VOTE HILLARY

I want to, once, before I die, vote for a woman candidate for president, and see her win. After that, I swear, the breast cancer can have me. But, before I go, I want to see a woman in the White House. Hillary Clinton looks to be my best chance.

Word

As usual, what Jamison Foser says. Of course, the devil will wear Prada.

This Shit Gets Really Old

I'll just say, straight up, that I love LA. I love LA and I love the surrounding area -- the San Gabriel Mountains, Duarte, Rosemead, Hollywood, Santa Barbara, and the city where, were it not for the presence of an earthquake line there and of Grandson here, I'd probably live, Pasadena. So it's always a bit of a shock for me how disappointing the LAT can be.

Today, the LAT disappoints bigtime. Like the WaPo and the NYT, they say shit about Hillary Clinton that they'd never say about a man. What's weird, and we've now seen enough of these articles to call this a trend, is that the articles have to start off by admitting that she basically rocks and has the political skills that most men only dream off. Check out the first few paragraphs of the LAT article that quote one-time determined foes now voting for her and community activists who can't say enough good things about her, after she's been in office for only one term.

But then, since she's, you know, a (ewwww! scary!) powerful woman, they have to try and turn that into a negative. I love the quote from a bobo in the south who says there isn't enough money in the world to get out the good word on her between now and 2008. Dude, in 1996, I'd never HEARD of Bill Clinton. And she's, you know, raised a shitload of cash and has, you know, a lot of star power. But, hey, she's a chick, so no way can we just admit that she's done an amazing job of almost every task she's ever attacked.

I get tired of the double standard that many liberals apply to Hillary Clinton. As the LAT points out: her voting record places her to the left of 80% of her Senate colleagues, according to [what the LAT terms] the nonpartisan National Journal. Almost half of the those colleagues are Democrats, but I don't hear many of them coming in for the kind of criticism from liberals that Hillary gets. That said, she, just as was John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and every other Democratic candidate for president in my lifetime, is to my right.

Yet, "The bad news is she's not going to prove a whole lot running up the score in a strongly Democratic state in a strongly Democratic year." You know, fuck you, LAT. Fuck you. It's clear that Hillary Clinton is a skilled politician, a skilled campaigner, someone who -- as you touted for George Bush when he first ran for office and as turned out to be completely untrue for him -- can reach across the aisle and work with former enemies to get things done. But, fuck her. She's a smart, powerful woman and that scares the crap out of everyone in this country.

Bah.

When Mamma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

And, speaking of the hole in the ozone, this article, which, inexplicably shows up in the Style section, rather than above-the-fold on Page One, is definitely worth reading all the way through. It discusses James Lovelock, who was one of the first to note the thinning of the ozone and to propose a solution for it. Lovelock, however, is more famous for his Gaia Theory, which he developed as a result of studying the Martian atmosphere.

In 1961 Lovelock worked with NASA. The space agency wanted to design a lander to search for life on Mars. That, Lovelock thought, was silly. What if a lander set down in the wrong spot? What if Martian life wasn't bacterial?

Lovelock took a conceptual leap. If Mars bore life, bacteria would be obliged to use oxygen to breathe and to deposit their wastes as methane. Lovelock found that Earth's atmosphere contained massive quantities of oxygen and methane, gases that are the very signature of life. Mars's atmosphere was thick with carbon dioxide, the calling card of a dead planet.
That discovery changed his life. He came to see Earth as a self-regulating biosphere. The sun has warmed by 25 percent since life appeared, so Earth produced more algae and forests to absorb carbon dioxide, ensuring roughly constant temperatures.

Focusing on Lovelock's newest book, The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, released last month in the U.S., the article paints a grim picture of the next two to six decades.

"It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn."

Why is that?

"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return."

"Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover." . . . It begins with the melting of ice and snow. As the Arctic grows bare -- the Greenland ice cap is shrinking far faster than had been expected -- dark ground emerges and absorbs heat. That melts more snow and softens peat bogs, which release methane. As oceans warm, algae are dying and so absorbing less heat-causing carbon dioxide.

