January 2007 Archives

Over on her ClubMom blog, my wife has been engaged in a thought-provoking discussion about how parents handle special needs children who are having trouble in public.

On her latest post, Melody wrote a comment describing an extraordinarily troubling situation highlighting just how cruel people can be:

I so vividly recall the time in a department store when one of my sons "lost it". A young woman stopped, stared at him for a few seconds, looked me in the eye and said "Bitch, can you spell Ritalin?" She had no idea how she hurt with that remark. She also had no idea of my child's special needs or that he had been abused for the entire first year of his life. She did not know that most of the bones in this body had been broken at one time, that he had never seen a doctor regarding the fractures. She did not know that he had been starved and left in dark corners. She did not know that doctors said he should not have lived. She did not know he was a miracle. She did not know how special he truly is. She did not know...she did not consider the possibilities...she simply judged.

I cannot even imagine how I would handle a similar situation.

The president will likely include some nice words in his upcoming State of the Union message about reducing our energy dependence on fossil fuels and foreign sources. Some people may even think this is news.

But, as Climate Progress helpfully points out, President Bush has included similar promises and statements in each of his previous State of the Union messages. Each. One.

Words are nice. Actions matter more. This Administration focuses only on how to say things, and never seems to get to governing.

Except, of course, when it comes to giving tax cuts to the rich. For that, the Bushies work very hard.

The Geneva Conventions require an occupying power to "maintain order and to look after the medical needs of the population." Any competent national leader would take all possible steps ensure that we looked after these needs as part of an effort to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

Of course, for President George W. Bush, tax cuts for the rich are far too important to reverse in an effort to prevent the kinds of tragedies outlined in a letter by eminent doctors. As the Independent's Colin Brown writes:

The desperate plight of children who are dying in Iraqi hospitals for the lack of simple equipment that in some cases can cost as little as 95p is revealed today in a letter signed by nearly 100 eminent doctors.

They are backed by a group of international lawyers, who say the conditions in hospitals revealed in their letter amount to a breach of the Geneva conventions that require Britain and the US as occupying forces to protect human life.

In a direct appeal to Tony Blair, the doctors describe desperate shortages causing "hundreds" of children to die in hospitals. The signatories include Iraqi doctors, British doctors who have worked in Iraqi hospitals, and leading UK consultants and GPs.

"Sick or injured children who could otherwise be treated by simple means are left to die in hundreds because they do not have access to basic medicines or other resources," the doctors say. "Children who have lost hands, feet and limbs are left without prostheses. Children with grave psychological distress are left untreated," they add.

They say babies are being ventilated with a plastic tube in their noses and dying for want of an oxygen mask, while other babies are dying because of the lack of a phial of vitamin K or sterile needles, all costing about 95p. Hospitals have little hope of stopping fatal infections spreading from baby to baby because of the lack of surgical gloves, which cost about 3.5p a pair.

President Bush allows this to happen -- and yet he has the gall to lecture us about the sanctity of human life -- even declaring today National Sanctity of Life Day.

How is this not evil? How?

(Hat tip: Americablog)

Responding to criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House spinner Dana Perino remarked:

"Questioning the president's motivations and suggesting that he for some political reason is rushing troops into harm's way is not appropriate, it is not correct and it is unfortunate." (emphasis added)

I can accept that from the White House's point of view that Pelosi's (likely astute) interpretation of events may not seem correct and may appear unfortunate.

But, once again, this White House through a spokesperson has the gall to assert that it is not appropriate to criticize the president. Not appropriate? Just what country do they think they are serving?

As Theodore Roosevelt declared:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Nice work, Ms. Perino. Nice work.

ThinkProgress highlights how Fox News Channel once again became a fact-free zone yesterday as the anchors of Fox & Friends decided to smear Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Let's be clear: despite what FNC and its anchors imply, there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim.

Obama, moreover, is not a Muslim. He is a Christian. In fact, the Washington Times noted that Obama "reads the Bible between rulings" while presiding over the Senate.

The radical right must be really afraid of Obama for such smearing to begin so soon.

It's been 1,950 days since President George W. Bush promised to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

Nice work, Mr. President. Anything been distracting you from finding the man who killed nearly 3,000 people on that September 11, 2001, date about which you speak so often?

President George W. Bush sure has been busy declaring things unacceptable. The Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva has compiled a quick list.

I wonder if someone will compile a list of the things President Bush feels "the American people just got to understand." I just love that condescending attitude.

No, Mr. President. You most definitely were not the first to admit there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Brad DeLong posts the text to the Reverend Martin Luther King'sletter from the Birmingham Jail. It's worth a read, or a reread.

