They Never Miss A Single Chance To Fuck Things Up

NYT reports yet another in the Bush junta's continuing efforts to render the Earth unlivable:

From 2002 until this year, NASA’s mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted. In this year’s budget and planning documents, the agency’s mission is “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

Further, the change comes as an unwelcome surprise to many NASA scientists, who say the “understand and protect” phrase was not merely window dressing but actively influenced the shaping and execution of research priorities. Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

“We refer to the mission statement in all our research proposals that go out for peer review, whenever we have strategy meetings,” said Philip B. Russell, a 25-year NASA veteran who is an atmospheric chemist at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “As civil servants, we’re paid to carry out NASA’s mission. When there was that very easy-to-understand statement that our job is to protect the planet, that made it much easier to justify this kind of work.”

Several NASA researchers said they were upset that the change was made at NASA headquarters without consulting the agency’s 19,000 employees or informing them ahead of time.

And, The “understand and protect” phrase was cited repeatedly by James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA who said publicly last winter that he was being threatened by political appointees for speaking out about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr. Hansen’s comments started a flurry of news media coverage in late January; on Feb. 3, Mr. Griffin issued a statement of “scientific openness.”

I fucking hate these fucking fuckers.

Fuck This Shit. I Need A Cup Of Jasmine Tea And Some Escapism. How About You?

I'd forgotten just how much I loved Kay Nielsen's illustrations in children's books.

One Definition Of Insanty Is To Keep Doing The Same Thing And Expect Different Results. I'm Just Sayin'

NYT reports that: Scientists worldwide are watching temperatures rise, the land turn dry and vast forests go up in flames. In the Siberian taiga and Canadian Rockies, in southern California and Australia, researchers find growing evidence tying an upsurge in wildfires to climate change, an impact long predicted by global-warming forecasters.

A team at California's Scripps Institution, in a headline-making report this month, found that warmer temperatures, causing earlier snow runoff and consequently drier summer conditions, were the key factor in an explosion of big wildfires in the U.S. West over three decades, including fires now rampaging east of Los Angeles.

Foser's Mom Probably Read Him Where The Wild Things Are

Jamison Foser regularly writes clear, insightful media analysis. Atrios usually blogs him, so I don't, as I assume most of the people who are kind enough to read my blog come from Eschaton, but Foser is truly, truly worth reading.

The MSM is getting ready to fuck Hillary Clinton like she's never been fucked before. She's going to get the Al Gore Treatment multipled by the X chromosome factor.

Some of us are going to be pissed off by it.

I am.

Let The Wild Rumpus Begin -- Theodora Goss Explains Subversive KidLit

Why Where the Wild Things Are is a subversive book:

1. Because it teaches that it is OK to eat your mother, or at least threaten to do so.
2. Because it teaches that a wolf suit is acceptable attire, both in the home and for outdoor activities.
3. Because it teaches that in the end, whatever you have done, your supper will still be waiting for you.
4. Because it teaches that the imagination is more important than reality.

Why Where the Wild Things Are is an important book:

1. Because it teaches that monster are cowards (so you should not be fooled by their terrible roars or their terrible claws).
2. Because it teaches that everyone needs a little wild rumpus.
3. Because it teaches that a hot supper is more important than being king.
4. Because it teaches that the imagination is more important than reality.

What I have demonstrated, I hope, is that you cannot raise a child without Where the Wild Things Are. At least, not a child who will grow up to be subversive and important, as everyone should be..

Son's favorite book, EVER. Can't wait to read it to Grandson.

It's Not That I'm Cynical; I Just Want To See What Happens

Michael Moore reports that police have started issuing citations to my own personal heroes, the Raging Grannies, for holding up signs that say "Police Say Don't Honk for Peace," after the police cited people for holding signs that said, "Honk if You Want Bush Out."

Here's an idea for an interesting experiement. Someone go stand on the same corner with a sign that says, "Honk If You Support Our President" and see if you get cited for anything.