To the south, drought already is drying out the great tropical forests of the Amazon. "The forests will melt away just like the snow," Lovelock says.

Even the northern forests, those dark cool beauties of pines and firs, suffer. They absorb heat and shelter bears, lynxes and wolves through harsh winters. But recent studies show the boreal forests are drying and dying and inducing more warming.

Casting 30, 40 years into the future, Lovelock sees sub-Saharan lands becoming uninhabitable. India runs out of water, Bangladesh drowns, China eyes a Siberian land grab, and local warlords fight bloody wars over water and energy.

In the end, though, Lovelock remains optimistic. "People say, 'Well, you're 87, you won't live to see this,' " he says. "I have children, I have grandchildren, I wish none of this. But it's our fate; we need to recognize it's another wartime. We desperately need a Moses to take us to the Arctic and preserve civilization.

"It's too late to turn back."

Myself, I can do without another Moses. But the chaos that global climate change will produce often leads to wars and an increase in patriarchal thought and authority. That's only one of the reasons why it concerns me so much. Of course we'll see the breakdown of societies, warlords feuding, as Lovelock predicts, over water, arable land, and declining sources of energy. Of course we'll hear that the increasingly hostile climate and the increasingly frequent storms, wildfires, and oceanic deadspots are due to our failure to propitiate the angry/sky/father/mountain/thunder god du jour by failing to hate sex/ control women's sexuality/abstain from alcohol, etc. It won't be pretty. But I'll keep working for as soft a landing as is possible.

What else can anyone do?

All We Are Saying, Is Give Earth A Chance

The Environmental News Network has an encouraging article that shows how Mother Earth can heal herself when we give her a chance.

In the early 1980s, scientists noted that the layer of ozone in Earth's atmosphere was thinning. This was thought to be due, at least in part, to human use of chemicals, in spray-cans for instance, that depleted the ozone. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to limit the emission of ozone-depleting chemicals went into effect. Now, scientists are seeing a recovery of the Earth's atmosphere.

"These results confirm the Montreal Protocol and its amendments have succeeded in stopping the loss of ozone in the stratosphere," said Eun-Su Yang of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who led a team that analyzed the data.

"At the current recovery rate ... the global ozone layer could be restored to 1980 levels -- the time that scientists first noticed the harmful effects human activities were having on atmospheric ozone -- sometime in the middle of this century," Yang said in a statement.

Helen Of Troy Does Countertop Dancing By Margaret Atwood

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

Dangerous Human Disruption Of The Global Climate

A report from BBC makes clear a point that I've been hoping to hammer home. In his first broadcast interview as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren told the BBC that the climate was changing much faster than predicted.

"We are not talking anymore about what climate models say might happen in the future.

"We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we're going to experience more," Professor Holdren said.

He emphasised the seriousness of the melting Greenland ice cap, saying that without drastic action the world would experience more heatwaves, wild fires and floods.

He added that if the current pace of change continued, a catastrophic sea level rise of 4m (13ft) this century was within the realm of possibility; much higher than previous forecasts.

To put this in perspective, Professor Holdren pointed out that the melting of the Greenland ice cap, alone, could increase world-wide sea levels by 7m (23ft), swamping many cities.

The report makes clear where much of the blame lies: [Professor Holdren] blamed President Bush not only for refusing to cut emissions, but also for failing to live up to his rhetoric on harnessing technology to tackle climate change.

"We are not starting to address climate change with the technology we have in hand, and we are not accelerating our investment in energy technology research and development," Professor Holdren observed.

He said research undertaken by Harvard University revealed that US government spending on energy research had not increased since 2001. In order to make any progress, funding for climate technology needed to multiply by three or four times, Professor Holdren warned.

