Billmon: The Gift of the Nile

For any one who sees Egypt, without having heard a word about it before, must perceive, if he has only common powers of observation, that the Egypt to which the Greeks go in their ships is an acquired country, the gift of the river.

Herodotus
History, Book II
circa 450 BC

In Edwin Abbott's story Flatland, he describes an imaginary two-dimensional world in which the inhabitants can only perceive each other as points and lines on a horizontal plane, either growing or dwindling depending on their shape and motion. It’s a strange tale, but in creating Egypt God did Abbott one better, for in Egypt only one dimension truly matters, and it runs the length of the Nile: up river and down.

Paul Krugman: Secretary Paulson, Protect Yourself

--The New York Times, June 2, 2006

To: Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary-designate

So you decided to take the job, after all. It's no surprise that they wanted you. As the joke that's making the rounds puts it, they're so desperate they're scraping the top of the barrel. But most of us are surprised that you accepted.

No doubt you received assurances that like Robert Rubin, but unlike your predecessors in this administration, you'll get to be a real Treasury secretary. And you probably believe that those assurances can be trusted, if only because the Bush people currently need you a lot more than you need them.

Go Tell it on the Rockies: Baseball's Faith-based Team

By Dave Zirin

In Colorado, there stands a holy shrine called Coors Field. On this site, named for the holiest of beers, a team plays that has been chosen by Jesus Christ himself to play .500 baseball in the National League West. And if you don't believe me just ask the manager, the general manager, and the team's owner.

In a remarkable article from Wednesday's USA Today, the Colorado Rockies went public with the news that the organization has been explicitly looking for players with "character". And according to the Tribe of Coors, "character" means accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. "We're nervous, to be honest with you," Rockies General Manager Dan O'Dowd said. "It's the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs." When people are nervous that their beliefs will offend, its usually because their beliefs are offensive.

Digby: Mean Girls

Ezra took Jonah Goldberg to task for his egregious Gore trivia column this week-end but I don't think he goes far enough. Jonah clearly thought this would be an entertaining riff for his little circle jerk to giggle over as they sipped their frappucinos, but I think it's actually a perfect example of the symbiosis between the wingnut noise machine and the robotic mainstream media, which Jonah Goldberg (!) now embodies.

The "Gore is a crazy liar" meme just pops out naturally, as does the speculation about the Clintons' sex lives or the idea that Dean is a screaming freak. These are established GOP narratives that the lazy media, both right and mainstream, just pull out of mothballs for their own amusement and I'm not sure it isn't too late to stop them. I'm frankly a bit stunned they still feel comfortable doing it what with all the death and destruction of the last five years, but it's quite obvious they have done no introspection whatsoever. If, after all that's happened, the media can slip so effortlessly into both the Clenis and Crazy Gore memes without even a moments pause, then a bold new strategy is required.

Digby: "As Bad As You Can Make It"

Good news. South Dakotans got the repeal of the coathanger law on the ballot. But what's most impressive is that they got 37,846 signatures on their petitions. That's a lot of signatures in a state than only has about 770,000 people and almost 27% of them are under 18 and can't vote. Let's hope they vote this cruel law down in November. South Dakota is as red a state as there is. If this things has gone too far for them then there's no way anyone can claim it is a mainstream position.

Digby: Limning The GWOT

I have long thought, and written, that the "GWOT" is a false construct. And common sense says to most people that it is pretty nonsensical. We might as well have a war on sadness or a war on jealousy or a war on hate. As Pach writes in this post from the week-end, terror is a human emotion and you can't fight a war against it. In fact, war creates it.

But then it isn't really fair to deride it as a "war on terror," is it? That's just the shortcut phrase. The real term is "war on terrorism" which makes just as little sense but in a different way. Terrorism is a method of warfare --- a specific type of cheap and dirty violence which is not eradicatable, certainly not eradicatable by force. It is special only in the sense that it makes no distinctions between civilians and warriors. (And if you could eliminate a particularly harsh and inhumane method of warfare, it would certainly make no sense at all to try to do it by throwing aside all civilized norms and engaging in even more odious taboos like torture.)