All Bush Is Saying, Is Give War A Chance

I think Uggabugga gets it exactly right. They really like war. Sure, it makes them lots of money and, sure, they at least imagine that someday some sort of good will come out of it, but that's the window dressing. The truth is that they like war, they enjoy war, and they're unhappy when they don't have one. And as long as we imagine that this just couldn't be true, we'll fail to address the problem.

Don't Touch Me, Black Person.

John Thune Thanks You

WaPo follows up its series of articles concerning the millions wasted by the Department of Agriculture with an interesting editorial: A QUESTION raised by The Post's recent reports on farm subsidies is this: Why does the nation tolerate this waste? [The federal goverment] gave $400 million worth of powdered milk, which it had bought to support milk prices, to supposedly drought-stricken ranchers -- only to find that ranchers and middlemen sold the milk back onto the world market, driving milk prices down again while clearing a fast profit.

This theater of the absurd reflects more than government incompetence. The Livestock Compensation Program . . . was the result of careful political judgment. It was created by the Bush administration in 2002 to boost John Thune, the Republican Senate candidate in South Dakota. The White House calculation was that Mr. Thune would pick up crucial votes from his state's ranchers if he was seen to have delivered federal pork.

Your tax dollars. At work getting conservative assholes elected to the Senate.

Wanna Bet How Well-Prepared FEMA Is To Handle The Coming Blackouts? Me, Either. Two Words: Black Start

From today's EEI newsletter:

Week Sees All Seven U.S. RTOs, ISOs Meet Record Demand Levels
The ISO-RTO Council announced that all seven U.S. ISOs and RTOs already have seen record demand levels this week and maintained adequate reserve margins to secure against blackouts.

Aggregate demand for the RTOs and ISOs peaked at 483,233 MW with individual grid operators seeing demand up 0.9 percent to 4.5 percent over 2005 demand peaks. Among the peaks was the Southwest Power Pool's successive demand levels of 41,324 MW on Monday, 41,874 MW on Tuesday, and 42,227 MW on Wednesday, all three of which surpassed the previous 40,081 MW record.

The Council noted that because the Eastern grid is interconnected and ISOs covering that grid share operating data with each other on a daily basis, the ISOs easily can shift power across regional grids as demand levels fluctuate. The Council observed that the ISOs and RTOs "said their experiences so far this summer in successfully meeting high demand for power should prove valuable throughout the remainder of the season as well as in preparations to meet future demands on their respective systems."
ISO-RTO Council news release , July 20.

It's Friday. We All Deserve Some Chocolate

I'll take the Shelia Na Gig, thank you.

Theobroma: Food of the Gods

Believed to be of divine origin, the cocoa tree was the bridge between heaven and earth. The Maya, believing no other tree was worth naming, simply called the cacao tree, cachuaquchtl, or "Tree." Believing that the "tree" belonged to the gods and that the pods were an offering from the gods, if not the gods' food itself, the Maya quickly incorporated its pod into their everyday symbolism and mythology. They believed the gods placed this tree and its wonderful seed pods on Mother Earth for man [sic] to cultivate, enjoy and offer back to them.

From Chocolate's beginnings, there was an intimate connection between the gods and humankind--one that touches the body, mind, and ultimately the soul.

Chocolate Deities: It all started nearly ten years ago when Jeanne Fleming and Jessica Bard were asked to make the hors d’oeuvres for an opening at a local art gallery. The show was entitled: Shrines and Altars. So, we decided to make a goddess entirely out of food, wine flowing freely from her breasts, and providing everything from nibbles to dessert. We were inspired by the Tibetan goddess Tara–a Green Tara–the Goddess of Compassion and the Goddess of the "god-less" in that she was a totally accepting goddess who welcomed all into her protection whether they were direct followers of her or not or whether they worshiped any god at all. That was the spirit we wanted for our original creation: a generous, welcoming and warm goddess.

