THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

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// posted by montag @ 4:56 PM 0 Comments

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, will announce Wednesday that she will not retire and will stay in the Senate until her term ends in 2012, a Republican familiar with the announcement tells CNN.

"She is going to say she is staying through her term," said the GOP source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because the source was not authorized to speak on behalf of the senator.

Hutchison unsuccessfully sought the Republican Texas gubernatorial nomination, losing to Gov. Rick Perry earlier this month. National and Texas Republicans have urged Hutchison to stay in office, even though she pledged during the gubernatorial primary that she would leave the Senate.

// posted by montag @ 1:22 PM 0 Comments

It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.

Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.

The church gave up its credibility for Lent.

// posted by montag @ 12:52 PM 0 Comments

Afghanistan is not only the world's largest supplier of opium, it also is the global leader in hashish production, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said it estimates that 10,000 to 24,000 hectares (24,700 to 59,300 acres) of cannabis are grown in Afghanistan every year and that this is used to make an estimated 1,500 to 3,500 tons of hashish annually.

"While other countries have even larger cannabis cultivation, the astonishing yield of the Afghan cannabis crop ... makes Afghanistan the world's biggest producer of hashish," UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.

Afghanistan produces 145 kilograms (319 pounds) of hashish per hectare of cannabis, compared to about 40 kilograms (88 pounds) per hectare in Morocco, Costa said.

Hashish is the resin produced from cannabis, also known as marijuana.

// posted by montag @ 12:38 PM 0 Comments

Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys' questions under oath.

Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover-up.

The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.

// posted by montag @ 12:04 PM 0 Comments

A lie itself isn't necessarily bad. We lie in order to criticize people who are abusing their power. They lie in order to humiliate and take out people who are at the receiving end of power.

// posted by montag @ 11:56 AM 0 Comments

United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet issued the 152-page decision, which invalidated seven patents related to the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, whose mutations have been associated with cancer.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York joined with individual patients and medical organizations to challenge the patents last May: they argued that genes, products of nature, fall outside of the realm of things that can be patented. The patents, they argued, stifle research and innovation and limit testing options.

Judge Sweet, however, ruled that the patents were “improperly granted” because they involved a “law of nature.” He said that many critics of gene patents considered the idea that isolating a gene made it patentable “a ‘lawyer’s trick’ that circumvents the prohibition on the direct patenting of the DNA in our bodies but which, in practice, reaches the same result.”

// posted by montag @ 12:31 AM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 12:08 AM 0 Comments

"They're more of a private army or a terrorist organization or really just a criminal organization."

// posted by montag @ 1:02 PM 0 Comments

"ABA lobbyists now aggressively insist that separating consumer protection and safety and soundness functions would unravel bank stability," Warren writes. "Yet just a few years ago, they heatedly argued the opposite--that the functions should be distinct.

"In 2006, the ABA claimed to act on principle as it railed against...[a]proposal for 'combin[ing] safety and soundness guidance with consumer protection guidance, creating confusion that is best addressed by separating them...[The] ABA recommends that the safety and soundness provisions relating to underwriting and portfolio management be separated from the consumer protection provisions.'

"Read that again: the ABA in 2006 said that policymakers should separate safety-and-soundness and consumer protection--exactly the opposite of its position today," Warren notes.

// posted by montag @ 12:50 PM 0 Comments

By the end of 2010, half of all commercial real estate mortgages in the United States could be "underwater," according to the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program watchdog.

Translation: Americans' financial woes are far from over.

The commercial real estate bubble will grow so large that it will become a "serious problem" that will take at least three years to address, Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the congressional oversight pannel on TARP, told CNBC on Monday.

Nearly 3,000 "mid-sized" banks have what she called "dangerous concentrations" of sinking commercial mortgages: a situation that could result in roughly half the commercial property in the U.S. becoming worth more as debt than as real estate.

Labels: According to Elizabeth

// posted by montag @ 12:16 PM 0 Comments

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Votevets.org have filed a complaint charging Sean Hannity's Freedom Concerts with deceptive and illegal marketing practices.

