Over 460,000 acres have been burned by wild fires in southern California over the past few days. Wild fires that, at least in part, may have been the work of arsonists. The reward for information leading to a conviction now stands at $250,000 while damages from the inferno are estimated at over $1 Billion.

The fires, which have thus far resulted in at least 7 deaths and almost 2,000 lost homes, are dominating the 24-hour news cycle while Congress works in vain toward once again sending SCHIP legislation to the President's desk, a nominee for the seat of Attorney General stands before a confirmation committee, and unprecedented, unilateral sanctions have been placed on Iran in the lead-up to now inevitable military strikes. Also in the news is the bleakest environmental report ever issued by anyone coming from the U.N., and the White House-redacted testimony of the head of the Centers for Disease Control to the U.S. Senate on the effects of global climate change on public health (don't worry about West Nile though, the White House says that people die from the cold too). But I digress.

I'm taking even odds that these fires, if they were indeed ignited by arsonists, will serve as the latest milestone in the Bush Administration's quest to consolidate power in the unitary executive. Forget talk of global warming, or climate change, or peak oil, or even collapsing credit markets. The only word we'll need to know for the foreseeable future is ecoterrorism. I fear we'll come to know it all too well.

Labels: environmentalism, George W. Bush, UN

Senators Biden and Feingold will join Chris Dodd in opposing legislation which grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications corporations for their role in illegally collecting data on American citizens. Meanwhile President Bush, devoted his Saturday morning radio address to the important topic of fishing(mp3). I shit you not.

Now I'm not going to knock federal protections for stripped bass and red drum populations. I mean, I for one can think of no better sphere in which to exert the power and authority of the Oval Office in a time of war. It's not as if your Administration illegally conspired with telecommunications companies to acquire telephone, email, and web traffic data pertaining to every American citizen to include members of Congress, the judiciary, and officials of state and local governments. And hell, even if you did authorize such activity, I'm sure that that information isn't being abused, lost, or sold to the highest bidder or anything. That'd just be silly.

Please, sir. Please tell me you're not really going fishing.

Labels: fisa, George W. Bush, patriot act, tia, warrantless wiretaps

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 the US intelligence community acted with broad support from the Bush Administration to collect data on virtually every email, phone call, and web visit originating or terminating within the borders of the United States of America.

To this end, clandestine intelligence gathering operations are conducted against the citizens of the United States. Facilities and equipment were permanently placed to collect this data without warrants from a secret intelligence court as mandated by the 1978 Foreign Service Intelligence Act. However, in most cases, telecom companies voluntarily aided data collection on their own clients without proof or accusation of wrong-doing. Qwest Communications was the only company to deny these requests. (The CEO of Qwest is currently on trial for insider trading, and maintains that his dealings were influenced by intelligence community meddling.)

As news of these operations were leaked to the media by telecom whistle blowers, calls to revise FISA grew. The argument was that the 1978 law was out of date, and incapable of providing the intelligence community with the tools necessary to protect national security in the Internet age.

A bill sponsored by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) seeks to reform FISA, but has an added provision supported by the Bush Administration which would grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that helped the government illegally spy on Americans. President Bush has stated that he will veto any national surveillance bill that does not contain such provisions.

However, “because bills are supposed to have unanimous consent in the Senate before going forward...One Senator can make it very difficult to bring a bill to the floor by objecting...” That one Senator is Chris Dodd (D-Conn, Presidential Candidate 2008).

Please support Senator Dodd with a kind word, a message of support, or even a campaign donation to help show the Democratic Party in this country that Americans will not stand for indiscriminate attacks on our Bill of Rights.

One final word on the bill currently before the Senate, the one sponsored by Jay Rockefeller...Here's a glimpse of Senator Rockefeller's campaign contributors.Maybe it's time for the gentleman from West Virgina to go home.

Labels: 9/11, Chris Dodd, fisa, George W. Bush, Jay Rockefeller, technology, tia, warrantless wiretaps

After nearly a solid week of dropping hints, Stephen Colbert threw his hat in the ring in the race for president tonight.

First, he made a surprise appearance at his old home, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," Tuesday night to make an official announcement: He was officially considering a run for president and would announce his decision "some time soon."

Soon arrived about 20 minutes later on his own show, The Colbert Report, when, with balloons falling, he said, 'Yes, I'm doing it!" Then he welcomed CBS political analyst Jeff Greenfield to analyze his impact on the race "in the past three minutes."

Greenfield said it was "astounding."

He announced that he will be running in his home state of South Carolina. Here are links for the South Carolina Democratic Party and South Carolina GOP for those interested in keeping an eye on what is likely to be one hell of a spectacle.

Labels: 2008 Election, media, Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert promotes his new book, "I Am America (And So Can You!)", by writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times.

