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December 29, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Friday's Links
Activism
Hurricane Housing. The other day we linked to the Red Cross, and frankly, giving money to them is still one of the best things you can do to help out with the Hurricane Relief effort. But there are also estimates of up to a million hurricane-related American refugees. So, if you're feeling charitable and want to help out in a different way, consider going to the site above (run by MoveOn.org) and offering your house to some of the refugees.
News
More Informed About NCLB and More Skeptical of Its Strategies. What's that we hear? Could it be the turning of the tide? You know, it's pretty frustrating the that public doesn't seem to investigate the details of policies before voting for leaders that endorse them, but at least they're finally waking up. Maybe they just need to experience abject failure first-hand instead of just listening to pundits. It turns out that "68 percent of the public do not think that a single test provides a fair picture of how well a school is doing, and 80 percent do not think testing students on only English and math provides a fair picture of whether a school needs improvement." How about that? Of course, it's also telling about the country's bias that most people think the nation's schools are in bad shape, but that their own community schools are doing fine.
U.S. Wants Changes In U.N. Agreement. Many opined a few months ago that John Bolton was so ill-suited to be a diplomat that it was mind-boggling that he'd even been nominated. Sure, that's true, but only if your perspective is that a diplomat should be diplomatic. If, however, you want to undermine the U.N., then Bolton's your man! Want to lower aid to other countries, and stop the fight against global warming? Then Bolton's your guy! We're not quite sure why Bush made a recess appointment instead of just inventing a time machine and bringing the world back to the 12th century; It would have been more direct.
Critical Votes Loom For Hill Republicans. You'll have to pardon us for not writing more about Katrina; We figure that you can get that information from many other sources. Additionally, it's important to note what else is going on while Katrina's (deservedly) getting all the press. The fact of the matter is that what goes on in Washington affects the entire country, and the hurricane disaster highlights this perfectly: A more proper allocation of resources and funds, including the National Guard and disaster preparation, would have benefitted New Orleans greatly. So, as the GOP looks to "starve the beast", having driven us into deficit and now using that as an excuse to cut valuable services, we can only wonder what upcoming disasters these cuts will exacerbate. Of course, things like Medicare and student loans don't help out the upper class, and who gives a crap about them?
Editorials
The Moral-Hazard Myth. Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author, having written "The Tipping Point" and "blink", two books we highly encourage you to read when you get the chance. (And they're not even political.) But in this editorial in the New Yorker, Gladwell applies his coherent and lucid approach to our health care system, which is the furthest from coherence and lucidity that one can get. How does one justify the existing system? Well, you have to convince yourself that more health care would be a problem. And so, apologists invent the idea of "moral hazard", claiming that greater health care coverage would lead to people abusing the system and taking more resources than they really need. There's just one problem with that: It's false. Need more proof? Look at our disasterous system in place today. It's time the moral hazard myth was eliminated, and our system was fixed.
Government Success Stories. To continue on a theme, part of the reason that GOP believes that it can eliminate important social services and perpetuate our failed health care system is because the public doesn't trust the government. Part of the reason is because the notion of government as entirely inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful has sunk into our collective conscience. But Mark Shields reminds us that it doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of stories of effective government, and cases in which the government united to work for the people in ways that individuals never could. He reminds us of Teddy Roosevelt's quote: "The government is us; we are the government, you and I." It doesn't feel like it these days, but maybe we can make it so once again, and give government a chance to serve us like it's supposed to.
Blogger Commentary
Don't Tie My Hands While I Torture You. We haven't visited with out good friend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently. What's he up to? Well, precisely what you'd expect him to be up to: Attempting to remove our civil liberties in the name of keeping us safer. We already know he's fond of torture in the name of "keeping us safe", so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he's pretty much willing to use "fighting terror" as an excuse for increasing his power as much as possible. Of course he's in favor of a version of the PATRIOT Act renewal that restricts government less. Arthur Silber discusses the endless spiral that this kind of logic leads to: Government fails to prevent catastrophe. Government asks for more powers. More powers fail to prevent further catastrophe. Government asks for yet more powers. And on, and on, and on. Maybe one day we'll learn, and stop giving our government power it doesn't need. In fact, we'd settle for simply holding it accountable for wielding the power it already has...
