Ugly American Exports

Bloody hell:

After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message — that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Huckabee Hanging in There

McCain gets smacked down in Kansas:

McCain fell in Kansas to Mike Huckabee, who got nearly 60 percent of the caucus vote a few hours after telling conservatives in Washington, "I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." The former Arkansas governor won all 36 delegates at stake.

Huckabee is still very creepy.

The Beginning of the End?

I hope this works out:

An end to Hollywood’s long and bitter writers’ strike appeared close on Saturday, as union leaders representing 12,000 movie and television writers said they had reached a tentative deal with production companies.

The strike, which began Nov. 5, remains in effect until the governing boards of the two writers’ guilds gauge the sense of their membership this weekend and decide whether to end the walkout. The boards are expected to meet as early as Sunday, and the strike could be over by Monday morning.

InfraGard

Very disturbing. Read the whole thing:

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.

...

One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.

This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.

“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.

“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.

Family Values

This Colorado Republican has some issues:

DENVER - Representative Larry Liston apologized Thursday for characterizing young, unwed parents as “sluts,” saying his comment was made out of frustration and was not meant to hurt feelings.

Liston was deluged with phone calls and e-mails and was criticized by several female Democratic legislators the day after he made his remark at a Republican legislative caucus. The Colorado Springs Republican defended his underlying sentiment that society should shame teenage boys and girls who are having children, but conceded his use of a derogatory term was inappropriate.

“If I’ve said something that offended somebody, I’m sorry, because we all say things and don’t always think about them,” Liston said in an interview. “It was not directed at any one group or individual, and I think I’ve learned a lesson.”

Liston launched into an emotionally charged speech Wednesday when GOP legislators were discussing Colorado’s high teen pregnancy rate. He said pregnant teens were shunned in his parents’ day and he finished by saying: “They’re sluts. And I don’t just mean the women. I mean the men, too.”

More of What We've Brought

Women especially are much worse off than before:

The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."

Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Torturous

Looks as though the administration can't quite achieve solidarity in regard to the cause of torturing people:

Debate over waterboarding flared Thursday on Capitol Hill, with the CIA director raising doubts about whether it's currently legal and the attorney general refusing to investigate U.S. interrogators who have used the technique on terror detainees.

Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, said "it's a good thing" that top al-Qaida leaders who underwent the harsh interrogation tactic in 2002 and 2003 were forced to give up information that helped protect the country.

Important Legislation

Sure, soldiers are dying overseas, the economy is tanking, and people are losing their homes left and right, but we've gotta have priorities:

Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill this week that would allow houses of worship to show football games on big-screen televisions.

The legislation was among a flurry of action taken this week as the result of an article Friday in The Washington Post reporting that churches were canceling Super Bowl parties out of fear of lawsuits from the NFL if they showed the game on jumbo TV screens.

Georgia Rising Again?

This is rather odd:

Desperate for water amid a historic drought, some Georgia lawmakers are trying to reopen an 1818 border dispute with Tennessee.

They have set their sights on a stretch of the 652-mile long Tennessee River that flows tantalizingly close to the Georgia line — and by some historic accounts, should be within Georgia's borders.

...

Shafer's Senate resolution says a flawed survey in 1818 mistakenly marked Georgia's border one mile south of the 35th parallel — and thus excluded the Tennessee River from Georgia's reach.

There is a reason thirsty lawmakers are eyeing the river: It has a flow about 15 times greater than the river feeding Atlanta.

...

The border debate centers on an 1818 survey that has entered the folklore of north Georgia. As the story goes, surveyors charting out the 35th parallel were either frightened by a nearby Indian party or simply used flawed math to draw the line.

Either way, say Georgia partisans, the result is that Georgia's border now sits on dry land about a mile below where it should be. In fact, they say, it should be in the middle of the river. And lawmakers here are none too happy about it.

"A state boundary can only be changed by the legislatures of the states, with the consent of Congress," Shafer said. "It cannot be changed by a mathematician with a faulty compass or a skittish surveying party afraid of the Indians."

Tennessee lawmakers derided the resolution as the "latest attempt by Georgia to take our resources."