TPMuckraker's Paul Kiel writes about the Washington Post's story describing President Bush's visit to Fort Benning:

Despite its incompetence and failures, there was one thing that the administration was always good at: the staged event. But, in a sign of how far their fortunes have sunk, they can't even do that right any more.

In the annals of the so-called liberal media, the Associated Press headlined this reserved reaction towards the president as "Bush cheered at Fort Benning." I wonder just how much below 30 percent in approval ratings must this president go before the media stops tilting the coverage in his favor?

MSNBC prepared a video summary of President Bush's comments during speeches regarding Iraq over the past few years. It is not comforting to view. You can watch it here, via ThinkProgress.

Kevin Drum links to a story that explains how the president plans to get the troops for the Iraq escalation:

The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.

....Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not exceed 24 consecutive months, Pace said.

In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or
Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months. In practice, Pace said, the Pentagon intends to limit all future mobilizations to 12 months.

In an misguided Republican's mind, I suppose this is considered supporting our troops. I disagree.

I guess Fox News Channel isn't even trying to be subtle about its bias now. Anchor Gretchen Carlson called Sen. Ted Kennedy a "hostile enemy" because he wants Congress to exercise its Constitutional powers before a troop escalation for Iraq.

Think Progress has the video.

On Friday morning, my two-and-a-half-year-old son decided it would be cool to dunk my Treo 700p in the bath tub.

Remarkably, after a weekend to dry out, it appears to be functioning perfectly today. Whew.

As my wife explains, this was only one of the little guy's exploits the past few days. I have to admit, however, that toothpaste makes a nice smelling body paint...

Will General Motors actually be able to get this car to the market? If so, and it actually meets the promises made, I'll have to trade in my Prius (although new studies show how well hybrid cars pay off in the long run).

He didn't say when the plug-in hybrid, also based on the Saturn Vue, would arrive.

The Volt is a step beyond that model.

Some Volt drivers, if they drive 40 miles a day or less, ``may never go to the gas station,'' said Scott Fosgard, a GM spokesman.

Someone with a 60-mile round-trip commute who charged the Volt at home would get the equivalent of 150 miles per gallon, GM said.

The Volt ``reflects some kind of change of heart at the very highest levels of GM,'' said Bradley Berman, editor of hybridcars.com. ``This idea of an electric car that has extended range is really smart.''

It is. I hope GM can pull this off and produce them.

Atrios reminds us what the cover of Time magazine proclaimed on its December 11, 2006 issue:

The Iraq Study Group say's its time for an exit strategy. Why Bush will listen.

Survey says: BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Thank you for playing, Mr. Duffy. At some point, perhaps our punditocracy will listen to the actual words coming out of the Bush Administration rather than projecting dreams of good governance upon it.

Slate's Jack Shafer explains why a new round of reports about former Chief Justice William Rehnquist's drug addiction to Placidyl deserve our attention today:

The Rehnquist story deserves a third airing today if only to illustrate the ugly double standards that excuse extreme drug use by the powerful, especially if their connection is a prescribing doctor, and condemns to draconian prison terms the guy who purchases his drugs on the street. Reviewing Rehnquist's tale one more time also demonstrates the reluctance of the Senate—and some members of the press—to grade the mental competency of judges and judicial nominees.

The Simpsons comments on the global warming debate.

(Hat tip: Crooks and Liars)

Sometimes the pathetic job the Bush Administration does with the task of governing still surprises even me.

My friend JR sent me a link to this Salon story that outlines the inaccuracies and seemingly ideologically slanted questions on the new pilot citizenship test. Steven Lubet goes through the questions, and outlines the worst offenders.

So far, we have mentioned only approved answers that are incomplete or imprecise, but pilot question No. 33 takes the inaccuracies to another level. Its only allowable answer is just plain wrong, and anyone who gave the right answer would no doubt have it marked incorrect.

Question: The president must be born in what country?

Answer: The United States (or, alternatively, America).

The correct answer, however, is that the president may be born in any country whatsoever, or no country at all (at sea or in a plane). The Constitution requires only that the president be a "natural born citizen," and that status is achieved either by birth in the United States or by birth to parents who are both U.S. citizens, the latter potentially living and reproducing absolutely anywhere in the world.

That fah-lunking noise you hear is the sound of the citizenship door slamming shut in the face of the best-informed test takers.

Could that be the point?

It's worth watching the short ad to see this entire story. It's only about citizenship of this great nation. The Bush Administration, alas, apparently did not feel the need to ensure the test writers could actually pass a high school history class.

