governor Rick's woes is that even at the time of Todd Willingham's execution, there was serious scientific doubt about some of the evidence on which his conviction was based. Now of course science don't count fer much down Texas way. But just because they worship ignorance down there, and on the evidence of the creeps who've occupied the governor's chair for going on 15 years now suggest that the sleaziest, lowest-account thugs can fill the seat, there is simply no way that anyone with even the tiniest shred of morality can sanction the execution of a man in the face of the evidently serious forensic doubts that existed in this case. If we are to continue to have pretensions to any kind of superiority for human beings as a life form, this has to be judged 100 percent, unequivocally unforgivable.

This, however, is Texas, where as fast as we can off the bad guys, more of 'em takes their place awaiting' their turn. (That's some swell tribute to the value of the death penalty as a deterrent.) And if there's one thing Governor Rick probably thought he'd never have to worry about, it was allowing old Todd Willingham to be offed. Why, in Texas the folks probably figure just bin' guilty of bin' executed is proof enough that you deserved to die. And after all, the crime of which Willingham was not only accused but convicted by a jury of his peers was pretty horrible: setting the fire in which his three children died.

So Governor Rick should have been home free. The only thing was, he couldn't nuke those forensic doubts along with the convicted man, and there were some folks who were mighty insistent and mighty angry that they were never properly looked into, because those doubts meant that when the doomed Todd Willingham said, ?I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit," it may have been true.

As James C. McKinley Jr. reported Thursday in the New York Times:

In 2004, however, Gerald L. Hurst, an Austin scientist and fire investigator working in Mr. Willingham?s behalf, reviewed the evidence and determined the investigators had relied on several outdated and discredited methods to reach their conclusions. Most of the evidence could be explained by an accidental fire, Dr. Hurst said.

That conclusion was confirmed six weeks ago by an independent arson expert hired by the Forensic Science Commission, which was created in 2005 to investigate mistakes in crime laboratories after scandals rocked the one in Houston. The expert, Craig L. Beyler, of Baltimore, said in his August report that ?the investigators had a poor understanding of fire science? and that the evidence they cited did not support a finding of arson.

Oops!

The commission had a meeting scheduled for this past Friday in Dallas, at which its expert, Craig Beyler, was supposed to testify. It didn't happen. If you look at the "Meetings" page of the commission's website, under the "Future Meetings" heading there is just this one listing:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE COMMISSION'S OCTOBER 2nd MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Let's let the NYT's James McKinley Jr. tell the story:

In what some opponents say looks like a political move and Gov. Rick Perry says was ?business as usual,? the governor replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two other members on Wednesday, just 48 hours before the commission was to hear testimony from an arson expert who believes that Mr. Willingham was convicted on faulty testimony, a conclusion that has been supported by other experts in the field.

The terms of the three members who were replaced had expired September 1, but apparently all of them expected to be reappointed. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Dave Montgomery reported that the ousted chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett, who had already been appointed to the committee twice by Governor Rick and expected to be reappointed, said, "I have no idea why he did it. No explanation was given to me."

According to the Star-Telegram's Dave Montgomery, Bassett's replacement as chairman of the commission, Williamson County (north of Austin) D.A. John Bradley, "said he did not know that he was under serious consideration for the post until he was told of the appointment on Wednesday by Perry?s office." Wednesday was the day of the announcement.

The ousted commission members, of course, had been working on this case since 2008, and two days before the scheduled hearing would seem a pretty screwy time to replace them. Not to Governor Rick, though. Montgomery reports:

Perry said that replacing members just as the panel is about to begin its review of the Beyler report is an optimum time for change.

"It makes a lot more sense to put the people in now and let them start the full process," Perry told reporters.

Perry described his decision to bring in new faces as "nothing out of the ordinary."

Now you could say that this is Governor Rick is just being disingenuous here. I would be more inclined to say that this is our Rick with his brain securely locked in the "off" position. Everyone agrees that the turmoil he has created will delay the work of the commission. The new chairman's "immediate priority," reports Montgomery,

will be to "get up to speed" on the job. He said he knows about the Willingham case only through news coverage. "That obviously is part of the homework I have to do," he said.

