A ridiculous way to fight a war

Washington Post:

"As our leadership from the president on down to the leaders of Congress have said repeatedly, we're not there forever," said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who crafted the benchmark proposal with a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats. "We're there to help you so long as you, as a sovereign nation, pull your own weight and do your responsible job."

That is absolutely absurd. We're going to stay in Iraq so long as Iraq pulls its own weight? No, we are going to stay in Iraq so long as the war is winnable, and so long as the cost of winning, in lives and money and international prestige, is worth it. But this notion that we are going to stay in a war that may be lost (I would argue, is lost) simply because our partner is willing to stay as well is simply absurd, and downright criminal. This is the underlying problem with this entire debate. The media, and some Democrats, have bought the GOP party line that if we pull out of Iraq it will be a disaster. It's Terri Schiavo all over again. They're trying to revive the dead, while lecturing us about the horrible consequences of NOT bringing back the dead. Yes, death sucks. But once it's here, there isn't a hell of a lot you can do about it, and whining about how bad it is will not forestall the inevitable. Read the rest of this post...

Gay parents save abandoned child

Agence France-Presse:

A pair of gay flamingos have adopted an abandoned chick, becoming parents after being together for six years, a British conservation organisation said Monday.

Carlos and Fernando had been desperate to start a family, even chasing other flamingos from their nests to take over their eggs at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge near Bristol....

"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."

And where were the Christian fundamentalist flamingos? Off making napalm, one assumes. Read the rest of this post...

More on religious right terrorist arrested near Falwell's funeral

If we would just give all the students bombs, this could have been avoided.

Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service.

Seriously, this kid is an indication of how dangerous the rhetoric of the religious right really is. This religious right terrorist wasn't just some nutjob in some far away land, he was one of Jerry's kids. And he was apparently ready to kill for Falwell and his message of intolerance. Who else is willing to kill for the religious right hate speech? Read the rest of this post...

SF Chronicle admits error in quoting hate group as legit source without full disclosure

From the Human Rights Campaign (fyi - I know for a fact that HRC got involved behind the scenes as soon as this came out earlier, so they're not stealing anyone's thunder):

As most of you know by now, the SF Chronicle ran an article yesterday about a campaign the city is undertaking to get more GLBT people to adopt foster children that also cited arguments from anti-gay individuals. In that article, the SF Chronicle cited Paul Cameron as an “expert” and simply sourced him as the director of the Family Research Institute – hardly a complete picture of this character.

Thanks to the blogosphere who pointed out the glaring omission of Cameron’s full background, the communications department here at the Human Rights Campaign quickly contacted the reporter who wrote the story and asked for an immediate clarification from the paper that correctly sourced Paul Cameron’s complete background. Within an hour, the SF Chronicle agreed to run a clarification and a few minutes ago sent us the text of their clarification that is now posted online. The text of the clarification is below and can also be viewed [here]:

CLARIFICATION: In an article about San Francisco's campaign to get more gays and lesbians to adopt foster children - as well as an opposing evangelical campaign to get more Christian families to adopt -- the Chronicle quoted Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute.

The article should have noted that Cameron, who believes gays make unfit parents and self-published dozens of articles he said were based on his research, was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 when he refused to subject his work to peer review. The article also should have reported that his Family Research Institute was named a hate group in 2006 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The San Francisco Chronicle did the responsible thing and quickly clarified their omission....

If the religious right leaders want to rely on Paul Cameron, they do so to their own detriment. However, we will not tolerate seeing the notoriously homophobic Cameron treated as an expert on issues that affect our community. And this clarification will allow other reporters in the future to fully understand just exactly who this guy really is.

And to reiterate, major credit to this intrepid blogger who discovered the Cameron mention in the Chronicle. Read the rest of this post...

Bush: Next President shouldn't ignore terror like I did

Here's what Bush told Reuters:

"If the people who say we're not having any war on terror ever gets elected, they'll sit in the office, the Oval Office, and realize we are in a war on terror. They'll realize there are people that are out plotting and planning. They'll see the complexities of taking on this enemy," he said.

It took Bush nine months and a major terrorist attack to realize we were in a war on terror. Because up to that point, he ignored the terror issue. He was advised of the looming threats as in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that warned "bin ladin determined to strike in U.S." Bush's response was to stay on vacation.

This statement is also an acknowledgment by Bush that he's failed us in the war against terror. As Bob Geiger notes every week, the terrorist who attacked the U.S. is still on the loose.