Digby: Erosion Of Powers

This dailyKos diary by Captain Doug linking to to my earlier post led me to an interesting document that I haven't come across before.

As we contemplate why Joe Klein the DLCers and the rest of the Democratic establishment are stuck in 1972 mode, petrified of the "angry left" and worried sick that we are going to scare away the real Americans, take a look at this FBI report:

Judge: Spy case hearings will go on

Federal jurist in Detroit stands firm despite claim national security at risk.

Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- A federal judge in Detroit said she will proceed with hearings in a suit that challenges a domestic spying program run by the National Security Agency, despite assertions from the Bush administration that doing so would reveal "state secrets" that affect national security.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor also chided the NSA and lawyers for the Department of Justice for failing to respond to the court challenge, brought Jan. 18 by a local resident, Nizah Hassan, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American Islamic Relations. Despite having twice extended time for the government, Diggs Taylor said it has failed to respond.

The plaintiffs also filed a motion March 9 asking Diggs Taylor to summarily declare the NSA's program illegal. They assert the NSA must go to a secret court provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for approval of spying in the United States.

The government eventually filed a motion saying that, by law, no court can consider the issues because of a privilege against revealing state secrets, if doing so diminishes national security.

Competitive Enterprise Institute's Category 5 Gore bashing

Conservatives having a field day with the release of Al Gore's new film on global warming

If former Vice President Al Gore eventually decides to mount another run for presidency, it may be that the bashing he received from the right during the run-up to and premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth," his new highly-acclaimed documentary film warning of the dangers of global warming, was a motivating factor.

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Gore's movie "suggests that there are three reasons it's hard to get action on global warming. The first is boiled-frog syndrome: Because the effects of greenhouse gases build up gradually, at any given moment it's easier to do nothing. The second is the perception, nurtured by a careful disinformation campaign, that there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether man-made global warming is a serious problem. The third is the belief, again fostered by disinformation, that trying to curb global warming would have devastating economic effects."

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

The complete article, with Web-only citations, follows. Talk about it in our National Affairs blog, or see exclusive documents, sources, charts and commentary.

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

Cheney Starts New Cold War Over Oil

By Mark Ames, The eXile. Posted June 1, 2006.

Cheney's brazen oil grab strategy in Central Asia has launched a new Cold War with Russia -- and this time we're losing.

[Editor's note: Mark Ames' essay is a lucid overview of what the Bush administration has been up to in Central Asia and former Soviet republics since 9/11. No, not fighting "terror" -- they've been working on a long-term oil grab by supporting dictators and gaming democratic elections in their favor, all while publicly bemoaning Russia's "slide" back to a dictatorship. Ames' lively writing style turns a heavy story into one of the best articles you'll read this month.]

One of the oddest reactions to Vice President Cheney's now-infamous speech in Lithuania, the one which many Russians believe officially heralded the start of a new Cold War, came from the mainstream American media. What was so strange? They actually did their job.

Instead of simply parroting the Administration's latest pieties, they actually allowed themselves to smell a rat. And what a putrid, bloated, rotting-in-a-flooded-Manila-gutter rat odor it was! You'd have to have been literally brain dead not to have smelled it.

How They Stole Ohio

The GOP 4-step Recipe to 'Blackwell' the USA in 2008
Abracadabra: Three Million Votes Vanish

AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast

[Heads up! Catch Robert Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Greg Palast this Saturday on Air America's 'Ring of Fire' on the shoplifting of the last election . and the next one.]

This is a fact: On November 2, 2004, in the State of Ohio, 239,127 votes for President of the United States were dumped, rejected, blocked, lost and left to rot uncounted.

And not just anyone's vote. Dive into the electoral dumpster and these "spoiled" votes have a very dark color indeed.

In another life, I taught statistics. And these statistics stank: the raw data tells us that if you are a Black voter, the chance of you losing your vote to technical errors in voting machinery is 900% higher than if you were a white voter.

Decades of acid rain is causing loss of valuable Northeast sugar maples, Cornell researchers warn

By Krishna Ramanujan

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers.

