50 MORE YEARS! 50 MORE YEARS!

AMERICAblog:

President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

TPM.com:
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)

"The White House announcement that they view South Korea as the model for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq is further evidence of how dangerously out of touch with reality this administration is.

"On a strictly historical level, the comparison is comical. A high school student could tell you that there are virtually no similarities between the Korea and Iraq. The administration's inept attempts to come up with tortured historical analogies to try to justify a failed policy should be another reminder just how little credibility they have on the issue.

"The frightening truth is that there are obviously people within the Bush administration who believe that it is a good idea to occupy Iraq military on a permanent basis, which is why we have fought so hard in Congress to establish a clear policy to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq.

"The overwhelming majority of Iraqis want an end to the occupation, and for the White House to suggest that it will continue for another fifty years, or perhaps permanently, only fuels the insurgency and further endangers our troops.

"The American people are also calling for an end to the occupation, and the fact that the administration has responded by saying they think the occupation should be permanent just underlines not only how out of touch they are, but how critical it is for Congress to intervene to bring an end to this failed policy."

ThinkProgress.org:

Georgie Anne Geyer writes today in the Dallas Morning News about President Bush’s strange behavior during a recent meeting with “[f]riends of his from Texas.”

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

From the beginning it seems their was a plan to keep us their, no matter what. The embassy, is a colossal one to act as a base of operations in the region. And the hope of establishing long term bases has been clear, as it was assumed Iraq would be the first domino of many to fall before us.

Climate change denial

NASA administrator Michael Griffin

I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

There is a word for this...FLUMMERY. What twaddle. What a great series of question no one asks or are interested in. The best climate? What is the affect of the poles melting away again? Who is that great for? The Atlanteans? Great job of obscuring the issues. It is little wonder that the Bush administration put him in charge at NASA. I bet he loved putting those gag orders in place on his scientists.

Houston, you have a problem.


Here is some advice on conversing and understanding denialist.

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:

Stages of Denial,
Scientific Topics,
Types of Argument, and
Levels of Sophistication.

TPMtv returns...

TPMtv

Shock and disappointment seemed to be the prevalent reactions to the recent Democratic compromise on the Iraq funding bill. Whether you agree or disagree with the bill itself, it makes little sense to be surprised when the Democrats were telegraphing the move in advance. We explain in today’s episode of TPMtv ...

The Separation of Hogwarts and State

PZ Myers:

Laura Mallory wants to ban the Harry Potter books from public schools, and she took her case to court. This is a perfect example of a mixed message:

At Tuesday's hearing, Mallory argued in part that witchcraft is a religion practiced by some people and, therefore, the books should be banned because reading them in school violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

"I have a dream that God will be welcomed back in our schools again,"
Mallory said. "I think we need him."

Everyone will be relieved to know that she lost.

How did she even get a hearing on this?

Mexico's first test

Feministing:

Some potentially bad news. Mexico's Supreme Court is going to hear a challenge to the the landmark law that legalized abortion in Mexico City.

To backslide, or not.

"White, Christian, male power structure"

I'd explain, but it defies it.

Watch Bill O'Reilly and John McCain discuss immigration.

Feministing

Latin America and Abortion

And when we talk about these 2 things, we are also forced to bring up the RCC. If they want to try and set the agenda, they get to take on some of the blame.

Brazil:

Just weeks after Pope Benedict denounced government-endorsed contraception during a visit to Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unveiled a program on Monday to provide inexpensive birth-control pills at 10,000 private drugstores across the country.

Silva said the plan will give poor Brazilians “the same right that the wealthy have to plan the number of children they want.”

Way to go, Silva. Brazilian has an astoundingly high abortion rate — higher than the U.S. rate — and abortion is generally illegal there. Unsurprisingly, about 4,000 Brazilian women die from illegal abortions every year, and many more are injured. Accessible birth control will certainly help. But attitudes about birth control and sex can be pretty influential. The Catholic Church isn’t doing much to help on that end.

That is nice of the church. Thousands are dying, but the Church knows where the fault is and where the priorities are.


Colombia:

Pro-lifers: They love children so much, they’ll do everything in their power to force an 11-year-old rape and incest victim to give birth against her will, after she was impregnated by her step-father.

Anti-choice activsts staged a protest against abortion rights in Colombia this week — to mark the one-year anniversary of a legal decision that allows abortion for rape and incest survivors and women who face serious health- and life-threatening complications if they carry the pregnancy to term.

