Open Thread

Get us through the night Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi govt chief spokesman confirms Al Qaeda is now headquartered in Iraq

Brought to you by the proud team of Bush & Blair, Inc.

In Baghdad, the chief government spokesman said Friday that Islamic extremists have been using Iraq as a planning center for attacks around the world since losing Afghanistan as their base in 2001.

Speaking about the London attacks, Laith Kubba said "we don't know exactly who carried out these acts but it is clear that these networks used to be in Afghanistan and now they work in Iraq."

The spokesman said that insurgents in Iraq and those who carried out the London attacks "are from the same network. There are different groups in the world, but they all follow the same school."

Read the rest of this post...

Friday Orchid Blogging

Miltoniopsis. A wonderful plant that I kill quite effectively. This pic I took at a local orchid vendor in Maryland. These plants kind of like a humid, moist environment - anyway, they're quite beautiful, but I kill them :-)

Enjoy. Read the rest of this post...

Boy, have we got a vacation for you

What an insane week. And not a "good" kind of insane either.

Let me preface this post by saying that I was sent on this trip to Scotland to cover the event as a journalist. And in all fairness, I'm feeling obliged to do just that. I very much appreciate the opportunity to go on this kind of trip, but I went to report for real on what I saw, not to be bribed into writing good things to appease the folks paying my ticket and accommodations, and I would hope my hosts would appreciate that fact.

With that in mind, I feel compelled to make a comment about this trip. It was, well, a bit of a mess. Lots of things were promised to the media (including us bloggers) by the non-profit organizers and not much was delivered. We were told we'd have briefings with US policymakers over dinner, we'd get credentials to the G8 itself, we'd be given personal interviews on and off the plane with all sorts of big players, major celebrities and more. Well, pretty much none of that happened. Why? Well, if any of us knew who was actually in charge of working with the media all week, perhaps we could ask someone that very question.

(I will say that the non-profit staff we did work with, who seemingly were given no power to do their jobs, were wonderful. It's just that they were mostly junior staff, so when all hell broke loose, and we needed the big guns to fix the disaster that this trip became, there was no one to be found.)

Putting the substance of the trip aside, Scotland is truly gorgeous, and Edinburgh is of a world-class capitol kind of beauty - seriously, it's THAT magnificent. And the people are just wonderful. Can't recommend it enough. And make sure you go the Starbucks, they have real cool Starbucks Scotland mugs (not kidding, they're way cool).

Back to my own personal visit to WestWorld, I want to add one more thing. If you're a big poverty-focused non-profit and you plan on putting people on a Virgin Atlantic international flight that has such small, painful, crammed-together sardine seats that it's literally one of the worst airline experiences of their lives, you might want to avoid having your own staff spend the same flight getting drunk at the first class bar. Read the rest of this post...

Another open thread

I'm back, and writing a longer post to publish shortly. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

No Rehnquist announcement...yet.

John should be back in DC soon. Read the rest of this post...

G8 Result: Bush Doubles Aid To Africa! Except He Doesn't

Bush is lying again and using the cover of far more generous nations to hide the fact that he is playing semantics while people die needlessly in Africa and climate change becomes a more and more dangerous threat.

So what happened at the G8 summit? Bush was pulled kicking and screaming into sort of, kind of half-admitting the simple fact that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. (Not that he's willing to do anything about it. Bush is certain ExxonMobil et al are going to say to hell with profits and fight global warming on their own.)

But in a truly callous, unChristian and despicable act, Bush signed off on the pledge by the eight industrialized nations to double aid to Africa in the next five years...and then immediately distanced himself from it.

But [Bush's] point man for the summit meeting, Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser, said later that the aid commitment involved no new money from the United States, only adding up increases previously agreed to. Mr. Bush's opposition also helped doom calls for the rich nations to commit themselves to providing a defined proportion of their national incomes to aid to Africa, a step that would have required much larger contributions from the United States.