According to the NYT's McKinley:

Mr. Bradley said he did not know if he would continue the inquiry into the Willingham conviction that his predecessor had started. He said he wanted to consult with the lawmakers who created the commission about its mission.

Governor Rick should only be so lucky. The Forensic Science Commission is made up mostly of scientific types, people with what appear to be actual professional credentials. Five of the eight members, presumably, are already "up to speed" on the case, and don't seem likely to be of a mind to let the matter disappear so easily.

Do you suppose this could be kind of a "Hail Mary pass" by the governor, hoping he can at least make the matter go away until after the March 2 gubernatorial primary. After all, a Texas GOP primary is apt to be decided by a small contingent of the hardest-core of the party's hard-core wingnut loons, people for whom qualities like "crazy" and "stupid" are likely to be pluses rather than disqualifications.

These are Governor Rick's people; Senator Kay's, not so much. Conservative as the senator unquestionably is, her conservatism is more in the old sense of a set of political beliefs, whereas those March GOP primary voters are more likely to be looking for 2009-style conservatism -- crazy, stupid, and criminally predatory.

It might be taken as yet another sign of the depth of our Rick's stupidity that he seems blissfully unaware of the now-established adage that it isn't the original crime that'll kill you, it's the cover-up. Already it looks possible that, instead of making the mess go away, he has handed Senator Hutchison a campaign issue. Just yesterday the AP reported: "Hutchison disagrees with Perry on commission move."

Still, on this count I'm inclined to give Governor Rick a pass. Look how many pols way smarter than him continue to fuck up this cover-up business. The shining exception is Karl Rove, and he comes close to qualifying as the exception that proves the rule. He has, after all, spent a political lifetime covering his massive behind. And all through his eight-year rampage during the Bush regime, he seems to have outsmarted us all by making sure his cover-up was in place, indeed built in, as the offenses were being committed.
#


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Do folks like Texas Gov. Rick Perry keep their
brains turned off because they're afraid the battery will run down

video details and more


One of the iconic moments in the Fawlty Towers canon: Basil -- after grappling, or attempting to grapple, with the beyond-hideous, unhearing Mrs. Richards -- asks an impertinent question.

BASIL: Madam, don't think me rude, but may I ask, do you by any chance have a hearing aid?
MRS. RICHARDS: A what?
BASIL [shouting]: A HEARING AID.
MRS. RICHARDS: Yes, I do have a hearing aid.
BASIL [still shouting]: WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO GET IT MENDED?
MRS. RICHARDS: Mended? It's working perfectly all right.
BASIL: No, it isn't.
MRS. RICHARDS: I haven't got it turned on at the moment.
BASIL: Why not?
MRS. RICHARDS: The battery runs down.

by Ken

Surely you remember Mrs. Richards, the monstrous, profoundly hard-of-hearing old crone --profoundly hard of hearing except when money is involved, that is -- from the "Communication Problems" episode of Fawlty Towers.

SIDEBAR: THE ROLE SHE'LL ALWAYS BE KNOWN FOR

Here's a bit more of Mrs. Richards, and here she is, even more hilariously, with the infamous hearing aid turned on. If you scrounge around YouTube enough you can probably piece together the entire "Communication Problems" episode, including the glorious scene of miscommunications between Mrs. Richards and Manuel in which, channeling the spirit of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first?," she concludes from his acknowledgment, "Si, 'que' 'what,' " that the name of the (imaginary) hotel manager is C. K. Watt.

This is, we might note, such a frighteningly complete, totally commanding performance that I think we're apt to forget there's an actress in there making it all happen. Joan Sanderson (1912-1992) had a long and productive career on stage, screen, and TV, but there's no question which role she will be permanently remembered for.

I know that most people think the neanderthals of the Hard Right -- at least the ones who aren't bought off, pathologically dishonest, or plain nuts -- are simply too stupid to understand the matters they regularly maul in their public utterances. And certainly there is no detectable brain function behind the blitherings of, say, Glenn Beck, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Sen. Jim DeMoron. Yet I have a deep reluctance to let them off the hook by assuming that the poor dears' brains are incapable of rational thought.

Which may be why, confronted with yet another outburst from that dimmest of guber-natorial bulbs, Texas's Rick "Hair Makes the Man" Perry, I always think of Mrs. Richards, holding out the possibility that when our Rick flaps his gums, the stuff that comes out is what it is because he simply hasn't got his brain turned on, perhaps fearing, like Mrs. Richards, that the battery will run down.

