Month: February 2010

Cheney Confesses Advocating the Torture of Terror Suspects, a War Crime with No Statue of Limitations

Jon Ponder

ABC NEWS:

CHENEY: I was a big supporter of waterboarding.

ANDREW SULLIVAN:

There is not a court in the United States or in the world that does not consider waterboarding torture. The Red Cross certainly does, and it’s the governing body in international law. It is certainly torture according to the UN Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions. The British government, America’s closest Western ally, certainly believes it is torture. No legal authority of any type in the US or the world has ever doubted that waterboarding is torture. To have subjected an individual to waterboarding once is torture under US and international law. To subject someone to it 183 times is so categorically torture is it almost absurd to even write this sentence….

So the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime. I repeat: the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime. There is no statute of limitations for such a crime; and the penalty under law is either the death penalty or a prison sentence for life…

Good On Target: Retailer Bans Farm-Raised Salmon

Trish

fishfarmingIt’s hard to overstate the case against farm-raised seafood, so we applaud Target’s recent decision to stop selling factory-fished salmon in its stores. The mass merchandiser has already, “eliminated all farmed salmon from its fresh, frozen and smoked seafood sections at stores nationwide,” replacing it with wild-caught Alaskan fish. By the end of the year, all Target-sold sushi will follow suit.

If you’re wondering what’s wrong with “aquaculture,” here’s a short list, courtesy of the Pure Salmon Campaign. Almost all these problems apply to farm-raised trout, catfish, tilapia, shrimp, etc. as well.

  • The waste from millions of captive fish empties directly into the ocean, polluting the water with untreated sewage, toxic chemicals, and other wastes.
  • Approximately three million genetically identical salmon escape from their pens each year, interbreeding with, and often out-competing populations of genetically superior wild salmon.
  • Captive farmed salmon make ideal hosts for highly contagious diseases and parasites; escapees spread them to wild fish.
  • As they grow, carnivorous and voracious farmed salmon need increasing amounts of wildcaught fish for food, thus competing directly with humans and fish species for this valuable yet diminishing resource. Currently, it takes the equivalent of three pounds of fish from the world’s oceans to make one pound of farmed salmon.
  • Farmed salmon contains such high concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other dangerous contaminants that scientists advise people to drastically restrict their monthly intake of farmed fish.
  • Artificial coloring, toxic by-products, antibiotics and other drugs, and cancer-causing contaminants are present to various degrees in farmed salmon tissue, often at levels that can adversely affect human health.

And as with other types of factory farming, fish are crammed into unnaturally small spaces.

…farmed fish are kept in concentrations never seen in the wild (e.g. 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area) with each fish occupying less room than the average bathtub. This can cause several forms of pollution. Packed tightly, fish rub against each other and the sides of their cages, damaging their fins and tails and becoming sickened with various diseases and infections. This also causes stress.

What to do to protect the “crop” and rush them to market sooner? Dowse them with massive quantities of antibiotics and hormones, of course! Even so, about 30 percent won’t survive all this misery.

Hey, anybody hungry? Let’s be sure to not have some farm-raised seafood for dinner.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

Today, the Obama administration is no longer attempting to capture men like these [terrorists] alive; it is simply killing them. This may be satisfying, but it comes at a price. With every drone strike that vaporizes a senior al Qaeda leader, actionable intelligence is vaporized along with him. Dead terrorists can’t tell you their plans to strike America.

— Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and author of Courting Disaster.

Verbatim

Trish

Look at me when I’m talking to you!

–Florida State Senate Pres. Mike Haridopolos (R-Melbourne), addressing Fair Districts Florida Campaign Chair Ellen Freidin. Freidin had been testifying before Haridopolos’ committee for three hours on the need to redraw Florida’s districts to accurately reflect voter demographics (which in Florida favor Democrats), but was interrupted repeatedly by the senator, whose good looks and peevish manner have earned questions about his sense of entitlement and issues dealing with women, along with nicknames like Little Napolean and Pretty Boy.

Seven in 10 Americans Say Palin Not Qualified to Be Prez

Buck Banks

Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of Sarah Palin, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Washington Post-ABC polling. More than seven in 10 Americans say she is unqualified to serve as president, up from 60 percent in a November survey. A majority of Republicans now say Palin lacks the qualifications necessary for the White House.