The concerts, hosted by Freedom Alliance, raise funds to provide scholarships and services to disabled veterans and their families. According to an email distributed by CREW, the complaints "allege Lt. Col. North's Freedom Alliance has violated its charitable tax status by engaging in prohibited political activities. In addition, CREW's complaints charge Mr. Hannity's Freedom Concerts has engaged in deceptive and illegal marketing practices by suggesting that all concert ticket sale revenue goes directly to scholarships for children of killed and wounded service members."

// posted by montag @ 11:37 AM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:53 PM 0 Comments

The extreme right record of utter and total failure to stop the march to progress is the reason we should not have to bear their craziness anymore. The record is numbingly clear: They were wrong about Social Security. They were wrong on integrating the military forces under President Truman. They were wrong about McCarthyism in the early 1950's. They were wrong about passing civil rights legislation in the 1960's. They were wrong on Medicare. They were wrong about women rights. They were wrong about 'trickle down economics.' They were wrong about tax breaks for the rich. They were wrong about the war in Iraq. They were wrong about climate change. They were wrong about LGBT rights and they are wrong about healthcare reform.

// posted by montag @ 4:47 PM 0 Comments

Hamed Wardak, the soft-spoken Georgetown University-educated son of an Afghan cabinet minister, has a Defense Department contract worth up to $360 million to transport U.S. military goods through some of the most insecure territory in Afghanistan. But his company has no trucks.

Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.

Although security for trucks carrying U.S. military supplies around Afghanistan is considered a particularly lucrative source of extortion, the administration has not investigated it or even estimated its scope, according to several officials involved in Afghanistan policy, none of whom was authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

Congressional investigators who have opened a probe into the Defense Department's $2.16 billion Host Nation Trucking (HNT) contract described what one called "willful blindness" on the part of a U.S. military that "likes having its trucks showing up and doesn't want to get into the details of how they got there."

// posted by montag @ 12:48 PM 0 Comments

The only question is whether we’re going to regulate bankers so that they don’t abuse the privilege of government backing. And it’s that regulation — not future bailouts — that reform opponents are trying to block.

So it’s the punks versus the plutocrats — those who want to rein in runaway banks, and bankers who want the freedom to put the economy at risk, freedom enhanced by the knowledge that taxpayers will bail them out in a crisis. Whatever they say, the fact is that people like Mr. Shelby are on the side of the plutocrats; the American people should be on the side of the punks, who are trying to protect their interests.

// posted by montag @ 12:26 PM 0 Comments

Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in the Midwest are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said agents moved on the group because the Hutaree members were planning a violent reconaissance mission sometime in April – just a few days away.

Members of the group called Hutaree are charged in the case, including their leader, David Brian Stone, also known as "Captain Hutaree."

Once other officers gathered for a slain officer's funeral, the group planned to detonate homemade bombs at the funeral, killing more, according to newly unsealed court papers.

// posted by montag @ 12:05 PM 0 Comments

Adding fuel to the fire already raging around Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, a little-noticed expense in the Republican Party's 2010 budget includes a nearly two thousand dollar tab for a bondage-themed bar in West Hollywood, according to a report on Tucker Carlson's new politics website.

The report cites figures from a new Federal Election Commission filing. According to the records, Steele dropped $1,946.25 at topless bar Voyeur West Hollywood, which the article notes is a "bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex."

On the same California trip, the records say, Steele spent $9,099 at the Beverly Hills hotel and $6,596 at the Four Seasons.

A review of the Voyeur club sums up the experience thus: "In Los Angeles, it takes a lot to shock and awe. When you walk into Voyeur on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, you might not be completely shocked at the almost naked women writhing on each other but you will undoubtedly be in awe."

// posted by montag @ 11:51 AM 0 Comments

According to the New York Times, "Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the 'availability of coverage' for all until 2014."

"The fine print differs from the larger political message," William G. Schiffbauer, an attorney who represents insurance companies, told the Times. "If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost."

