"Our Greatest Problem"

If you missed Real Time last week, Bill Maher had this New Rule about what is most certainly "our greatest problem."
And finally, New Rule: Nobody can use the phrase “our greatest problem” anymore unless you're talking about global warming. [applause] [cheers] President Bush has been saying we're in a war on terror, and now I get it. He's not saying “terror,” he's saying “terra” as in “terra firma,” as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! [laughter] [applause] [cheers] I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week. [laughter] [applause]

Now, last week on “60 Minutes,” James Hansen, who is NASA's leading expert on the science of climate delivered the world's most important message. He said, “We have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet.” Although I know a certain cowboy from Crawford who might think you could. [laughter]

And that cowboy and his corporate goons at the White House tried to censor Mr. Hansen from delivering that message, claiming such warnings were speculative. This from the crowd that rushed into a war based on an article in the Weekly Standard. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] This – this from the guy who thinks Kyoto is that Japanese emperor dude his dad threw up on. [laughter]

Global warming is not speculative. It threatens us enough so that it should be considered a national security issue. Failing to warn the citizens of a looming weapon of mass destruction – and that's what global warming is – in order to protect oil company profits, well, that fits, for me, the definition of treason. And codified treason. [applause] [cheers]

Please, wait a second. The guy in the White House who made the edits was Phil Cooney, who had been an oil industry lobbyist before given this job as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. That's the office that is supposed to be watching out for us. But that's where Phil busied himself crossing stuff out in scientists' reports, because apparently in Phil's mind, he hadn't switched jobs. He was just doing his old job – oil industry lobbyist – from a different office. You know, in the “people's house.”

Republicans have succeeded in making the environment about some tie-dyed dude from Seattle who lives in a solar-powered yurt and eats twigs. [laughter] It's not. This issue should be driven by something conservatives are much more familiar with: utter selfishness. That's my motivation. I don't want to live my golden years having to put on a hazmat suit just to go down and get the mail. [laughter] Those are my Viagra years. [laughter] [applause] When I'll be thinking about having children. [laughter]

But I wouldn't know what to tell a kid about our world in 20 years. “Dad, tell me about the birds and bees.” “They're all gone. Now, eat your Soylent Green.” [laughter] [applause] We are letting dying men kill our planet for cash, and they're counting on us being too greedy or distracted, or just plain lazy, to stop them.

So, on this day, the 17 th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, let us pause to consider how close we are to making ourselves fossils from the fossil fuels we extract. In the next 20 years, almost a billion Chinese people will be trading in their bicycles for the automobile. Folks, we either get our shit together on this quickly, or we're going to have to go to Plan B: inventing a car that runs on Chinese people. [laughter] [applause]
Senator Tom Harkin argues for the censure of President George Bush:
We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises – and broken faith – with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.

In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. And, despite getting caught red-handed, he refuses to stop.

Let's be clear: No American – and that must include the President – is above the law. And if we fail to hold Bush to account, then he will be confirmed in his conviction that he can pick and choose among the laws he wants to obey. This is profoundly dangerous to our democracy.

So it is time for Congress to stand up and say enough! That's why, this week, Senator Russ Feingold proposed a resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the FISA law. And that's why I fully support this resolution of censure.

Nothing is more important to me than the security of our country. Of course, we need to be listening to the terrorists' conversations. And sometimes there is not time to get a warrant. That's why the FISA law allows the President, when necessary, to wiretap first, and obtain a warrant afterward. But that's not acceptable to this above-the-law President. He rejects the idea that he should have to obtain a warrant before or after wiretapping.

We have an out-of-control President whose arrogant and, now, illegal behavior is running our country into the ditch. It's time to rein him in. And a fine place to start is by passing this resolution of censure. I hope that Senator Feingold's measure will be brought to the floor. And when it is, I will proudly vote yes.
Protest in China? You're Crazy!

Another sign that democracy in China is still a long ways away:
China's government is detaining people who were protesting problems ranging from poor health care to property seizures as the country's ceremonial parliament prepares to open its annual session, activists and human rights groups said Friday.

Thousands of people visit Beijing each year during the 10-day legislative session, hoping to air complaints about corruption and other problems. Police routinely detain them and send them home.

This year, those detained or warned ahead of the parliament session, which begins Sunday, include AIDS patients who want better medical care and people who have petitioned the government over the loss of their homes for redevelopment.

Liu Xinjuan, an activist who has complained about homes being demolished without proper compensation, was sent home to Shanghai from Beijing and forced into a mental hospital, said New York-based Human Rights in China.
Check out the Human Rights in China website. There is also a story about "Tiananmen Veteran Li Jianping ... has been formally indicted on charges of 'incitement to subvert state power.'" How exactly did he "subvert" state power? Apparently he posted "articles on overseas Chinese Web sites."

Of course in the United States we have a Constitution that protects our freedom of speech and right to peaceably assemble. But back in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes that the freedom of thought, conscience, expression and opinion is guaranteed to all people, including the Chinese.
The Benefits of Being in Bush Country
Hurricane Katrina Victims Suffer In Blue State Louisiana


No surprise here, but it's worth knowing that the Bush Administration has politics first in their mind, even when a natural disaster is involved.
The $4.2 billion request was a turnabout for the administration, which three weeks ago rejected legislation proposed by Representative Richard H. Baker, a Louisiana Republican, to create a nonprofit group to buy out flooded homes, the plan favored by Ms. Blanco.

Louisiana officials had also complained that Congress had shortchanged the state in a $29 billion relief package in December that gave $5.2 billion in housing reconstruction money to Mississippi, which suffered far less damage than Louisiana but which has a Republican governor and two Republican senators.

Last week, Ms. Blanco threatened to try to block a federal sale of oil and gas leases off the Gulf Coast, saying it was "time to play hardball." But in the past week, state officials said, Donald E. Powell, the president's coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, became convinced that the federal government should do more to help homeowners in the flood plain who did not have flood insurance.