Our Goddess turned out to be a massive project, taking the skills of a sculptor, who carved her in Styrofoam to our specifications. A trip to the local beer making guys showed us how to make wine mysteriously flow from her breasts. That information and a few hundred dollars worth of fruits, vegetables, and candy later, we began what turned into a week long project for both of us. In the end, we developed a philosophy for our food goddess and a raison d’etre for every piece of food that she offered up to the amazed opening night crowd. No one ever figured out how we made the wine flow on request (into specially made cups!). The children finished off the candy in her beautiful headdress and our local Green Man kept stealing her beautiful, huge, strawberry nipples (we came prepared to replace them, of course!)

Operation Rescue Me From Them

Here's more info on the Koran burning by Operation Rescue in Mississippi. Ironically, the group says that they burned the Koran "because it condones violence." I'm not going to go dig up the hundred or so examples of violence that the Bible condones -- God sure did order those Israelites to kill a lot of people and take their land, though -- but I find it pretty damn ironic that Operation Rescue is worried about violence.

Tallk to Action's article also documents the activities of "Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and his traveling fetus": A memorial service for an aborted fetus concluded today without the planned burial in Smith Park. Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, said the fetus, which is being preserved in a formaldehyde-like solution, will be buried in Alabama in a few months. Pavone said the fetus was aborted at about 18 weeks. It has been used in demonstrations in New York and Columbus, Ohio, he said, and will be in several more before being buried.
The Rev. Flip Benham, the leader of Operation Save America, bristled at those who might question showing a fetus to children. "This does not traumatize our children," Benham said. "This traumatizes the adults who would hide the horrors of abortion." You've got to click the link and see the pictures of grown women weeping over the casket. Really.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? It's like that nightmare where you're stuck in a building or on a ship with people who are stark-raving mad but you're the only one who's sane so they think you're crazy. Get me out of here.

Lies Are Harmful To Our Democracy

TruthOut has a fascinating interview with Robertk Kennedy, Jr. that confirms something I've been thinking about for a long time. Lots of people who call themselves Republicans and who vote for Republicans do so because, to be blunt, they don't know any better. It answers the question that What's the Matter with Kansas? raised but never answered: Why?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Well, my opinion hasn't changed, that the press has been negligent, and that the large amount of support for the President, and for the people that did vote for the President, that large numbers of them would not have done so, had they known the truth about his policies, and his record. You say my opinion changed, but it hasn't changed.

You know I've known this for many years, because of my anecdotal experience. I give about 40 speeches a year, in red states to Republican audiences, and I get the same enthusiastic responses from those audiences as I get from Liberal college audiences. The only difference is, is that the Republicans often say to me, "How come we've never heard this before?" I made the conclusion many years ago that there's not a huge values difference between Red State Republicans and Blue State Democrats. The distinction is really informational. 80% of Republicans are just Democrats who don't know what's going on. And my anecdotal conclusion was confirmed by a survey done immediately after the 2004 election called the PIPA report, which tested Bush supporters and Kerry supporters based upon their knowledge of current events. It found that among Bush supporters, they were widespread in its interpretations, or there were factual errors in the way that they viewed Bush's major public policy initiatives.

For example, 75% of the Republican respondents believed that Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center, and 72% believed that WMD had been found in Iraq. And most of them believed that the war in Iraq had strong support among Iraq's Muslim neighbors and our traditional allies in Europe, which of course is wrong. The Democrats as a whole had a much more accurate view of those events. And then PIPA went back twice to these same people. The first time it went back to the people that had these misinterpretations, and asked them where they were getting their news, and invariably they said talk radio and FOX news. And PIPA went back a third time, and made inquiries about their fundamental values, and it did start with a string of hypotheticals:

"What if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? What if Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with bombing the World Trade Center? What if the U.S. Invasion of Iraq had little support among Iraq's Muslim neighbors and was largely opposed by Iraq's Muslim neighbors, and by our troops and allies in Europe? Should we have still gone in?" And roughly 80% of Dem and 80% of Rep said the same thing, "We should not." And so the values were the same. It was the facts, the information, it was the access to information that was different.