So when Bush pretends he is doubling aid to Africa in the next five years he is actually refusing to increase aid by a single penny. This is the same tactic he used when Blair came to the White House: Bush released about $600 million that had already been allotted to Africa by Congress and pretended it was new funding. It wasn't, but the MSM got it wrong again and again. So if you see any news stories in the next few days claiming Bush agreed to double aid to Africa in the next five years, point out how his own advisers "clarified" that and admitted they weren't increasing aid by a single penny above what Bush has already committed to a few years ago. The American people are generous and open-hearted -- look at the private donations after the tsunamai -- but they are tricked into thinking our gov't is generous too with foreign aid. We are the cheapest major nation in the world, the one that gives the LEAST amount of money (as a percentage of our GDP) to help our neighbors.

And if that isn't bad enough, Bush lies and tries to pretend he's doing more when in fact he's doing less, dragging his heels to deliver the funds already committed and blocking medical aid to the sick and dying with his politicized attacks on international aid organizations. If Bush had stayed out of the African fight against AIDS, more people would be alive today. That's some "assistance." Read the rest of this post...

Rehnquist Quits Rumors Swirling, Some Press not sure

RawStory has a headline that Rehnquist Quits:

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist has resigned, and will tender his resignation with President Bush this evening, senior aides believe.

RAW STORY has been seeking to further confirm reports of Rehnquist's resignation. Aides throughout Washington have told RAW STORY that Rehnquist's resignation will be effective once President Bush arrives in Washington, which may be as soon as five p.m. today.

Drudge is apparently also doing a flashing light report that Rehnquist is retiring and that the announcement will be made tonight.

UPDATE: 4:33 PM....announcement is expected shortly based on statements on CNN by Robert Novak (who should be in jail, btw), however:

...RAW STORY has learned that senior reporters at CNN believe such reports are bogus, saying they believe that conservative columnist Robert Novak is wrong.

Read the rest of this post...

A little JFK blogging

This was a sticker on a bus stop in Edinburgh, Scotland:



Bad photo of Michael Stipe in London yesterday:



And coming up on Big Ben, viewed from our Cab in London, last night at 11:32PM



Ok, off to board my flight. I'll start posting the serious stuff again tonight.

JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Why won't the press corps ask the White House About the Rove Scandal?

Okay, today, finally, the Washington Post covered Rove's involvement in the Plame affair. A page 2 story had this headline: "Questions Remain on the Leaker and the Law: Rove's Talks With Time Writer May Be a Focus"

Not a bad article either. Now, believe me, I am not one that thinks the sun rises and sets on reporting by the Washington Post, but it is the daily newspaper here in DC which most people read...especially "insiders."

Even the Associated Press is talking about Rove in the scandal:

Rove's name resurfaced in the past week, with his lawyer saying that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper spoke to him in the days before the name of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame was first revealed by columnist Robert Novak. The Bush White House has denied since the issue first came up in 2003 that Rove was involved.

So this story is catching on...ever so slowly. That might cause you to ask how the White House has handled this mess. Guess how many questions the White House press corps asked about Rove this week?

ZERO according to Think Progress.

No questions about one of the biggest scandals to hit the White House...involving national security, no less. How many questions did the WH press corps ask about Whitewater? Are they that afraid of Karl?

There's a reason Rove thinks the press are patsies. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic Church: Earth Center of Universe, 6000 Years Old, And Probably Flat

Now we get to see the fallout of electing the sweet and modest Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict. The Catholic Archbishop of Vienna tells us to back off on that wacky, scientific approach to science and evolution in particular. Never mind that the entire world has taken at face value Pope John Paul II's statement in 1996 that evolution is "more than just a hypothesis." Never mind that the subtlest change in wording by a Pope is carefully weighed -- Romanita is the term for the highly subtle and intellectual underpinnings of the verbal swordplay that serves as political debate at the Vatican -- and that JP II knew perfectly well what he was doing. Never mind that if he DIDN'T mean to embrace the idea of evolution (or at least say, leave science to the scientists) that he had a decade to correct it since that's exactly what the entire world understood him to be doing.