I realize that a brain doesn't work exactly like a hearing aid, and with that consideration in mind have formulated a related explanation: People like our Rick avoid using the brains that this God whom right-wing Crap Christians keep talking about gave them because it hurts. Yes, thinking requires real effort, and a kind of effort that -- as I tried to suggest in my brief sketch of Howie's and my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Fulmer, who insisted that we use the word "think" only in connection with actual thinking -- many people go through their entire lives without attempting.

In the case of our Rick, as Reggie Perrin's old boss at Sunshine Desserts, C.J., might say, he didn't get where he is today by keeping his brain turned on. All indications are that in Texas state politics it can be "smart" to keep your brain firmly locked in the "off" position -- it's certainly the strategy the governor is hoping will earn him renomination over the formidable obstacle of a primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Governor Rick's current woes have to do with a very bad thing he did back in 2004, and then another bad as well as really, really stupid thing he just did to try to cover up the bad thing from before.

The bad thing he did was to allow, as governor of Texas, a convicted murderer named Cameron T. Willingham to be executed on February 17, 2004. How, you wonder, how could that be a bad thing, especially in Texas? Aren't executions the state pastime, practically their favorite sport? Why, they were the funnest times that Governor Rick's predecessor, a dribbling fool named George W. Bush, had as governor.

What could be more fun, more law-and-orderish, more downright manly than giving the signal to string 'im up? Or fry the sumbitch. Or whatever the hell we do with 'em now. Nuke 'im? In the name of the majesty of the law, your gawd-fearing pro-life Crap Christian gets to for gawd's sake make some guy die!!! Hot damn! Does it get any better than that?

The problem at the 2004 end of Governor Rick's woes is that even at the time of Todd Willingham's execution, there was serious scientific doubt about some of the evidence on which his conviction was based. Now of course science don't count fer much down Texas way. But just because they worship ignorance down there, and on the evidence of the creeps who've occupied the governor's chair for going on 15 years now suggest that the sleaziest, lowest-account thugs can fill the seat, there is simply no way that anyone with even the tiniest shred of morality can sanction the execution of a man in the face of the evidently serious forensic doubts that existed in this case. If we are to continue to have pretensions to any kind of superiority for human beings as a life form, this has to be judged 100 percent, unequivocally unforgivable.

This, however, is Texas, where as fast as we can off the bad guys, more of 'em takes their place awaiting' their turn. (That's some swell tribute to the value of the death penalty as a deterrent.) And if there's one thing Governor Rick probably thought he'd never have to worry about, it was allowing old Todd Willingham to be offed. Why, in Texas the folks probably figure just bein' guilty of bein' executed is proof enough that you deserved to be offed. And after all, the crime of which Willingham was not only accused but convicted by a jury of his peers was pretty horrible: setting the fire in which his three children died.

So Governor Rick should have been home free. The only thing was, he couldn't nuke those forensic doubts along with the convicted man, and there were some folks who were mighty insistent and mighty angry that those doubts were never properly looked into, because they meant that when the doomed Todd Willingham said, ?I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit," it may have been true.

As James C. McKinley Jr. reported Thursday in the New York Times:

In 2004, however, Gerald L. Hurst, an Austin scientist and fire investigator working in Mr. Willingham?s behalf, reviewed the evidence and determined the investigators had relied on several outdated and discredited methods to reach their conclusions. Most of the evidence could be explained by an accidental fire, Dr. Hurst said.

That conclusion was confirmed six weeks ago by an independent arson expert hired by the Forensic Science Commission, which was created in 2005 to investigate mistakes in crime laboratories after scandals rocked the one in Houston. The expert, Craig L. Beyler, of Baltimore, said in his August report that ?the investigators had a poor understanding of fire science? and that the evidence they cited did not support a finding of arson.

Oops!