While the bill precludes insurers from denying care to children who are already accepted for coverage, it allows them to refuse a policy to children under 19 from the outset, until 2014 when additional regulations kick in.

// posted by montag @ 11:39 AM 0 Comments

Foreign tax havens like Switzerland, Liechtenstein and some Caribbean countries thrive by keeping their clients’ money under wraps and safe from tax authorities’ reach.

Now, Congress is attacking some of these schemes, courtesy of interesting provisions aimed at curbing tax avoidance that legislators wrote into the new jobs bill, known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act.

The most substantive section of the bill states that foreign financial institutions will face a 30 percent tax on their United States investments if they refuse to disclose information about accounts they have opened for American citizens in offshore jurisdictions. Another aspect of the bill eliminates a clever derivatives strategy used by investors to make their tax bills on dividends disappear.

// posted by montag @ 12:55 PM 0 Comments

No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn't really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.

// posted by montag @ 12:37 PM 0 Comments

The Afghanistan trip was intended to let Obama tell Karzai that he must crack down on corruption and cut the flow of money from poppy production and drug trafficking that is sustaining the insurgency. The U.S. also wants Karzai to halt cronyism and rewards for warlords in government hiring and to create an effective, credible judicial system.

"This is something that simply has to be done," said Obama's national security adviser, Jim Jones. "Both presidents have to be on the same wavelength."

The White House insisted that Karzai's Cabinet participate in most of the meetings with Obama, making the point that Karzai must work with his ministers.

// posted by montag @ 12:22 PM 1 Comments

They’re a giant for-profit company using predatory salesmanship to sell what they themselves know is a defective, outmoded, basically unnecessary product. They’ll use any means necessary to keep their market share and if they have to lie and cheat and deflect and point fingers to keep the racket going, they’ll do it, just like any other sleazeball company.

But I think it’s time we started considering that what the church is is even worse than that. It’s possible we should start wondering if the church is also a criminal organization that in this country, anyway, should be broken up using RICO statutes.

One of the few areas where I agreed with George Bush was in the notion that a country providing safe haven to terrorists should itself be treated as a terrorist organization. Morally this isn’t a difficult one to figure out; a country that keeps house for a bin Laden and doesn’t assist other countries in trying to catch him is a rogue state, one that should be booted out of the community of nations.

We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.

// posted by montag @ 11:49 AM 0 Comments

If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

// posted by montag @ 11:23 PM 0 Comments

American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn’t vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren’t yet born.

Decade after decade, the church hid its sordid crimes, enabling the collared perpetrators instead of letting the police collar them. In the case of the infamous German priest, one diocese official hinted that his problem could be fixed by transferring him to teach at a girls’ school. Either they figured that he would not be tempted by the female sex, or worse, the church was even less concerned about putting little girls at risk.

The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests. And this is a historic mess. Benedict should go home to Bavaria. And the cardinals should send the white smoke up the chimney, proclaiming “Habemus Mama.”

// posted by montag @ 10:14 PM 0 Comments

An interesting concept at work here is the notion that consumer protections that work too well would end up hurting the “safety and soundness” of the nation’s financial sector. (That’s the reason the Senate bill provides for bank regulators to have a veto over the proposed agency’s rules under some limited circumstances.)

“Safety and soundness” is a euphemism for profitability. What’s really being said is that when the profitability of the big banks and other financial agencies and institutions are in conflict with the fair treatment of consumers, it’s the fair treatment of consumers that has to give way.

Now would be a good time to start putting that notion to rest.

// posted by montag @ 1:03 PM 0 Comments

The Pentagon wants $33 billion in additional funding to pay for the war in Afghanistan this year and train the Afghan military, but members of Congress want to make sure they’re not writing a blank check.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared before Senate appropriators to defend the war supplemental, which is on top of the $708 billion baseline budget submitted to Congress in February.

Most of the war supplemental – a separate account used to pay for war costs – will pay for Afghanistan operations. Of that, $2.6 billion is to train the Afghan national security force, seen as a long-term endeavor that Congress worries could become a burden over time.

