How much proof do you need?

For years climate scientists have been telling us the earth is warming due to man-introdued greenhouse gasses. They told us the global average temperatures would start rising and it did. They created climate models that predicted extreme water conditions, more pronounced droughts and more violent storms. These things have been coming to pass.

They warned the polar ice was melting, and that as it melted the reflective ice would be replaced with heat-absorbing darker water and that this would create a "feedback loop" which would accelerate the pace of the warming.

Scientists are now saying...

"It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

Source"

Making predictions based upon observations is what you'd expect from theories that are reliable.

Even more than that the basic science boils down to this...

Carbon is dark, like coal or tar, and like them it absorbs heat well. You can confirm this by walking barefoot on sunny pavement and contrasting that by walking barefoot on sunny cement.

What these Exxon/Mobil hirelings are trying to confuse is that elementary science. You can expose the silliness of their arguments by taking your shoes off at any sunny parking lot near you. You can also think about Venus if it is nighttime. Venus is further from the sun than Mercury, yet hotter. It is so because it has an atmosphere in a state which scientists refer to as "run away global warming".

Time is short and as humans squabble over the last vestiges of a lifestyle that is killing us, a much larger problem goes unnoticed. It can only be addressed with international unity of purpose. It can only be addressed when governments tax that which generates carbon to fund that which does not. While I fear nuclear power for its waste and meltdowns and proliferation of dangerous weaponry, I prefer it to planet-wide destruction and am willing to support it because it doesn't put carbon in the atmosphere.

I will also support wind power and solar power and any other project that generates power without carbon.

This must be a priority. The evidence says so.

Neil Young

Along with Bruce Springstein and the Dixie Chicks, Neil Young will be remembered by me as an artist that spoke out unequivocally about the abuses of the president Bush.

This video begins, "Let's impeach the president for lying":



Here is a link to a Billboard interview with Mr. Young:

Bernard Shakey

Blackwater

What do you suppose would happen if some state hostile to the U.S., say Iran, were to use a sovereign fund to hostilely take-over ownership of Blackwater?

I do believe Blackwater is going to be the problem that keeps on giving.

By Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, USA (Retired)

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals' lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.

The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted - both on America's institutions and our nation's founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

The former detainees in this report - each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life - require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.

But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.

And so do the American people.

More...
And More...

Why doesn't this matter to "Law and Order" Republicans?

In what ways does this abuse make the US safer?

Can we fight for democracy abroad and let it lapse at home?

McSame

One thing I'll say for YouTube is that it is getting harder and harder for politicians to be outright full-throated hypocrites without getting caught.

The I-word for POTUS

On Tuesday, June 8th, 2008 Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against the president Bush.

Details here

It seems long overdue, particularly with presidential pardons and lessons not learned in Iraq.

Hedges

Christopher Hedges has a new book out called Collateral Damage which tries to make war "real" for our TV-obsessed culture. Christopher has been a reporter for a long time and covered war zones for a long time and seems to have an earnestness in his message for mankind. He hinted at this in his previous book, I don't believe in Atheists, when he said the world would survive if People stopped believing in God, but not if they stopped believing in Sin (to paraphrase).

War is not a moral "slippery slope" so much as it is a mosh pit of depravity to be leapt into.

You can read an article by Christopher called, "What it really means when America goes to war" to get a sense of the work.

Given Christopher's background I expect it to provide a human touch to war's gloss. We need that badly, and I am reminded of this every time I watch the toothy shellac-heads playing journalists on TV.

War is not a game, or a sport, or lowest of all entertainment. It is sometimes necessary, but always evil and it brings out the worst in our best. Unfortunately the converse is not true and our worst are sinking down.

Lewis Black Attack