123 new species found in Borneo

There's a slideshow inside the link with some amazing photos including a frog with no lungs.

The species, including a flying frog that changes color and a slug that shoots "love darts," are detailed in a report from the global conservation group WWF, celebrating Earth Day as well as the success of the Heart of Borneo preservation effort. The leaders of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia signed onto a pledge in 2007 that called for species protection as well as sustainable development of the rainforest region.

The Heart of Borneo boasts scores of animal species, hundreds of bird species and thousands of types of plants that are found nowhere else in the world. A century and a half ago, evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin called the island "one great luxuriant hothouse made by nature for herself."

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Kaiser poll shows public still confused about health care reform bill

From DKos:

The Kaiser Health tracking poll is out, and lo and behold, Americans are confused.

The first Kaiser Health Tracking Poll fielded since the passage of health reform last month finds that 8 in 10 Americans know that President Obama signed the legislation into law. But 55 percent say they are confused about the law and more than half (56%) say they don’t yet have enough information to understand how it will affect them personally.

I suspect it is no coincidence that the biggest group - one third - got most of their health reform news from cable TV. But as has been shown time and time again:

The poll finds that the public supports many of the provisions of health reform that are set to be implemented in the short term. When asked about 11 specific provisions scheduled to take effect this year, in each case a majority of Americans viewed them favorably, often with bipartisan support.

Remember what happened with the stimulus. After it passed, the GOP went into overdrive trying to define it as a waste of money. Dems didn't adequately defend, and polls showed that most people thought the stimulus was a waste, when in fact CBO confirmed it worked. There's the same danger with health care reform, especially since the public was already confused about the bill and the GOP had already so effectively lied. Dems need to keep educating the public on, and defending, health care reform. Read the rest of this post...

Senate to vote Monday on whether to move ahead on financial reform or not

The Democrats are calling the GOP's bluff, as well they should. They need to force the GOP to mount a REAL filibuster. Make all the cranky old white men stay up a night or two defending Wall Street, then see how happy they are to keep going.

Declaring themselves short of patience, Democrats set an initial showdown vote for next Monday on legislation to clamp new regulations on the financial industry while Republicans insisted on more bargaining. President Barack Obama admonished Wall Street leaders "to join us instead of fighting us" to prevent a future national financial collapse.

The test vote loomed in an election-year climate, with lawmakers ready to campaign this summer on the results of this legislation — written in reaction to the economic crisis that threw the nation into recession — as well as the hard-fought health care overhaul.

Without an accord with the GOP, which was blocking the start of formal debate on the bill, Democrats would need 60 votes to move ahead in the Senate. Despite some signs of wavering, all 41 Republicans in the 100-member Senate remained publicly opposed on Thursday.

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Should state governments fund Baptist universities?

Interesting case:

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Baptist university can't keep $11 million awarded by state lawmakers some four years ago to open a pharmacy school.

Justice Lisabeth Abramson, writing for the majority, said the appropriations violated two sections of the state constitution.

"If Kentucky needs to expand the opportunities for pharmacy school education within the commonwealth, the Kentucky General Assembly may most certainly address that pressing public need, but not by appropriating public funds to an educational institution that is religiously affiliated," Abramson wrote.

Abramson also said the scholarship program "is precisely the type of special privilege and favoritism" that the constitution condemns.

On the face of it, I'd like to hear more about why such schools shouldn't be eligible for funding non-religious activities. Then again, this little tidbit suggests that perhaps there are no non-religious activities at an inherently religious school:

The gay-rights group Kentucky Fairness Alliance filed the lawsuit in 2006 after the University of the Cumberlands expelled a gay student for posting comments about his sexual orientation and dating life on the Internet. Attorneys for the organization tried using the expulsion to bolster their arguments in the lawsuit that the school shouldn't receive funding from Kentucky

taxpayers. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney: Telling Leahy to ‘f*ck’ himself was ‘sort of the best thing I ever did.’

Staying classy, we see.