// posted by montag @ 12:28 PM 0 Comments

Fifty-three years into commercial nuclear power ... the US still has no safe, sound, permanent storage plan for high-level radioactive waste,

// posted by montag @ 12:13 PM 0 Comments

R&R Partners is famous for creating the Las Vegas slogan “What happens here stays here.”

But it’s the firm’s Washington connections — and its deep ties to scandal-plagued Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) — that have drawn it into a Senate Ethics Committee investigation and, potentially, a Department of Justice inquiry.

A top R&R executive, Pete Ernaut, has been subpoenaed by the Ethics Committee as part of its investigation into Ensign’s extramarital affair with Cindy Hampton, his former campaign treasurer. John Lopez, Ensign’s former chief of staff, who now lobbies for R&R, has been subpoenaed by the Ethics Committee as well.

The $40 million-per-year company is a power player on the political scene, with connections to virtually every major politician in Nevada. CEO Billy Vassiliadis — or Billy V., as he’s known in Nevada — has close relationships with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his son, gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, and was a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s Nevada campaign in 2008.

But it’s the Ensign connections that are bringing unwelcome scrutiny.

// posted by montag @ 11:58 AM 0 Comments

Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone. She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt.

Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her.

The officers - Sgt. Steven Daman, Officer Juan Ornelas and Officer Donald Jones - then stunned her three times, in the thigh, shoulder and neck, and hauled her out of the car, laying her face-down in the street.

// posted by montag @ 10:13 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:37 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:18 PM 0 Comments

Federal prosecutors filed reduced charges Friday against conservative activist James O'Keefe and three others who were accused of trying to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.

The new charges are contained in a bill of information, which can only be filed with a defendant's consent and typically signals a plea deal. The new filing charges the four with entering a federal building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. They had been arrested Jan. 25 on felony charges.

// posted by montag @ 4:47 PM 0 Comments

At birth, Houston Tracy let out a single loud cry before his father cut the cord and handed him to a nurse.

Instantly, Doug Tracy knew something was wrong with his son.

"He wasn't turning pink fast enough," Tracy said. "When they listened to his chest, they realized he had an issue."

That turned out to be d-transposition of the great arteries, a defect in which the two major vessels that carry blood away from the heart are reversed. The condition causes babies to turn blue.

Surgery would correct it, but within days of Houston's birth March 15, Tracy learned that his application for health insurance to cover his son had been denied. The reason: a pre-existing condition.

"How can he have a pre-existing condition if the baby didn't exist until now?" Tracy asked.

// posted by montag @ 1:45 PM 0 Comments

The second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives accused Democratic Party leaders Thursday of "fanning the flames" about threats of violence to House Democrats and exploiting the reported incidents for political purposes.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, said that he, too, had been a victim of violence. He said that his office in Richmond was shot at early Tuesday morning and that he'd received threats throughout his political career for being Jewish.

However, Richmond police said late Thursday that it appears the bullet had been randomly fired into the air around 1 a.m. Tuesday and hit the window of the first-floor office when it was headed back down.

// posted by montag @ 1:29 PM 0 Comments

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, who heads Army forces for U.S. Pacific Command, was wrong to call on troops and their families to fight a repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Mullen said if uniformed officers disagree with President Barack Obama’s call for a repeal, the answer for them is “to vote with your feet.”

// posted by montag @ 1:21 PM 0 Comments

For today’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.

// posted by montag @ 11:38 AM 0 Comments

Michelle Obama took her mother, daughters, and three of their friends to acclaimed Brooklyn pizzeria Grimaldi's yesterday, and what started out as a casual lunch is now reigniting longstanding tensions between two bitterly warring factions: the Chicago-style pizza crowd vs. NYC.

The Grimaldi's waiter who served the family, Rafal Harajda, told City Room that after they finished their meal of four pies—a plain, a pepperoni, a sausage and one with mushrooms, peppers and onions—the First Lady of the United States of America declared, "It was better than Chicago pizza." Which must cut like a pizza slicer for Chicago, seeing as Obama is from their hometown. Harajda later clarified the First Lady's statement, but did not contradict it.