Planning, Response Are Faulted. Of course, we weren't going to just ignore the hurricane situation. The above link isn't "Blogger Commentary", but nicely summarizes the situation that some bloggers are commenting on below. Before we proceed, we'd like to mention that there's a fine line between exploiting a disaster for political gain and pointing out failures in responsiveness so they can be fixed in the future. And while people may think that this isn't the time for blame, the fact is that the response still isn't adequate. That message has to get through. It's not just Republicans that are falling short - it seems the entire system failed the people of New Orleans this time. But the federal government has been particularly inept in responding to Katrina: Even Republicans are turning on them. But the media's still spinning. The next time you hear stories of "looting", keep these images in mind. What's sad is that already, politicians are looking to cover their asses. Maybe the situation couldn't have been avoided, but it could be a whole lot better than it is now. Our leaders need to start leading.
|
Monday, August 29, 2005
Monday's Links
Activism
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Charity's not the only thing that begins at home! It's important to keep up pressure on the corporations that treat nature like their own personal dumping grounds, but don't forget the little things that you can do in your own corner of the world. This page at the Global Stewards site gives you lots of tips on reducing the amount of waste you generate, reusing or passing on the good stuff that might otherwise get trashed, and recycling things that have reached the ends of their useful lives. The page also contains tips on conserving water and energy, and other tips for being green around the home. It may not seem like one person's efforts can have much impact, but when enough of us act together it can make a world of difference.
News
Rove's Role. If we had to pick one word to describe Karl Rove, it certainly wouldn't be "statesman." Since the age of 19, Rove has immersed himself in the game of politics, and he plays to win. His trail of dirty tricks and smear campaigns leads us right to the center of the Plame Leak case, in which a CIA operative was unmasked in what looks exactly like a case of partisan payback. The case hasn't been getting much attention in the press lately, but the special prosecutor is still working away and the investigation is expected to wrap up sometime this fall. Supporters of the GOP agenda portray Karl Rove as an innocent bystander, a blameless cog in Bush's well-oiled political machine. You'll forgive us if we have a little trouble picturing Rove with anything but dirty hands.
Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science. Is it possible to be a good scientist and still believe in God? Panelists at a recent scientific conference in New York answered this question with a resounding "No!" Not all scientists feel that religion and science are mutually exclusive, and although the subject of God and religion is often taboo in scientific circles there are those who believe it's not necessary to reject one in order to embrace the other.
In Iraq, Carnage, Anger and Grief. The Bush administration pushes its rosy picture of the Iraq War as a success story, even as we hear daily reports of insurgent attacks and car bombings. The attacks are indiscriminate, killing Iraqi troops and civilians in addition to US soldiers. Iraqis are placing the blame squarely on occupation forces, for allowing detained insurgents to go free and for failing to turn over to Iraqi forces the intelligence resources they need to do the job. War supporters push their stories of success in Iraq just as fervently as war detractors point out the stark difference between Bush's rosy rhetoric and the realities of war, but our disagreements pale in comparison to the price that innocent Iraqis are paying every day for BushCo's massive, multi-billion-dollar blunder.
Editorials
Chickenhawk: The Other Right Meat. One of the problems with BushCo's whole War in Iraq extravaganza is that almost nobody making decisions about how things should be run has ever actually served in the military. The same holds true for many of the GOP supporters of Bush's folly, who are more than happy to endlessly spout war-time rhetoric and plaster their car in magnetic ribbons to show their support but somehow never end up down at the recruiting office to make the ultimate commitment to the war effort. The fact that the military's having trouble making its recruiting goals is obviously the fault of the liberal media, who have only bad things to say about what's going on over there, and anyone who doesn't like what Bush is doing should just sit down and shut up and let him get on with it. Don't call them chickenhawks, though; oh, no! They're more red-blooded than you or me because, unlike us "traitorous" lefties who actually dare to question Dear Leader's oddball approach to spreading democracy, they are behind him one hundred percent. Just don't ask them to sign up, because they're all busy getting on with their lives.
A Clean Patriot Act. The Patriot Act has caused a lot of controversy and debate since its inception in late 2001, and with key provisions of the Act set to expire at the end of the year there is an opportunity to redefine its scope and effectiveness. Both the House and Senate have passed bills that have big-picture similarities but differ in many of the fine details. There are things to like about both versions, which reign in some of the Patriot Act's more controversial provisions and require reporting on how its powers are being used, but the Senate's version imposes harsher restrictions on the reach of those powers and stronger protections for civil liberties. The Senate bill also lacks dozens of unnecessary line items that are included in the House version; reconciling these two versions into a single bill for Bush's signature won't be easy, but we hope the final version focuses more on effective counter-terrorism measures and less on pet political projects.