The sugar maple is the most economically valuable tree species in the eastern United States because of its high-priced lumber, syrup and tourist-attracting fall colors.

The Agent Who Might Have Saved Hamid Hayat

For 35 years, James Wedick had been a star at the FBI. When his former colleagues prosecuted a suspected terrorist, he came to the side of the defense and was branded a traitor.

By Mark Arax, Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006

Before the wins and losses are tallied up and the war on terror goes down in the books as either wisdom or folly, it might be recalled what took place this spring on the 13th floor of the federal courthouse in Sacramento. There, in a perfectly dignified room, in front of prosecutors, defense attorneys and judge, a tall, gaunt man named James Wedick Jr. was fighting for a chance to testify, to tell jurors about the 35 years he spent in the FBI and how it came to be that he was standing before them not on the side of the U.S. government but next to two Pakistani Muslims, son and father, whose books and prayers and immigrant dreams were now being picked over in the first terrorism trial in California.

Borrower Beware

Anya Kamenetz

June 01, 2006

Anya Kamenetz is the author of Generation Debt, now out with Riverhead Books. More of her work can be found at AnyaKamenetz.com.

Over the past few weeks, several different news reports referred to an alarming trend that puts the American way of life at risk. No, it's not global warming—although that is too. It's personal debt. The good news is federal agencies are finally stirring on behalf of consumers, but citizens need to get involved too. Nothing short of comprehensive reform and education will get us back in the black.

On May 15 the IRS announced that they had revoked the tax-exempt status of every single one of 41 consumer-credit counseling services selected for auditing. In revenue, the audited agencies comprised 40 percent of a $1 billion industry.

Ala. candidates revive judicial debate

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press WriterWed May 31, 2:00 PM ET

In a debate with powerful echoes of the turbulent civil rights era, four Republicans running for Alabama's Supreme Court are making an argument legal scholars thought was settled in the 1800s: that state courts are not bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedents.

The Constitution says federal law trumps state laws, and legal experts say there is general agreement that state courts must defer to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters of federal law.

Yet Justice Tom Parker, who is running for chief justice, argues that state judges should refuse to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedents they believe to be erroneous. Three other GOP candidates in Tuesday's primary have made nearly identical arguments.

"State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are `precedents,'" Parker wrote in a newspaper opinion piece in January that was prompted by a murder case that came before the Alabama high court.

Michael Moore Sued by Iraq War Vet

By Natalie Finn Thu Jun 1, 8:26 AM ET

It seems as if the fallout caused by Fahrenheit 9/11 will never die down.

A Massachusetts national guardsman filed an $85 million lawsuit against Michael Moore in Suffolk Superior Court last week, accusing the filmmaker of distorting a TV interview to portray the soldier as anti-war in his scathing 2004 documentary about the Bush administration post-Sept. 11, 2001.

Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, has stated that Moore didn't have his permission to use pieces of the on-camera interview he gave in 2003 to an NBC Nightly News correspondent at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Damon's appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 resulted in a "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation" for him, court documents state.

Damon is suing for $75 million and his wife is seeking another $10 million for the "mental distress and anguish suffered by her spouse."

US 'falling behind' in stem cell research

Liz Ford
Thursday June 1, 2006

A lack of state support for stem cell research in the US has resulted in the country falling behind other nations in this area of science, a group of American politicians said today.

Members of a bipartisan delegation of US congressmen and women on a mission to find out more about stem cell research in the UK met British researchers, government officials and regulatory agencies today, and said that "leadership in this field had shifted to the UK".

Estate Tax Lunacy

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; A19

Spring has given way to summer's full-furnace heat in Washington, apparently taking with it any scintilla of sense that Congress may yet possess.

In the House, Republicans who could not even raise an eyebrow at reports that the National Security Agency has been conducting warrantless wiretaps of Americans became instant civil libertarians when the FBI conducted a search of a congressman's office.

The Senate, meanwhile, is scheduled next week to take up legislation by Arizona Republican Jon Kyl that would permanently repeal the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. If enacted, Kyl's bill would plunge the government another trillion dollars into the red during the first decade (2011-2021) that it would be in effect.