In 2004, then-Vice President Dick Cheney had a “frank exchange of views” with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the Senate floor over Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and President Bush’s judicial nominees. Cheney ended the argument by telling Leahy, “F*ck yourself.” Since then, Cheney has joked about the incident and claimed the Leahy “merited” it because he was “close” to kissing him. On Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Cheney suggested that his Leahy f-bomb was “the best thing” he had ever done.

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UK, France, Germany reviewing legal action against Goldman

It's "pile on" time for Goldman. It may not be completely fair since they hardly stood alone on their behavior leading up to the crisis but who really wants to defend them in any way? The European governments could see this as an opportunity to knock down the firm and move a home grown favorite into the middle of lucrative business. Goldman's close relations with government are standing in the way of an election cycle so it could get ugly. Read the rest of this post...

Fired employee wins settlement over environmental beliefs

Hard to say if the same would happen in the US, but it's interesting to see how the courts supported his belief in climate change. Read the rest of this post...

Brian Bilbray, GOP Rep., claims clothes identify illegal immigrants

Priceless:

John McCain has no reason to fear illegal immigrants "intentionally causing accidents on the freeway" -- according to Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), "trained professionals" can identify undocumented workers just by looking at their clothes.

Discussing Arizona's pending profiling bill on "Hardball," Chris Matthews challenged Bilbray to cite a "non-ethnic aspect" by which law enforcement agents could identify illegal immigrants. "They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there is different type of attire, there is different type of -- right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes," Bilbray replied.

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YouTube removing Hitler parodies even though no complaints

The meme may have peaked but still. Even the director of the actual movie finds them amusing and has favorites so why the overreaction (again) from Youtube?

The "Downfall," or Hitler-parody, meme has been, arguably, a viral spate of publicity for Constantin Films in the past few years. The meme takes a now-infamous scene from the movie (the scene in which Hitler reacts to the news that Germany is about to lose the war) and puts satirical subtitles over the action (the movie is in German). Hitler parodies have been made for everything from "Hitler finds out Tony Romo dumped Jessica Simpson," to "Hitler is Fired from Whataburger," to, more recently, "Hitler Responds to the iPad."

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, these videos are being removed because of YouTube's automated Content I.D. system, which allows copyright owners to disable any videos that contain its content — regardless of whether the videos may be legitimate because they contain other elements. Many of the parodies are still up, as YouTube's Content I.D. system is not perfect — but it's probably only a matter of time before the filtering system hunts them down and removes them.

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WH Deputy Chief of Staff Messina shut down DADT repeal in February at secret mtg, days after President promised repeal this year in SOTU

Back in February, five days after the President promised in his State of the Union that 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' would be repealed this year, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina had a meeting with most, but not all, of the gay groups and told them that DADT was not going to be repealed this year.

I believe this may have been the same meeting that Messina lectured the gay groups on the fact that we were a nation involved in two wars, so they shouldn't expect DADT to be repealed - which was unfortunately a GOP talking point.

What did those in attendance do? It's not clear they did much of anything. After that meeting, the Human Rights Campaign continued to defend the President, claiming that he had a plan to repeal DADT this year, and that the plan was on track - even after the number two man in the White House told them "no."

Kerry Eleveld of the Advocate has the story. Read the rest of this post...

Pope vows to take action against child rapist priests

Admitting there is a problem is fine but everyone wants to see action at this point. It's not as if the church doesn't know the full extent of the problem so why the delay?

During his weekly audience here, Benedict told pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square that he met with abuse victims during a recent trip to Malta and “assured them of church action.”

“I shared their suffering and emotionally prayed with them,” the pope said, describing his visit on Sunday with eight Maltese men who said they had been molested by priests as youths.

After that meeting, the Vatican issued a statement saying that the pope had told the men that the church would investigate the allegations and bring to justice those responsible for the abuse. It would also “implement effective measures designed to safeguard young people in the future,” the statement said.

