Meet Norman the dog

He lives in Colorado and he was born different:

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Bush changes NASA mission statement - no longer interested in protecting our home planet

The Republicans are amazing. After having given the shaft to blacks, women, Latinos, gays, people who have Parkinsons and Alzheimers, the budget, the environment, the military, veterans, New Orleans, Iraq and oh so many more, now they're giving the shaft to the entire planet Earth.

From ThinkProgress, citing the NY Times.

NASA quietly had its mission statement changed last February by the White House, who deleted the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.” NASA scientists were surprised to learn of the change. “Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

As we quoted Charles Barkley the other day, "I used to be a Republican, before they lost their minds." Read More......

Open thread

How's the weekend? Read More......

Judge orders teenager to continue cancer treatment, against desire of teen and parents

This case is weird. And we don't have enough information (such as, what's the teen's prognosis). But at first glance, there are obvious differences between this case and Terri Schiavo.

First off, Terri Schiavo was a vegetable and had zero chance. The doctors had already determined this without a doubt. We don't know what the prognosis is for this teen.

Secondly, Terri Schiavo and her husband (who could speak for her) were adults. This kid is a kid. Though his parents can obviously speak for him, but in this case his parents are on his side. Which one could argue makes this a more clear-cut case than Schiavo - no parent or guardian is arguing the other side here, they're all in agreement.

Third, does it matter how kooky the medical treatment is? Sugar-free cancer diet from a clinic in Mexico? Uh, okay. Then again, was the kid's prognosis horrible and he's trying anything he can as a last resort? If so, then his rationale for trying something radical is more sane and there's less a reason for the judge to intervene.

A very odd case, and we just don't have all the information (thanks AP) - what do you think? Read More......

New Orleans, one year later: Still a disaster

Where is Bush?

To the list of daily aggravations in the new New Orleans, add one that augments the heat, spoils the food and drains the cash register: power failures.

A utility repair crew worked on a New Orleans street this month.

The wind blows and a neighborhood’s power goes out. Or it rains and the power goes out somewhere else. Thunder crashes distantly and out goes the power.

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, the city still does not have a reliable electrical system. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of repairs are still needed on a system devastated by flooding, the local utility is in bankruptcy and less than half the system’s prestorm customers have returned. Of those who have, many have endured hot and sleepless nights with no air-conditioning.

“How do you expect the city to recover when you don’t have a reliable source of electrical power?” asked Robert Harmon, an engineering consultant in the Bywater neighborhood.

Regular power failures. Hmm... what other city has regular power failures? Oh yeah. Baghdad. Read More......

Former Mayor West died

AP:

Former Mayor James E. West, who opposed gay-rights bills but was recalled from office over an Internet gay sex scandal, died Saturday of complications from recent cancer surgery.

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Meanwhile, back in Iraq...

Carnage. Read More......

Floyd Landis continues incredible comeback in Tour de France

Landis didn't win the day, but he was fast enough to pass previous Tour leader Pereiro in the individual time trial and now wears the maillot jaune into Paris. Pereiro appears to be locked in for 2nd place and German rider Kloden should join them on the podium tomorrow. Tour fans will be talking about the unbelievable comeback by Landis for years. After six years of boring predictability (and an unlikable and robotic Tour winner) Landis was brilliant and brought back a lot of the fun that has been missing. Read More......

Open thread

Balmy 81F, thank God. Read More......

Cheney uses Middle East disaster as campaign issue for Republicans

I swear, there is no carnage, no mayhem, no disaster that the Republicans won't try to turn around to their advantage. They ignore the Middle East, war erupts, they do nothing about it, and now Cheney is out there saying that this shows everyone should vote Republican. Uh huh.

So, why not help Cheney out. What other great issues should the Republicans run on this fall?

- Losing New Orleans
- Ignoring North Korea
- Botching Iraq
- Doing nothing about high gas prices
- Trying to privatize social security
- Screwing Alzheimers and Parkinsons patients by vetoing stem cell research
- Polluting the environment
- Breaking the budget

But of all of these, I think New Orleans is my favorite. George Bush personally watched New Orleans go up in flames, or down in floods, while he fiddled away on his vacation for days after the storm hit. Well, in all fairness, Bush didn't "watch" anything - he wasn't fully aware of how bad things were in New Orleans until five days AFTER the storm hit (not kidding, this was in Newsweek). Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Any wars break out over night? Read More......

It's Paris Plages time again!

There's just no way around the fact that our mayor Delanoe is cool. He really started a trend across France and Europe with this idea and the beach is now open. Last weekend I stumbled upon the floating pool in the Seine (it's just in front of the Biblioteque Francios Mitterand, across the Seine from Bercy arena) and it looks like a lot of fun. Read More......

Another round of "all of us are equal but some are more equal than others"

The Independent does a good job today of comparing and contrasting Bush's statement against "taking of innocent human life" in America versus the situation in Iraq. Take one guess who wins and who loses, badly. It's all too easy for the wingnuts to go on about protecting American human life when they talk about a fetus but when it's an actual person living abroad, even a nation whom the US has taken responsibility for by invading and disrupting, they suddenly find excuses for why there is a different scale of acceptability for death. Sadly, even when less privileged Americans die the wingnuts have a different scale of acceptability as we saw during the Katrina disaster. Read More......