Politics
grrlscientist | March 26, 2007Monica Goodling worked for the Justice Department and is rumored to be invoking the fifth amendment rather than testify in front of congress regarding Alberto Gonzales's misbehavior. In my opinion, it should be inexcusable for people in the Justice Department to invoke the fifth amendment to avoid testifying to Congress. People there must testify. But astonishingly, they are beginning to "plead the fifth", rather than tell the American people that Bush's appointees are really a bunch of lying fraudulent hucksters.
Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings…
grrlscientist | March 26, 2007Amazing! They finally noticed that Bush is an arrogant bully!
In the April edition of Esquire magazine, GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska described Bush as someone who doesn't believe he's accountable to anyone. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends on how this goes," said Hagel [story]
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tags: Bush, impeachment
oracknows | March 26, 2007There hasn't been much news in the last two or three months about Abraham Cherrix, the 16-year-old with Hodgkin's lymphoma who rejected conventional chemotherapy, first in favor of the quackery known as Hoxsey therapy and then for the ministrations of a radiation oncologist in Mississippi named Dr. Arnold Smith, who combines non-woo (low dose radiation therapy) with woo (a form of "immunotherapy" involving "belly plaques" that has no evidence showing efficacy, not "more innovative techniques, such as immunotherapy, which uses medications and supplements to boost the immune system," as the…
clock | March 26, 2007...yet even at the start of it, back in March 2003, The Onion understood the dynamics of war and the psychology of defenders of war better than almost half of Americans and all of GOP today.
[Hat-tip, commenter Lindsey]
grrlscientist | March 25, 2007John McKay, one of the eight former U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that White House officials had questioned his performance in highly partisan political terms at a key meeting in Washington last September, three months before his dismissal.
John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could undermine a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said that White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy William Kelley "actually asked me why Republicans in the state of…
grrlscientist | March 25, 2007This quote comes to me from a pal who saw it on TV (there are days when I wish I had a TV, and today is one of those days, because this quote is priceless) ...
Diane Sawyer: "Why not let Karl Rove go up there and show he has nothing to hide? Testify, under oath, and with a transcript? Let everyone see it?"
Tony Snow: "This is what I love, this Karl Rove obsession. Let's back off. First, the question is: Do you want Karl Rove on TV, or do you want the truth?"
Diane Sawyer: "Why can't you have both?"
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tags: Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, US Attorney General, politics
grrlscientist | March 25, 2007More senators are openly expressing their concern regarding Alberto Gonzales' lack of integrity and his fitness to serve as this nation's Attorney General. The clock is ticking until the fine day when we finally shed this scumbag Attorney General ...
"We have to have an attorney general who is candid and truthful. And if we find out he's not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on," said Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said Gonzales "does have a…
oracknows | March 25, 2007Having been born in Detroit and raised both in the city and one of its suburbs, news like this distresses me:
DETROIT (Reuters) - With bidding stalled on some of the least desirable residences in Detroit's collapsing housing market, even the fast-talking auctioneer was feeling the stress.
"Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with it. You do know that, right?" he offered.
After selling house after house in the Motor City for less than the $29,000 it costs to buy the average new car, the auctioneer tried a new line: "The lumber in the house is worth more than that!"
As Detroit reels…
pharyngula | March 25, 2007That phrase is a perfect summary of the influence of the Bush administration. It comes from an article in which a prosecutor explains how the office of the Attorney General undermined the tobacco lawsuit.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their…
clock | March 24, 2007On Thursday night, I posted a large linkfest about the press-conference by John and Elizabeth Edwards and the revelation that her cancer has returned. Those were mostly first responses. There have been literally thousands of blog posts written since then, but I chose to link only to a couple of dozen that really deserve your attention due to quality, novel perspective, or information content (scroll below).
While there were certainly some very nice posts coming form the Right, wishing Elizabeth well and agreeing that the decision to continue campaigning is none of anyone's but the Edwards'…
tsmith | March 24, 2007 Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is as old as civilization. The bacterium infects approximately a third of the world's population--roughly 2 billion individuals. It's estimated that 8 million new cases are contracted each year--around a new infection every second. ~2 million individuals die as a result of TB every year. The bacterium also plays a prominent role in the history of microbiology: it was on March 24, 1882, that Robert Koch announced his discovery of the causative agent of the dread disease tuberculosis:
"If the importance of a disease for mankind is measured by the…
pharyngula | March 24, 2007New Rule, everyone! Whenever you see Rush Limbaugh, puke on his shoes.
If you're fortunate enough that you think you'll never actually be in the physical presence of the revolting tick of the far right, at least write to your local paper and demand that they never run another opinion piece from him. Call up your local AM station and ask that they remove him from the airwaves. I don't understand how even a conservative can stomach Limbaugh's contemptible schtick anymore.
What is their religion? I don't doubt they're religious people, but, we talked about this. Political people are different…
grrlscientist | March 24, 2007Wow, things are just getting more unbelievable all the time. Now, I find out that the Department of Justice threatened the eight sacked US Attorneys with "retaliation";
A Justice Department official threatened to take the "gloves off" and "retaliate" against the eight United States attorneys who were abruptly removed from their posts if they continued to speak publicly about the circumstances behind their dismissals, according to an email released late Monday sent to the fired prosecutors by one of their colleagues. [story]
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tags: Alberto Gonzales, politics, US Attorney General
grrlscientist | March 24, 2007Now Alberto Gonzales, AKA "Gonzo", is blaming the attorneys themselves in an effort to extricate himself from a mess of his own making;
"So far as I knew, my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers," said Mr. Gonzales. "Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew." [story]
But I repeat, for your benefit, a quote from a story that was published yesterday regarding just one of these attorneys, John McKay of Washington State, who only one month before his ouster, was…
sb admin | March 24, 2007Alberto Gonzales said that he had was not involved in discussions about the firing of attorneys who, let's be honest, were obviously fired for political reasons. It turns out that he was. Already, he was presiding over an office that was abusing its former employees and not behaving the way we would like our AGs office to behave, but now we've got some pretty direct lying involved. Too bad he wasn't under oath.
I would say that this is finally evidence that the Bush administration is corrupt from top to bottom. The thing is, most of us paying attention have been firmly convinced of that…
jlynch | March 23, 2007Not surprising that this was released on Friday, Usual modus operandi for the administration.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in an hourlong meeting last fall, according to documents released Friday that indicate he was more involved in the dismissals than he has claimed.
Last week, Gonzales said he "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on" in the firings of eight prosecutors that has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.
A Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice…
evolvingthoughts | March 23, 2007
Grrlscientist just pointed out that MDs are threatening to boycott The Lancet, because Reed Elsevier, the publisher, supports weapons fairs, including manufacturers of cluster bombs.
This is a worry. Elsevier publishes around 40 journals that have a philosophy component. Perhaps philosophers, who are after all supposed to be consistent on principles, should also boycott those journals. I list some of the major ones under the fold.
Cognition
Cognitive Systems Research
Endeavour
Historia Mathematica
History of European Ideas
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry
International Review…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2007This just out: Alberto Gonzales has finally been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I wonder how long it will take before he does the honorable thing and resigns?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting [italics mine], according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.
The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2007
Bush's head may be hard, but his brains are complete mush.
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tags: Bush, politics, humor