And, the BBC report indicates that the UK, like other nations, is getting fed up with Bush's head-in-the-sand strategy: Last year, the UK's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, held a science conference to determine the threshold of dangerous climate change. Delegates concluded that to be relatively certain of keeping the rise below 2C (3.6F), CO2 levels in the atmosphere should not exceed 400 parts per million (ppm) and the highest prudent limit should be 450 ppm.

In October, at an international conference in Mexico, UK environment and energy ministers will try to persuade colleagues from the top 20 most polluting nations to agree on a CO2 stabilisation level.

Professor Holdren expressed doubt that progress could be achieved because if the US administration agreed that there was a need to limit CO2, this would inevitably lead to mandatory caps. President Bush has already rejected that option.

For more than a year, the BBC has invited the US government to give its view on safe levels of CO2. Our request is repeatedly passed between the White House office of the Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the US chief scientist.

To date, we have received no response to questions on this issue that Tony Blair calls the most important in the world.

Says It All

Thanks to Moonbotica for the tip.

Longevity For People Who Don't Believe In The Future.

This week, two of the smartest, most thoughtful people that I know -- my friend Elizabeth and my friend Prior Aelred -- sent me the same article. It's definitely worth a read.

A Plan to Save the Country

by Garrison Keillor

It's the best part of summer, the long, lovely passage into fall. A procession of lazy, golden days that my sandy-haired, gap-toothed little girl has been painting, small abstract masterpieces in tempera and crayon and glitter, reminiscent of Franz Kline or Willem de Kooning (his early glitter period). She put a sign out front, "Art for Sale," and charged 25 cents per painting. Cheap at the price.

A teacher gave her this freedom to sit un-self-consciously and put paint on paper. A gentle, 6-foot-8 guy named Matt who taught art at her preschool. Her swimming teachers gave her freedom from fear of water. So much that has made this summer a pleasure for her I trace to specific teachers, and so it's painful to hear about public education sinking all around us.

A high school math class of 42! Everybody knows you can't teach math to 42 kids at once. The classroom smells bad because the custodial staff has been cut back. The teacher must whip his pupils into shape to pass the federal No Child Left Untested program. This is insanity, the legacy of Republicans and their tax-cutting and their hostility to secular institutions.

Last spring, I taught a college writing course and had the privilege of hanging out with people in their early 20s, an inspirational experience in return for which I tried to harass them about spelling and grammar and structure. My interest in being 21 again is less than my interest in having a frontal lobotomy, but the wit and passion and good-heartedness of these kids, which they try to conceal under their exquisite cool, are the hope of this country. You have to advocate for young people, or else what are we here for?

I keep running into retirees in their mid-50s, free to collect seashells and write bad poetry and shoot video of the Grand Canyon, and goody for them, but they're not the future. My college kids are graduating with a 20-pound ball of debt chained to their ankles. That's not right, and you know it.

This country is squashing its young. We're sending them to die in a war we don't believe in anymore. We're cheating them so we can offer tax relief to the rich. And we're stealing from them so that old gaffers like me, who want to live forever, can go in for an MRI if we have a headache.

A society that pays for MRIs for headaches and can't pay teachers a decent wage has made a dreadful choice. But health care costs are ballooning, eating away at the economy. The boomers are getting to an age where their knees need replacing and their hearts need a quadruple bypass - which they feel entitled to - but our children aren't entitled to a damn thing. Any goombah with a Ph.D. in education can strip away French and German, music and art, dumb down the social sciences, offer Britney Spears instead of Shakespeare, and there is nothing the kid can do except hang out in the library, which is being cut back too.

This week, we mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the Current Occupant's line, "You're doing a heckuva job," which already is in common usage, a joke, a euphemism for utter ineptitude. It's sure to wind up in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, a summation of his occupancy.

Annual interest on the national debt now exceeds all government welfare programs combined. We'll be in Iraq for years to come. Hard choices need to be made, and given the situation we're in, I think we must bite the bullet and say no more health care for card-carrying Republicans. It just doesn't make sense to invest in longevity for people who don't believe in the future. Let them try faith-based medicine, let them pray for their arteries to be reamed and their hips to be restored, and leave science to the rest of us.