The article I linked to, from an anti-choice website, says that “Abortion was legalized on May 10, 2006, when the court decided to allow abortion in cases of rape and in case of any risk to the mother’s health. The ambiguity of the ruling effectively made room for abortion in almost any situation.”

That actually isn’t true at all, but the fact that anti-choicers will straight-up lie isn’t exactly news. And while these fine “pro-life” individuals are protesting the rights of incest and rape survivors to terminate pregnancies and of pregnant women taking steps to preserve their own health, Colombia — and Latin America in general — continues to face a substantial public health crisis with regard to clandestine abortion. According to the last available statistics from the World Health Organization, unsafe abortion is the third leading cause of maternal death in Colombia. Despite the total illegality of abortion in Colombia before last year, one in four Colombian women between the ages of 15 and 55 has terminated a pregnancy. Almost half of adolescent Colombian girls under the age of 19 has had an abortion.

Before the ruling a year ago, Colombia, Chile and El Salvador where the only three countries in Latin America to prohibit abortion entirely — no exceptions for rape, incest, health or life. Now Colombia is off that list because it offers these very limited exceptions. Unfortunately, it’s been replaced by Nicaragua.

Colombia’s restrictive abortion policies did nothing to decrease the abortion rate. Making abortion accessible to rape and incest survivors and to women whose health and lives are threatened by pregnancy is a small step in the right direction, but it’s a significant one. It’s a decision that has undoubtedly saved lives.

And yet “pro-lifers” oppose it. They organize against it. They’re so pro-life that they would rather have rape and incest survivors, and women who face serious physical consequences from pregnancy, seek out illegal abortions that are known to be physically harmful or even deadly. I really shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff anymore, and I suppose I’m not — but I’m still thoroughly disgusted and deeply repulsed.

These are the same “pro-life” people who:

-Opposed the right of a nine-year-old rape victim to terminate the pregnancy that resulted from her assault. After a trying bureaucratic process the little girl was finally allowed to have an abortion (while this is common sense, it should probably be pointed out that a nine-year-old’s body is not usually particularly well-equipped for childbirth, and having a baby could have done her serious harm). One cardinal went so far as to excommunicate everyone involved with the girl’s abortion. Then the Nicaraguan Catholic bishops sent out a letter comparing abortion to terrorists bombing buses. At the time this case was at issue, Nicaragua had a law permitting therapeutic abortions to save the pregnant woman’s life — a law that many “pro-life” leaders didn’t love, but said was sufficient. Between 1991 and 2003, a grand total of 10 legal abortions were performed in Nicaragua. In the meantime, 36,000 illegal abortions were being performed every year. Last year, Nicaragua completely illegalized abortion, even to save the life of the pregnant woman. Women who terminate pregnancies may now go to jail for six years — not quite as steep as the outgoing president’s ideal of 30 years, or the Church’s proposal of 20. Abortion remains a leading cause of death for women in Nicaragua.

-Imprison Chilean women for terminating pregnancies — mostly poor women who seek out dangerous clandestine abortions. Abortion is completely illegal in Chile, and yet it has twice the abortion rate of Canada — and half the population. When women’s health advocates offered sexual health education and contraception to women impoverished communities, the abortion rate in those communities dropped as much as 82 percent.

-Support policies that lead to situations like this:

A community organizer in Argentina told me: “You will not believe what women end up putting in their uteruses to abort.” I wish I didn’t.

I have spoken to women who used knives, knitting needles, rubber tubes, even pieces of wood to pry open their uteruses. Some got access to abortive medicines that in theory lower the possibility of direct infection but that caused serious complications when they took them without medical assistance. Affluent women suffered fewer traumatic ordeals, often traveling to the U.S. for the procedure or sneaking off to upscale private Latin America clinics where, on paper, they had surgery for appendicitis.

I’m sure the “Jill the abortion blogger” thing gets old.* I know regular readers have read the same “pro-lifers don’t actually care about life” statement a million times, supported by the cruel and often deadly pro-life policy or position du jour. I know there’s a whole lot more to feminism, and to reproductive rights, than abortion laws. But damn. You’ve gotta have a special kind of cold heart to not be deeply disturbed by some of this. And you have to be a special kind of depraved to support this vision of a “pro-life” world.