The commission had a meeting scheduled for this past Friday in Dallas, at which its expert, Craig Beyler, was supposed to testify. It didn't happen. If you look at the "Meetings" page of the commission's website, under the "Future Meetings" heading there is just this one listing:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE COMMISSION'S OCTOBER 2nd MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Let's let the NYT's James McKinley Jr. tell the story:

In what some opponents say looks like a political move and Gov. Rick Perry says was ?business as usual,? the governor replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two other members on Wednesday, just 48 hours before the commission was to hear testimony from an arson expert who believes that Mr. Willingham was convicted on faulty testimony, a conclusion that has been supported by other experts in the field.

The terms of the three members who were replaced had expired September 1, but apparently all of them expected to be reappointed. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Dave Montgomery reported that the ousted chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett, who had already been appointed to the committee twice by Governor Rick and expected to be reappointed, said, "I have no idea why he did it. No explanation was given to me."

According to the Star-Telegram's Dave Montgomery, Bassett's replacement as chairman of the commission, Williamson County (north of Austin) D.A. John Bradley, "said he did not know that he was under serious consideration for the post until he was told of the appointment on Wednesday by Perry?s office." Wednesday was the day of the announcement.

The ousted commission members, of course, had been working on this case since 2008, and two days before the scheduled hearing would seem a pretty screwy time to replace them. Not to Governor Rick, though. Montgomery reports:

Perry said that replacing members just as the panel is about to begin its review of the Beyler report is an optimum time for change.

"It makes a lot more sense to put the people in now and let them start the full process," Perry told reporters.

Perry described his decision to bring in new faces as "nothing out of the ordinary."

Now you could say that this is just Governor Rick being disingenuous. I would be more inclined to say that this is our Rick with his brain securely switched in the "off" position.

Everyone involved agrees that the turmoil the governor has created will at the very least delay the work of the Forensic Science Commission. Newly installed Chairman Bradley's "immediate priority," reports Montgomery,

will be to "get up to speed" on the job. He said he knows about the Willingham case only through news coverage. "That obviously is part of the homework I have to do," he said.

According to the NYT's McKinley:

Mr. Bradley said he did not know if he would continue the inquiry into the Willingham conviction that his predecessor had started. He said he wanted to consult with the lawmakers who created the commission about its mission.

Governor Rick should only be so lucky. The Forensic Science Commission is made up mostly of scientific types, people with what appear to be actual professional credentials. (The commission's motto, by the way, is "Justice Through Science.") Presumably five of the eight members are already "up to speed" on the Willingham case, and don't seem likely to be of a mind to let the matter disappear so easily.

Do you suppose this could be kind of a "Hail Mary pass" by the governor, hoping he can at least make the matter go away until after the March 2 gubernatorial primary? After all, a Texas GOP primary is apt to be decided by a small contingent of the hardest-core of the party's hard-core wingnut loons, people for whom qualities like "crazy" and "stupid" are likely to be pluses rather than disqualifications.

These are Governor Rick's people; Senator Kay's, not so much. Conservative as the senator unquestionably is, her conservatism is more in the old sense of a set of political beliefs, whereas those March GOP primary voters are more likely to be looking for 2009-style conservatism -- crazy, stupid, and criminally predatory.

It might be taken as yet another sign of the depth of our Rick's stupidity that he seems blissfully unaware of the now-established adage that it isn't the original crime that'll kill you, it's the cover-up. Already it looks possible that, instead of making the mess go away, he has handed Senator Hutchison a campaign issue. Just yesterday the AP reported: "Hutchison disagrees with Perry on commission move."

Still, on this count I'm inclined to give Governor Rick a pass. Look how many pols way smarter than him continue to fuck up this cover-up business. The shining exception is Karl Rove, and he comes close to qualifying as the exception that proves the rule. He has, after all, spent a political lifetime covering his massive behind. And all through his eight-year rampage during the Bush regime, he seems to have outsmarted us all by making sure his cover-up was in place, indeed built in, as the offenses were being committed.
#


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Hopefully this is not in our future

The UK left and right are competing with each other to see who can cut more. It may be necessary to avoid even worse financial problems (along with much higher taxes) but it's ugly. The left is promoting a freeze on pay for government workers while the right wants to raise the age of retirement. Meanwhile, the bankers are still doing just fine. What a fair system. For the US, it's going to be very difficult not to start having the same discussions sooner or later, though higher taxes surely will be kicked around soon enough. Well, definitely sooner than asking Wall Street to pay its fair share.

