Gas Prices and Ethanol

If you’re into reading "comments" and following the online arguments that are contained therein,  I have a real treat for you tonight.  This is an explosive debate here in the U.S.– gas prices are skyrocketing and the "push" is on to ramp up ethanol production as an additive.  Everybody has an opinion and some "science" or "personal experience" to quote.

The Corn Ethanol Boondoggle

In the LA Times today, Colin Carter and Henry Miller argue that there’s a big problem with President Bush’s goal of replacing 15% of domestic gasoline use with ethanol:With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would [...]

Tags: Gasoline, Ethanol

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The Unhappy Base (Chapter 76)

Another one bites the dust.

Bye-Bye GOP

The Republican party I supported because of their core values is dead. Led by this man: The Bush administration, trying to win an immigration agreement with Democrats, is backing away from safeguards designed to target businesses that hire illegal aliens and to prevent a repeat of the rampant fraud that resulted [...]

Tags: Immigration, Republican Party, GOP

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It’s Enough..

…to drive you insane.  Really.  How do some people get to be school administrators with so little common sense?  Somebody, please, click the "comments" and educate me as to why this was the right thing to do.

Short haircut = suspension for Austin middle schooler

This story coming out of Amanda’s neck of the woods — Austin, TX — is insane on a couple of levels. Young Derek Jackson was suspended for an alleged violation of Bailey Middle School’s dress code because he had a close-shaved haircut. The code prohibits hairstyles that are “disruptive.” Take a look at the picture [...]

Tags: Dress Code, Haircut

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You Paid For It

That’s the title of a series of investigative reports on a St. Louis TV station.  Yes, my friends, they’ve got corruption right next door in Missouri!  Actually, it’s developed into that much-bigger "U.S. Attorney Purge" story.  Still, here’s a great angle that hasn’t been widely reported. via FiredUpMissouri..

A Must Watch! You Paid for it: Photo ID

In case you missed it earlier this week, make sure you watch Fox STL’s Elliott Davis on "You Paid For It."  The story is shocking as it points out the huge amount of taxpayer dollars last year wasted on the GOP’s Photo ID to Vote scheme. [...]

Tags: U.S. Attorneys, Voter Fraud, Voter ID, Missouri

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Wouldn’t Be Prudent

That was his Dad’s famous line – "It wouldn’t be prudent".  George W’s version today?

‘I’m not going to talk about it’

The NYT noted today that “someone at the White House (and Americans need to know who) dispatched Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital bed.” Was it the president? He doesn’t want to talk about it. From a White House event this morning: Q: Thank you, sir. There’s been some very dramatic testimony before [...]

Tags: gonzales, Card, Ashcroft, Bush

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Myth-Busters

Here ya’ go, for the sake of argument with friends, family and foes…

Seven Myths on Global Warming

Courtesy of NewScientist.com here are seven myths that global warming deniers popularize to insist that global climate change is not being caused by human activity. What follows is a description of each "myth" and the knowledge you need to debunk these flasehoods when arguing with family, friends and neighbors who believe these pernicious untruths. (cont.) [...]

Tags: Global Warming, Climate Change

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Another Showdown

Here comes another Congressional showdown.  If the dems don’t back down, it could be really interesting…

‘Our resources must match our rhetoric’

The Bush administration and congressional Democrats are at odds over a pay hike for U.S. troops. Take a wild guess who “supports our troops” more. Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill. The [...]

Tags: Military Pay Raise, Defense Authorization Bill

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Just Inching Along

There have been several posts on various blogs lately that tried to tackle this philosophy.  John at AmericaBlog has the most to-the-point version I’ve found. The Congress that seems to be going nowhere may, in fact, be doing just what it wants..

The Democrats’ strategy on Iraq. What it is, and why it’s working.

I’ve never been a big fan of having votes in Congress just for the sake of having them (i.e., having a vote on an issue you know you’re going to lose). Case in point: the Alito filibuster. Falling on your sword for principle is nice, and perhaps looks good in the history books (or on film), but if you’re trying to truly accomplish something, guaranteed failure should be your last option, no matter how "just" it feels. But there’s an exception to that rule, if by failing you [...]

Tags: Democrats, Congress

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About September…

Not gonna happen.

Petraeus: September Report On Escalation Will Not Say ‘Anything Definitive’

Offering another sign that the administration plans to continue its escalation of the war in Iraq into 2008, U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus now says that he will not have “anything definitive” to say about the war in his September review. On April 26, Petraeus told reporters that “in early September” he “would provide an assessment [...]

Tags: Patraeus, Iraq

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Watch Closely Now

This one’s firing up right in our own backyard.

Gumming It to Death

It’s been almost five months since Kyle Sampson advocated "gumming to death" the Tim Griffin nomination as USA for Eastern Arkansas. Since that time, the Administration has repeatedly claimed that it never had any intention of appointing Tim Griffin using the PATRIOT Act provision giving the AG authority to appoint USAs directly. Most recently, designated [...]

Tags: Sampson, Gonzales, Griffin, Cummins, U.S. Attorney

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Whatcha Doing?

Watching a heck of a lot of TV, apparently.

Must Read

Check this out. Must read: According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every day—90 minutes more than the world average. When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and [...]