*This is perhaps obvious by now, but reproductive justice is pretty much what I want to spend my professional life working on. Hence the continued obsession with international reproductive rights — it’s not because I think it’s the only important aspect of feminism or even the most important one, it’s just the one that I’m the most interested in and the one that I have the most information about. Which hopefully explains “Jill the abortion blogger” (but please don’t start calling me that).

With all that Colombians have to go through, persisting in allowing this type of suffering to continue is unconscionable.

Especially when it is on religious grounds.

Abstinence programs, will Democrats finally draw a line in the granite?

Sand blows away, like the ground in Congress. It is long since time to take a stand and affix themselves firmly.

As has been attested on this blog, other blogs, and in the annals of science and medicine...Abstinence programs neither lead to abstinence nor better sex ed. Not that that stops the faithful.

AMERICAblog:

Spending billions for medicine, nurses and doctors makes sense and should be fully supported and globally, the PEPFAR program is great. Where Congress needs to draw the line is Bush's continuing funding for abstinence programs. HIV rates in Africa are in excess of 24 million people, with some countries in Southern Africa experiencing rates of 20%-30% of the population. Education is obviously important and stressing safe sex is critical but much of the funds for education are for funding the favorite abstinence programs of the US religious right.

The issue today is finding enough medicine to address those in need as well as finding doctors and nurses who can tend to the needs of very sick people. Shortages of medical care workers in these heavily impacted countries are all too common, the end result being overwhelmed staff and people dying unnecessarily. The initial results of the abstinence programs have shown no results whatsoever, with even Uganda (the original case study) showing a resurgence in HIV.

Congress really needs to stand up to Bush and his failing religious experiments that are taking money away from saving people. Let the religious right fund their theories on their own dollar but let's put American tax dollars to work helping people with science, medicine and medical staff.

NEW Sugar Free Life

PZ Myers has an interesting look at the work SynBio. They are trying to create life in the lab.

For theistic scientist like Francis Collins, it is a waste. Leon Kass thinks they lack an understanding of life, living it. The Pope thinks it is flummery...Rich.

Weiss is right: no magic, no vitalism, no ghosts puttering about in the cytoplasm. I highlighted that one sentence because it's so absurd: we don't deal in proofs, for one thing, but if there's anything we can be certain of, it's that cells are biochemical machines, tiny reaction chambers burbling away and churning through metabolic processes. If Kass and Collins really are clinging to uncertainty about that — and I'm inclined to expect that it's actually the reporter imputing those ideas to them — then they'd have to be bigger knuckleheads than I imagined. I'm unclear what they expect will happen when investigators assemble the machinery of the cell — that it will sit there inert until infused with the sap from lignum vitae, or that it will need to be kick-started by a blessing from the local priest? Piffle. It's physics and chemistry. Get the recipe right, and that's all that matters.

Francis Collins is a brilliant scientist. But when his theology gets involved, when the converasation turns to a question of LIFE, or the place of Humanity...he goes fuzzy. That is the trouble with dealing with many theistic evolution supporters. Want to claim that evolution was a rock started down a hill by a deity? Fine, that is your fantasy. But then he will harp on the special magic that God put in us and no other animal. How we have morality embedded in us. How we are special, per the bible. What does this have to do with science? How is this supported in anthropology, sociology, or biology? Simple. It ain't. It is just his personal wish. So his disdain of the chances of whipping up a new batch of life falls more in his theological standing, than his scientific. That is sad. And the burden of dealing with theistically minded scientists and thinkers.

It is like dealing with a pothead. All they want to talk about is what if their were dragons living in the clouds...And how cool that is.


Best line:

The Newsweek cover story is on recent efforts to create life in the laboratory, and of course they call this "playing God". Haven't they got the message yet? "Playing God" is where you do absolutely nothing, take credit for other entities' work, and don't even exist — scientists don't aspire to such a useless status.

Being gay in the Administration's family

On May 23, Mary Cheney had a baby boy. This is noted by many people is Washington for 2 reasons. She is the daughter of Dick Cheney, VP-USA. And also, she is gay, living in a committed relationship with Heather Poe.

So in this administration, eager stand for Christ, morality, and the hetero ways. But the Veep is quite happy to have the child in the family, and happy for his daughter.

From the White House webpage, an interesting admission.

Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, welcomed their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, Wednesday, May 23, 2007. He weighed 8 lbs., 6 oz and was born at 9:46 a.m. at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. His parents are the Cheneys’ daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe. White House photo by David Bohrer

Interesting. Heather Poe is a parent, per the White House staff. Now if only Bush could say that.

And if only the party base could keep from swallowing their own tongues as they rage.

And the far-right got upset that we criticized Jerry Falwell after his death. That doesn't even come close to dissing a newborn baby. But there you have it, Stephen Bennett, a spokesman for the Concerned Women for America, one of the largest religious right groups, today blasted Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, and her partner Heather Poe for having a baby out of wedlock. As we reported yesterday, the White House published a baby announcement on the Vice President's portion of the White House Web site, noting that the Mary and Heather were both "parents" of the newborn child.

(Bennett is the same guy who, only four months ago, was angling for a meeting with President Bush. Funny, I'm guessing that isn't going to be happening now.)

Well, that set the religious right off, big time. Here is what Bennett had to say about Mary and Heather having a baby, then I've posted his press release in its entirety - it's a must-read of venom.

SBM PRAISES parents and individuals - mothers and fathers - who have taken on the noble task of adopting children and giving them a chance at life in the God ordained family unit including a Daddy and Mommy. Every child deserves a Daddy and Mommy. We understand, sometimes through death or divorce, that unit is broken - and parents do the best they could to raise and nurture their child or children. That's where we as the Body of Christ step in to help and be there for the
family and child. We celebrate these individuals and families. Sometimes in a second heterosexual marriage, children are adopted. We praise these men and women who do all they could to raise these children. THESE ARE REAL PARENTS. This is NOT playing "house."

Homosexual parenting though is something TOTALLY different. It "mimicks" the real and the natural....

Should Dick be embarrassed by his daughter and shun her? I think some of his backers would say yes.

Again, aligning with these sorts of conservatives is good?

Some TPMtv

TPMtv

Much to President Bush's dismay, the US Attorney investigation doesn’t appear to be wrapping up anytime soon. We give you the rundown of what’s to come in the approaching weeks in today’s episode of TPMtv ...

Enjoying a rant

On Real Time, Ben Affleck went on a little tear about the Democrats caving on war funding.

It was pleasant to hear, mirroring my own disgust at the backtracking by so many Democrats elected to act on matters just like this.

How many said they would go back to Congress, during their last campaigns, and promised to go back and fight, and vote, to bring this war to a conclusion, to bring oversight back, and to represent the sense that was burgeoning across this country.

But what we got was resignation. Hey, we tried the president won't listen, so we just want to give in and stop fighting.

How weak kneed.

Affleck had it right. They wanted to go home, wanted to get out, and didn't want to be mocked by conservatives. And has been noted, they were anyway.

Democrats in power are going to have to go a long way to rebuild the respect they got sweeping into power. Cause they expended it all, doing Bush's bidding.

Shameful.

The mysteries of Faith

Their is always a way to make things fit:

PZ Meyer:

Stephen Jossler has made a dazzling breakthrough in reconciling science and religion. He believes evolution occurred by natural mechanisms during the whole of the history of the earth (science!), except during the Triassic period, when a creator god intervened to create the diversity of life during that 40-50 million year interval. Before: genetics. During: God. After: genetics again.

It sounds crazy, but then…

Everything about the Triassic period points to divine involvement. Let me ask you this: Could some kind of random genetic chance make the population of shelled cephalopods grow significantly? No, of course not. So the only logical explanation is that there was an infinite and all-knowing cephalopod creator who modified their mollusk foot into a muscular hydrostat that eventually, on the sixth day, became tentacles.

And a great white light shone upon me from the heavens, and I fell to my knees shouting, "Hallelujah, O Great Triassic Cephalopod God!" And I was as one stricken, writhing in the Glory of the Lord, and when I arose I was not lost, but was consecrated to the Truth and the Way and the Divided Foot, Amen.

Hmm. Amazing how that works.

Religion in the news

Crooks and Liars:

I've traveled the country coast to coast and found that most Americans are very moderate when it comes to religion. Check out this study.

But as this study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

The media makes sure you hear from Bill Donohue as often as possible because he is considered a voice of reason and gets as much airtime as he needs.

Some religious people are speaking out against this, but they will be ignored…

When you see a conversation on religion on the news, they are going to call Donohue, or Dobson, or one of the various leading Evangelical leaders. When a more moderate voice is brought on, it is an odd moment, or an odd bit. Or an excuse to have to clergy persons go at it.