Firedoglake: How a Political Operative Sneaks In Under the NYTimes Radar

By Christy Hardin Smith

Reader Anne asked about the campaign that has "border wall" supporters sending bricks to Congress. Seems the NYTimes has an article about the "Virginia girl" who started the campaign all by her lonesome and its blossomed to a grassroots miracle.

Well, sort of.

She’s later described as "Ms. Heffron, who has been active in political campaigns and public affairs…" Well, that clears that up! Of course, Michael Moore has been active in political campaigns and public affairs –the same could be said of David Duke, Jane Fonda, and Jerry Falwell, so that doesn’t really narrow it down.

The truth is out there about Kirsten Heffron, and it’s not far out there at all. In fact, when it comes to investigative reporting, we’re not talking "All the President’s Men" here — it took this intrepid reporter literally five minutes of Googling to learn the following about the spokeswoman for the Send-a-Brick Project.

Dave Sirota: The Hostile Takeover of America's Courts

Why we should worry about the hostile takeover of America's courts

It's easy to forget what Supreme Court nomination fights really mean once they are over. They come along every few years, there's a whole media circus around them that focuses only on hot-button social issues, and then, typically after Democrats roll over and die, there's little - if any - recollection of what it all meant, except in the few cases where the hot-button social issues actually come before the court, and they don't usually come up for years, so by that point, everyone has long forgotten which President or political party was responsible for the nominations that swung the court.

"The Roberts Court has Been Good for Business"

Yesterday, I wrote a lengthy post about the hostile takeover of America's court system by Big Money interests. Today, Dow Jones has published a piece to the same effect - and it tells a similarly disturbing story.

Here's some excerpts:

"So far, the Roberts Court has been good for business. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2005-2006 term docket is loaded with cases impacting the business sector and the decisions handed down since Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined the Supreme Court last October have generally been favorable to business interests. 'This is the richest business term in recent memory,' said Mark Levy, a Supreme Court litigator with Kilpatrick Stockton LLP. 'Of the cases that have been decided so far, business interests have done very well.'

Sectarianism Is Problem for Religious Right Political

By Barry Jagoda

Members of groups that comprise the “religious right” exhibit negative attitudes toward other religious groups on the right, making the building of political coalitions more difficult. In contrast, according to the first national survey of "sectarianism" among various religious traditions, ”liberal” religious group members are more inclined to build cooperative political partnerships with those of similar ideological views.

The study, just published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, authored by John H. Evans, associate professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, concludes, "What may be holding back the religious right from achieving its full potential is that, compared to the groups that comprise the religious left, participants in conservative religious groups do not want the other religious right groups to influence public opinion."

North Pole's ancient past holds lessons for future global warming

New Haven, Conn. -- Detailed information on greenhouse gasses and a subtropical heat wave at the North Pole 55 million years ago is providing information about the Earth's past as well as a portent for its future, according to reports in the June 1 issue of Nature.

An expedition to the Artic Ocean in 2004 by a team of scientists aboard a fleet of icebreakers collected samples by drilling into the floor of the ocean. The project was part of an international research effort, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, which explores the Earth's history and structure as recorded in seafloor sediments and rocks.

"Remains of ancient plant and animal life found in cylindrical core samples from the ocean floor have given us critical new information about the history of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding region," said Mark Pagani, assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and a co-author on the study.

Why It's Over for "America"

Published on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 by the Independent / UK

by Noam Chomsky

An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the 'failed state'. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book,"Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy," "America's" leading thinker explains how his country lost its way. The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seem unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes. It is important to stress the government, because the population, not surprisingly, does not agree.

Karl Zinsmeister moves on up to the White House

Former editor-in-chief of the American Enterprise Institute's magazine appointed President Bush's top domestic advisor

We can't say with absolute certainty, but we suspect that unlike his predecessor, Karl Zinsmeister, the Bush Administration's newly appointed top domestic policy advisor, has not been ripping off Target, Hecht or any other D.C.-area department store. We can only assume that his credit card record is clean, and that the vetting process was a lot more thorough than the one used when former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was nominated by George W. Bush to head up the Department of Homeland Security. Soon after being nominated, Kerik -- a longtime buddy and business partner of former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- was forced to withdraw his name after admitting to employing an illegal immigrant as a nanny, and revelations surfaced about extramarital affairs and past conflicts of interest.