Making Jesus Real Indeed

Hatred is all that they've got. The Clarion-Ledger (Motto: Real Mississippi) reports that, "Activists from Operation Save America, formerly known as Operation Rescue, have been in Jackson since Saturday for eight days of protests against the state's only abortion clinic, the Jackson Women's Health Organization in the Fondren neighborhood. During a demonstration at the Capitol on Tuesday, anti-abortion activists tore up pages from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, along with a gay pride flag and copies of six U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to religion in public schools, sodomy and abortion."

Ironically, enough, the burning took place "in the parking lot outside Making Jesus Real Church in Pearl, McEwen said. Police confirmed the burning."

Hand, Meet Pocket. Pocket, Meet Hand. Let's Practice It Again, Mr. President. Hand, Meet Pocket. Pocket, . . . .

The brilliant watertiger reports that some of us still haven't learned the lesson about keeping our hands to ourselves.

I Don't Know About You, But I Can Use A Little Bit Of Humor Right Now

Anne Johnson interviews Mithras and learns that Condi and Coulter are two of his newest adepts.

You Have Got To Be Frappin' Kidding Me

Via Witchvox comes a story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "The Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that bans providing food or meals to the indigent for free or a nominal fee in parks.

The measure is an attempt to stop so-called 'mobile soup kitchens' from operating in parks, where residents say they attract the homeless and render the city facilities unusable by families." No, really. And, it gets (as it so often does, these days) worse. "The city's new ordinance, which officials could begin enforcing as early as Friday, defines an indigent as a "person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance" from the government under state law. Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has been a vocal advocate of cracking down on the homeless in city parks, dismissed questions about how marshals, who patrol city parks, will identify the homeless in order to enforce the ordinance, the violation of which would be a misdemeanor. "Certain truths are self-evident," Goodman said. "You know who's homeless.""

What kind of country are we living in?

"But one advocate who feeds the homeless at the park said she will continue to do so. "I'm going to do whatever I think is necessary to keep people alive," said Gail Sacco. Sacco has been cited twice while feeding the homeless, for holding a gathering of 25 or more people without a permit." Good for her.

Why I Drink

From the LATimes comes the sort of story you're sure, absolutely sure, couldn't still be happening in the twenty-first century -- until you see that it just happened last Friday.

A woman moves out of her home into a domestic violence shelter (ever seen one? they're not palatial) and goes to court to get a restraining order against her husband. The judge finds out that she's in the country illegally and threatens her with immediate deportation unless she drops her case. He said he thought the couple "obviously wanted to get back together" and that he was trying to avoid granting a restraining order that would keep them apart for at least a year. Yeah, cuz when I want to get back together with someone, what I do is I move out of my home into a domestic violence shelter and then seek a restraining order. WTF?? And, its bullshit anyway because if the couple had reconciled -- say by attending marraige counseling that the judge could have exempted from the order -- then they could have sought to have the order rescinded. It gets worse.

I'm going to count to 20, and if you people have left this courtroom and disappeared, she isn't going to Mexico forthwith," Fink said, according to the court transcript. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. When I get to 20, she gets arrested and goes to Mexico."

After Gonzalez left the courtroom, Fink asked Salgado if he wanted to stay, and he said yes.

Fink then dismissed the case: "Well, she brought the proceedings, and if she's not here to go forward, I guess all of the requests are denied."

On Wednesday, Fink, who has been a family law attorney for 35 years, insisted he was seeking what he thought was an agreeable solution for both parties.

"What I saw was nothing more than some yelling and screaming between a husband and wife," he said.

"I also saw that they really didn't want to not be together anymore."

If he had issued the restraining order, Fink said, "we'd wind up with exactly the opposite of what these people wanted."

"The cure could be far worse than the illness," he said.

So the woman's moved out and wants a restraining order, but the judge can somehow tell that "no" doesn't really mean "no" and he makes her run out of the courtroom to his counting so he can dismiss her case since, "she's not here."

A spokesman for the court assured reporters that, the woman "was welcome to refile for a restraining order." Yeah. I'm sure she's in a big fucking hurry to line up child care, take another day off work, fill out a bunch of new forms, and get humiliated and threatened with deportation again.