And I remember one time Russert, or Matthews, was pretty much claiming that conservatives are more religious and pious. When he was called on it he laughed and said it was true.

If this questionable stereotype, that you have to be conservative to be religious is so, maybe it is time for more people to question the value and good of being all that religious.

Bush, Rove, Gingrich, Boehner, and Delay. Is this herd you want to be in?

Behind the Pink Curtains

In the lands that once laid behind the Iron Curtain, there are some not so pleasant acts in government.

Gay rights, gay scares.

Polish government investigating whether Tinky Winky is gay (not joking)

It's time the European Union started getting tough with Eastern European overnments that aren't ready for prime time. If they want to rejoin the civilized world, they should start acting like it. This is just embarrassing for Poland, and it's sad that the country hasn't learned from its experiences with the Nazis or the Soviets; the dehumanization of your citizens is a bad thing. It's also a harbinger of the problems European integration faces when some of those wanting to integrate don't live in the same century as the rest of us. Will the EU water down its commitment to civil rights and human rights to appease the lowest common denominator of hate and backwardness in its midst? If Poland isn't ready and willing to join the modern era, it shouldn't be permitted to.

It really seems it is time for these new comers to the EU to stand up themselves, and grow the fuck up.

After all they have been through and done to move passed the Soviet days, this sad look inside worries me.

It's nice to see that the hate and bile of now-dead bigot Jerry Falwell lives on. And actually, I'll bet that the Poles learned the news of Tinky Winky's homosexuality from the increasing evangelizing religious right extremists are doing in the former Eastern bloc. These countries have no idea who they're dealing with, and thus accept the religious right's hate wrapped in God at carte blanche. Well, it's now biting them in the ass.

So, it is so nice of American Evangelicals to get out in the world. They are doing so much to help the world with this garbage. Thankfully they are also helping to scare men from using protection during sex, and giving out all sorts of bad advice about medicine. Finally, Protestants and Catholics acting together to act for Christ.

Thanks guys!

In Russia:
Moscow police sit by as far-right extremists violently attack European members of parliament at gay pride rally

This is what Russia is becoming again - or still is - as George Bush and Condi Rice sit idly by. Eastern Europe, from Moscow to Warsaw, is still struggling to understand freedom and democracy, and not doing so well it would seem, as we ignore them. Rather than rely on the reports of gay advocates present at the event, let's read what the independent mainstream media had to say - it's hideous.

...

Yes, the police sat by while European members of parliament were violently attacked. The police then proceeded to arrest the members of parliament and others who were victims of the violence.

...

Alekeyev and two other organizers of the march - dubbed the “Moscow Gay
Pride Three” were detained overnight Sunday awaiting a court hearing and sources
close to them told UK Gay News that they feared he may be sent to prison: "We
really fear that Nikolai Alekseev will be sent to prison for 15 days as the
'figurehead' of the Gay Pride organising team...Unofficially, we received
confirmation that this is what the General Prosecutor already asked. We are not
very optimistic about the result of the court hearing. We can say that all three
have been provided with legal assistance."

The sources allege: "[It is] becoming very clear that orders are being
given to court and militia directly from [the] Kremlin."

So, the attackers get a light treatment, but the gay rights advocates get cracked down on. Nice.

It seems pretty clear who the police and government sees as the enemy and problem in Russia.

And so it begins

Down below, I looked at September. Their is a lot of buzz about it. A time of change. The Republicans are itching to jump the GW Titanic and grab the first lifeboats...women and children, out of the way!!!

But what was a repeated point in their claims?

significant changes

What will that mean? Their is also talk of change from the Iraqis. But would it be the first time that the Republicans shifted their own goal post?

Crooks and Liars:

It was more of an implicit strategy than an explicit one, but holding September out as the key moment for Iraq analysis was a way for Republicans to push off their short-term problems. Dems wanted a withdrawal timeline now. By insisting that policy makers wait until Gen. David Petraeus reports on Iraq’s progress in September, the GOP bought itself four months.

Now that everyone realizes that September will not show any real progress, the trick for the administration is figuring out how to lower expectations — and redefine “success.”

U.S. military leaders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that most of the broad political goals President Bush laid out early this year in his announcement of a troop buildup will not be met this summer and are seeking ways to redefine success.

In September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present Congress with an assessment of progress in Iraq. Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then.

