A response that I typed up to a certain miscreant using the handle “qrsi” got a mention by one of the WaPo bloggers!  And to top it off, said miscreant’s offensive posting was removed from the discussion page!

Senior Diplomats Retaking Foreign Policy

Senior career diplomats are retaking control of key elements of U.S. foreign policy and have begun to assert significant influence as the Bush administration enters its waning months eager to salvage a legacy marred by the Iraq war.Since assuming the helm at the State Department in 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has installed veteran foreign service officers with more than 200 years of collective diplomatic experience in seven critical posts from the Middle East to South Asia and the Far East.

By contrast, their immediate predecessors had just 72 years of combined experience and five of them were Republican political operatives with limited or no background in diplomacy, according to an Associated Press survey of senior agency appointees.

What is curious about this article is its implicit criticism of Colin Powell and his top aide, Lawrence Wilkerson. This criticism is implicit because it refers to appointees of Powell’s as having quite limited foreign policy experience as compared to Condoleeza Rice’s appointees. Furthermore, the article implies that Powell’s appointees were more sympathetic to the neocons than Rice’s appointees are. This is damned strange, because Wilkerson has long articulated his opposition to the neocon agenda, while Rice as National Security Advisor implemented the neocons’s agenda. The State Department under Powell has been (for the most part, at least) widely considered to have been recalcitrant towards the neocons’s agenda. Rice, meanwhile, has (again, for the most part) has been seen as Bush II’s agent dispatched to wrest more control over a bureaucracy that is (again, for the most part) seen as hostile (or, at the very least, dubious) to the neocons’s agenda.

Okla. Senator Vows Block, Saying Author Stigmatized Insecticides

Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn has effectively blocked a resolution to honor environmental author Rachel Carson on the 100th anniversary of her birth, saying that her warnings about environmental damage have put a stigma on potentially lifesaving pesticides, congressional staffers said yesterday.

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In a statement on his Web site yesterday, Coburn (R) confirmed that he is holding up the bill. In the statement, he blames Carson for using “junk science” to turn public opinion against chemicals, including DDT, that could prevent the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes.

The male bovine fecal material that this S.O.B. is spouting reminds me of the right wing revisionist claims of the Vietnam War. Here he is negatively spinning the work of Carson. (Click here to see his claims debunked.) Tom Coburn is truly an S.O.B. to denigrate a woman who gave so much even as she was dying from breast cancer; a woman who hid her desperate plight because she knew in her bones that if the chemical lobby found out about her cancer, then they would distort that fact to claim that her work was biased. Coburn is an absolute slimeball.

Click here to see a very short retrospective of Carson’s life.

Happy birthday, Ms. Carson.

Doctors, Legislators Resist Drugmakers’ Prying Eyes

In the letter, the salesperson wrote that Thakkar was causing his patients to miss more days of school than they would if he put them on Vigamox, a more expensive brand-name medicine made by Alcon Laboratories.

Talk about gall! Telling a physician what he should be subscribing to his patients!

Now the issue is bubbling up in the political arena. Last year, New Hampshire became the first state to try to curtail the practice, but a federal district judge three weeks ago ruled the law unconstitutional.

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“In this case commercial interests took precedence over the interests of the private citizens of New Hampshire,” Rosenwald said. “This is like letting a drug rep into an exam room and having them eavesdrop on a private conversation between a physician and a patient.”

The April 30 ruling by U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro, nominated to the federal bench in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush, called the state’s pioneering law an unconstitutional restriction on commercial speech.

How typical of a REPUGNican judge! To place the interests of Big Pharma over the interests of the patients! This is an unequal contest — Big Pharma has more resources to lobby physicians than states do.

A drug company might use the database to help determine whether physicians prescribing a particular high-risk drug have undergone required training about the medicine, said Marjorie E. Powell, senior assistant general counsel for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade association.

“If you don’t have that information, then you are in a very difficult situation,” Powell said. “There is no way you can implement the risk-management plan that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is requiring you to implement in order to allow the drug to be on the market.”

To me, this sounds like a threat; but judge for yourself — here’s the link to the article.

Jury: 6 Months in Prison for Navy Lawyer

Diaz, who could have received up to 14 years in prison, gave emotional testimony during the sentencing hearing, apologizing for his actions.

“The prosecutors were right: I’m a meticulous man. I should have done better. It was extremely irrational for me to do what I did,” Diaz said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801608.html?nav=hcmodule I am reminded of George Orwell’s classic: 1984. Specifically, I am reminded of the scenes where Winston Smith has been successfully conditioned to alter his thoughts so that they conform to that of the authoritarian government.

Contrast that with the article: Here you have a defendant publicly recanting his beliefs so that he may conform to what the prosecution says is moral (even though the prosecution’s position is inherently immoral).

I got this from S. L. Robinson via the Green All Views Listserve. As you can see from the article, Zionism as a racist ideology is alive and well…

A report by two major Israeli civil rights organizations that was issued Sunday indicates that Palestinians abandoned more than 1,000 homes and at least 1,829 businesses in the center of Hebron due to pressure by the Israel Defense Forces, the police and Jewish settlers. Many of those referred to fled during the second intifada, beginning in September 2000.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Civil Rights in the Occupied Territories, claim that a “policy of separation on a national basis” is being imposed in Hebron.