Bush To Congress: Piss Off

I'm not sure precisely what it was that finally flipped the switch for the NYT -- maybe having the right-wing blogsphere call for the execution of editors, writers, and photographers for such "crimes" as reporting on Bush's domestic spying program or printing authorized pictures of Rumsfeld's summer mansion finally clued the paper in to the nature of Bush and his supporters. Whatever it was, we can only hope it lasts. Here's their reaction to the Attorney General's disgraceful performance the other day:

Tap-Dancing as Fast as He Can
Published: July 20, 2006

This is how President Bush keeps his promise to deal with Congress in good faith on issues of national security and the balance of powers: He sends the attorney general to the Senate Judiciary Committee to stonewall, obfuscate and spin fairy tales.

Testifying on Tuesday after months of refusing to show up, Alberto Gonzales dodged questions about President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation. He refused to say whether it was the only time that Mr. Bush had chosen to ignore the 1978 law on electronic eavesdropping. In particular, he would not say whether it was true that the government had accumulated large amounts of data on Americans’ routine telephone calls. “The programs and activities you ask about, to the extent that they exist, would be highly classified,” Mr. Gonzales intoned.

Mr. Gonzales did answer when he was asked who had derailed a Justice Department investigation, requested by Congress, into Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail without a warrant. Mr. Gonzales said that Mr. Bush himself did it, by refusing to grant the needed security clearances to the lawyers involved.

But even that seeming candor was shrouded in fog. Mr. Gonzales gave the committee documents that argued there was no need to investigate because the eavesdropping was the “subject of extensive oversight by the executive branch and Congress.” Actually, the program is supervised only by the agencies that are running it. The Congressional intelligence committees were not briefed until long after Mr. Bush refused the security clearances.

Supervised only by the agencies that are running it -- isn't that how this whole junta works all the time? Oil companies write energy policy in secret, big pharm pays the people responsible for determining drug safety, agricultural support boondoggles turn out to have been created by a total lack of enforcement, and now, the agencies running secret domestic spying are "supervising" themselves. Well, hell, we should just trust them because, Goddess knows, the junta that fucked up Iraq, let New Orleans drown, and can't account for the millions that it just handed over to Haliburton is bound to do a fair, legal, and professional job of spying on Americans.

And, WTF is up with this: Mr. Gonzales did answer when he was asked who had derailed a Justice Department investigation, requested by Congress, into Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail without a warrant. Mr. Gonzales said that Mr. Bush himself did it, by refusing to grant the needed security clearances to the lawyers involved.


Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had derailed a Justice Deparment investigation into Whitewater or Monicagate?? The press, the Republicans, and, of course, Losing Joe Lieberman would have gone apeshit. But, what the hell, those were really important issues involving ancient land deals and sex and here we're just talking about actual impeachable offenses and violations of the Americans' most basic rights.

I Love This Poem. It Says Everything About What I'm Struggling With Spiritually, These Days

Little Furnace

—Once more the poem woke me up,
the dark poem. I was ready for it;
he was sleeping,

and across the cabin, the small furnace
lit and re-lit itself—the flame a yellow
“tongue” again, the metal benignly
hard again;

and a thousand insects outside called
and made me nothing;
moonlight streamed inside as if it had been . . .

I looked around, I thought of the lower wisdom,
spirit held by matter:
Mary, white as a sand dollar,

and Christ, his sticky halo tilted—
oh, to get behind it!
The world had been created to comprehend itself

as matter: table, the torn
veils of spiders . . . Even consciousness—
missing my love—

was matter, the metal box of a furnace.
As the obligated flame, so burned my life . . .

What is the meaning of this suffering I asked
and the voice—not Christ but between us—
said you are the meaning.

No no, I replied, That
is the shape, what is the meaning.
You are the meaning, it said—

Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman, “Little Furnace,” from Bright Existence. Copyright © 1993 by Brenda Hillman.