Enactment of a new law to share Iraq’s oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.

Be prepared for a series of almost comical examples of “progress.”

For the Republican candidates...

AMERICAblog:

On Memorial Day 2007, it's well-established that George Bush led us into war based on lies. Bush, Cheney and Rove used terrorism and war for political advantage to win elections in 2002 and 2004. Politics was always more important than policy for the Bush team. The current crop of GOP candidates for President are using Bush's political scare tactics -- invoking Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Paul Krugman explains what should be the appropriate response:

The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

Every time the GOP candidates invoke Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, they are also highlighting Bush's failure to defeat the actual enemy who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001. And, they must be held accountable for the reality that Bush's Iraq war has created a terror training ground in Iraq.

Foreign Policy

TPM:

...it's worth noting that after years of saying talks with Iran would be reckless and irresponsible, the Bush gang is grudgingly accepting the reality that Dems have been pushing for quite a while.

Would it be rude to point out how often this has happened of late? Dems said Bush should talk directly to Syria; Bush said Dems were weak to even suggest it; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should talk to North Korea and use Clinton's Agreed Framework as a model for negotiations; Bush said this was out of the question; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should increase the size of the U.S. military; Bush said this was unnecessary; and Bush eventually came around.

And Dems said Bush should engage Iran in direct talks, particularly on Iraq. It took a while, but the president came around on this, too.

For years, all we've heard from the right is that Bush is a bold visionary when it comes to foreign policy, and Dems are weak and clueless. And yet, here we are, watching the White House embrace the Dems' approach on most of the nation's major foreign policy challenges.

Now, if Bush could just bring himself to accept the Democratic line on Iraq, too, we'd really see some progress.

September

September, September, something something...

Anyway, a lot is being made of the month. A hope that the Republicans in Congress will break away. That they will stand, if the Surge does not succeed by then...in some clear way.

Anyone else see a way to talk tough now, and buy time now?

TPM:

In addition to Sessions, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) recently said he "won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq" by September. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he'll need to see "significant changes" by September. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants a change if the policy isn't working "by the time we get to September." Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) said, "There is a sense that by September, you've got to see real action on the part of Iraqis. I think everybody knows that, I really do."

We'll see. Anyone who has ever bet on congressional Republicans bucking the White House on war policy has lost money. Either way, whether war supporters like it or not, September is circled on DC's calendar.

So. How much success will be needed to keep the Republicans quiet? Will the continued losses of near to current, but slightly lower, bring a smile to them?

Will a New Surge, or new whatever plan, be good enough? Cause, gosh, if they have a new foolproof plan, how can we stand in the way? ...Support the troops...

We will see. And my money is still on almost every Republican grumbling now, weaseling out of challenging the president then.

That's their record.

Looking at the Creation Museum

If you are not up on the Creation Museum, birthed from Ken Ham's complete lack of understanding of science, and complete faith in the bible, you may wish to catch up. It is all Young Earth Creation Science. Dinosaurs and Man side by side on Earth and on the Ark. And the attitude that science supports these ideas. He is a part of Answers in Genesis. A ridiculous organization, living by these ridiculous tenets.

Utter bunk.

PZ Meyer has a run down on the museum, the folly and troubles of creationism.

Does the opposition to creationism matter? Yes, it does. Answers in Genesis is a predatory organization: it thrives on ignorance, and it misinforms and misleads and lies specifically to inculcate the kind of gullibility and fear and desperation that will send more donations to its coffers.

It's not just children who are scammed. Read my father knew no science for an example of what Ken Ham really feeds on.

He needed more care, himself, but there was no money left to pay for a homemaker, or even a cleaning woman. I went out weekly and did as much as I could; church people mended his clothes and brought food, neighbours checked on him. But there was always a shortfall.

When he died, at 92, and I picked up the reins of his finances, I found that month's bill from AIG: $70. For DVDs. To give away, of course; Dad had no TV, no DVD player, no video player: he was almost blind.

That's what the museum is all about: fleecing the poor, the weak, the ignorant, the confused.

Too many people get bled dry by religious organizations. And they do so eagerly and happily. What a lovely con.

Unlike the NYT, here is a good response to the museum and Ham.

That says all you need to know of the merit of this museum.

Crooks and Liars has more.

Adults have to pay $19.95 to enter the museum and hear pseudo-science. Those same adults can stop by a public library and check out books about real science for free.