Montgomery County, MD Green Party Blog

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are flying on Air Force One.

The President looks at the Vice President, chuckles, and says, “You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy.”

The Vice President shrugs and says, “Well, I could throw 10 $100 bills out the window and make 10 people very happy.”

Not to be outdone, the Secretary of Defense says, “Of course, then, I could throw 100 $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy.”

The pilot rolls his eyes and says to his co-pilot, “Such arrogant asses back there. Hell, I could throw the three of them out the window and make 6 billion people unbelievably happy.”

* Tip of the ‘Nose to Actress Buddy!

A bit further down that same page is the following little gem…

a fascist, a fundamentalist, and a criminal walk into a bar.

the bartender says “it’s an honor, mr. president.”

And scroll a little bit further down and you’ll come across this one…

Replace these three jackals with a movie star, a priest, a backpacking hippy and Karl Rove and they’re on a disabled plane with only three parachutes to be had and it’s going down fast… Now that would be a funny joke!

Let’s see what we have here:

Alec Baldwin, The pope, Wavy Gravy, and Karl Rove were on a small plane flying over Iceland when the engine inexplicably cut out and the plane began to plummet to earth . The pope shrieked “I am the light of the world, give me a parachute so that I may continue to save the souls of the unrighteous!” Alec Baldwin snarled “I am an indespensible actor who brings happiness to billions, I also deserve one of those chutes.” Wavy Gravy put down his bong and said “the only fair and democratic way to decide this is by drawing straws”, so they all headed to the front of the plane to get Karl.

As they entered the first class cabins there was Karl, wearing one of the parachutes and burning the other two, having just killed and sodomized the pilot and smearing his feces all over the cockpit. As he waddled toward the emergency exit the other three passengers howled in anguish “Why did you do that? Three of us could have lived but now your selfishness has doomed us!” As he threw open the door, just before he jumped, Karl yelled back “You knew what I was when you let me on this plane, it is my nature.”

Oh wait, that’s not a joke, it’s more like a parable.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2886

Just when you thought you’d heard it all, along come charges that U.S. contractors and sub-contractors have been using slave labor practices to bring in foreign workers.

About 35,000 of the 48,000 people performing support duties for the army under private contracts are third country nationals, imported from outside Iraq. The largest emplyer of these employees is Halliburton subsidiary KBR which has spent some $12 billion, outsourcing most of the work to subcontractors.

Laborers are brought into Iraq under false pretenses; often their families are required to pay substantial fees to brokers for obtaining these jobs. Subcontractors routinely seize the workers’ passports to prevent them from leaving, deceive them about their safety and contract terms, subject them to substandard living conditions, and even threaten to cut off their food and water if they refuse to move to Iraq.

At the same time that thousands of foreign workers are illegal kept under coercive conditions, rampant unemployment among Iraqis fuels resentment of the U.S. occupation.

The reality of Iraq is becoming more and more unreal every day…

When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the red queen’s off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said ….

…”it must be a Bush presidency!”

If New Orleans had instant runoff voting, then they would not have to pay for a second election…

Nagin, who many pundits wrote off early due to a shaky initial response to Hurricane Katrina and some racially charged statements, was on top with 39 percent of the vote after 94 percent of precincts reported.

Click here for link.

Bush II is positively delusional if he thinks that corn or hydrogen is going to provide the energy necessary. Now sugar cane is a different matter, but his dear friends on the sugar plantations would not like that one bit — importing sugar would hurt their precious profits…

There is broad bipartisan agreement that the government needs to do more to fund research into vehicles powered by fuels including hydrogen and ethanol.

Click here for link.

The Montgomery County Green Party at its’ meeting today decided to endorse the Gubernatorial and Lt. Gubernatarial campaigns of Ed Boyd and James Madigan, respectively (Important caveat: The Takoma Park / Silver Spring Green Party was not, repeat, NOT a party to this decision. The Takoma Park / Silver Spring Green Party is independent of the Montgomery County Green Party on a number of issues AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM. Nothing in this statement should be construed as implying that the Takoma Park / Silver Spring Greens have endorsed the the Boyd / Madigan Campaign. This writer is making this disclaimer so that he does not get accused of misrepresenting the views of the Takoma Park / Silver Spring Green Party membership.). Please note that this endorsement is largely symbolic as the decision as to whether or not to nominate Ed Boyd and James Madigan will be made during the caucuses. It is that vote which will determine the fate the Campaign.