Yes, this would be on the resume of the man who was President George W. Bush's unconfirmed ambassador to the United Nations. TPMuckraker has the sordid details, found in the newly released documents about former Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The Miami Herald's Dan LeBatard rightly nails new Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban for taking the Alabama job after weeks of denying he was interested (and condemning reporters for deigning to ask the question).

Worse, for getting this man of dubious character, the state of Alabama shows it cares much more about football than educating its children. As the Associated Press reports:

The $4 million-a-year salary offered to the University of Alabama's new football coach has some questioning the priorities in a poor state that often ranks near the bottom nationally for education.

Many Crimson Tide fans, hopeful for another championship title, cheered the hiring of Nick Saban, who took a cut from his $4.5 million salary to leave the Miami Dolphins. His compensation at Alabama, though, makes him the highest paid college coach in the country, well ahead of Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, who makes about $3.4 million.

The reported salary is more than most CEOs make in a state that ranks 46th in the country in household income, with a median of $37,502. It also is nearly seven times what the university's president, Robert E. Witt, earns, according to an executive-compensation database compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The hiring announced Wednesday also came on the same day Education Week magazine released a study showing Alabama ranked 45th nationally in giving public schoolchildren a chance for success.

Forty-fifth in student success, but $4.5 million for a coach who quit on his last job. What a country!

I hope Alabama never even sniffs the Bowl Championship Series under Saban. This saga illustrates everything that is wrong with big time college athletics today.

It is nice to be able to call them Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Rep.-Elect Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, has come under unfair and bizarre fire from radical rightwingers for wanting to use a Koran at his swearing in.

His response to this controversy has been excellent. Now he adds an extra note of genius: he is going to use a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Alas, I suspect we are going to see Jefferson attacked over the next few days by the rabid radical conservatives.

...and that's why General George Casey seems likely to lose his job in the next few days. Memo to the so-called liberal media: just because an Administration or Pentagon spokesperson says something, it does not mean it is true. ThinkProgress has the details.

Thanks to IFTF's Future Now blog, I learned about some new Google projects -- including web-based word processor and spreadsheet programs.

I'm now using Google Docs for a few documents that I need to have in various places. The program is proving very useful -- and it appears to have powerful collaboration utilities. You may want to check it out here.

Glenn Greenwald takes a close look at today's New York Times story describing all of the political mechanations prior to Saddam Hussein's execution. As the Times' John Burns and Marc Santora report:

The American role extended beyond providing the helicopter that carried Mr. Hussein home. Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end. (emphasis added)

So much for the rule of law. Greenwald gets to the point:

This depressing New York Times article by John Burns and Marc Santora details the frantic, reckless manner in which Saddam Hussein was shoved into the noose in clear violation of Iraqi law. We can't even get a hanging right. With all of the world watching, we yet again were the primary authors of a violent, uncivilized, and primitive act which -- no matter how justified in some ultimate moral sense -- was carried out in the most thuggish, wretched, inept, and (we now learn) patently illegal manner.

It really is striking, and a potent sign of just how absurd is our ongoing occupation, that the "Iraqi Government" which we are fighting to empower could not even conduct this execution with a pretense of legality or concern for civilized norms -- the executioners were not wearing uniforms but leather jackets and murderers' masks, conducting themselves not as disciplined law enforcement officers but as what they are (death squad members and sectarian street thugs).

And the most revealing, and most disturbing, detail is that Saddam's executioners -- in between playground insults spat at a tied-up Saddam -- chanted their religious-like allegiance to Moktada Al Sadr, the Shiite militia leader whom we are told is the Great Enemy of the U.S., the One We Now Must Kill. This noble and just event for which we are responsible was carried out by a brutal, murderous, lawless militia. Freedom is on the march.

At this point, I would not be surprised to see the Bush Administration use the way this execution was conducted as a justification for going after Moktada Al Sadr in the coming months.

Update:Professor Juan Cole makes an important point about Al Sadr:

Cindy Sheehan's son died fighting the Mahdi Army; Bush delivered Saddam into the hands of MA's political wing.

Just for what is this nation fighting?

Greg Sargent once again asks an excellent question of our political reporters and commentators:

It really is hard to understand why Lieberman can continue to spin out his fantasy scenarios about Iraq while never getting pressed by the media for his many inconsistencies and outright falsehoods on the subject. When's the last time a reporter asked Lieberman why -- as Atrios frequently points out -- he said during his reelection campaign that he was "confident" that we'd be drawing down "significant numbers" of troops by now? And will a single reporter ask Lieberman to back up his current claim that the commanders are asking for more of them?

Hold Sen. Joe Lieberman (Himself-Conn.) responsible for his pronouncements? How quaint.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick compiles the rare useful year-in-review list: a look at the top 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006.