No, the archbishop of Vienna says Tut, tut, JP II didn't even define evolution in that statement and we got it all wrong. His op-ed marks a major step back for the Church, which has spent the last 30 years leaving the Dark Ages behind, making clear that science is science and God gave us a mind to use it. Keep in mind that JP II was the Pope who FINALLY had the Church admit it was wrong for calling Galileo a heretic. I guess the archbishop will tell us we are mistaken in believing that means good Catholics can accept that the Earth revolves around the sun?

The archbishop's disingenuous tone is truly unnerving. He writes:

Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature....

Now, I'm not a theologian, but I and most Catholics know perfectly well that written documents by the Pope are vetted and vetted again by teams of Church leaders and weighed extremely carefully; any printed statement by the Pope typically has far more weight than a verbal statement made at a general audience.

And need I point out the obvious? Archbishop Schonborn is pretending that a statement made in 1985 SUPERSEDES a statement made more than a decade later. Yes, we're too understand that when the Pope made a bold new statement in 1996 that was heralded and acclaimed around the world as a new step forward, it meant nothing because a decade earlier he hadn't been prepared to take that step. This is truly twisted logic.

He ends by saying the Catholic Church is "in the odd position of standing firm in defense of reason." That would be odd, since the Church's history is an embarrassing attack on reason and science as evidenced by its attacks on Galileo and most every scientific advance one can think of, from the dating of the age of the universe to the Big Bang theory to surgery itself to the gift of parenting for infertile couples via artifical insemination and on and on and on.

For someone who spent twelve years in Catholic school and was never spoon-fed any idiocy in class -- we were taught science in science class; not theology and that meant evolution -- this is truly disturbing. Read the rest of this post...

Down With Activist Judges!

Here's some good prep for the SCOTUS battles. This very amusing NYT op-ed looks at "activist judges." The column's one flaw is that it says this term is used by people both on the left and right to describe a judge who makes a ruling they disagree with. I disagree with THAT -- I'd say the term is almost entirely a fiction employed by the far right. The only time it's used by people on the left is to mock the idea of an "activist" judge.

But the heart of the column is very good. It decides to define an activist judge as one who votes to strike down a law passed by Congress. That is the gist of one of the far right's complaints -- that the elected Congress passes a law and that the unaccountable, unelected Supreme Court has the nerve to declare it unconstitutional, interfering with the will of the people. Obviously sometimes a law should be declared unconstitutional, but a justice's propensity for doing it again and again is about as good an argument for being an "activist" judge as one could ask for. Of course, no surprise here: the justices who were BY FAR willing to frustrate the will of Congress since 1994, when the court took its current shape were on the right:

Thomas 65.63 %
Kennedy 64.06 %
Scalia 56.25 %
Rehnquist 46.88 %
O’Connor 46.77 %
Souter 42.19 %
Stevens 39.34 %
Ginsburg 39.06 %
Breyer 28.13 %

So keep this in mind the next time someone screams about activist judges -- you can shout back, Yeah, I can't stand Thomas or Scalia either.
Read the rest of this post...

California National Guard Spying On Citizens?

Our National Guard is stretched dangerously thin. But apparently some politicos think it would be better used to spy on the widows and children of veterans. The US military is investigating whether the California Guard -- the country's largest NG unit -- is being used to spy on citizens. That's the same sort of tactics the gov't used when protests heated up over Vietnam. This comes in the wake of public hearings planned in the state by a Congresswoman, so presumably its meant to stave off closer scrutiny. Nothing to see here; keep moving. Per SFgate:

The National Guard intelligence unit came to public attention after a story published Sunday in the San Jose Mercury News. The story referred to the unit's monitoring of a Mother's Day anti-war demonstration at the state Capitol that was organized by several peace groups — the Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink.

An e-mail chain that began in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office culminated in an advisory a few days before the protest from Col. Jeff Davis, who oversees the National Guard unit: "our Intell. folks ... continue to monitor" the event.

Hart said the monitoring amounted to recording television coverage and reading newspaper articles about the protest. He said the unit did not infiltrate the groups or observe the rally.

