"Washington is the new North Carolina"

Please keep in mind that global warming does not exist and has nothing to do at all with changing weather patterns. We know this because Republican leaders tell us so and we should believe them instead of a bunch of scientific studies, which are probably just a bunch of liberals anyway because changing weather patterns are simply a bunch of lefty conspirators.

Fifteen years ago, a section of the Washington area fell into Zone 6, an area from Massachusetts to Kansas where the lows were between zero and 10 degrees below. The other part was in Zone 7, which spans the upper South, where temperatures were between zero and 10 degrees.

Now, all the Washington area now lies in Zone 7, which has taken over parts of the District and suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. Zone 7 has crept northward to take in most of Tennessee and Virginia as well as parts of North Carolina, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The National Arbor Day Foundation uses the same format and the same source of climate data as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which last put out its hardiness-zone map in 1990. Since then, the foundation has provided its own updates.

The warming trend here was also taking place in other parts of the country.

In sections of Michigan, the weather was warm enough to suit southern magnolia trees, said Arbor Day Foundation spokesman Woodrow L. Nelson. The southern species Arizona cypress also seemed to be better adapted for some parts of the Northeast, he said.

"I mean, who would have thought that an Arizona cypress would be a choice for someone in New Jersey?" Nelson said.

Weather experts there's no single reason why the winter temperatures are higher. However, most scientists say the gradual warming of the planet -- due to carbon dioxide and other pollutants preventing heat from escaping the atmosphere -- has played a role.

Of course, I would be very keen to hear the names of the scientists that do not make the connection with global warming so we could then do some research on their studies that say otherwise. Something tells me they either don't exist or they're funded by some wingnut crazy group. Read More......

Ford "disagreed" with Bush, Cheney, Rummy on Iraq

The former President did an embargoed interview with Bob Woodward back in July of 2004. The Post also has the audio of the interviews on the website. Ford was none too happy with Bush and his former staffers, Cheney and Rummy, about Iraq. A lot of people disagreed with this crowd, but didn't speak out. A lot of people are dead because of that:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

This morning, Bush said Ford was a "man of complete integrity." Cheney said Ford was the embodiment of "decency, integrity, and devotion to duty." Certainly a man with those characteristics couldn't be wrong when he said the Bush and Cheney were mistaken about the war with Iraq. The White House staff has probably already started the attack on Ford's character now that they know he spoke so candidly about Bush's biggest failure. Read More......

Homeland Security unable to secure handguns in vault

If only we could say "unbelievable" but moments like this are just too common at DHS. Read More......

Joe finally gets his due

The DC Examiner of all papers finally recognized what we've known for almost 2 months. Our very own JoeInDC beat the other pundits in predicting the election results (the Examiner mistakenly credits me - it was Joe). Read More......

Open thread

I'm at JFK waiting for my flight to Paris. Not much excitement, other than the incredibly hot Catholic priests who just walked by. Forgive me father for I have sinned! Yeah nobody gay in that church.

Anyway my flight isn't for two hours so I'm sitting here testing the new smartphone. It's not bad at all. In spite of it having a 'real' keyboard you still have to type with two fingers. Still, it works. Great for surfing the Web while waiting.

It's also wifi enabled, which should be interesting since the cingular guy tried to tell me I couldn't use free wifi in europe with this device and avoid the expensive cingular data abroad charges. Claimed that the wifi still goes thru the data connection and will charge me. I'm strongly suspecting he's either a liar or a bit of a moron. I took my sim card out of the phone last night and surfed the web with dad's wifi just fine, and I'm pretty sure that without the card cingular has no idea who I am, and thus can't charge me - no?

Any of our resident geeks like to weigh in? Read More......

Romney out of state for majority of 2006

While we're on Romney, make sure you didn't miss this article which popped up over the holidays. During 2006 Mitt was out of his home state roughly 60% of the year. Besides the issue of the governor seemingly doing everything but governing the state that he was supposed to be governing while on the payroll, this raises the issue of significant taxpayer costs for security. Why should taxpayers get stuck with the bill for his political ambitions? The GOP loves to point the finger when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars but they hold their own in that field. Read More......

Eleanor Clift uses the L-word about Bush

About time someone did. Read More......