Only 45 percent of conservative Republicans consider herqualified for the presidency, down from 66 percent who said so last fall.

Among all Republicans polled, 37 percent now hold a “strongly favorable” opinion of Palin — about half the percentage when she became Sen. John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

Just 6 percent of Democrats now consider Palin qualified for the presidency, a drop from 22 percent in November. Independents who think she is qualified fell to 29 percent from 37 percent.

Palin’s Favorables Nose Dive

Trish

The more that Americans see and hear Sarah Palin, the less we like her according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Palin is not qualified to be president, according to 70% of those questioned. Her numbers don’t improve noticeably when only Republicans are polled.

The Post reports just 45% of conservatives consider Palin qualified to move into the Oval Office. Last November, 66% of conservatives said she was qualified.

Only 37 percent of Republicans have a “strongly favorable” view of Palin. Among all Americans, her overall favorable/unfavorable split is 37/55, the lowest it’s been since ABC and the Post added her to national polls in Sept. 2008, when John McCain made Palin his runningmate on the GOP ticket.

Palin continues to be popular with Tea Baggers and FOX News hardcore followers, such as those who support Mormon Glenn Beck’s show. This loud but easily misled group continues to direct its anger that a black man is president at the so-called “elite,” which Palin and Beck mock using short words and phrases they and this group can understand.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I think, frankly, the president should recess all of them … It should be done. What’s being done to this president is unfair.

— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by Roll Call, calling for President Obama to follow through on his threat of making recess appointments for stalled nominees.

We Don’t Need a Fortune Teller to Read Palin’s Palm

Trish

ecardimageMore evidence that Sarah Palin’s hand isn’t going away. A new Valentine’s Day card design is available from my favorite free ecard resource, someecards.

Palin’s cynical hypocrisy has been highlighted repeatedly during her short but riveting time in the national eye. In her speech to the Republican convention after being named John McCain’s running mate, she boasted that she refused funding for a proposed public works project that came to be known as the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, Palin lobbied for the money. Her expensive, donor-funded wardrobe, make-up, and personal stylist during the presidential campaign flew directly in the face of her claims of humble hockey momdom, as did the tanning bed she had installed at taxpayer expense in the Alaska governor’s mansion. Then there was her book tour, which utilized a Lear Jet between stops, with Palin climbing into a bus only to pull up to her adoring fans. And most recently, there was the matter of the $100,000 speaking fee for the Tea Party convention itself, which Palin claims she will spend not on herself but on other candidates and causes (she just hasn’t named any). I could go on, but it would take too long.

At the same time, Palin’s fierce defense of sheer dumbness over what she terms “elitism” has been shown to be personally motivated. Her claims to CBS’s Katie Couric that she read tons of newspapers and objected to scads of Supreme Court rulings, yet couldn’t name a single example of either, is the stuff of legend. The staged pardoning of a turkey during her aborted tenure as Alaska governor took place as another bird was slaughtered on camera in the background. She showed how easily she could be pwned when she took a call from a prankster claiming to be the president of France, and failed to catch on to the rouse. Again, I could go on almost without end.

As quickly as each of those news cycles ended, it looks like there is something enduring about the scribbled notes in Palin’s hand as she snarked away at Obama with sour teleprompter shots. Like the “changey-hopey” line Pain stole from the Tea Baggers themselves, the teleprompter meme is so ten minutes ago. Obama himself dispelled it forever* when he appeared at the recent House GOP retreat and answered hostile questions extemporaneously – and nimbly – for 90 minutes. Not once during the exchange did he duck his head to peak into his left palm.

Like her claim of foreign policy experience based on Alaska’s proximity to Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula, Palin’s ink-stained hand provides ample and abiding evidence that she is not so bright. For those who share that trait, Palin is a rock star. For all others, we don’t need to visit Madame Ruby to see Palin’s future: it holds more of the same tired, faux opposition to any progressive thought, and more successful manipulation of those who were telling the truth when they said in 2008 that they “weren’t ready” for a black man to be president.

*”Forever” in the sense of appealing to rational minds, so this would exclude Birthers and Tea Baggers