And why the hell would members of the National Guard spend their days "recording television coverage and reading newspaper articles" anyway? That's their defense? Does that seem a valid, useful way to spend time in the war on terror? God knows there aren't any ports to guard or shipping containers to inspect.

Read the rest of this post...

Pinochet Loses Immunity For Killings

Good. One more dictator we should never have been cozy with. Read the rest of this post...

US holds out on Climate Change

Well, the G8 has convened and Bush stayed his course on climate change. Good work there, W. Insuring global warming, melting polar ice caps, killing off the polar bears....what a legacy. AP declared "U.S. Appears to Win Global Warming Debate." What a win.

Even his little poodle, Tony Blair seemed frustrated with the US:

Blair later said climate change could not be tackled without proper support from America, China, and India.

"If it is impossible to bring America into the consensus on climate change we will never ensure the huge emerging economies like China and India … are part of the dialogue," Blair said at the end of the G-8 summit. He added that Russia has agreed to make climate change a major priority when it takes over the G-8 presidency next year.

Tony, Tony, Tony, haven't you learned anything from your little friendship with Bush. He doesn't do consensus. So, don't expect climate change to be tackled by America.... Read the rest of this post...

Rehnquist Retirement Watch

No news yet, although today's Washington Post added to the speculation....

Americablogger TSW made a key point. If Rehnquist retires there will most likely be three nomination hearings. That's assuming Bush names Scalia to replace Rehnquist as Chief Justice which requires confirmation. Then, there will be two vacancies to fill the seats left by O'Connor and Scalia.

This could be a long summer and fall. Read the rest of this post...

Cat Fight at the Club for Growth

Having seen way, way too many nasty internal battles among progressive groups, it was really fun reading today's NY Times article about a major battle within the Club for Growth:

A rift among the handful of millionaires behind the Club for Growth, a conservative fund-raising powerhouse, has degenerated into accusations of stolen donor lists and betrayed principles.

The dispute began in December when Stephen Moore, the organization's president, was privately ousted by the group's board and publicly announced his resignation. But as the disagreement becomes public, it threatens to confuse or divide other supporters of the group.

Mr. Moore, along with some prominent club members including Arthur B. Laffer, a board member, along with Mallory Factor, a businessman, started a similar group, the Free Enterprise Fund. Three others on the previous five-member board - Thomas L. Rhodes, a former partner in Goldman Sachs and president of National Review; Richard Gilder, a fund manager; and Jackson T. Stephens, of the Arkansas banking dynasty - remained.

The dispute spilled out into the group's broader membership in late May, when Mr. Moore sent many of the club's members a fund-raising letter for his new group. "As you may have heard, I left the Club for Growth after I lost control of a board fight and was forced to resign as president and C.E.O. - despite our fabulous electoral successes in 2004," Mr. Moore wrote in the letter.

Keep it up, Club for Growth. Fight amongst yourselves.

These guys play ugly and play hard ball....let them keep unloading on each other. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Start, please. Read the rest of this post...

Some information starting to emerge in London

After years of troubles with the IRA, London is well equipped with video surveillance cameras almost everywhere so perhaps the authorities are already hunting for a few suspects. It's impressive how well organized the Brits have been and even normal people seem to be going about life just as they would any other day. A good friend phoned late last night to say that he was OK (phone lines were blocked earlier, for good reason) and that in his office the boss told the team that it was going to be an unusual day, but to keep going. No panic, no chaos, just calm.

The reports so far are saying that the London bombs were set off by timers similar to the bombs in Madrid. The fatalities are now 50 but that number is expected also to rise as well. The bus that exploded may have been a bomb that was en route to another target but that has not yet been confirmed. Earlier reports of 7 attacks has now been changed to 4 explosions.

The Independent had a story about one bus rider who noticed an anxious person on the bus kept going into a bag. The traveler ended up getting off of the bus for some reason and survived to see the bus explode just afterwards. Read the rest of this post...

Halliburton receives another juicy $5 billion contract for Iraq

Naturally it really wasn't worth announcing to the public back in May because the government is all knowing and all powerful and we're just a bunch of schmucks anyway. Hooray for democracy! Read the rest of this post...