It is a ripoff of the Apple 1984 ad.

The Obama camapign says they had nothing to do with it.

The story hails the ad as creative. Doesn't seem all that creative to me to insert Hillary's picture in someone else's concept.

But it's interesting. And the message is supposed to be -- Hillary=Old, Barack=New.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad arrives to speak?

Genetically-engineered mosquitoes that cannot transmit malaria could help stop the spread of the illness, according to a new study.

Researchers in the US found the malaria-resistant mosquitoes outbreed their natural counterparts, suggesting they could eventually help fight the infection which kills up to 3 million people a year, mostly children.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2374462.ece

Okay I understand that Malaria is a big problems through much of Africa, but this is a very bad idea. We have absolutely no way of predicting how this modified species will behave outside of the lab in realworld environmental conditions. We have no way of predicting the (key word) unforseen consequences of our releasing a new species with a modified genetic code into the world's ecosystem.

I totally support this research but not the application, just as I totally support research into nuclear physics but neither nuclear weapons nor any current technology of nuclear reactor.

Ecosystems are too chaotic for us to have any strong understanding of how introducing a new element will change them. Oh and, uh, they're kind of important too.

WASHINGTON, March 19 — Democratic lawmakers released documents today that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty or to play down evidence of a human role in global warming.

Shocked. Shocked, I say.

Across NASA, researchers and career public affairs workers spoke up to alert The New York Times to rising political interference with the flow of science news to the public.

...

The hearing included the first public statements on the issue by Mr. Cooney, the former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Before joining the White House, Mr. Cooney was the “climate team leader” for the American Petroleum Institute, the main industry lobby in Washington.

He was hired by Exxon Mobil after resigning in 2005 following reports on the editing in The New York Times. The White House said his resignation was not related to the disclosures.

Mr. Cooney said his past work opposing restrictions on global warming gases for the oil industry had no bearing on his work once he joined the White House. “When I came to the White House,” he testified, “my sole loyalties were to the president and his administration.”

How convenient for Mr. Cooney that his sole loyalty was to a man whose sole loyalty was right back to Mr. Cooney's industry. This guy used to be a lobbyist paid to lie about climate science, then he was hired by Bush to head up the WH councel on environmental quality. He edits a whole bunch of scientific findings, gets canned when the uproar starts, and then gets hired by...Exxon. Wow. Who would have thunk it?

The hearing was part of a continuing investigation, begun under the committee’s Republican chairman last year, of charges of political interference in climate science by the Bush administration.

damn those democrats and their constant scandal mongering...Oh wait....

The hearing also produced the first sworn statements from George C. Deutsch III, now 25, who moved in 2005 from the Bush re-election campaign to public affairs jobs at NASA, where he warned career press officers to exert more control over James E. Hansen, the top climate expert at the space agency.

...

Mr. Deutsch resigned last year after Web and newspaper reports showed that he never graduated from Texas A&M University, as his resume on file at NASA said he had. He has since completed work for the degree, he said today.

How utterly perfect. Not only do you have a 23 year old nonscientist political appointee editing the work of a preeminent scientist but the guy's major qualification is a high school diploma.

Gee, I wonder why the scientific community as a whole finds the bush administration to be hostile toward them?

Article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/washington/20climatecnd.html?hp

He is having a ghastly day/week (month/year).

I hope and prey that not only are these abuses unearthed, but that they are remedied.

The Senate is addressing the underlying flaw in the patriot act right now, that allowed Gonzo Gonzales to play partisan games at Justice.

From the doc dump, it almost seems as if the staff was handling all affairs, (hope they were well paid for all this hard work) revealing a highly partisan agenda.

And something about Karl's Shop!!!

nor have I informed anyone in Karl's shop, another pre-execution necessity...

circulate the below plan to the list of folks in Step 3 and ask that you circulate it to Karl's shop

The incident is being fondly refered to as The Pearl Harbor Day Massacre

From Max Blumenthal writing in The Nation:The Porn Plot Against Prosecutors . Apparently felatio is involved in this ongoing cesspool.

For myself, I had no idea that US resources are going to groups trying to prosecute porn sold to consenting adults.

WTF?!? Who supports those priorities anyhow? This in the land of liberty and freedom, or this in the land of bushco's Soviet era gulag from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Sorry, but his Administrations priorities are not mine.

From Salon, and not Glenn Greenwald, although he is great today.

It's Can American Jews Unplug the Israel Lobby (AIPAC)? .

Here's the money line:We find ourselves in a very strange situation. America's Mideast policies are in thrall to a powerful Washington lobby that is only able to hold power because it has not been challenged by the people it presumes to speak for. But if enough American Jews were to stand up and say "not in my name," they could have a decisive impact on America's disastrous Mideast policies.

as discussed by former Congressman Bob Barr, David Keene Richard Viguerie & Bruce Fein :

"they will pitch a legislative package "to restore congressional oversight and habeas corpus, end torture and extraordinary rendition, narrow the President's authority to designate 'enemy combatants,' prevent unconstitutional wiretaps, email and mail openings, protect journalists from prosecution under the Espionage Act, and more."

In a statement, the four said the president "has encroached on the power of Congress to make laws, and on the power of the courts to interpret the law - a scenario that the Founding Fathers foresaw and warned against." As a result, they said, "We are issuing this call to Americans of all political and philosophical persuasions to join us in urging Congress to enact The American Freedom Agenda."

"The AFA would roll back the alarming recent concentration of power in the White House and its end runs around due process... The AFA seeks to restore America's tradition of respect for the rule of law and the benefits of dispersed as opposed to concentrated power, to redeem the principle that no man is above the law, and to prevent injustices that undermine national security."

"We are conservative scholars, activists and writers. We do not favor a crippled executive or enfeebled government. In a time of danger, checks and balances make for stronger government because the people will more readily accept a muscular authority if barriers against abuses are strong. If at some future time Congress, in turn, aggrandizes power and invades the executive or judicial domains, we will be equally alert to sound the alarm. But today, the clear and present danger to conservative philosophy is the White House."

OUCH!!! Ender, GoRight, help us here.....We're not used to prominent conservatives using our talking points. Say something to make it go away!!!!!

Wow, Brendan, I think I'm starting to agree with you about Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger: Rush Limbaugh is 'irrelevant'
SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) -- Rush Limbaugh likes to call himself "The Most Dangerous Man in America" because critics have long worried about how his powerful radio show shapes the political landscape.

And then came California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who frankly told "The Today Show" Tuesday that "Limbaugh is irrelevant."

"I'm not his servant," Schwarzenegger said. "I am the people's servant of California."
. . .
Some political observers said Schwarzenegger's smackdown is a sign Limbaugh is not the dominant force he once was. Back in the day, his was the only conservative voice on the airways. Now he's one of many.

But others say Limbaugh's power has always been a myth.

"For all of his power and all of his fame, Rush Limbaugh, during his ascent in the '90s, bashing Bill Clinton on a daily basis, hours on the radio every day coast to coast, was not able to un-elect Bill Clinton," said Michael Harrison of Talkers Magazine, a trade magazine for talk radio.

Conservatives credit Limbaugh for the Republican takeover of congress in '94. But, Harrison said, Limbaugh is struggling now that his party has lost power to the Democrats -- and because there is no leading Republican candidate he can tout wholeheartedly on his radio show.

I always thought Limbaugh was irrelevant, but it is good to know that right-wing politicians do too now. My favorite line of the article is the last one. How true.

I'm going to get some popcorn and a soda to watch the GOP turn to goop. It's fun to watch it disintegrate before our eyes.