Cutting out health care to one-third of the population - the folks with Bush-Cheney bumper stickers, who still believe the man is doing a heckuva job - will save enough money to pay off the national debt, not a bad legacy for Republicans. As Scrooge said, let them die and reduce the surplus population. In return, we can offer them a reduction in the estate tax. All in favor, blow your nose.

Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun

Patrick Stewart Still Doesn't Have A Pentacle On His Memorial

I had to blog this. It has my friend Katrina Messenger front and center in the audience.

Why Webb Won't Be Campaiging On Labor Day

Jim Webb, Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia won't be attending the Labor Day events that normally kick a candiate's campaign into high gear. It's not lack of finances nor a lack of interest. It's just that this is his last chance to be with his son before his son, a Marine Lance Corporal, deploys to Iraq.

Virginia's News Leader reports that: [b]ecause Webb knows combat firsthand as a Marine who fought in some of the bloodiest engagements of the Vietnam War, the experience is particularly painful. When asked about it in an AP interview, tears glazed his eyes and he was momentarily unable to speak.

Webb, 60, said he saw his father, a tough career military man, cry just once: the day he left for duty in Vietnam.

"I can look at it as a father and as a Marine, but, for better or for worse, I am just more visible than other fathers," Webb said.

"I'm going through the same mental and emotional process as thousands of other parents," he said.

G. Felix Allen, Jr., of course, will be walking in a Labor Day parade. Maybe he can avoid calling his fellow Americans nasty names for a change.

Webb's campaign realizes that Webb is losing a chance to compete with Allen, However, in Webb's case, voters will understand, said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University.

"If you weren't there because you just wanted to get a few more days' of vacation out of the summer, then that would be a problem. But I think with this, most voters will look into their hearts and understand," Rozell said.

Bidding farewell to a child bound for combat also immunizes Webb from criticism for his absence from his opponent, he said.

"It would look pretty crass for an opponent to try and make an issue of it," he said.

Well, we all know that G. Felix Allen, Jr., who spent Viet Nam on a dude ranch while Jim Webb was fighting in Viet Nam, is as crass as crass can be.

Meanwhile, the General has some information on how the children of prominent Republicans like to spend their holidays.

First of the Month Bazooms Blogging

Women! It's the first of the month. Now is a great time to do a breast self-exam. It's easy; here's how. Breast exams help to save lives. If you prefer to do your breast self-exam at a specific point in your cycle, now's a good time to calendar it so that you don't forget.

Men! Are there any women who you'd miss if they died from breast cancer? If so, now's a good time to remind them to do a breast self-exam.

And, on the topic of breasts, talk about practicing your love on women! Can anyone imagine trusting her mammograms to Bush to read? Hmmm. If things get much worse here, maybe Uruguay is a possibility.

My annual mammogram is scheduled for later in September. Wish me luck!

Not Gradually

The WaPo reports that the World Bank is reassessing how it does business based upon global climate change. "Much of the damage [to developing countries] would come not gradually and incrementally through the years, but in the form of severe economic shocks," [the Bank's report] added." Further, Poorer nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture acounts for about 70 percoent of employment, would be the hardest hit. Also likely to suffer are developing countries on small islands that are subject to rising seas caused by global warming.

You know, they're not exactly a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing tree-huggers over at the World Bank. If they're beginning to modify their plans based on global climate change, it's pretty ridiculous for Americans to still be debating whether or not global climate change is here. It's here.

When climate and economic impacts hit large sections of the Planet "not gradually," people don't have time to adjust to the change and they don't just sit down and die. Large groups of them begin moving to areas where there is food, water, economic aid. And the people already living in those areas often aren't happy to see them. Remember what happened in our own country when Katrina survivors were met at the bridge by people with rifles? Now imagine it on a global scale.

