Bad News from Juan Cole:

"It is hard to decide which is the worst news in the International Energy Agency’s new study.

"The central piece of bad news is that as the world recovers from the 2008-2009 crash, it is spewing record amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In 2010 human beings sent 30.6 gigatons of carbon into the air, 5% more than in 2008, beating that previous record.

"A lot of the sources of emission are fixed coal and other hydrocarbon plants that will likely go on operating through 2020, suggesting that there will be annual increases in emissions into the next decade.

"In turn, this steady production of atmospheric poison, which causes the atmosphere to retain the heat of sunlight and interferes with it being radiated back out into outer space, is likely to increase the average global surface temperature by more than 2 degrees. Climate scientists had hoped that international protocols and government efforts would hold the increase to that amount. An average increase of 3 degrees would suggest that in some times and places it would be hellish, with a deleterious impact on crops and human health.

"Oxfam has just issued a warning that food staples will likely double in price by 2030, in part because of climate change. A billion people in the world go hungry already, and spend 80% of their income on food. If the world envisaged by Oxfam materializes, obviously there is the potential of widespread starvation.

"The Big Oil and Big Coal executives attempting to stop efforts to reduce emissions are thus in effect mass murderers of a future generation.

"America’s corporate police state has decided that ecological activism is a danger that it needs to spend millions combating. (In fact, genuine ‘eco-terrorism,’ as opposed to FBI entrapment of aging hippies, is rare.)

"Given what is being done to the planet, the FBI should instead be having agents sit outside Big Oil and Big Coal corporate offices tracing how the money goes out from them to buy our political representatives (that is illegal, guys) and have them work against green energy and engage in climate change denial."

Bits and Pieces for the Week of May 22 - 28

Is it ethical to go to a retail store, see an item and then buy it online? (Mike)
Ahh, those pesky cable companies and their less-than-stellar service (Mike)
13 Bears and a marijuana farm (Mike)
This site will show you what information about your Facebook account is shared, without your knowledge, with other companies and organizations. (Mike)
Joplin before/after photos: At least the sports fields and parking lots are in good shape. Note: move the middle slider left and right. (Mike)
Top ten (links to) green energy stories (Mike)
Federal Stimulus funds: One hand taketh, the other... wait, where's the other? (Mike)
The human cost of an iPad (Mike)
Camper for Sale (Mike)

GOP Response To Town Hall Backlash: Ban Recording Devices And Censor Citizen Journalists. My, what could the GOP be afraid of? I know, putting your foot in your mouth and it being used against you in the next election! (7 of 6)

Rand Paul vs. Patriot Act

Wow, Rand Paul actually makes sense. Why can't the Democratic Party support this principle?


I totally agree with him on this.

"Republicans are disgusted with a consumer advocate, looking out for the public’s interest, but impressed with financial industry criminals who nearly destroyed the global economy (and who direct generous contributions to the GOP’s coffers). Sanity dictates that Warren is a hero, which leads Republicans to treat her like a villain.

"But it’s not just the bizarre and twisted GOP priorities that offend; it’s also the classless and rude manner in which Republicans conduct themselves...."

An analysis by Steven Benen of what's going on with Elizabeth Warren's House Oversight Committee hearing.

Bits and Pieces for the Week of May 15 - 21

It's after 7:00 a.m. in Australia and I haven't hear any reports yet of Australians floating in the air. (Mike)
Not all baseball games are boring (Mike)
Another catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico: Dead Zone (Mike)
Boy, am I glad that I never got involved with Sony Playstation (Mike)
Does allergy season seem worse this year? There are good reasons why. (Mike)
If you're spending more than $10 on an HDMI cable, then you're throwing away your money. (Mike)

Carlos Santana blasts Georgia immigration bill before Braves game. “I represent the human race,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said. “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.” (7 of 6)

It's okay to be Takei

This clip was shown on The Rachel Maddow Show last night. I couldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes.

Similar to the Greenwald post below on torture, Juan Cole examines the illegitimacy of the Bush/Cheney Wars

"....What is it about the United States that makes for harsh prosecutions over sex crimes but lets leaders off the hook when it comes to war crimes? New York police rushed to arrest Dominique Strauss-Kahn , the head of the international Monetary Fund, on Saturday on learning of charges against him by a hotel maid of sexual assault. This quick action against a wealthy and powerful individual, seeking justice for a person at the bottom rung of the American social hierarchy, is praiseworthy. It affirms the principle that no one is above the law.

"But the widows and orphans of Iraq cannot hope that the New York police would similarly frog-march George W. Bush off his first-class flight and arrest him for crimes against humanity....

"....The body that could most easily gather evidence against Bush, Cheney and others in that administration and begin the process of subpoenas is the two houses of the US Congress. But the Democratic-dominated Senate has openly eschewed prosecution. And the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would resist such a move on partisan grounds. The documentary evidence for criminal activity would surely not be so hard for our national legislature to get hold of, if the will existed to do the right thing. President Eisenhower did not hesitate to defend the UN Charter even against close allies. His like, unfortunately, would be hard to find in American politics today."

Yes, America protects its own. Its own rich, white males.