Tags: Television, Al Gore

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One Story

Two different takes.  It’s your choice, but both deserve to be read…

The President’s Secret Program: A Timeline

Ever since James Comey’s testimony Tuesday, there’s been a renewed burst of speculation about just what secret domestic surveilance program(s) the administration has been running. Marty Lederman over at Balkinization offers a great rundown of the best guesses about what [...]

Wiretap Tales

Democrats and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey put on quite a Senate show Tuesday over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program. With New York’s Chuck Schumer directing, the players staged a full length docudrama to create the impression that the Bush Administration broke the law in reauthorizing the program to eavesdrop on al Qaeda. Senate hearings can be boring, so we’ll assume the press corps dozed through select parts. That would explain why no one reported on [...]

Then, again, I’m thinking this may be the deciding point…

Turley on NSA Spying: “I don’t know of a more potential charge of impeachment”

George Washington University Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley says that the latest NSA warrantless wiretapping revelations –  wherein the administration knowingly broke the law and continued spying on American citizens after top DoJ officials refused to certify the legality of the program — make this a "clear impeachable offense [...]

Tags: Comey, Gonzales, Ashcroft, NSA, Wiretaps

Tags: Turley, Impeachment

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Bleak Summary

Yet another portrait of Iraq that doesn’t look optimistic.

Iraq is ‘facing collapse.’

New report by the British think tank Chatham House concludes, “There is not ‘one’ civil war, nor ‘one’ insurgency, but several civil wars and insurgencies between different communities in today’s Iraq. … It is now possible to argue that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of [...]

Tags: Iraq, Chatham House

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Bipartisan Whitewash

Pay attention now.  Both sides are doing it.

Candidates Whitewashing Personal Histories

"Stealing a page from the Soviet playbook, the current crop of presidential candidates has taken to eliminating whole chapters of their histories," reports the New York Times. "It is no revelation that campaigns conspicuously omit things. There are always unpleasant facts, episodes or viewpoints that run counter to the public self a candidate is marketing. But one of the striking features of the 2008 campaigns is [...]

Tags: 2008 Campaign

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The Body Armor Debate

This one’s been bubbling under the surface for some time now, but it looks like it’s set to rise rapidly to the top, thanks to an upcoming television news report.  Here’s the background and (probably) more detail than you need!

Body Armor about to Hit the Fan – Part I

The issue of open testing of body-armor alternatives is one about which I have been writing for nearly a year-and-a-half. During that time, 1,308 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Pentagon has only dug its heels in harder to prevent alternatives to the regulation-issue Interceptor body-armor system from being fully evaluated. Why is this? What is the Pentagon hiding? Well, stay tuned – literally: [...]

Tags: Body Armor, Interceptor, Dragon Skin

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Kennedy Assassination

My, oh my.  Looks like somebody’s getting set to try to rewrite the history books.  I’ve never fully bought into the "single gunman" theory and this just ads to the mountains of writings that argue against it.

Scientists: Bullet Analysis Doesn’t Prove Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone On Kennedy Assassination

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by [...]

Tags: John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Oswald

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Truly Shocking Numbers

Simple question, but answers reveal unexpected depression… via Editor & Publisher

GALLUP: In Shocking Plunge, Only 1 in 4 Now Satisfied With State of USA

What’s going on? Gallup reports today a sudden plunge in its regular "satisfaction" index. Only 25% of Americans now say they satisfied with the state of their country — down [...]

Atrios notes another poll that produces the same numbers:

Only 25% Happy With State of Country

Tags: Gallup Poll, USA

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Which Chris Today?

If you watch Hardball on MSNBC, you’ll understand the point of the post below.  You never know WHICH Chris Matthews is going to show up on any given day. 

Matthews Loses It over Right Wing Talking Points

Chris Matthews is one of the most frustratingly inconsistent talking heads we’ve got. When he’s bad, like any time the name "Clinton" appears, he’s very bad. But when he’s good, he’s crazy.  Today his target was GOP Rep. Jack Kingston, and boy, did he get an earful from Matthews when he trotted out the regular right wing talking point that  the occupation of Iraq would be accepted by the American people just as they accept troops in Germany and [...]

Tags: Hardball, Matthews, Kingston

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An Almost-Exclusive

Wandering around the CNN website, look what Arlen Parsa found!

CNN reporter accidentally discovers Wolfowitz was “holed up” in lawyer’s office yesterday

Although you didn’t hear about this on the news, CNN reporter Ed Henry briefly interrupted the negociations between the World Bank, the Bush Administration, and Paul Wolfowitz yesterday regarding the latter’s impending resignation. Check out Henry’s account of what he called the “briefest exclusive interview” he’s ever had: I quickly dialed up Wolfowitz’s attorney, Bob Bennett, [...]

Tags: Wolfowitz, Bennet, World Bank

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Domestic Spying

Unless you’re a PBS-watcher, you likely missed this one.  I spent a few minutes, watching the beginning, and it looks like it really is one worth watching. If nothing else, bookmark the link for some weekend that you have some downtime. SilentPatriot calls it "downright chilling". Darn good description.

Alberto Gonzales Carefully Tailors Warrantless Wiretapping Testimony

PBS Frontline’s "Spying on the Home Front" last night was downright chilling. Although there were no major blockbuster revelations, they painted a very clear and complete picture of the Bush administration’s vastly expanded domestic surveillance programs and their impact on civil liberties. This clip shows how Alberto Gonzales was very careful during his [...]

Tags: Domestic Spying, Wiretaps, Gonzales

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