"Tennessee residents living at the southern edge of Marion County should not wake up one day to find themselves declared to be Georgia residents," said Bill Hobbs, spokesman for the state's Republican Party.

Romney Is Out

So much for that guy:

John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering campaign. "I must now stand aside, for our party and our country," Romney told conservatives.

Hurray Torture!

Bush is just so very fond of inflicting pain upon people:

The White House on Wednesday defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal - not torture as critics argue - and has saved American lives. President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said.

A day earlier, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tactic was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

...

Hayden banned the technique in 2006 for CIA interrogations, the Pentagon has banned its employees from using it, and FBI Director Robert Mueller said his investigators do not use coercive tactics in interviewing terror suspects.

No Restoration

Haggard continues to amuse:

New Life Church said Tuesday that former pastor Ted Haggard has prematurely ended a "spiritual restoration" process begun when he was fired for sexual misconduct.

Haggard was fired from New Life Church and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals in November 2006 after a former male prostitute alleged they had a cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine.

Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but didn't use it.

New Life said in a written statement that "the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and (New Life) maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry."

No Justice

This is what we've come to:

A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court.

A judge in Texas has ruled that Tracy Barker's case will be heard in arbitration, according to the terms of her initial employment contract.

Barker says that while in Iraq she was constantly propositioned by her superior, threatened and isolated after she reported an incident of sexual assault.

Hogan's Heroes

Great. Now our Secretary of Defense is adopting the Sergeant Shultz "I know nothing!" policy:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says a realistic estimate of next year's war costs is almost impossible to discern, in part because he doesn't know how many troops will be in Iraq this fall.

The assertion, to be made on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, will no doubt raise the ire of congressional Democrats, who contend the Bush administration is trying to keep these costs from the American public.

"While I would like to be in a position to give you a realistic estimate of what the department will need for (fiscal year) 2009 supplemental funds, I simply cannot at this point," according to Gates' prepared remarks for a budget hearing.

What We've Brought Iraq

A whole lot of crap:

Baghdad is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.

One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth," said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

That's Bush for You

Huge deficits, slashed domestic spending, and it's all nifty because he sent the budget via the Internets:

The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.
...
Bush's lame-duck budget plan is likely to be ignored by Congress, which is controlled by Democrats and already looking ahead to November elections.

Here's hoping.

Assault on the Press

Glenn Greenwald has the story. Read the whole thing:

Ever since the President's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program was revealed by the New York Times' Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau back in December, 2005, there has been a faction of neoconservatives and other extremists on the Right calling for the NYT reporters and editors to be criminally prosecuted -- led by the likes of Bill Kristol (now of the NYT), Bill Bennett (of CNN), Commentary Magazine and many others. In May, 2006, Alberto Gonzales went on ABC News and revealed that the DOJ had commenced a criminal investigation into the leak, and then "raised the possibility [] that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information."

That was one of the more revealing steps ever taken by Bush's DOJ under Gonzales: the administration violated multiple federal laws for years in spying on Americans, blocked all efforts to investigate what they did or subject it to the rule of law, but then decided that the only real criminals were those who alerted the nation to their lawbreaking -- whistleblowers and journalists alike. Even Gonzales' public musing about criminal prosecutions could have had a devastating effect -- if you're a whistleblower or journalist who uncovers secret government lawbreaking, you're obviously going to think twice (at least) before bringing it to light, given the public threats by the Attorney General to criminally prosecute those who do.

Eighteen months have passed since Gonzales' threats, and while there have been some signs that the investigation continues -- former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith, for instance, described how he was accosted and handed a Subpoena by FBI agents in the middle of Harvard Square, demanding to know what he knew about the NSA leak -- there had no further public evidence that the DOJ intended to pursue Risen and Lichtblau. Until now.

Yesterday, the NYT reported that Jim Risen was served with a grand jury Subpoena, compelling him to disclose the identity of the confidential source(s) for disclosures in his 2006 book, State of War. The Subpoena seeks disclosure of Risen's sources not for the NSA program (for which he and Lichtblau won a Pulitzer Prize), but rather, for Risen's reporting on CIA efforts to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program. Nonetheless, Risen's work on State of War is what led to his discovery that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans without the warrants required by law.