Got this via email. Bob DeGroot is a good man on a good mission. — adam

By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer

A statewide environmental group is suing the Department of Natural Resources, alleging that the agency withholds documents it must by law provide to the public.

Filed by Robert DeGroot, president of Maryland Alliance for Greenway Improvement and Conservation (MAGIC website), the suit says the DNR failed to respond fully to three requests the organization has filed under the Public Information Act since October 2003. The nonprofit organization, which monitors public forests, wants to know how much logging has been permitted in state-owned forests in recent years.

The DNR has the information, Mr. DeGroot said, and it provided the data to Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George’s. In the case filed April 13, MAGIC is asking the Montgomery County Circuit Court to order the agency to provide the requested information.

“What we have been trying to do is find out what they are doing to the forests, and that is what is making them so mad. We are putting it on the Web,” Mr. DeGroot, a Rockville resident, said yesterday. Examples of where MAGIC didn’t receive the requested data came in October and November 2003, when the group asked DNR for information about logging activity in Savage River State Forest. With 54,000 acres in Garrett County, it’s the largest state forest.

“DNR still has not provided plaintiff with the Savage River Forest data provided to Senator Pinsky,” the suit states. Also, according to the lawsuit, MAGIC requested information concerning timber sales and forest management plans for four state forests - Savage River, Potomac-Garrett, Green Ridge and Pocomoke. The DNR responded by providing part of the sought-after information for two of the four forests. DNR spokesman Stephan Abel said he couldn’t comment because the matter is the subject of litigation.

MAGIC’s struggle to get information from the DNR goes back to when Mr. DeGroot, a retired IBM executive, founded the group six years ago. In 2000, he tried to get the biographies for the volunteer forest advisory board members within the DNR, but the agency denied the request on grounds that such information was a “personnel” matter. Mr. DeGroot said the agency receives, for its own use, about $3 million a year from selling timber from public land.

The agency has close ties to the timber industry, and the public has a right to know who is advising it on public policy, he said. In late 2003, the group filed an administrative claim against DNR for failing to provide boundary information for Green Ridge State Forest. Less than a week before the case was to be heard by an administrative law judge, the agency capitulated.

The General Assembly passed the Public Information Act in 1970, giving the public access to most government documents. Maryland expanded the law with the Open Meetings Act in 1977.

Private citizens have just as much right as a reporter, lawyer or anyone else to examine public documents, which range from campaign finance reports to nursing home inspections or how the county and state spend taxpayers’ money. “Documents” include reports, photos and e-mails. The Attorney General’s Office provides a quick summary of the law on its Web site, www.oag.state.md.us/opengov, as well as a more detailed PIA handbook that may be purchased for $10 or downloaded for free. The Web site includes a sample request letter.

Thomas Friedman continues his energy theme. Read previous opinions by him here , here,
here,
and here.

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 21, 2006

I was visiting Williams College a few days ago and heard a student speaker there mention that at the end of the day, she had gone back to her dorm room to study and to “do it in the dark.”

Hey, I thought, I’m not a prude, but did she have to be so explicit — and in public, in front of parents no less?

Fortunately, I quickly discovered that “doing it in the dark” is not some new sexual escapade, but a new Williams energy-saving competition in honor of Earth Day. Student dorms, classrooms and campus buildings are pitted against one another to see who can save the most energy. Students are encouraged to turn off lights every time they leave a room, to unplug cellphone chargers when not in use, to take advantage of daylight to study or use precise task lighting at night (”Do it in the dark!”), and to change old light bulbs to compact fluorescents.

The Williams competition got me thinking. Why doesn’t every college make it a goal to become carbon-neutral — that is, reduce its net CO2 emissions to zero? This should be a national movement. After all, today’s students will be profoundly affected by climate change, the coming energy wars and the rising danger of petro-authoritarian states, such as Iran. Yet on most campuses, the whole energy-climate question still seems to be a student hobby, not a crusade.

C’mon kids, wake up and smell the CO2! Everybody — make your school do it in the dark! Take over your administration building, occupy your university president’s office or storm in on the next meeting of your college’s board of trustees until they agree to make your school carbon-neutral. (And while you’re at it, ban gas-guzzling G.M. Hummers from your campus as well!)