Bush's war in Iraq also exacerbated the war on terror as the nation's intelligence agencies reminded us last year.

Great advice coming from a President who has been a complete failure. Bush and Rove like to play the terror card for political reasons. But when it comes to policy, they've undermined America. Read the rest of this post...

Student at Falwell's university arrested for planning napalm attack on protesters at Falwell's funeral

Breaking news from ABC. No story to link to yet. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Click To Play

We just had some creepy fighter jets fly over Washington, DC, over the White House no less. I suspect these were preparations for Memorial Day. Might have been nice to warn us.

Read the rest of this post...

CNN: Dems to give Bush blank check on Iraq

UPDATE: The latest from the Dems: Sure, this time we caved, but next time boy that President Bush better watch out.

Maryland Democrat [Steny Hoyer] said the next step for his party will be to insist on tougher language in the 2008 military spending bill to be debated this summer.

Uh huh. Whatever.

Sorry, but that's exactly what it is - a blank check. More from CNN. In my view, they blustered and they blinked. Yeah, it's nice that the Dems attached the minimum wage, and I'm happy about that, but that's not really the point is it? We're in a war that is destroying our country. $7.25 an hour isn't going to fix that. It's also not why the Democrats were elected.

More from AP:

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-founder of the liberal Out of Iraq Caucus, said she will vote against the new measure and predicted that many of colleagues will join her.

"Every time we negotiate, it (the bill) becomes weaker," said Woolsey, D-Calif. "This is a Republican bill, so it better be Republican votes that pass it."

Hoyer said the new bill, despite its lack of a timetable on troop withdrawals, is still a victory for Democrats.

"There's not a rubber stamp or blank check here. . . . And we believe the net result here will be a significant change in direction," said Hoyer.

Woolsey's right, no one should vote for this thing. It's a Republican bill, let them pass it. As for this not being a blank check, please. We caved, 100%, to a guy at 28% in the polls. That's pitiful. Read the rest of this post...

Marine Corps waited almost 18 months to act on priority request for bomb-proof vehicles to protect against IEDs in Iraq

It's not just that they didn't fill the order in 18 months, they didn't even ACT on the request to fill the order for 18 months. Our troops were dying every day from these IEDs, Bush was threatening to go to war with Iran over these IEDs, and these people didn't even think it was important to even start the process of getting them the protection they needed for a good year and a half.

And now we're going to give them another $100 billion to play with, no strings attached. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. More from Wired.com. Read the rest of this post...

McCain's Temper

Temper, temper. Read the rest of this post...

Bush implementing secret second "surge" in Iraq

The actual surge could be 46,000 combat troops, rather than the 21,000 that Bush claimed to Congress and to the nation. This would bring us up to 200,000 troops in Iraq. He's asking for another $100 million from Congress this week after he lied, again. Read the rest of this post...

SF Chronicle quotes known hate group as legitimate expert claiming gays molest kids

UDPATE: The Chronicle has admitted their error.

(UPDATE: SF Chronicle quotes hate group as legit expert saying gas are bad parents, likely to molest kids, just as city of SF prepares pro-gay adoption ad blitz.)

This is an unbelievably sloppy, offensive, and dangerous gaffe by the San Francisco Chronicle and their reporter Ilene Lelchuk. Not to mention, an incredibly stupid one for a paper headquartered in San Francisco.

Ilene Lelchuk, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted the leader of a known hate group (without identifying him as such) as a scientific expert on gay issues (he claimed that gays molest kids) in a story just published Monday. The "expert" in question is none of than Paul Cameron. You may recall that I've been writing a lot about Cameron in the past few weeks (as has Pam Spaulding), as the lead religious right groups keep pushing his hate "science."

What's the problem with Cameron? He's a man who has suggested that the extermination of gays might be necessary. Per the Southern Poverty Law Center:

He told the 1985 Conservative Political Action Committee conference that "extermination of homosexuals" might be needed in the next three to four years. He has advocated tattooing AIDS patients in the face, and banishment to a former leper colony for any patient who resisted. He has called for gay bars to be closed and gays to be registered with the government.

He was kicked out of the American Psychological Association, and was publicly rebuked by the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. And he has been called the leader of a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, America's number one civil rights organization for tracking the klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The Southern Poverty Law Center went so far as to say that "Cameron's 'science' echoes Nazi Germany." And the SPLC tracks actual Nazis, so they have the right to make the comparison.