AP: Reid Arguably Not Beyond Reproach

By Paul Kiel - May 30, 2006, 12:25 AM

Back in February, the AP's John Solomon ran a lengthy piece detailing alleged contacts between Jack Abramoff's team at Greenberg Traurig and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). As Josh pointed out, although the article concentrated on the fact that Team Abramoff was lobbying Reid on behalf of sweatshop owners in the Northern Marianas, Solomon failed to note that Reid actually voted against the legislation Abramoff was pushing.

Well, Solomon has written a new piece purporting to illustrate still more of Reid's ethical improprieties. He's managed to actually make a weaker case than in his last story.

Mark Crispin Miller: How journalistic "balance" is destroying our democracy

Here is a first-class example of how not to serve the public interest. Note how the reporter frames the struggle over DRE machines: as an "already-cantankerous debate" between Two Sides, equally respectable. On one side, there's "a coalition of voting rights activists and prominent computer scientists," arguing against the use of the machines. On the other side, we have.... the manufacturers of said machines, "and many election officials." In between the two are "state officials" trying earnestly "to strike a middle ground."

Ex-Kansas GOP chair switches affiliation

By JOHN MILBURN, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 30, 4:14 PM ET

The former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party jumped ship in a big way Tuesday, switching his affiliation to Democrat amid speculation that he would become Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' running mate.

Johnson County Elections Commissioner Brian Newby confirmed that Mark Parkinson, the state GOP chairman from 1999 to 2003, came to the office and switched his party affiliation shortly before noon.

Parkinson's name has been widely circulated as Sebelius' choice for a running mate as the Democratic governor seeks a second term. Current Lt. Gov. John Moore — another former Republican — is retiring when his term expires in early 2007.

Black, Hispanic pupils see school as tough

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer
Tue May 30, 4:36 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Black and Hispanic students see school as a more rowdy, disrespectful and dangerous place than their white classmates do, a poll says.

The findings suggest that many minority kids are struggling in the equivalent of a hostile work environment, according to Public Agenda, a nonpartisan opinion research group that tracks education trends.

Indonesia earthquake relief

Bob Harris:

[Before acting on this advice, read as far as where he amends one bit of it.]

If you’d like to toss a few bucks toward some folks who had little and now have nothing, this would be a good time.

U.S. Will Reinforce Troops in West Iraq

Car Bomb Kills 2 From CBS News

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, May 29 -- The U.S. military said Monday it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency.

The insurgents have assassinated 11 tribal leaders in the Ramadi area since the end of last year, when Sunni sheiks in the city began open cooperation with the U.S. military. That alliance was heralded by U.S. commanders as a sign of a major split between Sunni insurgents and the larger Sunni community of western Iraq.

Lead figure in phone jam to advise GOP contenders

GOP operative fresh from a prison term for his role in the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal will start teaching at a Republican "campaign school"--BUZZFLASH

Charles McGee back to work after prison

By DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD AND ZACHARY A. GOLDFARB
The Washington Post

May 29. 2006 8:00AM

A

major figure in the Election Day phone-jamming scandal that embarrassed and nearly bankrupted the New Hampshire GOP is out of prison and back in the political game.

Charles McGee, the former executive director of the state Republican Party, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and served seven months for his part in the scheme to have a telemarketer tie up Democratic and union phone lines in 2002.

He's back at his old job with a Republican political marketing firm, Spectrum Monthly & Printing Inc., and will be helping out at the firm's "GOP campaign school" for candidates.

Tyranny of the Christian Right

By Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet. Posted May 30, 2006.

The largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- evangelical Christianity -- has set out to destroy secular society.

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.

I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass movement -- the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.

