Day: August 20, 2006

GOP’s ‘Average’ Joe Scarborough Turns on Bush

Jon Ponder

Nothing Joe Scarborough, the former Gingrichite GOP congressman and current MSNBC Fox-News-wannabe, could ever say or do would give him credibility at this point. Still, it is interesting to note that he has joined rightwing rats like George Will and William F. Buckley in jumping off the good ship George W. Bush as it capsizes:

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether “George Bush’s mental weakness is damaging America’s credibility at home and abroad.” For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, “IS BUSH AN ‘IDIOT’?”

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly “no.” While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: “I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don’t think he has the intellectual depth as these other people.”

Bush Team Finds New Way to Ignore Global Warming

Trish

The Current Occupants have come up with a better way to muzzle NASA scientists who try to tell the truth about global warming, according to the Sierra Club.

Dr. James Hansen appeared on 60 Minutes last year describing how Bush’s team altered scientific reports to falsely make climate change appear a matter of opinion. He defended his actions based on the mission of the agency he served.

Why not use NASA as they do all other government agencies — as a means to advance their brooding and greedy agendas?

Hansen…told New York Times science correspondent Andrew Revkin that it would be irresponsible for him not to speak out on global warming, particularly because NASA’s mission statement includes the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.”

Hard to get around that…unless you’re a neocon.

As Revkin reported in the Times on July 22nd: “In early February [2006], the [NASA mission] statement was quietly altered, with the phrase ‘to understand and protect our home planet’ deleted. In this year’s budget and planning documents, the agency’s mission is ‘to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.'” A flak-catcher for NASA insisted that the change had nothing to do with Dr. Hansen’s use of the phrase.

But the change is more than skin-deep.

…recent cuts in NASA’s budget also reflect a real shift in priorities, away from science in general and earth science programs in particular. In June — more than a month before the news about the changed mission statement broke — Beth Daley reported in the Boston Globe that NASA had been forced to delay or cancel many satellite programs, including, “almost every planned earth studying mission,” that had some contribution to make to the understanding of (how’d you guess?) global warming.

Bush and his cronies seem to view space much as they do the earth: as a military tableau and potential source of wealth. To them, space is prime real estate for satellite surveillance devices and Star Wars defense shields of questionable utility. And Bush didn’t give a crap about going to the moon or Mars until someone pointed out there are valuable minerals there, just waiting to be extracted. So why not use NASA as they do all other government agencies — as a means to advance their brooding and greedy agendas?

Still Eating Meat? This’ll Put You Off Your Feedlot

Trish

Being a vegetarian, meat headlines always leave me a little unsettled. Still, the news has been particularly bad lately.

The normally poisonous gas keeps red meat red no matter how old it gets, instead of allowing it to turn that rainbow-sheened gray that would normally be part of the decomposing process

First we find out American meat packers are trying to package the stuff in carbon monoxide gas in order to keep it looking � and looking only � fresher longer. The practice was already banned by the European Union.

The normally poisonous gas keeps red meat red no matter how old it gets, instead of allowing it to turn that rainbow-sheened gray that would normally be part of the decomposing process. Consumers, we are told, will indirectly save money because instead of grocery stores having to dispose of animal parts and pieces when they’re edible but revolting, now they can keep right on selling until that cow’s been dead…a real long time. The results aren’t quite as planned.

At issue is the growing practice of spiking sealed packages of meat with small doses of carbon monoxide. The gas…can keep meat looking bright red and fresh even as it spoils…

The July issue of Consumer Reports…took bacterial counts on 10 samples of locally purchased ground beef and steaks that had been treated with the gas. All the meat looked red, but two had spoiled by their “use or freeze by” dates and one “was on the brink of spoilage” one day before its stamped date.

Other studies showed that even if the stuff looked great in the package, you better stand back when you open it up.

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