The irony of this story is thick and dynamic.

While US political gurus have been holding the American public hostage with a laserlike focus on divisive political debate, are you 'with us or against us'...

.... the Russians have been busy riding in submarines and have planted a Russian flag at the bottom of the oil saturated Arctic Ocean.

Russians Plant Flag Under the North Pole

The ideologues that insist on the politically crippling notion that the US is above pesky international laws and treaties have not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty . This treaty was first rejected by the Reagan administration saying it violated free market principles (can you say Iran).

The US stands alone as not ratifying the Sea Treaty. I wonder how this will play in the International Community, that has Denmark, Russia, Canada, the US and others who are clamoring to claim rights to the oil rich seabed.

Has the US been sideswiped by Russia?

Russia's eagerness to secure the rights to Arctic energy worries many policymakers in Washington, who argue that the U.S. is powerless to intervene while it remains mired in a 13-year debate over ratification of a United Nations treaty governing international maritime rights.

That pact, the Law of the Sea Treaty, is viewed by many as the world's primary means of settling disputes over exploitation rights and navigational routes in international waters. Russia and 152 other nations have ratified the treaty.

U.S. lawmakers who oppose the treaty have held up its ratification in Congress since 1994, arguing that signing on to the pact cedes too much power to the UN. Proponents of the treaty say if the U.S. doesn't ratify it, Russia's bid for the Arctic's energy wealth will go unchallenged.

Even more bizarre in the land of irony is that likely this undersea oil reserve underneath the North Pole, would likely not have a Russian flag on it with out the realities of climate change that has melted enough ice to make the ocean more passable.

This article believes so.

I'm not so sure.

1. He's got too much personal baggage now (hypocrisy).

2. He has no answers for the big issues that are at the forefront hurting the GOP: Iraq and corruption/hypocrisy (see #1).

He had his chance in '94 and blew it.

you advocates of free-markets:

How would mine safety be managed without regulations ?

Would consumers shut down the unsafe/hazardous mines by not buying coal (or whatever other product being mined)?

is pretty badly written. I agree with much of the sentiment, but it wouldn't have hurt to run it through a few more drafts.

I am posting this from my cell phone. If this works, all productivity for me in the future will cease. I'll never do anything except be here. :-)

what with the deteriorating infrastructure and mine accidents and such being, obviously of course, solely the fault of the Bush Administration that we should try to get the Democrats on record before the next election as to when they intend to have all of these problems addressed if the American people agree to elect them.

I don't want to be accused of unfairly criticizing them after the fact and I KNOW how much the Democrats like to have timetables in place.  So, how long after we see the next Democrat President will all of the following be solved:

1. Bridge repairs will be completed by when?
2. A permanent solution to the problem of on-going maintenance of the repaired bridges will be in place by when?
3. All existing mines will be retrofitted so as to be 100% safe with no possibility of accident by when?
4. A permanent solution to the problem of on-going mine maintenance will be in place by when?
5. All US territory will be rendered completely safe from all known acts of nature by when?  These solutions shall be guaranteed to prevent any further death or injury from the following at a minimum:
• Hurricanes
• Tornadoes
• Thunderstorms
• Volcanic Activity
• Earthquake
• Erosion
• Ice Storms
• Heat Waves
6. World famine will be eradicated by when?
7. World peace will be achieved by when?
8. All crime within the US will be eliminated by when?
9. All US classified information and the full details of the operation of all US intelligence gathering efforts will be disclosed by when?
10. Both Mexico and Canada will be annexed by when?  (To solve the illegal immigration crisis.)
11. New clean, abundant, and economical energy sources will be available by when?
12. The dismantling of all fossil fuel based infrastructures along with their replace by those infrastructures required to distribute these new energy sources will be completed by when?
13. All pollution within US territory will have been cleaned up by when?
14. New clean, abundant, and economical replacements for wood based products will be available by when?  (To save the trees.)
15. Precautions to completely prevent the unecessarily loss of plant or animal life within US territory will be completed by when?

Have I forgotten anything important here?  I don't want to leave anything out because by setting a timetable for such things we are assured that they will come to pass.  So, when you timetable comes due we expect results if you get elected.

Ex DOJ Officials Fight Back

After months of scandal, firings and some testimony from Gonzales that many on Capitol Hill found wholly unsatisfying, these ex-Justice Department employees are taking a rare step and fighting back.

Former employees of the Civil Rights Division are channeling their workplace rage into lobbying force. The government lawyers say they were ignored, disrespected and kicked out by Bush appointees. The attorneys describe an increasingly partisan workplace, where political appointees intimidated career lawyers and undermined civil rights to push political agendas.

Loving this!

To those D's who might be feeling disenfranchsed right now, remember none of this would have happened if the Democrats hadn't come to power in Congress in 06!

But the tone of the current backlash is much more passionate, says former Voting Section Chief Joe Rich, who claims that the Bush administration totally stifled internal debate.

"We used to disagree vigorously, but I was never worried about getting fired," said Rich, who started at the department in 1968. "It wasn't until this administration that no debate was really allowed." He said at least 60 percent of the lawyers in the Voting Section have left since April 2005.

Rich left the department in 2005, after he says he was stripped of most of his responsibilities. He's since testified before both the Senate and House Judiciary committees.

Congress wasn't always receptive to the complaints of former Justice employees, said Rich, who alleges that the Republican-led Congress paid little attention to the legal exodus. But that dynamic changed when the Democrats took power.

While surfing about I ran accross an article in NewsBusters which is a summary of an Op Ed by a Newsweek Editer that skews Newsweek's recent article on the Great Global Warming Hoax .

The NewsBuster's article provides a reasonable summary of the interesting parts of the Op Ed from a conservative POV.

I only want to discuss my somewhat recent revelation concerning the existence of AGW Science Nazi's (and here).  I still owe knocienz a reply here.

The thing that caught my eye was the following excerpt from the Newsweek Editors Article:

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: we simply don't have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale—as NEWSWEEK did—in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.

Sound familiar?  This is basically the observation that what I have termed AGW Science Nazis are doing what I have been claiming.  :)

And how about that last line?  Sound familiar blue bars?  Sort of reminds me of the meme that dissent is the most Patriotic thing around.  While this topic is about science and not politics, dissent (i.e. critical review) constitutes one of the most fundamental tenants of science, right?

Commenting on the video of Cheney in 1994 discussing the difficulties in occupying Iraq, Balko asks a good question: What exactly did change between 1994 and 2003 that made Cheney change his mind about Iraq's inevitable quagmirish characteristics?

Never mind whether we should have invaded or not -- why were the complications that followed our easy military takedown apparently unforeseeable under GWB when they were so obvious to Cheney defending GHWB's decision to stop short a decade earlier?