Glenn Greenwald, as do I, feels that our glorification of the killing of Bin Laden ignores the principles formed from the Nuremberg Trials and those of basic humanity (snippet):

"....It's always easier -- and more satisfying -- to condemn the crimes of others rather than one's own. There's always a temptation to find excuses, mitigations and even justifications for one's own crimes while insisting that the acts of others -- especially one's enemies -- are expressions of pure evil. But a country that regrets the Iraq War only because it was not prosecuted as competently as it should have been -- and which as elite consensus scorns as radical and irresponsible the notion of accountability for its own war criminals -- is hardly in a position to persuasively posture as righteous avengers of civilian deaths. The claims being made about why the killing of bin Laden is grounded in such noble principles would be much more compelling if those same principles were applied to ourselves as well as our enemies. And the imperative to do so, more than anything, was the prime mandate of Nuremberg."

Bits and Pieces for the Week of May 8 - 14

The noose tightens on Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "...Chief Financial Officer Loretta Barkell concerning the $100 million Arpaio and his upper echelon pilfered from two protected funds. The money paid for witch-hunts of Arpaio's enemies and the MCSO's Hispanic-hunting, racial-profiling sweeps." (with video) "I, in fact, sat with the former chief deputy and the sheriff and informed them of how many positions were out of place, and what needed to be done to correct it... And prior to last summer, they had been told every single year for the last ten years." (7 of 6)

Do you plank? (Mike)
Sad news about an incredible Hall-of-Fame slugger, Harmon Killebrew. (Mike)
These new Chromebooks, due for release in June, look awesome. (Mike)
Good ol' Fox News: Creating bullshit "Exclusive Breaking News" about vaccines, using data already recently debunked by prominent scientists and government (Mike)
Risk of another U.S. recession is increasing. (Mike)
Taliban fighters fleeing regions of Afghanistan. (Mike)
NRA vs. Pittsburgh: Guess who's winning. (Mike)
Oddity: Woman develops British accent after visit to dentist. (Mike)

Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation's Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students. OMG... what will America do!! LOL! *the Onion, of course* (7 of 6)

Sick fish in Gulf are alarming scientists. Really? (7 of 6)

"...ugly spat between a huge corporation, organized labor, the White House... a Tea Party governor... in this year's ongoing war on unions... The dispute centers around a planned Boeing airplane production line for its 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina using nonunion labor." (7 of 6)

Dan Adler Gets Sh*t Done

Usually you can count on Republican nutjobs running for office to supply us with entertaining campaign ads. Not in this case:


The weightlifter with the potty mouth is Patty Duke.

Bits and Pieces for the Week of May 1 - 7

Regarding Pakistan's boldly false claim that no one knew Osama was living there: "Pakistani security forces have arrested 40 people in Abbottabad suspected of having connections to Usama bin Laden." (Mike)
10 Email Tips For Preventing Problems And Avoiding Aggravation (Mike)
This is hilarious! (Mike)
No problem covering up massive child abuse, but god help us if women are allowed any sort of influence in the church. (Mike)
Free legal information online (Mike)

Osama bin Laden dead. (7 of 6)

TORTURE

Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq, gave a revealing interview on Democracy Now! about the efficacy and ethics of the use of torture by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies (emphasis added):

"....My argument is pretty simple, Amy. I don’t torture because it doesn’t work. I don’t torture, because it’s immoral, and it’s against the law, and it’s inconsistent with my oath of office, in which I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States. And it’s also inconsistent with American principles. So, my primary argument against torture is one of morality, not one of efficacy.

"You know, if torture did work and we could say it worked 100 percent of the time, I still wouldn’t use it. The U.S. Army Infantry, when it goes out into battle and it faces resistance, it doesn’t come back and ask for the permission to use chemical weapons. I mean, chemical weapons are extremely effective—we could say almost 100 percent effective. And yet, we don’t use them. But we make this—carve out this special space for interrogators and say that, well, they’re different, so they can violate the laws of war if they face obstacles.

"And that’s an insult to American interrogators, who are more than capable of defeating our enemies and al-Qaeda in the battle of wits in the interrogation room. And American interrogators have proven this time and time again, from World War II through Vietnam, through Panama, through the First Gulf War. And let’s go back to the successes of American interrogators. You know, American interrogators found Saddam Hussein without using torture. We found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, which helped turn the Iraq war, without using torture. And numerous other leaders that we have found and captured—another guy named Zafar, that I describe in my book—all these successes have come without the use of torture...."

"....When I was in Iraq, I oversaw the interrogations of foreign fighters. And those foreign fighters, the majority of them, said, time and time again, the reason they had come to Iraq to fight was because of the torture and abuse of detainees at both Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. And this is not my opinion. The Department of Defense tracked these statistics. And they were briefed, every interrogator who arrived there, that torture and abuse was al-Qaeda’s number one recruiting tool.

"And remember, these foreign fighters that came to Iraq, they made up 90 percent of the suicide bombers. They killed hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers. And so, this policy of torture and abuse did not make America safer. What it did was it caused the deaths of hundreds or thousands of American soldiers who are now buried at Arlington National Cemetery. So, this policy has been counterproductive in so many ways.

"And one thing you’ll never hear the torture supporters talk about, Amy, is the long-term negative consequences of torture. They won’t talk about the fact that al-Qaeda uses it to recruit. They won’t talk about the fact that future Americans are going to be subjected to the same techniques by future enemies using our own actions as justification. They’re not going to talk about the fact that it makes detainees more resistant to interrogations as soon as they walked in the interrogation room, because they see us all as torturers. So they’re not going to talk about all these long-term negative consequences...."

Takeaway: torture is bad.