"I'd like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting/begging me to write her column today. As I type this, she's watching from an overstuffed divan, petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito. Which reminds me: Before I get started, I have to take care of one other bit of business:

Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn't have to think about. It's all George Bush's fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.

There. Now I've written Frank Rich's column too."

And if the Colbert/Dowd/Rich combo wasn't enough cognitive dissonance to cause a rupture in your personal space-time continuum, I offer this as clear evidence that the end times are near:



In all seriousness I support the First Lady in her efforts to end the crisis in Burma, and hope that her voice will continue to be heard in the White House on this and similar matters.

Funny, Karl Rove leaves the White House and all of a sudden the Administration has a soul. Go figure.

Labels: Burma, Laura Bush, media, Stephen Colbert

It's been far too long since I dug deep and let my conspiratorial freak-flag fly. So tonight, incensed by an aggressively bad baseball game in which the Sox were thumped by the Indians 13-6 in 11 innings, and inspired by a fresh cup of reheated coffee, rapid dissent is gonna earn some of that black-background conspiracy blog cred.


In his radio address this week President Bush took our nation down yet another rabbit hole. While the world adjusted to the idea of Al Gore as a Nobel Laureate, and the Democratic led Congress dabbled in foreign policy by indelicately putting a thumb in the eye of our most significant material and logistic ally in the Middle East, and the American people on both sides of the aisle silently cursed the veto of the SCHIP bill, President Bush was kicking off a media blitz for support of a suite of Latin American trade pacts.

The trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, and Panama will “strengthen our ties with our friends,” Bush said, and “will help counter the false populism promoted by hostile nations”; a direct stab at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Representative Sander Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee went one further, "It is only the beginning of a necessary, active grappling with the challenges and opportunities of globalization," he said.

Only the beginning...That's the operative phrase here, because this week's radio address comes on the heels of former Mexican President Vincente Fox's book tour during which he told CNN's Larry King that he and George W. Bush had agreed to long term plans for our nations to extend and strengthen the provisions of the NAFTA treaty and ultimately establish a pan-American, Euro-like currency.


The concept of the Amero has been around for a while now, but it seems as if George W. Bush is actually laying the foundations for a single, hemispheric currency (can we call it the Hemi?). While most reports state the proposed Amero would encompass Canada, Mexico and the United States, it seems apparent from Bush's address that the leaders of our nations also intend on inviting the countries of Latin and South America into the dark brotherhood.


Who'da thunk it? George Bush really does want one ring to rule them all. One thing is for sure, any idea that can draw the combined ire of both the John Birch Society and the Sierra Club has got to be awesome! Didn't he say he was a uniter?

Labels: amero, economy

Supreme Court refuses to hear CIA kidnapping allegation ~CNN



CLICK IMAGE for background.

"El-Masri alleged he was abducted in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and taken to a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan as part of a secret program aimed at suspected terrorists.

"I was humiliated, I was beaten, I was drugged," the Lebanese-born man told CNN last year. "After five months, they simply took me back and dropped me like a piece of luggage in the woods of Albania."

U.S. officials told CNN the Bush administration privately has confirmed to Germany the man was captured by mistake, but it has not made a public admission."

Labels: Extraordinary Rendition, Khaled El-Masri, scotus

"Seven hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money to spend to try to get someone to talk to you and not get an answer.

That's how much the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based libertarian think tank, has forked over in six months for advertisements in national newspapers trying to persuade Al Gore to debate one of its experts on global warming issues."

A Chicago-based libertarian think tank...Is that what the kids are calling it these days? The article makes it sound like cat food eating grandmothers scrimped and saved this money to confront the big bad Gore on his damnable lies. They're funded by Exxon.

Other sources of Heartland funding:

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation: "Koch Industries is also a major polluter. During the 1990s, its faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency."

John M. Olin Foundation: "The Foundation is financed by the Olin chemical and munitions fortune with assets estimated at $90 million, $3 million of which goes to conservative advocacy groups."

Scaife Foundations: "is built on at least 5 pillars; the family's ownership of Gulf Oil Corporation, the family's monopoly ownership of Alcoa and Alcan going back to 1891, ownership of Koppers and Carborundum corporations, and their participation in the uranium cartel."

I could go on but this is just too pathetic.

That's some crack reporting there Steve Huntley. Do they pay you for this stuff, or do you just do it for fun?

Labels: Al Gore, climate change, environmentalism, Heartland Institute, operation lockbox, Steve Huntley

Click image for complete graphic.

Read the New York Times investigative piece on enhanced interrogation techniques.

"Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan calls it like it is: "We have war criminals in the White House."

From CNN: "It appears that under Attorney General Gonzales they reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Reinterpreted. The law. In secret.

Labels: Andrew Sullivan, cia, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, George W. Bush, Patrick Leahy, Torture