This is the "expert" quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. And to make matters worse, not only did the Chronicle quote a known hate group as an expert on civil rights, but they didn't even identify who Cameron really is. Nope. They don't tell their readers anything at all about Cameron, simply that he's an expert on gays molesting children. Do you think it's relevant that the man's "science" has been debunked? Not according to the "journalists" at the Chronicle.

One wonders if the Chronicle would quote the grand wizard of the Klan and not tell its readers that he is in fact with the Klan. Unlikely. And they certainly wouldn't go to the Klan for a scientific analysis of the black genome. Then why do they turn to a known hate group that is lumped together with the Klan, white supremacists and neo-Nazis by the Southern Poverty Law Center? Oh I'm sure they'll try to say that the reporter screwed up. How so? If you Google "Paul Cameron," the first thing to turn up is a detailed analysis of just how nutty this guy is.

And if that wasn't enough. Apparently the Chronicle also missed the time that Cameron appeared to endorse Nazi Germany's approach to dealing with gays (they gassed us along with the Jews and people with disabilities and gypsies and the rest). I'm not kidding. Cameron wrote an article about how the Nazis apparently had the right idea about how to treat gays. The article was so offensive that one of the lead academics of the religious right even disowned Cameron over the horrid thing (link above).

It's one thing for a newspaper to say that they're going to cite a gay critic and we just have to accept that fact. Fine. But you don't quote a critic who runs the Klan, the neo-Nazis or a white supremacist organization unless you are going to identify him as such. You don't quote that critic's "science," unquestioned, when the lead scientific associations in America have called it intentionally misrepresented junk. To do otherwise legitimizes the critic and their hate. To quote Cameron at all, let alone as just another guy who thinks that science proves that gays molest kids, is beyond contemptible. It is the lowest form of journalism. And what's more, the Chronicle has now, for the first time in years, put Cameron's name back in play in the mainstream media. Some other lazy reporter, some other TV station, some other radio show, will see Cameron quoted as an expert in the Chronicle and they'll reach out to him, having no idea that they are helping to promote a known hate group. The Chronicle should be ashamed of itself.

You can contact Ms. Lelchuk here (you have every right to chew her ear off, but please realize that there's a fine line between righteous indignation and simply being rude - she deserves the former).

Also contact the Chronicle's Reader Rep, i.e., the ombudsman, here. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Wow. Highest gas prices ever. Nice work, W. Actually, he probably does consider that good work. He and Dick are oil men, after all.

This will probably end up being the major "accomplishment" of the Bush administration. Well, that and getting the rest of the world to hate the U.S.

Heckuva job, Bushie. Heckuva legacy.

I need coffee. Read the rest of this post...

US gas prices highest ever

Who would have guessed that a Big Oil team in the White House would occur at the same time as record profits and record prices at the pump?

Gasoline prices have soared to levels never seen before as even the inflation-adjusted price for a gallon of unleaded topped the 1981 record spike in price that had stood for 26 years.

Read the rest of this post...

Now it's the butterflies

Our unusually mild winter and then a very warm - the warmest on record in many places across Europe - April has launched the early arrival of butterflies this year. As a gardener I too have noticed so many strange changes this year such as unusual bird timing though the most significant change has been the very early arrival of the garden. Two weeks ago in Paris I stumbled upon a gorgeous fig tree that usually has fruit in late August into September but this year had mature fruit in early April.

Britain's astounding April, the warmest on record, has produced an astounding effect in the natural world, with at least 11 species of butterfly making their earliest recorded appearances this spring in what will be seen as the most remarkable demonstration yet of the effects of climate change on Britain's wildlife.

For several years biologists have been watching warming temperatures affect living organisms, with leaves opening, birds nesting and insects emerging earlier. But what has happened in 2007 with butterflies has been quite exceptional.

Of our 59 resident and regular migrant species, 37 have now appeared, and of these, all except one (the orange tip) have emerged earlier than they would have done a decade ago, according to the wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation.

More remarkably still, 11 of them have broken all records for early emergence, some by scarcely-believable margins.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I just got done writing a post for tomorrow morning that has me incensed. I'm not posting it now, as I want maximum traffic when I do post, as there's a little call to action in it. I trust you'll be incensed as well. Stay tuned for around 9am or so. Gnite. Read the rest of this post...