Blogger Commentary
The War Against Fundamentalism. Bush's War on Terror is folly for more than just the shoddy way it's being handled: terror is not the enemy, but rather the tool used by our enemies. Fighting the enemy's tactics is like waging war on the symptoms of a disease while ignoring any possibility of eradicating the disease itself. The disease in this case is the radical fundamentalist elements of Islam, which employs a strict and literal reading of selected bits of the Koran to justify an endless jihad against the West. We have our own fundamentalists here at home, and they use their own strict and literal reading of selected bits from the Bible to justify an endless war against anything that doesn't line up with their narrow and rigid worldview. Bush tells us we're fighting against the oppression of the many by the powerful, religious few, but the groundswell of religious conservatism that has boosted the Republican Party to dominance also threatens to undermine many of the freedoms on which our way of life is based.
Privatizing the Truth: Bush's War on Information. From the very beginning, the Bush administration has counted on deception. Outright lies are part of it, but there are also misdirections, obfuscations, and flat refusals to share information. If Bush doesn't want you to know something, there is an army of staff and volunteers and media ready to stand between you and whatever it is. Conservative shows on both radio and television spout GOP-approved talking points that lead the viewer away from those painful truths that would tip the Bush crime family's apple cart. It has famously been said that knowing is half the battle, but with this group of folks in charge of Washington, knowing has become the battle.
|
December 29, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Friday's Links
Activism
Hurricane Housing. The other day we linked to the Red Cross, and frankly, giving money to them is still one of the best things you can do to help out with the Hurricane Relief effort. But there are also estimates of up to a million hurricane-related American refugees. So, if you're feeling charitable and want to help out in a different way, consider going to the site above (run by MoveOn.org) and offering your house to some of the refugees.
News
More Informed About NCLB and More Skeptical of Its Strategies. What's that we hear? Could it be the turning of the tide? You know, it's pretty frustrating the that public doesn't seem to investigate the details of policies before voting for leaders that endorse them, but at least they're finally waking up. Maybe they just need to experience abject failure first-hand instead of just listening to pundits. It turns out that "68 percent of the public do not think that a single test provides a fair picture of how well a school is doing, and 80 percent do not think testing students on only English and math provides a fair picture of whether a school needs improvement." How about that? Of course, it's also telling about the country's bias that most people think the nation's schools are in bad shape, but that their own community schools are doing fine.
U.S. Wants Changes In U.N. Agreement. Many opined a few months ago that John Bolton was so ill-suited to be a diplomat that it was mind-boggling that he'd even been nominated. Sure, that's true, but only if your perspective is that a diplomat should be diplomatic. If, however, you want to undermine the U.N., then Bolton's your man! Want to lower aid to other countries, and stop the fight against global warming? Then Bolton's your guy! We're not quite sure why Bush made a recess appointment instead of just inventing a time machine and bringing the world back to the 12th century; It would have been more direct.
Critical Votes Loom For Hill Republicans. You'll have to pardon us for not writing more about Katrina; We figure that you can get that information from many other sources. Additionally, it's important to note what else is going on while Katrina's (deservedly) getting all the press. The fact of the matter is that what goes on in Washington affects the entire country, and the hurricane disaster highlights this perfectly: A more proper allocation of resources and funds, including the National Guard and disaster preparation, would have benefitted New Orleans greatly. So, as the GOP looks to "starve the beast", having driven us into deficit and now using that as an excuse to cut valuable services, we can only wonder what upcoming disasters these cuts will exacerbate. Of course, things like Medicare and student loans don't help out the upper class, and who gives a crap about them?
Editorials
The Moral-Hazard Myth. Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author, having written "The Tipping Point" and "blink", two books we highly encourage you to read when you get the chance. (And they're not even political.) But in this editorial in the New Yorker, Gladwell applies his coherent and lucid approach to our health care system, which is the furthest from coherence and lucidity that one can get. How does one justify the existing system? Well, you have to convince yourself that more health care would be a problem. And so, apologists invent the idea of "moral hazard", claiming that greater health care coverage would lead to people abusing the system and taking more resources than they really need. There's just one problem with that: It's false. Need more proof? Look at our disasterous system in place today. It's time the moral hazard myth was eliminated, and our system was fixed.