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n-our-future.html

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Green Diary Rescue & Open Thread: 'Clean Coal'
Funds

Stacy Feldman at SolveClimate wrote:

Obama Administration Releases First Funds for Elusive 'Clean Coal'

The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean coal" dollars from the economic stimulus package, with the largest sums going to oil firms.

Only $21.6 million of the $1.4 billion for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies was made available in phase one. The money was awarded to 12 companies that will test ways to catch and compress CO2 from polluting plants, transport it by pipeline and pump it underground.
The biggest winners were C6 Resources, a Shell Oil affiliate; ConocoPhillips; and Shell Chemicals, another division of Shell Oil. Each nabbed $3 million to demonstrate their technologies for seven months.
In the announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recycled the 'clean coal' boilerplate of past releases:

"These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now," although there was no estimate of how many jobs will be generated. ...

A massive, 1,300-MW West Virginia coal plant just became the nation's first facility to pipe a small portion of its global-warming emissions back in the Earth. For an investment of more than $100 million, about 1.5 percent of the plant's CO2 will be sequestered.

Despite his critics, Chu has stood firm on CCS, becoming one of its staunchest proponents. In a September op-ed in Science Magazine he explained why:

Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have caused the climate to change, and a dramatic reduction of these emissions is essential to reduce the risk of future devastating effects. On the other hand, access to energy is the basis of much of the current and future prosperity of the world. Eighty percent of this energy is derived from fossil fuel. The world has abundant fossil fuel reserves, particularly coal. The United States possesses one-quarter of the known coal supply, and the United States, Russia, China, and India account for two-thirds of the reserves. Coal accounts for roughly 25% of the world energy supply and 40% of the carbon emissions. It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon, and for this reason, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants must be aggressively pursued.

• • • • • • •

Graphic of the Week:

• • • • • • •

The diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.

• • • • • • •

A Siegel was glad to see Obama’s new energy order: "Elections have consequences. Presidents have power. Today, Barack Obama demonstrated the truth of both in signing a piece of paper that most Americans will never hear of yet which has the potential for having a real impact for improving our situation. Somewhat hidden to most Americans (on purpose), the Bush Administration's Executive Order 13423 was perhaps the best energy-related action taken by George W Bush. It set meaningful energy efficiency targets and created paths for more effective energy management across the federal government. Today, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that builds on 13423 and builds on the funding from the stimulus package to accelerate the Federal government toward more aggressive sustainability goals across energy efficiency, reduced oil consumption, water conservation, waste reduction, and the use of Federal purchasing power to increase the speed of market adoption of environmentally-responsible products and technologies."

As part of the ongoing Adopt a Senator project regarding the Senate’s  climate legislation, UltraAyla evaluated Byron Dorgan: "I’ll save you the trouble of reading everything and do this quickly: Is Byron Dorgan likely to vote yes for the bill? No. For cloture? Possibly. Do we really need him? Absolutely. Byron Dorgan is a moderate Democrat from North Dakota, which is, on the whole, more conservative than he is. He is nearing the end of his third term as a Senator, which is likely pushing him to think about his actions in the frame of the election he will soon be facing – though he won each of his three previous elections with sizable margins. Unless you are particularly active in the political arena, you may not have heard of Dorgan. But make no mistake, he is one of the most important Senators in this fight right now, and he has not been positioning himself to vote for CEJAPA, or any other bill that comes along with a cap and trade component. In fact, in 2008, Dorgan was one of only four Democrats to vote against cloture for the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. Still, he is not our enemy, and is a potential ally if he can be convinced that the market solution is the middle ground and that speculation can be controlled."

• • • • • • •

jlms qkw has posted the Overnight News Digest.

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Not All Terrorists Are Muslims

Found at the hilarious blog Pundit Kitchen.