We need to address the problems of overpopulation and global climte change seriously RIGHT NOW. Otherwise, the 21st Century will be a century of wars and refugees.

Nathan Thurm interviewed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It would be funny, if it weren't so true.

Pioneers

California, as you've undoubtedly heard, will be passing legislation designed to cap greenhouse gas emissions. The version of the bill adopted appears to be a victory for environmental groups and Democrats, who reportedly met with the Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday and told him that they had the votes to pass their version with or without his support. Facing an upcoming election in a state where four out of five residents believe that urgent action on climate change is needed, the Governor, who recently held an environmental "summit" with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, jumped on the bandwagon.

I'd like to be more excited about this bill. It's the first in the nation to go this far, exceeding even the recent efforts of some Northeastern States, and it's a significant slap in the face to the Bush junta, but I'm afraid that it's still too little, too late.

The bill provides for a two-year period in which a state agency (whose members are appointed by the governor) will measure carbon emissions from every major pollution source in California, including power plants, oil refineries, and cement kilns. State regulators will then set limits for each polluter; those limits, however, do not begin to become effective until 2012, and, even then, there could be an extension in the case, for example, of serious economic harm. The limits on greenhouse gas emissions would become gradually more stringent, with the goal being a reduction by 2020 only to 1990 levels -- when such emissions were already way too high to be sustainable. The bill contains one element that Mr. Schwarzenegger had wanted: a "market" that will allow the purchase, sale, and trade of emission credits.

As the NYT reported: Ralph Cavanagh, the co-director of the energy program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a telephone interview: "This is not an act of altruism. This is an act of enlightened self-interest. By accelerating the effort to reduce global warming pollution, California will benefit its own economy and environment and in so doing will set the best possible example for other states and nations." Mr. Cavanagh is correct. As NYT also noted: Aside from its long coastline, which could be vulnerable to sea-level rises due to global warming, the state depends on the Sierra Nevada snow pack for much of its water. A study in 2004 by the National Academy of Science showed that unchecked global warming would cut the size of the snow pack by at least 29 percent by the end of the century. It also predicted a doubling in the number of heat waves, like the record-breaking one in July that killed 139 people statewide. As I recently reported, this Summer's intense heatwave killed people in California.

The reaction to the bill was interesting in a very retro/metro kind of way. Republicans, other than the Governor, opposed the bill. The Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill and oil companies, according to the LAT, were irate and said they felt abandoned by the republican governor, who had pledged to work for a bill they could support. They accused Schwarzenegger and Democrats of cobbling together behind closed doors a haphazard bill that could create unintended economic chaos." However, as the NYT noted, leading venture capitalists from Silicon Valley openly stump[ed] for [the bill's] passage, saying the measure will create new industries and new jobs.

It's a start. I hope it works and that it encourages other states to take even more stringent measures. I hope it also shows Republicans that protecting the planet isn't a "liberal" issue. Businesses, one of the Republicans' "bases," can and do support measures that protect our planet, at least those businesses that can look beyond the way that they've always done things and see the opportunities. We need both parties to get behind the environment. This is the only planet we've got.

*********************************************************************

P.S. NRDC is touting this as a very big win. Here's a bit from their e-mail: Co-sponsored by NRDC and Environmental Defense, this breakthrough bill will put a market-based system in place that provides incentives to businesses to comply with the new law and, just as important, that compliance will be closely monitored.

I don't have to tell you that old-line polluting industries fought this bill tooth and nail. But thanks to your support, NRDC spearheaded a new and exciting coalition of clean-tech companies, venture capitalists, local governments, faith-based leaders and tens of thousands of citizens that won the day.

California's leaders saw the future and it was green. Global warming controls won't just be great for the environment, they will be great for the state's economy. This bill will allow California to start breaking its expensive dependence on fossil fuels and lead a revolution in energy technology that will create tens of thousands of jobs.

Who can doubt that other states will soon be racing to follow suit? A decade from now, we'll look back at this historic agreement as the turning point in America's long-overdue reckoning with catastrophic climate change.