Government Success Stories. To continue on a theme, part of the reason that GOP believes that it can eliminate important social services and perpetuate our failed health care system is because the public doesn't trust the government. Part of the reason is because the notion of government as entirely inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful has sunk into our collective conscience. But Mark Shields reminds us that it doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of stories of effective government, and cases in which the government united to work for the people in ways that individuals never could. He reminds us of Teddy Roosevelt's quote: "The government is us; we are the government, you and I." It doesn't feel like it these days, but maybe we can make it so once again, and give government a chance to serve us like it's supposed to.
Blogger Commentary
Don't Tie My Hands While I Torture You. We haven't visited with out good friend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently. What's he up to? Well, precisely what you'd expect him to be up to: Attempting to remove our civil liberties in the name of keeping us safer. We already know he's fond of torture in the name of "keeping us safe", so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he's pretty much willing to use "fighting terror" as an excuse for increasing his power as much as possible. Of course he's in favor of a version of the PATRIOT Act renewal that restricts government less. Arthur Silber discusses the endless spiral that this kind of logic leads to: Government fails to prevent catastrophe. Government asks for more powers. More powers fail to prevent further catastrophe. Government asks for yet more powers. And on, and on, and on. Maybe one day we'll learn, and stop giving our government power it doesn't need. In fact, we'd settle for simply holding it accountable for wielding the power it already has...
Planning, Response Are Faulted. Of course, we weren't going to just ignore the hurricane situation. The above link isn't "Blogger Commentary", but nicely summarizes the situation that some bloggers are commenting on below. Before we proceed, we'd like to mention that there's a fine line between exploiting a disaster for political gain and pointing out failures in responsiveness so they can be fixed in the future. And while people may think that this isn't the time for blame, the fact is that the response still isn't adequate. That message has to get through. It's not just Republicans that are falling short - it seems the entire system failed the people of New Orleans this time. But the federal government has been particularly inept in responding to Katrina: Even Republicans are turning on them. But the media's still spinning. The next time you hear stories of "looting", keep these images in mind. What's sad is that already, politicians are looking to cover their asses. Maybe the situation couldn't have been avoided, but it could be a whole lot better than it is now. Our leaders need to start leading.
|
Monday, August 29, 2005
Monday's Links
Activism
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Charity's not the only thing that begins at home! It's important to keep up pressure on the corporations that treat nature like their own personal dumping grounds, but don't forget the little things that you can do in your own corner of the world. This page at the Global Stewards site gives you lots of tips on reducing the amount of waste you generate, reusing or passing on the good stuff that might otherwise get trashed, and recycling things that have reached the ends of their useful lives. The page also contains tips on conserving water and energy, and other tips for being green around the home. It may not seem like one person's efforts can have much impact, but when enough of us act together it can make a world of difference.
News
Rove's Role. If we had to pick one word to describe Karl Rove, it certainly wouldn't be "statesman." Since the age of 19, Rove has immersed himself in the game of politics, and he plays to win. His trail of dirty tricks and smear campaigns leads us right to the center of the Plame Leak case, in which a CIA operative was unmasked in what looks exactly like a case of partisan payback. The case hasn't been getting much attention in the press lately, but the special prosecutor is still working away and the investigation is expected to wrap up sometime this fall. Supporters of the GOP agenda portray Karl Rove as an innocent bystander, a blameless cog in Bush's well-oiled political machine. You'll forgive us if we have a little trouble picturing Rove with anything but dirty hands.
Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science. Is it possible to be a good scientist and still believe in God? Panelists at a recent scientific conference in New York answered this question with a resounding "No!" Not all scientists feel that religion and science are mutually exclusive, and although the subject of God and religion is often taboo in scientific circles there are those who believe it's not necessary to reject one in order to embrace the other.
In Iraq, Carnage, Anger and Grief. The Bush administration pushes its rosy picture of the Iraq War as a success story, even as we hear daily reports of insurgent attacks and car bombings. The attacks are indiscriminate, killing Iraqi troops and civilians in addition to US soldiers. Iraqis are placing the blame squarely on occupation forces, for allowing detained insurgents to go free and for failing to turn over to Iraqi forces the intelligence resources they need to do the job. War supporters push their stories of success in Iraq just as fervently as war detractors point out the stark difference between Bush's rosy rhetoric and the realities of war, but our disagreements pale in comparison to the price that innocent Iraqis are paying every day for BushCo's massive, multi-billion-dollar blunder.