The pope’s words on Wednesday offered his most forceful public promise since this latest scandal broke a few months ago that the church would confront accusations that it had covered up abuse and failed to take action to punish pedophile priests.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is heading to New York City today. He's going to the belly of the beast (or close to it. He'll be in Lower Manhattan at Cooper Union's Great Hall) to lay down the marker for what he wants in the financial reform that's currently being discussed in the Senate. From the Daily Guidance:

The President will urge Wall Street to join him in the effort to reform the financial system -- not fight it -- and to lean on Washington to pass the tough Wall Street reform bill in front of the Senate that protects consumers, ends Too Big to Fail and brings transparency to the derivatives market.

Okay, this is just a gut feeling: I don't expect Wall Street to join Obama in the reform effort.

Reports from Capitol Hill are that a bipartisan deal may be near on the financial reform bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid could schedule votes for Monday. Of course, now that legislation is real, expect those Wall Street bankers and their army of lobbyists to go into overdrive.

This afternoon, Michelangelo Signorile is hosting a town hall meeting called "The Path Forward: An LGBT Leadership Town Hall." The event will be broadcast during Mike's show on Sirius XM Radio’s OutQ Channel. John and I will be attending and reporting from the event. This is coming at a critical time. Yesterday, we got even more evidence that the Obama administration does not want legislative action on the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year. Time is running out for that to happen. And, it's not often that the majority party in Congress will pass legislation that defies a president of their own party.

Let's get it started...should be an interesting day.... Read the rest of this post...

Another secretive company injects cash into anti-environment campaign

As if the wads of cash from Big Oil weren't enough, now this.

The previously unknown Coalition for Responsible Regulation Inc (CRR) is at the forefront of a strategy to strip the Obama administration of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions should Congress fail to act on climate change.

The group, which refuses to disclose its complete membership and which does not have a website, has joined more than a dozen states and a host of industry groups in 17 legal challenges to the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The connection to the chemical firm Solvay suggests opposition to action on global warming, once spearheaded by big oil, is spreading to other industries that will also be affected by proposals to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases.

Several of the petitioners against the EPA are household names, such Peabody Energy Corp, America's biggest coal mining company, and the Chamber of Commerce, which has led opposition to Obama's climate agenda. They also include prominent rightwing thinktanks.

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Volcano ash eases, blame game in full force

Not so surprisingly, the airline industry isn't missing an opportunity to blame the government for being concerned about safety and asking for financial support. Somehow that industry thinks that it's the only industry that suffered financial disruptions or financial losses during the event. The discount airlines have so far not asked for cash though they have been ignoring EU law according to some. As inconvenient as the event has been for everyone, most travelers would prefer being safe so understand the delays. Too bad the executive teams in the airline industry miss that point. BBC:

There have been bitter recriminations over the almost week-long closure of large parts of European airspace because of volcanic ash from Iceland.

Airlines are seeking compensation from governments over the disruption, said to be the worst since World War II.

But scientists have said regulators had few options beyond a ban on flights.

Earlier, officials said air traffic in Europe would be back to "almost 100%" on Thursday, although an alert led Qantas to cancel a flight from London.

Tens of thousands of people remain stranded around the world as airlines restart services after the unprecedented travel chaos.

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IMF proposing global bank tax

Start the clock to see how long it will take before the Republicans will rally around their friends on Wall Street. Socialism for CEOs is what the GOP is all about.

Leaked in advance of the fund's meeting this weekend, the blueprint emerged as the investment bank Goldman Sachs released better than expected first quarter revenues and admitted its bonus and pay pool had reached $5.5bn (£3.3bn) in the first three months of 2010.

The anticipated study called for a financial stability contribution (FSC), which should be paid by all financial institutions, not just banks, and used to bail out weak and failing firms. It would initially be paid at a flat rate but eventually be tailored to suit institutions' size and riskiness.

While banks had been braced for the FSC plan, they were caught unawares by the proposal for a financial activities tax (FAT), which would be based on the profits and the pay structure of the firms.

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