Polar bears to be listed on Endangered Species list

Thanks to legal action by a few environmental groups, the Bush administration is being pushed to accept facts, something which is often a challenge for them.

Northern latitudes are warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the globe, according to a 2004 scientific assessment, and by the end of the century annual ocean temperatures in the Arctic may rise an additional 13 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, researchers predict that summer sea ice, which polar bears use as a platform to hunt for ringed seals, will decline 50 to 100 percent. Just this month, researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research outlined a worst-case scenario in which summer sea ice could disappear by 2040.

By submitting the proposal today, the Interior Department is meeting a deadline under a legal settlement with three environmental advocacy groups -- the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace -- that argue the government has not responded quickly enough to the polar bear's plight. The department has been examining the status of polar bears for more than two years.

NRDC senior attorney Andrew Wetzler, one of the lawyers who filed suit against the administration, welcomed the proposal for listing.

"It's such a loud recognition that global warming is real," Wetzler said. "It is rapidly threatening the polar bear and, in fact, an entire ecosystem with utter destruction."

Maybe 2007 will be the year that Washington starts to get serious about global warming. Read More......

Mass. Supreme Court refuses to force gay marriage vote

Another loss for Mitt Romney. Well, it's a loss for the anti-gay Mitt. The old, pro-gay Mitt would have been happy with this decision. But, old, pro-gay Mitt wouldn't have filed the suit in the first place. New, anti-gay Mitt did file the suit. And, he lost. Read More......

Bush's FDA may approve meat and milk from cloned animals this week

Creepy. And no surprise that it's happening the week of Christmas - the Bushies save all of their worst decisions for slow news weeks, which only makes me all the more suspicious about this decision. It's the kind of thing the religious right wouldn't be happy with - then again, they don't really care about animals, just people, I mean unborn people. But it's the kind of thing big business would be very happy with. And note what the article says about it being unlikely that cloned milk and meat will be marked as such in the stores. We have a Democratic Congress now. I can't think of better legislation to bring right and left together in horror against Bush's corporate excess.

From ABC News:

If FDA approval goes through, the question is how and whether cloned meat and milk will be clearly marked so consumers know what they're buying. Experts say that may be unlikely.

"It's very possible that these products will end up on the grocery store shelves without any specific label identifying them as having come from cloned animals," said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.

Read More......

While Bush is listening and learning and thinking about Iraq, the death toll mounts in his war

No wonder Laura Bush doesn't want the media to report on George Bush's quagmire. Unfortunately, what the Washington Post reports today is the reality in Iraq:

Seven more American service members have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. military reported Tuesday. It is the second deadliest month of the year for troops.

With five days left in December, 87 service members have died, according to figures provided by the military and news releases of combat deaths. The deadliest month this year was October, when attacks in Baghdad and the western Iraqi province of Anbar killed 105 U.S. troops.

The total number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war announced by the Pentagon is 2,961.

Because almost everyone is telling Bush that it's time to start winding down our involvement in Iraq, he has to do the opposite. His only solution is an escalation of his war -- because these numbers aren't high enough.

I'm sure George, Laura and the girls had a terrific Christmas -- and got lots of sleep. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Seems like there is a lot going on for what's usually a slow week. Does strike me that Gerald Ford was the last of that somewhat moderate breed of Republican. It was all downhill with Republicans after him -- way, way downhill.

Start threading. Read More......

"Re-homing" Christmas gifts

A UK study says that 4 billion British Pounds ($7.8 B) worth of Christmas gifts were unwanted. Many of those gifts end up on eBay, hopefully finding their way to someone who can use the items. Besides a few sweaters or shirts that were just not for me, I can't say that I remember anything specific, though one sweater that my father in law received in recent years certainly should have been re-homed. The infamous sweater was a polyester winter sweater that had a big "V" made of suede on the front and looked like something that you might have found in a window behind the Iron Curtain back in the old Soviet Union days. For those of you who saw "Wings of Desire", the sweater would have been the perfect complement to the famous jacket worn in that movie by the angel.

So what's the worst gift you ever received and what did you do with it? Read More......

Gerald Ford passed away

The former President was 93 years old. Read More......