China, India, Brazil and South Africa strike climate legislation deal. I'd swear that the NY Times was never as critical of George Walker Bush for his zero international climate treaties as they were of Barack Hussein Obama for his one, non-binding agreement. If Russia Today's newscasts are any indication, Russia denies the existence of global warming as much as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "Can we send him to Russia, please, Ma, can we, can we?" The NY Times fails to mention it.
More stories of desecration in Iraq, this time of a Chaldean (Nestorian?) Church near Mosul and the Biblical city of Nineveh. The 101st Airborne decided, out of profound humility, to paint their "Screaming Eagles" logo on the wall. Way To Go, Cultural Sensitivity Training!
The Times reports that non-profit medical center advertising claims are not reviewed for accuracy. Hey, sorta like the NY Times itself. I mean, it would be nice if their own editors did that sort of thing.
Per their long history, including places like Florida and Buffalo, the U.S. has entrapped more psychotic folk willing to earn lots of money, even if it happens to be for al-Qaeda. These three Malians are obviously crackpots, saying al-Qaeda would "starve" without them. Worse yet, they may have actually been involved in smuggling people into Europe. Now that would have been something to keep tabs on! Entrapment, illegal to do against us, them, not so much.
Actual news: Pakistani Supreme Court trying to overthrow results of election by opening cases against "thousands" of politicians in the current Pakistani People's Party government. Advanced Pakistani subject matter readers can get up to speed here. Intermediate readers are recommended to read this. These two are short and cover the basics.
Obama not an idiot! Unlike some Presidents of the last 5 years I could name. Preventing nuclear terrorism, not new, mini-nuke bunker busters, is moving to the fore of our nuclear policy. In related news, the U.S. and Russia are set to make another treaty reducing the world's nuclear arsenal. The NY Times reports the next step, since stockpiles are getting fairly low, would have to involve the other permanent members of the Security Council.
There were only a few hundred "hard-corps" members of al-Qaeda back in 2001. Now, the U.S. insists, there are so many in Yemen we have to fire missiles into the country to deal with the problem. No chance that could backfire, right?
Kit Seelye, per usual, embarrasses the NYT. Is she **cking someone, or lots of someones, to keep her job? Is it blackmail?
2009-12-18
Josh Reads the WaPo, Friday, December 18th, 2009
Senator McCaskill wants more gov't oversight of contractors, 1/6th of the contracts audited, a small fraction of the total, is unaccounted for. She questions what "additional controls are needed?" How about not contracting at all and giving the job to the DoD? In previous wars we've done that, but there aren't enough volunteers to fight these crappy wars, so we have to hire Hessians.
Rep. Issa (R-CA-Extremist) wants the GAO to get law enforcement powers for the purposes of going after ACORN and the 0.0002% (rounded up) of the Federal Budget they get each year. Way to prioritize Mr. Issa! Can we send this guy back to the minors?
I'm a born-anew Pashtun Nationalist. While America continues to kill and murder with drone rockets in FATA, Pakistan, I support an indpendent Pashtuninstan for long-term stability in the region. Has anyone polled the Pashtun about it? I bet support would be over 80% except in the one or two regions which somehow benefit the most from the current chaos.
Mexico has killed the #1 smuggler of cocaine into the United States. That ought to fix it.
Dana Milbank calls debating health care on Christmas Day "Unchristian!" Puny human!
I never thought the tax on expensive, private health insurance was a good idea, but someone points out today that the old and the sick, and even worse the old and sick, spend more. Do they need a new tax? Something tells me people who are old and sick aren't rolling in dough, and if they are, we can tax them some other way.
Rep. Issa (R-CA-Extremist) wants the GAO to get law enforcement powers for the purposes of going after ACORN and the 0.0002% (rounded up) of the Federal Budget they get each year. Way to prioritize Mr. Issa! Can we send this guy back to the minors?
I'm a born-anew Pashtun Nationalist. While America continues to kill and murder with drone rockets in FATA, Pakistan, I support an indpendent Pashtuninstan for long-term stability in the region. Has anyone polled the Pashtun about it? I bet support would be over 80% except in the one or two regions which somehow benefit the most from the current chaos.
Mexico has killed the #1 smuggler of cocaine into the United States. That ought to fix it.
Dana Milbank calls debating health care on Christmas Day "Unchristian!" Puny human!
I never thought the tax on expensive, private health insurance was a good idea, but someone points out today that the old and the sick, and even worse the old and sick, spend more. Do they need a new tax? Something tells me people who are old and sick aren't rolling in dough, and if they are, we can tax them some other way.
2009-12-13
Climate Email Rebuttal
For my own records, if I need to refer to what a crock of bull this widely-media-covered instance is: The Economist's Blog: Democracy in America, and in case that URL ever goes dead, it links to two more scienc-ey blogs, Tim Lambert and Things Break.
I'd also note that the Economist's #1 "most recommended" comment is from a climate change denialist discussing one of the other supposed problems revealed by the e-mails (again, which would not even be important if not widely covered by Fox and other television stations), namely, that one of the e-mails talks about keeping two denialist papers out of the IPCC report, by nearly any means necessary. The truth is that those two papers _were_ in the IPCC report, so nothing was ever squelched, and the further truth is that, after being published, they were both found to be full of holes... un-publish-worthy in the first place.
The Democracy in America blog author, undoubtedly not anti-business, fails to see the utility in spreading doubt, not science. Even if the oil/coal/gas industry can't disprove global warming, there is infinite utility if no one believes it is true. At least, with rational people, one can argue and point to numbers, he should try debating the falsities of religion sometime!
I'd also note that the Economist's #1 "most recommended" comment is from a climate change denialist discussing one of the other supposed problems revealed by the e-mails (again, which would not even be important if not widely covered by Fox and other television stations), namely, that one of the e-mails talks about keeping two denialist papers out of the IPCC report, by nearly any means necessary. The truth is that those two papers _were_ in the IPCC report, so nothing was ever squelched, and the further truth is that, after being published, they were both found to be full of holes... un-publish-worthy in the first place.
The Democracy in America blog author, undoubtedly not anti-business, fails to see the utility in spreading doubt, not science. Even if the oil/coal/gas industry can't disprove global warming, there is infinite utility if no one believes it is true. At least, with rational people, one can argue and point to numbers, he should try debating the falsities of religion sometime!
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