When asked by the Chicago Tribune about his quote to City Room, Harajda clarified: "No, what she said was, 'It's the best pizza, and I'm from Chicago.'"

// posted by montag @ 10:15 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:23 PM 0 Comments

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 1 Comments

Need a lesson on how to make money in a war zone?

Try studying defense contractor KBR, a former unit of Dick Cheney's Halliburton. The engineering logistics company -- whose conflict zone days date to the Vietnam War -- won a contract worth $4.6 million to repair military vehicles at a base outside Baghdad. For the job, they employed 144 mechanics.

How many hours do you think they worked?

According to an analysis by Mother Jones, based on a report by a Pentagon Inspector General, the 144 KBR mechanics worked as little as 43 minutes per month, on average.

Even KBR's internal figures tell a shocking story of military contract waste. The company says that of the workers they had, just 6.6 percent were being used at any given time, on average. KBR said that "worker utilization" rates ranged from a meager 3.97 percent in April 2009 to 9.65 percent in September 2008.

// posted by montag @ 12:00 PM 0 Comments

A police officer for the University of Illinois at Chicago is under investigation after his gun accidentally discharged, wounding him in the buttocks while he shopped at a Vernon Hills shopping center, officials said Tuesday.

Mallin, 39, was shopping at a Best Buy store in Rivertree Court Shopping Center around 5:30 p.m. Monday when the .40-caliber gun tucked in his waistband went off, said Sgt. Kevin Grampo of the Vernon Hills Police Department.

The weapon discharged when either his finger or clothing got "hooked" in the trigger, Grampo said.

// posted by montag @ 10:23 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:39 PM 0 Comments

Most of the borrowers have pay-option, adjustable-rate mortgages, or option ARMs, a type of loan that allowed them to pay so little that their mortgage balances went up instead of down. To help reduce their first-mortgage payments, the bank is offering to stop charging interest on part of the principal the borrowers owe, a practice known as forbearance.

The other features of the government plan -- reducing the interest rate to as low as 2% and extending the time for payback to as much as 40 years -- would then be applied to try to get the payment down to 31% of household income, the target of the Obama administration's anti-foreclosure plan.

Borrowers who agreed to the restructured terms and who made the lower payments as scheduled would be able to gradually convert the principal placed into forbearance into forgiven principal over a five-year period.

// posted by montag @ 6:12 PM 0 Comments

Authorities are investigating a severed propane line at the home of a Virginia congressman's brother after tea party activists posted the man's address online.

Activists are upset about U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello's vote in favor of the health care reform.

Perriello's office said that a line to a propane tank on a gas grill was cut at Bo Periello's Charlottesville home on Tuesday. Tea party activists had posted the address online thinking it was the congressman's home, telling opponents to drop by and "express their thanks" for his vote.

// posted by montag @ 4:20 PM 0 Comments

For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

// posted by montag @ 12:02 PM 0 Comments

KY AG Jack Conway (D) is wading into the health care debate, announcing Tuesday he will not file a lawsuit against the federal government in trying to refuse the legislation.

"I do not intend to use my authority as Kentucky Attorney General to sign our Commonwealth onto a health care lawsuit against the federal government, because I will not waste taxpayer dollars on a political stunt," Conway said in a statement provided to Hotline OnCall.

// posted by montag @ 11:49 AM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:41 PM 0 Comments

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

// posted by montag @ 6:59 PM 0 Comments

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is calling for a strong re-assertion of states rights against Congress -- in the form of a Constitutional amendment to eliminate the direct popular election of Senators, and go back to the pre-17th Amendment setup of state legislatures appointing them.

"Ever since the safeguard of State legislatures electing U.S. Senators was removed by the 17th Amendment in 1913, there has been no check or balance on the Federal power grab for the last 97 years," Gohmert said in a press release, calling for a constitutional convention of the states. "Article V requires a minimum of 34 states to request a Convention which in this case, would be an Amendment Convention for only ONE amendment."