'Rhythm method' may kill off more embryos than other methods of contraception

Interesting, if true.--Dictynna

The rhythm method and embryonic death J Med Ethics 2006; 32: 355-6

The "rhythm method" may kill off more embryos than other contraceptive methods, such as coils, morning after pills, and oral contraceptives, suggests an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

The method relies on abstinence during the most fertile period of a woman's menstrual cycle. For a woman who has regular 28 day cycles, this is around days 10 to 17 of the cycle.

It is the only method of birth control condoned by the Catholic Church, because it doesn't interfere with conception, so allowing nature to take its course.

Many cleaners, air fresheners may pose health risks when used indoors

A new study from UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds that many common household cleaners and air fresheners, when used indoors under certain conditions, emit toxic pollutants at levels that may lead to health risks.

New analysis of networks reveals surprise patterns in politics, the web

A new computer analysis technique developed at the University of Michigan that separates networks into communities yielded some surprises when used on real-world networks like political books, blogs, and metabolic systems.

World to be even hotter by century's end

While climate models predict significant global warming by the end of the century, these models don't take into account several poorly understood processes – the extra carbon dioxide pumped out by warmer soils and oceans – that will amplify the warming. Two UC Berkeley and LBNL researchers estimated this effect from past warming cycles and came up with temperatures 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today's climate models predict.

For the future hydrogen economy, a tiny, self-powered sensor

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Hydrogen has been called “the fuel of the future.” But the gas is invisible, odorless and explosive at high concentrations, posing a safety problem for hydrogen-powered cars, filling stations and other aspects of the so-called hydrogen economy.

Now, a team of more than a dozen University of Florida engineering faculty and graduate students has found a way to jump that hurdle: a tiny, inexpensive sensor device that can detect hydrogen leaks and sound the alarm by wireless communication.

Innocuous intestinal bacteria may be reservoir for resistance

ORLANDO – May 25, 2006 – "Harmless" bacteria in the digestive tracts of dairy cows, may not be so harmless after all. They may be a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes that can be transferred to more harmful, disease-causing bacteria, according to research presented today at the 106th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Orlando, Florida.

"There is concern that veterinary therapeutic usage of antibiotics in animals is responsible for the emergence of drug-resistant Salmonella. For dairy farms recently surveyed in Georgia, there was no association found between antibiotic use and isolation of multi-drug resistant Salmonella. Where does the drug resistance in Salmonella originate?" says Susan Sanchez of the University of Georgia, who conducted the study with other researchers from the University of Georgia and the Universidad Complutense of Madrid.

Include Indigenous communities in MDGs or watch them die a slow death, experts warn

We are dangerously close to killing off the world's Indigenous populations, and losing forever the invaluable knowledge these communities have about medicines and the ecosystem.

Overfishing puts Southern California kelp forest ecosystems at risk, report scientists

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Kelp forest ecosystems that span the West Coast –– from Alaska to Mexico's Baja Peninsula –– are at greater risk from overfishing than from the effects of run-off from fertilizers or sewage on the shore, say scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings have important implications for the design of California's Marine Protected Areas.

In an article published in the May 26 issue of Science, scientists describe the first study to compare the top-down versus bottom-up human influences on the food chain of the kelp forest ecosystems.

Firearms present 'triple threat' to battered women

Women are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than to die at the hands of a stranger according to "Intimate Partner Violence and Firearms," a new set of studies published in the June issue of SAGE Publications' Evaluation Review.

War and peace research gives voice to children

Little is known about children's perceptions of war, peace and terrorism. Researchers at Kent State are studying how children understand these issues and where they acquire their knowledge in the hopes of helping parents better communicate with their children.

How to cut energy waste in China, India, Brazil said crucial to forestalling climate change

Without significant gains from energy efficiency efforts, China, India and Brazil within a single human generation (by 2030) will more than double their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in major impacts on global energy markets and climate. However, experts estimate that cost-effective retrofits could reduce those countries' energy use today by at least 25 percent and advanced technologies could reduce their energy use growth projected through 2030 by at least 10 percent (and reduce projected CO2 emission growth by 16 percent).