So mote it be.

George Allen Debate Prep

The General Rocks

George Allen: A Troubling Future

Virginia doesn't need any more racists. Go away, G. Felix Allen, Jr.

Rudy, Stay The Fuck Out Of My State

Rudy Giuliani should stay the fuck out of Virginia.

The New Leader reports that:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani endorsed U.S. Sen. George Allen's re-election bid as he joined the senator Wednesday for a briefing on port security and a private fundraising luncheon - the second time in two weeks that Allen has appeared with a possible rival for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Showing what a one-trick pony he really is, Giuliani spewed that: he could think of about 100 reasons why he supports Allen's re-election. Foremost, he said, was that the senator "understands what's at stake in the war against terrorism, the danger we're in, the multifaceted effort that is necessary to reduce the risk of terrorism."


Rudy and G. Felix Allen, Jr., here's a clue, the KKK, and the CCC as well, were terrorist organizations.

Now, bite me.

Allen said he and Giuliani are friends and McCain is a colleague.

"You can tell a lot about people by the folks they stand with," Allen said. Asked whether he and Giuliani would be standing together during the 2008 presidential campaign, Allen gave no reply and walked off.

We all know who G. Felix Allen, Jr. likes to stand with -- known racists.

We Are Not Safer

Of all the insane propaganda to come out of the Bush junta, perhaps the bit that I find most inexplicable is the notion that Bush is "keeping us safer." Forget the fact that he's gotten a complete pass for the fact that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon happened on his watch. He's done absolutely nothing since Sept. 11, 2001 to make America safer. In fact, from winning enemies in the Middle East to losing every real friend that America ever had, he's gone out of his way to do things that endanger us.

Now, from my local radio station, WTOP, comes the startling news that: the number of police officers guarding the nation's icons is now at its lowest level in more than a decade, WTOP has learned. In its most recent annual report, the National Park Service said it had 625 sworn officers nationwide. An internal staffing document obtained by WTOP shows as of August, the U.S. Park Police has 601 sworn officers, nationwide -- the lowest number since at least 1994.

The number will likely go down before it increases again, as U.S. Park Police canceled their most recent training class, which would have produced new recruits.

Budgetary reasons forced the cancellation, says David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs for the National Park Service.

Overtime needed for the Fourth of July, various demonstrations and the recent crime emergency prevented the Park Police from having enough money to run the class, Barna says.

If the Department of Homeland Security declares a "Code Red" terror alert, U.S. Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford has options to bolster staffing, Barna says.

"Chief Pettiford has the authority to call in park rangers from across the country, to assist in the nation's capital. We did that for two years after Sept. 11," Barna says.

(Copyright 2006 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

That's right; the nation's monuments, some of the most symbolically attractive targets a terrorist could ever hope to hit, are now protected by fewer officers than they were in 1995 -- six years before 9/11. And the reason? Budgetary concerns. The Bush administration was more concerned with providing a tax cut for Paris Hilton and the president of Exxon Mobile than with protecting the Washington Monument, the Viet Nam War Memorial, or the National Archives, which houses the Constitution of the United States.

If Americans understood this, would the "Security Moms" still think that Bush was "keeping us safer"?

Unbelievable. And, Yet, No Rioting In The Streets.

Obscenity. You know it when you see it.

Via the Daou Report: In 2005, the CEOs of the largest 15 oil companies averaged $32.7 million in compensation, compared with $11.6 million for all large U.S. firms, according to the study, released today by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

Amid reports of multimillion-dollar pay packages, shareholder activists have sponsored resolutions to limit compensation at companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Home Depot Inc. In May, three members of the House of Representatives criticized the retirement benefits of former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond and asked the company to fill a gap in its workers' pension fund.

``Instead of lining the pockets of executives, they should be investing the money into new sources of energy that go beyond fossil oils,'' said Sarah Anderson, director of the global economy project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, and a co-author of the study.