It is not that hard. Start by measuring exactly how much energy your university is consuming and how much CO2 it is emitting, from its heating and cooling of buildings to its transport systems. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which can be downloaded from www.ghgprotocol.org, offers an internationally accepted way to measure greenhouse gas emissions.

Once you determine your university’s total CO2 emissions, the next step, suggests Glenn Prickett, a senior vice president at Conservation International, should be to have “your own graduate students in science and engineering develop their own comprehensive plan to reduce fossil fuel consumption.” They can turn to more efficient lighting, heating and cooling; more hybrid vehicles; and better building design, including renewable energy technologies like solar panels.

After a college reduces its carbon emissions as much as possible, it can then develop a strategy for offsetting the greenhouses gases it is still putting into the atmosphere. To become carbon-neutral, you need to finance a project that will measurably reduce greenhouse gases, and it has to be a project that would not have happened if your school had not paid for it. That’s how you get the credit.

You can pay to preserve rain forest land in the Amazon so trees there will not be burned, a major source of greenhouse gases, or plant forests in Africa that will absorb carbon, or sponsor a project to turn landfill gas into electricity. (G.M. does that!) In a partnership with Conservation International, the band Pearl Jam offset all the emissions from its last tour by paying to help communities preserve rain forest land in Madagascar. (That also helps reduce poverty and protect endangered wildlife.)

“Our offices are carbon-neutral,” said Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, which is ready to advise any campus on how to proceed: call (202) 729-7600. “We worked through a broker and identified a school in Portland that needed to buy a new heating system because the old one was very inefficient and created a lot of greenhouse gas.” The institute helped pay for the new system, the school saved money and reduced its emissions, and W.R.I. got the offset for its own emissions.

Al Gore eloquently argues that our parents’ generation, the Greatest Generation, turned back the black tide of fascism. They fought the war and built the institutions that preserved peace and freedom for a lot of people on this planet. Today’s young people, Mr. Gore argues, have a parallel task. Yes, he means you college students.

You need to become what the writer Dan Pink calls “the Greenest Generation,” and build the institutions, alliances and programs that will turn back the black tide of climate change and petro-authoritarianism, which, if unchecked, will surely poison your world and your future as much as fascism once threatened to do to your parents’ world and future.

This is your challenge. Who will rise to it?

Gas stations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware reported running out of gas today. AAA spokeswoman Cathy Rossi said that the shortages would be temporary–no more than 30 days.

One reason for the shortages is that many refineries put off routine maintenance after Katrina hit and now have to close to get the maintenance in.

The result has been showing up is gas stockpiles in recent weeks.

Got this from Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing.

Since taking the job as White House spokesman in the summer of 2003, Scott McClellan has dealt with some major news events, including Hurricane Katrina and the leak of the identity of a CIA officer. Below are some more memorable exchanges with the press.
*
*
*
Q: You know what, Scott? You may think that’s cute and funny, but you’re not answering the question, and that’s a dodge. And don’t accuse me of trying to pose for the cameras. Don’t be a jerk to me, personally. When I’m asking you a serious question, you should give us a serious answer –

McClellan: You don’t have to yell.

Q: — instead of jerking us around.

McClellan: You don’t have to yell.

Q: I will yell. If you want to use that podium and try to take shots at me personally, which I don’t appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that’s wrong.

McClellan: Calm down, David.

Q: So answer the question.

McClellan: Calm down.

Q: I’ll calm down when I feel like calming down. You answer the question.

McClellan: I have answered the question, and I’m sorry you’re getting all riled up about it.

Q: I am riled up because you’re not answering the question….

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114545827297329997-YqVxmAioeprejF1d2SzXU_OYXX0_20060426.html?mod=blogs

The teenager in question was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia — one of the most difficult disorders to treat — and the Arizona authorities put him on trial anyway???!!! This is not about justice, people, it is about revenge; plain and simple.

The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday with whether Arizona gave a fair trial to a schizophrenic teenager who killed a police officer nearly six years ago, in a case that could be a major test of state insanity laws.

Click here for link.

On SCOTUSblog a description is offered of the written arguements (got this from Standdown.org).
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2006/04/tomorrows_argum_37.html