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It states furthermore that the fabric of Palestinian life in Hebron has been badly damaged as a result of the severe restriction of movement imposed by the IDF on the city’s Arab inhabitants, particularly since the outbreak of the second intifada. IDF policy prohibits Palestinians from walking or driving on the main streets of the city; the army also uses military orders to close Palestinian-owned business and prevents local authorities from enforcing the law against settlers who use violence against Palestinians and their property.

In addition, the organizations claim, there is a “routine of violence and harassment” on the part of the security forces against Palestinian residents. In the first three years of the intifada, curfews were imposed against those living in the center of Hebron on at least 377 days, often for days at a time, with short breaks in which those affected were allowed to stock up on provisions.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/859084.html

This is just great — just like North, Monica Goodling will not face any jail time because of the immunity that’s been granted her.  How much do you want to bet that the right wing nuts will hold fund-raisers for her and she will actually benefit financially from all of this!  This just makes me sick to my stomach.

Goodling Granted Immunity in Attorney Firings Probe

Goodling’s attorneys have said she would comply with any order to testify or cooperate with investigators. Hogan’s order says that “no testimony or other information compelled under this order . . . may be used against” Goodling, except for prosecutions of perjury or giving a false statement.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051100779.html?nav=hcmodule

Broder opposes Democracy at the Federal level of U.S. Government.

That’s right, folks: The Washington Post Columnist David S. Broder opposes the principle of one-person-one-vote at the Federal level. If you do not believe me, then check out his column for yourself. It does not make for just interesting reading — it makes for incredible reading. He justifies his opposition to one-person-one-vote at the Federal level (Although, given the way he frames the issue, he almost certainly opposes one-person-one-vote at the state level as well.) on the grounds that the two party system might suffer. It is quite obvious that he is contemptuous of any voter who supports an independent/third-party candidate. This does beg the following question: Is he an elitist? Does he support the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the common people? Before reading this column, I would immediately have dismissed this question from my mind as being ridiculous; but now I can no longer do so. All of his rationalizations come straight out of the elite playbook: Say that you are opposing this in order to protect minorities (while at the same time opposing any allocation of any meaningful resources to assist said minorities that are discriminated against in the popular culture); Say that you are opposing this in order to protect the family farmer (while at the same time supporting corporate farmers at the expense of the small stakeholder); in short, say and do anything in order to maintain your political hegemony in this country — and indeed, throughout the world.

I never before would have argued that Broder is an elitist — but now I wonder.

As a native Michigander, I have maintained for a long time that Michigan is a nice place to be from and not in. On 1/11/07 in East Lansing, Dr. Don Holocek made the following observation while contrasting the State’s economy with the national economy.

The State of the Michigan economy is a totally different story. It has yet to recover since the last recession in 2000-2001, wasn’t strong in 2006, and is expected to stay weak for at least the next couple of years.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:KlICbGaxxhYJ:www.tourismcenter.msu.edu/Publications/Economy-Tourism-EventsIndustry-Jan-2007.pdf+michigan+economy+2006&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=52&gl=us&client=firefox-aHere’s

Here’s a WaPo article on home foreclosures in the state.

Here’s what a favorite columnist of mine said in early December:

You know Michigan’s economic situation has to be fairly grim when Comerica’s chief economist begins his monthly newsletter with these words: “Don’t give up hope.“

http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/2006/12/essay_michigans.html

Finally I will conclude with the words of another M.S.U. economist. Here’s a blurb from the publicity of Charles Ballard’s book:

“Half a century ago, the world was knocking on Michigan’s door. But yesterday is gone, and it is not coming back,” Ballard says. “If the people of Michigan are to achieve a brighter economic future, we will need to develop new ways of thinking, and new ways of engaging with the rapidly changing global economy.”

http://spartanpodcast.com/?p=197

(here’s the actual podcast)

All in all, it seems to me that the situation in Michigan in general (and its urban areas, in particular) is quite grim.

…Alberto “Gonzo” Gonzales has actually made his predecessor, John “Pentacostal and Proud of It” Ashcroft look good. Ashcroft, who (under the influence of his religion) had statues covered up because they had exposed breasts, is now being held up as a responsible Attorney General. I’m not going to savage Ashcroft here — there are others who are far more qualified than myself who can do so — but will instead say that if Ashcroft is now winning praise for emphasizing to prospective United State’s Attorneys the importance of leaving politics at the door then that Gonzo’s behavior must be criminal in every meaning of the word (and if Gonzo didn’t break the letter of the law, then his behavior constitutes yet another example of just how truly depraved the current state of politics is).

I honestly never thought that I’d see the day when people would actually start rhapsodizing about the days when Ashcroft was Attorney General. I guess that goes to show just how naive I am. I knew that Gonzo was bad, but I should have realized — and didn’t — just how awful he is. He was appointed by Presdent Shrub; so I should have realized that he wouldn’t think twice about politicizing the Justice Department (maybe that’s why Ashcroft got the boot…). I guess that this article shouldn’t surprise me either.

Ex-Prosecutor Says He Faced Partisan Questions Before Firing

John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy, William Kelley, “asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me.”

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He added that he took umbrage at the idea that he had other responsibilities beyond focusing “on the evidence and not allow[ing] politics into the work that we do in criminal prosecutions.” Those involved in the scandal over the firings who acted unprofessionally “or even illegally” must be held accountable for what they did, he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401122.html