Paul Krugman: Swift Boating The Planet

A brief segment in "An Inconvenient Truth" shows Senator Al Gore questioning James Hansen, a climatologist at NASA, during a 1989 hearing. But the movie doesn't give you much context, or tell you what happened to Dr. Hansen later.

And that's a story worth telling, for two reasons. It's a good illustration of the way interest groups can create the appearance of doubt even when the facts are clear and cloud the reputations of people who should be regarded as heroes. And it's a warning for Mr. Gore and others who hope to turn global warming into a real political issue: you're going to have to get tougher, because the other side doesn't play by any known rules.

Economic news could trouble Wall Street

By CHRISTOPHER WANG, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 9 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Although Wall Street has shown signs of recuperating from its recent selloff, this week's batch of critical economic reports could easily shatter investors' fragile optimism and send stocks sliding again.

With few earnings reports due, the market will once again be fixated on economic growth and inflation as traders judge the possibility of more interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

NYT Editorial: The Interest Must Be Paid

Published: May 29, 2006

Recent stock market turmoil has been a plus for United States Treasury securities. Over the last couple of weeks, investor demand for safety has generally pushed up the price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond, making it cheaper for the government to borrow. But there is still plenty of reason to worry about the United States' borrowing binge.

By definition, federal borrowing eventually results in a transfer of income from American taxpayers, whose taxes go to pay the interest on the debt, to the investors who hold the Treasury bonds. As long as the bonds are owned by Americans, the transfer is simply from one group of citizens to another. Bond holders may get richer, while taxpayers who don't own bonds get poorer, which could add to troubling disparities in personal wealth. But shuffling the income between the two groups doesn't reduce America's overall wealth.

Home Remedy

By PAUL RAEBURN

Published: May 28, 2006

Three years ago, Mary Beth Towell, a counselor in Canton, Ohio, was assigned to a family in a crumbling neighborhood of dilapidated houses, drug dealers and gangs. Even in that tough neighborhood, this family stood out as desperate. In a single month, child-protective services fielded more than 30 calls from teachers, police officers and others demanding that the children be removed.

The mother had bipolar disorder and was a heavy marijuana user. The children's father no longer lived in the home. Two of the girls, 15 and 10, and a boy, 11, were violent and suicidal. They threatened one another with knives and fought viciously. (The remaining child, a 14-year-old girl, was somehow O.K.)

Will Your Vote Count in 2006?

'When you're using a paperless voting system, there is no security,' says Stanford's David Dill.

By Steven Levy

Newsweek

May 29, 2006 issue - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the voting booth, here comes more disturbing news about the trustworthiness of electronic touchscreen ballot machines. Earlier this month a report by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti analyzed Diebold voting machines for an organization called Black Box Voting. Hursti found unheralded vulnerabilities in the machines that are currently entrusted to faithfully record the votes of millions of Americans.

How bad are the problems? Experts are calling them the most serious voting-machine flaws ever documented. Basically the trouble stems from the ease with which the machine's software can be altered. It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems. "If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security expert.

Heritage Foundation math on immigration disputed

By William Douglas

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — It caught Vice President Dick Cheney off guard, emboldened the conservative opposition, and it's become one of the most talked about "talking points" in the battle over immigration.

A study by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy-research center, said the Senate's expansive immigration measure would allow a staggering 103 million immigrants to enter the United States over 20 years.

The report instantly became the weapon of choice for the bill's opponents in Washington, on talk radio and across the country.

Schools Teach Combat Skills to Civilians

Lack of Regulation Of Private Training Troubles Some

By David A. Fahrenthold

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 28, 2006; Page A03

MONTROSE, Colo. -- Marcus Klintmalm's two victims lay sprawled on the ground, their weapons released by hands gone limp. Spent cartridge casings, his and theirs, were everywhere -- testimony to two gunfights.

The shooting had stopped. It was time to debrief.

Digby: Kenny Boy, We Hardly Knew Ye

So Kenny Boy Lay went down today. Let's hear if for the justice system.

But let's also hear it for the White House press corps who after eight long years of invetigating every transaction that members of the Clinton administration ever made, never really gave a damn about Kenny Boy's very intimate connection to George W. Bush and apparently still don't.