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Norway Best Country To Live In

The United Nations has released it's 2009 Human Development Index (HDI). The index uses three major factors to compare countries on how they treat their own citizens. The countries rated highest are generally considered the best countries to live in.
The factors considered in computing the index are health, knowledge and standard of living. Health is determined by life expectancy at birth. Knowledge is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the gross school enrollment ratio. Standard of living is arrived at by the Gross Domestic Product per capita.
The country with the highest HDI (best country to live in) is Norway. The country with the lowest HDI (worst country to live in) is Niger. Here are the top 25 countrys according to the HDI:
1. Norway2. Australia3. Iceland4. Canada5. Ireland6. Netherlands7. Sweden8. France9. Switzerland10. Japan11. Luxembourg12. Finland13. United States14. Austria15. Spain16. Denmark17. Belgium18. Italy19. Liechtenstein20. New Zealand21. United Kingdom22. Germany23. Singapore24. Hong Kong25. Greece
These are the 15 countries with the lowest HDI (starting with the worst):
182. Niger181. Afghanistan180. Sierra Leone179. Central African Republic178. Mali177. Burkina Faso176. Congo175. Chad174. Burundi173. Guinea-Bissau172. Mozambique171. Ethiopia170. Guinea169. Liberia168. Gambia

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Demands To Appear

Political Cartoon is by Gary McCoy in The Suburban Journals (Illinois).

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Republicans Oppose Net Neutrality

After many years of trying, it looks like we may finally get some rules in place that would enforce and protect "net neutrality". Democratic Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed some new rules that he believes will protect net neutrality, and those new rules will be voted on soon by the FCC.
Genachowski's new proposal would have the FCC formally adopt principles that say "network operators must allow subscribers to access all legal online content, applications, services and devices." It would also prevent "providers from discriminating against particular content or applications and would require them to be open about their network management practices", and would "apply these rules across different types of broadband networks, including wireless networks."
These rules would insure that the internet remains a true democracy. No provider would be able to censor, limit or control access to any site. And no provider would be able to force their subscribers to use any service or application they don't want.
Naturally, many Capitol Hill Republicans have come out in opposition to the new rules. Twenty House Republicans have sent a letter to Chairman Genachowski, asking him to delay the vote on the new rules (probably so they can solidify opposition to the rules). They claim net neutrality would discourage investors from investing in their own networks.
This is a ridiculous charge on it's face. It these providers don't invest in their tech-heavy field, then they'll quickly fall behind and be overtaken by their rivals. And if they no longer want to be in the business, there are plenty of others who would be happy to have their subscribers.
The Republicans also claimed that if the providers can't control control their network traffic, then their customers could suffer. Another load of crap! The subscribers pay for access and service. They do not pay to be controlled. The consumers only suffer when they are denied free and open access to the internet.
But it shouldn't come as any surprise that most Capitol Hill Republicans are opposed to net neutrality. They haven't truly favored democracy for some time now. There true political belief is not in democracy, but in corporatocracy. And this corporatocracy is controlled by the same corporate interests that feed millions of dollars into their campaign chests.
These Republicans are just protecting those who feed their campaign coffers. After all, isn't getting re-elected more important than doing what's good for the American people?

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Out In The First Round

Political Cartoon is by Scott Stantis in The Birmingham News.

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Ahmadinejad Born A Jew

If this story is true, it would explain a lot. The Raw Story is reporting that Iranian president Ahmadenijad was born a Jew. They base this on a story published in the British newspaper The Telegraph.
According to the newspaper, Ahmadenijad was photographed holding up his Iranian identity card in 2008. The high-resolution photo revealed that his family changed their name shortly after he was born. At the same time, they renounced their faith and became muslims.
His family's original name was Sabourjian (a Jewish name meaning "cloth weaver"). According to the Israeli publication YNet News, "The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior."
In a televised debate prior to Iran's last election, Ahmadenijad admitted that his family name had been changed. However, he refused to discuss the matter any further.
The rumor of Ahmadenijad's possible Jewish roots was started when Mehdi Khazali (the son of Ayatollah Khazali) used his blog to call for an investigation of Ahmadenijad's background. Khazali opposed Ahmadenijad's re-election, and was arrested during the demonstrations following Iran's disputed presidential election.
I don't know whether this story is true or not, but if it is it would explain a lot about the Iranian president's rabid hatred of Jews and denial of the holocaust. Ex's are always the most rabid attackers of whatever they used to do or be. It doesn't matter whether it's ex-smokers, ex-drinkers, ex-druggies or as in this case -- ex-Jews.
More than anyone else, ex's seem to be on a righteous crusade to either save or demonize those who won't follow them into becoming an "ex".

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