Editorials
Chickenhawk: The Other Right Meat. One of the problems with BushCo's whole War in Iraq extravaganza is that almost nobody making decisions about how things should be run has ever actually served in the military. The same holds true for many of the GOP supporters of Bush's folly, who are more than happy to endlessly spout war-time rhetoric and plaster their car in magnetic ribbons to show their support but somehow never end up down at the recruiting office to make the ultimate commitment to the war effort. The fact that the military's having trouble making its recruiting goals is obviously the fault of the liberal media, who have only bad things to say about what's going on over there, and anyone who doesn't like what Bush is doing should just sit down and shut up and let him get on with it. Don't call them chickenhawks, though; oh, no! They're more red-blooded than you or me because, unlike us "traitorous" lefties who actually dare to question Dear Leader's oddball approach to spreading democracy, they are behind him one hundred percent. Just don't ask them to sign up, because they're all busy getting on with their lives.
A Clean Patriot Act. The Patriot Act has caused a lot of controversy and debate since its inception in late 2001, and with key provisions of the Act set to expire at the end of the year there is an opportunity to redefine its scope and effectiveness. Both the House and Senate have passed bills that have big-picture similarities but differ in many of the fine details. There are things to like about both versions, which reign in some of the Patriot Act's more controversial provisions and require reporting on how its powers are being used, but the Senate's version imposes harsher restrictions on the reach of those powers and stronger protections for civil liberties. The Senate bill also lacks dozens of unnecessary line items that are included in the House version; reconciling these two versions into a single bill for Bush's signature won't be easy, but we hope the final version focuses more on effective counter-terrorism measures and less on pet political projects.
Blogger Commentary
The War Against Fundamentalism. Bush's War on Terror is folly for more than just the shoddy way it's being handled: terror is not the enemy, but rather the tool used by our enemies. Fighting the enemy's tactics is like waging war on the symptoms of a disease while ignoring any possibility of eradicating the disease itself. The disease in this case is the radical fundamentalist elements of Islam, which employs a strict and literal reading of selected bits of the Koran to justify an endless jihad against the West. We have our own fundamentalists here at home, and they use their own strict and literal reading of selected bits from the Bible to justify an endless war against anything that doesn't line up with their narrow and rigid worldview. Bush tells us we're fighting against the oppression of the many by the powerful, religious few, but the groundswell of religious conservatism that has boosted the Republican Party to dominance also threatens to undermine many of the freedoms on which our way of life is based.
Privatizing the Truth: Bush's War on Information. From the very beginning, the Bush administration has counted on deception. Outright lies are part of it, but there are also misdirections, obfuscations, and flat refusals to share information. If Bush doesn't want you to know something, there is an army of staff and volunteers and media ready to stand between you and whatever it is. Conservative shows on both radio and television spout GOP-approved talking points that lead the viewer away from those painful truths that would tip the Bush crime family's apple cart. It has famously been said that knowing is half the battle, but with this group of folks in charge of Washington, knowing has become the battle.
|
December 29, 2005
Hurricane Housing. The other day we linked to the Red Cross, and frankly, giving money to them is still one of the best things you can do to help out with the Hurricane Relief effort. But there are also estimates of up to a million hurricane-related American refugees. So, if you're feeling charitable and want to help out in a different way, consider going to the site above (run by MoveOn.org) and offering your house to some of the refugees.
News
More Informed About NCLB and More Skeptical of Its Strategies. What's that we hear? Could it be the turning of the tide? You know, it's pretty frustrating the that public doesn't seem to investigate the details of policies before voting for leaders that endorse them, but at least they're finally waking up. Maybe they just need to experience abject failure first-hand instead of just listening to pundits. It turns out that "68 percent of the public do not think that a single test provides a fair picture of how well a school is doing, and 80 percent do not think testing students on only English and math provides a fair picture of whether a school needs improvement." How about that? Of course, it's also telling about the country's bias that most people think the nation's schools are in bad shape, but that their own community schools are doing fine.
U.S. Wants Changes In U.N. Agreement. Many opined a few months ago that John Bolton was so ill-suited to be a diplomat that it was mind-boggling that he'd even been nominated. Sure, that's true, but only if your perspective is that a diplomat should be diplomatic. If, however, you want to undermine the U.N., then Bolton's your man! Want to lower aid to other countries, and stop the fight against global warming? Then Bolton's your guy! We're not quite sure why Bush made a recess appointment instead of just inventing a time machine and bringing the world back to the 12th century; It would have been more direct.