Now that we have the guilty verdict, let's revisit what we know of that relationship, shall we? From Consortium News, 2002:

George W. Bush is trying to rewrite the history of his and his family’s relationship with Enron Corp.’s disgraced former Chairman Kenneth Lay. So far, Bush has enjoyed fairly good success as the U.S. news media has largely accepted the White House spin.

Digby: Moving Past It

I don't live in DC and I'm sure it's not nice of me to be derisive about its culture. After all, I live in the biggest glass house in the world --- LA --- where high culture is defined by fake breasts and "the zone" diet. But still. I can't help but feel that there is something really wrong with a place that elects themselves a "wise man" like this:

From A Tiny Revolution:

Perhaps you've already seen this column by David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Corps, in which he explains what he's interested in:

But for all the delicacy of the treatment, the very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons' marriage and placed the story on the top of Page One was a clear signal -- if any was needed -- that the drama of the Clintons' personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president.

Digby: V For Victory

Give a big shout out to Move-On and Matt Stoller for successfully turning out grassroots support for net neutrality. It just passed the House judiciary committee 20-13.

This was a real grassroots victory --- until recently, it seemed like an easy gimme to the wealthy telcos.

Digby Does Firedoglake: Clinton Rules

"The "grown-ups are back" meme, which was very successful for Bush and Cheney in 2000 would have been impossible without the press having spent eight years covering the white house like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee lived there."

Atrios has written a very important post today on why we should be alarmed at this latest breathless girly gossip about Hillary Clinton. I have received a lot of emails and comments to the effect that Hillary is a (fill in the blank) and so deserves itand therefore we should all be happy that the New York Times is doing God’s work by destroying her candidacy. This is a very short sighted and historically clueless way to look at this. We call these "Clinton Rules" but they are not really about the Clintons — it’s about the press corps and the way they treat Democrats.

Digby: War Crime

The New York Times is verifying that the Pentagon now acknowledges that a massacre took place at Haditha. In fact, they are briefing members of congress on it to try to keep the story from blowing up into a huge scandal on the level of Abu Ghraib.

Considering the explosion of outrage on the right against John Murtha for discussing it earlier, this concerns me:

The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that "a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb" and that "immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."

Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.

Digby: Fool Me Once

There is a lively debate going on in the blogosphere about whether the FBI should be allowed to raid a congressman's office. I will let others make the legal and philosophical arguments. I would just offer this from the Church Committee files:

The historical backround of political abuse of the FBI involves at least three dimensions. The first is the Bureau's subsurvience to the Presidency, its willingness to carry our White House requests without question. When L. Patrick Gray as Acting FBI Director destroyed documents and gave FBI reports to Presidential aides whom the FBI should have been investigating after the Watergate break-in, he just carried to the extreme an established practice of service to the White House. The other side of the practice was the Bureau's volunteering political intelligence to its superiors, not in response to any specific request. And the third historical dimension was the FBI''s concerted effort to promote its public image and discredit its critics.

Gonzales pressures ISPs on data retention

By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 26, 2006, 5:29 PM PT

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday urged telecommunications officials to record their customers' Internet activities, CNET News.com has learned.

In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years, according to two sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mysterious glowing clouds targeted by NASA

17:07 26 May 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee

Glowing, silvery blue clouds that have been spreading around the world and brightening mysteriously in recent years will soon be studied in unprecedented detail by a NASA spacecraft.

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission will be the first satellite dedicated to studying this enigmatic phenomenon. Due to launch in late 2006, it should reveal whether the clouds are caused by global warming, as many scientists believe.

Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss

By KATE ZERNIKE

John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia."

He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares.

"They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."

New questions uncovered in Tillman's death

CNN has pieced together new details -- and new discrepancies -- about the death of former NFL star Cpl. Pat Tillman. Thousands of Army documents reveal what three official inquiries have been unable to resolve about the friendly fire killing on a dusty ridge in Afghanistan two years ago. A soldier with Tillman as he lay dying said: "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out: 'Cease fire! Friendlies!"