// posted by montag @ 5:02 PM 0 Comments

Mississippians Turn to Iran for Health Care Help

Recently I wrote here that Mississippi has the worst health care in the nation. Now I want to tell the story about how desperate Mississippians, abandoned by their government, turned to Iran for help.

Bt first, I want to tell you about Mississippi’s infant mortality rate. The rate of infant mortality is the number of infants who are born alive but die before their first birthday, per 1,000 live births. In other words, if infant mortality is 5, that means that 5 of every 1,000 babies in that population will not survive the first year of life.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the estimated infant mortality rate in the United States for 2009 is 6.22, which is high for an industrialized democracy. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the infant mortality rate in Mississippi is 11.4. Only Florida is worse, at 14.1. By contrast, the infant mortality rate for Washington and Minnesota is 5.1.

Now, here’s where Iran comes in — according to the Times of London, last October “five top Iranian doctors, including a senior official at the health ministry in Tehran, were quietly brought to Mississippi” to advise Mississippians how to lower their infant mortality rate.

This exchange came about when James Miller, managing director of Oxford International Development Group, was consulting in a rural Mississippi hospital. “He was shocked to find that the state had the third highest medical expenditure per capita, but came last in terms of outcome,” the Times article said.

Miller remembered a conference presentation on how Iran radically lowered its infant mortality rates. Facing a shortage of doctors and hospitals, the government launched a program of “health houses” staffed by local people trained to be health workers. The health workers are authorized to provide basic medical services such as diabetes monitoring as well as prenatal and obstetric care. Infant and maternal mortality rates both fell dramatically as a result.

James Miller contacted Iranian doctors to find out if their program might be applied to Mississippi. So the Iranian doctors came to Mississippi to give advice. Although the idea of following an Iranian model was a hard sell in Mississippi, at least one community has begun work on an Iranian style “health house” to provide better care for pregnant women abandoned by Mississippi’s health care system.

Dr Aaron Shirley, who worked with James Miller on the Iranian project, admitted they were staying under the radar. Mississippi government officials, including Governor Haley Barbour, were not involved or informed.

This takes us back to the issue identified in the earlier post — Mississippi has the worst health care in the nation, but as far as Gov. Barbour is concerned, this is not a problem. The governor is perfectly clear, on his website and in public pronouncements, that Mississippi fixed its health care problems by passing a comprehensive tort reform bill in 2004. The 2004 law affected all kinds of personal injury lawsuits in Mississippi.

In the U.S., state after state has passed “tort reform” laws that make it harder for citizens to file personal injury suits and also limit the amount of damages they can receive. This is a critical issue for people with asbestos-related disease such as mesothelioma cancer, who so often need damage awards to care for themselves and their families. “Tort reform” also is being pushed by conservatives nationwide as the way to fix the nation’s health care crisis.

But Mississippi reformed tort in 2004, and it still has the worst health care in the nation. What did Governor Barbour “fix,” exactly?

-Barbara O’Brien

// posted by montag @ 4:49 PM 0 Comments

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.

This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world's hottest chili.

After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.

The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India's northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.

It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.

"The chili grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defense laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defense Research and Development Organization," Col. R. Kalia, a defense spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, told The Associated Press.

"This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs,

// posted by montag @ 12:17 PM 1 Comments

Federal prosecutors are considering filing weapons charges against former top officials of the Blackwater Worldwide private security company over allegations they illegally stockpiled automatic rifles at the company's North Carolina headquarters, The Associated Press has learned.

Senior Justice Department officials are reviewing a draft indictment against former president Gary Jackson, former Blackwater lawyer Andrew Howell, and a third man who used to work at the firm's armory, people close to the case told the AP. A decision is not expected until at least next month.

Any indictment, even of former executives, would be unwelcome news at a company beleaguered since a 2007 shooting involving Blackwater guards in Baghdad left 17 people dead. Under a new name, Xe, the firm is trying to win Defense Department approval to train police in Afghanistan. The contract could be worth up to $1 billion but has drawn the ire of some in Congress.

// posted by montag @ 12:08 PM 0 Comments