Critical Votes Loom For Hill Republicans. You'll have to pardon us for not writing more about Katrina; We figure that you can get that information from many other sources. Additionally, it's important to note what else is going on while Katrina's (deservedly) getting all the press. The fact of the matter is that what goes on in Washington affects the entire country, and the hurricane disaster highlights this perfectly: A more proper allocation of resources and funds, including the National Guard and disaster preparation, would have benefitted New Orleans greatly. So, as the GOP looks to "starve the beast", having driven us into deficit and now using that as an excuse to cut valuable services, we can only wonder what upcoming disasters these cuts will exacerbate. Of course, things like Medicare and student loans don't help out the upper class, and who gives a crap about them?
Editorials
The Moral-Hazard Myth. Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author, having written "The Tipping Point" and "blink", two books we highly encourage you to read when you get the chance. (And they're not even political.) But in this editorial in the New Yorker, Gladwell applies his coherent and lucid approach to our health care system, which is the furthest from coherence and lucidity that one can get. How does one justify the existing system? Well, you have to convince yourself that more health care would be a problem. And so, apologists invent the idea of "moral hazard", claiming that greater health care coverage would lead to people abusing the system and taking more resources than they really need. There's just one problem with that: It's false. Need more proof? Look at our disasterous system in place today. It's time the moral hazard myth was eliminated, and our system was fixed.
Government Success Stories. To continue on a theme, part of the reason that GOP believes that it can eliminate important social services and perpetuate our failed health care system is because the public doesn't trust the government. Part of the reason is because the notion of government as entirely inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful has sunk into our collective conscience. But Mark Shields reminds us that it doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of stories of effective government, and cases in which the government united to work for the people in ways that individuals never could. He reminds us of Teddy Roosevelt's quote: "The government is us; we are the government, you and I." It doesn't feel like it these days, but maybe we can make it so once again, and give government a chance to serve us like it's supposed to.
Blogger Commentary
Don't Tie My Hands While I Torture You. We haven't visited with out good friend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently. What's he up to? Well, precisely what you'd expect him to be up to: Attempting to remove our civil liberties in the name of keeping us safer. We already know he's fond of torture in the name of "keeping us safe", so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he's pretty much willing to use "fighting terror" as an excuse for increasing his power as much as possible. Of course he's in favor of a version of the PATRIOT Act renewal that restricts government less. Arthur Silber discusses the endless spiral that this kind of logic leads to: Government fails to prevent catastrophe. Government asks for more powers. More powers fail to prevent further catastrophe. Government asks for yet more powers. And on, and on, and on. Maybe one day we'll learn, and stop giving our government power it doesn't need. In fact, we'd settle for simply holding it accountable for wielding the power it already has...
Planning, Response Are Faulted. Of course, we weren't going to just ignore the hurricane situation. The above link isn't "Blogger Commentary", but nicely summarizes the situation that some bloggers are commenting on below. Before we proceed, we'd like to mention that there's a fine line between exploiting a disaster for political gain and pointing out failures in responsiveness so they can be fixed in the future. And while people may think that this isn't the time for blame, the fact is that the response still isn't adequate. That message has to get through. It's not just Republicans that are falling short - it seems the entire system failed the people of New Orleans this time. But the federal government has been particularly inept in responding to Katrina: Even Republicans are turning on them. But the media's still spinning. The next time you hear stories of "looting", keep these images in mind. What's sad is that already, politicians are looking to cover their asses. Maybe the situation couldn't have been avoided, but it could be a whole lot better than it is now. Our leaders need to start leading.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Charity's not the only thing that begins at home! It's important to keep up pressure on the corporations that treat nature like their own personal dumping grounds, but don't forget the little things that you can do in your own corner of the world. This page at the Global Stewards site gives you lots of tips on reducing the amount of waste you generate, reusing or passing on the good stuff that might otherwise get trashed, and recycling things that have reached the ends of their useful lives. The page also contains tips on conserving water and energy, and other tips for being green around the home. It may not seem like one person's efforts can have much impact, but when enough of us act together it can make a world of difference.
