Headlines - Saturday

 

H/T Leanne - Bear quintuplets:

http://www.animaltalk.us/for/Animals/the-bears-and-i-by-tom-sears/

 

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A federal judge rejected a defense contractor's claims that it was immune from lawsuits by four alleged torture victims at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In a ruling made public Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee rejected claims made by Arlington, Va.-based CACI that it couldn't be sued because its interrogators were performing their duties as the government required.

 

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Glenn Greenwald: The dishonest "Blame Dodd" scheme from Treasury officials:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/17/dodd/

 

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While AIG comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

 

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A mother has sued the Church of Scientology after her son, Kyle Brennan, 20, committed suicide. He was on antidrepressants, but his father Thomas Brennan allegedly took away the prescription drugs as part of his Scientology beliefs. After only one week with his father in Clearwater, Florida, Kyle committed suicide. His mother, Victoria Britton, has sued the sister of Scientology's worldwide leader, David Miscavige.

http://tampabay.com/news/article976561.ece

 

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Bush did offend an entire group as president - and you probably didn't even notice

 

Every Obama-basher on the planet has said, in reference to Barack Obama's ill-advised Special Olympics remark, "If a Republican said something like this, it would be the end of his political career." Some have said this specifically about George W. Bush.

Wrong.

I take you back to January 8, 2002:

'Pakis' Remark Draws Fire for Bush

U.S. President George Bush has unwittingly used an offensive racial slur against the Pakistani people that the community has been trying to squash for at least 30 years.

Mr. Bush used the term Pakis in remarks to reporters yesterday, when discussing the possibility of nuclear rivals India and Pakistan going to war. The word has the same impact in the Pakistani community as the term nigger has for American blacks, said Aziz Khaki, vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federation.

"It's a very derogatory term," he said yesterday. "People use the term when they do not like you. It is used against people of colour." ...

I bet you don't even remember that. I didn't either. Notice that it didn't end Bush's career immediately?

Yeah, this was shortly after 9/11 -- but the Bush administration always proclaimed Pakistan to be our staunch ally, and there are half a million Pakistani-Americans in the country.  

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Drought in America: Yes, it's that bad

If like me you have a yard, and if like mine it crunches underfoot, then this site can help you decide whether it's your imagination or you really should be sniffing the wind for wildfires.

Drought.gov offers a fascinating array of maps that tell you more than you want to know about the status and outlook for your area, at least more than you want to know if your area is like mine. And judging by most of the maps, it is.

For example, there's a "Seasonal Drought Outlook" map that shows drought conditions forecast to persist or intensify in most of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, and California between now and June. There are a handful of areas that will improve, including Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, which only demonstrates that the word, "improve" is relative. That area that has been so dry for so long the people wouldn't remember what to do if lawn watering and burn bans were lifted.

There's even a drought photo gallery, where you can see shots of dry lake beds, low water levels, and plants that look like the ones in my yard.

Drought.gov shows you how endlessly fascinating an absolutely dreadful and dismal subject can be.

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PZ Meyers, Pharyngula:

 

If you fail an IQ test in Texas, do they automatically put you in legislature?

 

I'm trying figure out how this insane bill could even get a hearing. State Representative Leo Berman (R, of course) was peeved that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ruled that the Institute for Creation Research would not be allowed to grant degrees. So, he came up with an amazingly stupid idea: pass a law that would allow private, non-profit education institutions to grant degrees without the board's permission. Which, if you think about it, is actually kind of brilliant in the sense that it's hard to imagine a worse solution.

If it were to pass, though, I'd like to move to Texas for a few months, open a free daycare, and issue doctoral degrees to every toddler who can go a day without pooping his pants. I'd have the diplomas printed on diapers, too.

That's about what a degree from a Texas university would be worth if Berman had his way.

I hope all you Texans with real degrees from real universities are frantically writing off to your representatives explaining why this would be a very bad idea.

And this from PZ too:

 

Trolling for Jesus

There's a fellow who has been posting as an atheist on various sites, and making unusual claims — unusual because I have never heard an atheist say anything like this.

If a man wants to make a women his b****, so be it? So what if you don't like it, what if I do?

If I want to do something, and my conscience is cool with it, then I can do it. If it's feed a homeless person, so be it. If it's kill my neighbor, so be it. I am not bound to any morals.

Wha…? That's not what an atheist would say; it sounds more like an ignorant Christian caricature of an atheist. And what do you know, it was. Even better, the fellow who is doing this is Pastor Chris Fox of Kendalls Baptist Church in New London, NC. He has been confronted with his dishonesty, and he sees nothing wrong with it, even. Way to represent Christian morality, pastor!

Since this is acceptable Christian behavior, I guess that means I can visit various Christian sites, pretend to be born-again, and chatter about how that means I have acquired a taste for human flesh and want to gun down random people so they can go to heaven faster. Oh, wait, darn…I'm an atheist! I'm bound by human, social patterns of acceptable behavior, and don't have an imaginary friend in the sky to give me a pardon for lying. Oops. I guess I'll have to change my plans for the afternoon.

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One third of US birds are endangered, says conservation report

 

Energy production deriving from wind, ethanol and mountain-top coal mining is contributing to steep drops in bird populations, a US government report found- AP via the guardian 

 

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Long, but required reading from Matt Taibbi on the economic melt-down, but oh so worth it.

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It turns out that thirteen companies who received Federal bailout money are tax deadbeats too.

 

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A piece in Slate is about Judiciary nominees and the rethugs' newfound love of the filibuster.

 

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4,260 soldiers killed in Iraq; 667 in Afghanistan.

 

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Dick's contributions:

 

A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52H2CY20090318

 

Postal Service unstimulated by stimulus - closing six of its 80 district offices, reducing administrative staff positions by 15 %, eliminating 1,400 mail processing supervisor and management positions, and offering nearly 150,000 employees nationwide an opportunity to take an early retirement: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE52J51W20090320?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

 

Good thing this guy got a hefty salary raise and $135,000 bonus:  

 

 

 

Salary, bonuses, retirement benefits and other perks: more than $850,000.

 

U.S. Faces Sea of Red Ink: President Barack Obama's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, congressional auditors said Friday. The new CBO figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month — a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/20/politics/main4879621.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4879621

 

Auto makers requesting tens of billions more and may need "considerably" more than that: 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a9nk_6FVSsOM&refer=home