News
Rove's Role. If we had to pick one word to describe Karl Rove, it certainly wouldn't be "statesman." Since the age of 19, Rove has immersed himself in the game of politics, and he plays to win. His trail of dirty tricks and smear campaigns leads us right to the center of the Plame Leak case, in which a CIA operative was unmasked in what looks exactly like a case of partisan payback. The case hasn't been getting much attention in the press lately, but the special prosecutor is still working away and the investigation is expected to wrap up sometime this fall. Supporters of the GOP agenda portray Karl Rove as an innocent bystander, a blameless cog in Bush's well-oiled political machine. You'll forgive us if we have a little trouble picturing Rove with anything but dirty hands.
Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science. Is it possible to be a good scientist and still believe in God? Panelists at a recent scientific conference in New York answered this question with a resounding "No!" Not all scientists feel that religion and science are mutually exclusive, and although the subject of God and religion is often taboo in scientific circles there are those who believe it's not necessary to reject one in order to embrace the other.
In Iraq, Carnage, Anger and Grief. The Bush administration pushes its rosy picture of the Iraq War as a success story, even as we hear daily reports of insurgent attacks and car bombings. The attacks are indiscriminate, killing Iraqi troops and civilians in addition to US soldiers. Iraqis are placing the blame squarely on occupation forces, for allowing detained insurgents to go free and for failing to turn over to Iraqi forces the intelligence resources they need to do the job. War supporters push their stories of success in Iraq just as fervently as war detractors point out the stark difference between Bush's rosy rhetoric and the realities of war, but our disagreements pale in comparison to the price that innocent Iraqis are paying every day for BushCo's massive, multi-billion-dollar blunder.
Editorials
Chickenhawk: The Other Right Meat. One of the problems with BushCo's whole War in Iraq extravaganza is that almost nobody making decisions about how things should be run has ever actually served in the military. The same holds true for many of the GOP supporters of Bush's folly, who are more than happy to endlessly spout war-time rhetoric and plaster their car in magnetic ribbons to show their support but somehow never end up down at the recruiting office to make the ultimate commitment to the war effort. The fact that the military's having trouble making its recruiting goals is obviously the fault of the liberal media, who have only bad things to say about what's going on over there, and anyone who doesn't like what Bush is doing should just sit down and shut up and let him get on with it. Don't call them chickenhawks, though; oh, no! They're more red-blooded than you or me because, unlike us "traitorous" lefties who actually dare to question Dear Leader's oddball approach to spreading democracy, they are behind him one hundred percent. Just don't ask them to sign up, because they're all busy getting on with their lives.
A Clean Patriot Act. The Patriot Act has caused a lot of controversy and debate since its inception in late 2001, and with key provisions of the Act set to expire at the end of the year there is an opportunity to redefine its scope and effectiveness. Both the House and Senate have passed bills that have big-picture similarities but differ in many of the fine details. There are things to like about both versions, which reign in some of the Patriot Act's more controversial provisions and require reporting on how its powers are being used, but the Senate's version imposes harsher restrictions on the reach of those powers and stronger protections for civil liberties. The Senate bill also lacks dozens of unnecessary line items that are included in the House version; reconciling these two versions into a single bill for Bush's signature won't be easy, but we hope the final version focuses more on effective counter-terrorism measures and less on pet political projects.
Blogger Commentary
The War Against Fundamentalism. Bush's War on Terror is folly for more than just the shoddy way it's being handled: terror is not the enemy, but rather the tool used by our enemies. Fighting the enemy's tactics is like waging war on the symptoms of a disease while ignoring any possibility of eradicating the disease itself. The disease in this case is the radical fundamentalist elements of Islam, which employs a strict and literal reading of selected bits of the Koran to justify an endless jihad against the West. We have our own fundamentalists here at home, and they use their own strict and literal reading of selected bits from the Bible to justify an endless war against anything that doesn't line up with their narrow and rigid worldview. Bush tells us we're fighting against the oppression of the many by the powerful, religious few, but the groundswell of religious conservatism that has boosted the Republican Party to dominance also threatens to undermine many of the freedoms on which our way of life is based.
Privatizing the Truth: Bush's War on Information. From the very beginning, the Bush administration has counted on deception. Outright lies are part of it, but there are also misdirections, obfuscations, and flat refusals to share information. If Bush doesn't want you to know something, there is an army of staff and volunteers and media ready to stand between you and whatever it is. Conservative shows on both radio and television spout GOP-approved talking points that lead the viewer away from those painful truths that would tip the Bush crime family's apple cart. It has famously been said that knowing is half the battle, but with this group of folks in charge of Washington, knowing has become the battle.
