May, 2007 archive

America needs you.

Today’s Diane Rehm Show, segment two.

From the website:

As the world’s sole superpower, it’s easy to draw parallels between the United States and the Roman Empire. A look at what the U.S. has, and doesn’t have, in common with the Ancient Roman Republic.

Listen here (Real Audio).

Unless, of course, you are the guv’mint:

Since 2005, the (Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and Education Center–ed.) center – which served 3,800 veterans, including 80 from Iraq and Afghanistan, last year – has lost $736,000 from the U.S. Department of Labor for job training and placement.

In response to an Inquirer request regarding a $250,000 grant the department decided not to renew, the department replied in a statement that the multi-service center was among 52 applicants and that 26 were selected. The Philadelphia center “did not rate high enough to be competitive in that group,” the department said. It did not specify how the center failed to be competitive for a grant it had won previously.

On top of the loss of that funding, a $550,000 earmark grant will expire June 30. The chance of its renewal vanished when Rick Santorum, its sponsor, lost his Senate reelection bid last year, Lowry said.

Making things worse for the center, state funding has dwindled over the last decade from $272,000 to $155,000 in the next fiscal year.

Before the cuts, the budget for the multi-service center, including transitional-housing facilities, was $3.2 million, with about 85 percent from federal sources.

“We have no guarantees we will have an employment and training program beginning in July,” Lowry said.

ASZ looks at citizens exercising their right of petition.

Via Huffington Post.

Dick Polman’s musings, well worth a read.

Still home of the largest hand-dug well in the world.

But the rest of it is gone.

And the Current Federal Administration denies any connection between its adventure in Iraq and the unreadiness of the Kansas National Guard.

Balloon Juice.

Susie asks the question.

I frankly don’t know the answer, but American energy companies don’t have too good a track record of truth, justice, and the American Way over past years.

Lies and spin in the tradition of the Current Federal Administrator. From FactCheck dot org on Richard Guiliani’s clam to be the pied piper of adoptions:

That, however, doesn’t give an accurate impression of what happened. It is true that there were 66.5 percent more adoptions in his last six years than there were in the preceding six, but consider this: The following statements also are true, based on the official figures that both we and the Giuliani camp accept:

We take no position on whether Giuliani or ACS had one iota of influence on adoptions, for good or bad. All sorts of influences come into play that have nothing to do with government. However, the very figures Giuliani is using show that adoptions were increasing long before ACS was created, and they also show adoptions started going downhill soon after. Giuliani’s cherry-picked time periods turn that fact on its head.

Betcha, I just betcha, he’d do the same thing to intelligence.

The two vandals, identified only as men in their early 20s, went into the elevator late on April 21, waited for the doors to close, and started to kick them, she said.

They kicked so hard that the doors jammed, and the elevator stopped, sending an alarm to security guards. The guards tried to lower the elevator, which only jammed the doors more, so they called the police and fire department.

The firemen freed the two suspects, while the police waited outside.

Woody Allen, back when he did standup, used to tell the story of having a bad time fixing breakfast.

Then he left his apartment and got on the elevator.

The elevator stopped between floors, the Muzak ceased, and a voice said, “Are you the guy who yelled at his toaster this moring?”

From, who else, Jon Swift.

Ya know, he’s good. He lives up to his pseudonym.

From upyernose rubber hose.

The Diane Rehm Show today explored the efforts of the well-heeled to keep us burning coal. From the website:

An account of a developer’s five year battle to gain approval for a wind farm spanning 24 square miles in Nantucket Sound and the opposition he’s faced from some of America’s richest and most politically connected individuals.

Listen here (Real) or visit the website.

(Aside: Well maybe my introduction is a little perjorative. They just don’t want wind farms spoiling their view. Because, by God, it’s their view. But it was an accurate introduction.)

Oh, and why was I listening to the Diane Rehm Show? Because WAMU’s pledge drive is over and I’ve already given to my favorite PBS station. Internet radio is a wonderful thing.

Warning: Language. Big time.

A Republican version (Note: I said “Republican,” not “conservative”; they are not the same thing, not any more) of the movie.

With a tip to Phillybits.

From On the Media:

In 2002, a handful of lawmakers were privy to classified intel about Iraqi WMD. Behind closed doors, there was uncertainty. But in public, Bush officials told a different story. Senator Dick Durbin explains why he didn’t blow the whistle when it might have made a difference.

Go to the website or listen to the report here. I will not summarize it; it’s only 10 minutes long and deserves your full attention.

I’ll post a link to the transcript when it becomes available tomorrow.

Here’s the transcript.

And here’s the key quotation:

DICK DURBIN: You may have overstated it, but not by much. I remember the debate on the aluminum tubes. I would sit there and listen – this has all been declassified, now I can talk about it – I would sit there and listen to the Department of Energy in full-throated debate with the Department of Defense over whether these aluminum tubes were going to be used for nuclear weapons.

And the Department of Energy would say, no, it’s the wrong kind of aluminum tube. We think it’s just as likely it’s going for something else. Department of Defense – no, we think it’s nuclear.

You’d walk out of the room and you’d think, well, there’s a real difference of opinion here. You’d walk into the corridor and hear announcements from the White House – be prepared, mushroom-shaped clouds, nuclear disaster. And I’m thinking to myself, if they are so uncertain in the confines of this room, how can they say to the American people there is certainty here in terms of the threat?

Congress already has run out of space on a memorial created last year to honor all of the U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a grim sign of the times, the “Wall of the Fallen,” set up by House Republican leaders in June, is almost full. The mounting death toll from Iraq has forced U.S. House staffers to study how to reconfigure the display in the lobby of the Rayburn Building — the largest office building for members of Congress — to squeeze in more names.” No new soldiers have been added since November.

House Republican leaders have a lot of catching up to do: 491 American deaths in Iraq alone since the end of November.

I hope they are proud of themselves, as they honor American dead so self-righteously and so inadequately.

With a tip to Susie for pointing out the beauty of the first comment to the post cited above.

From El Reg:

South African robbers have shunned traditional gaffer tape and deployed a new weapon to subdue their victims: superglue.

An unnamed man was grabbed in the street and driven to his home, where a gang stripped him and superglued him to the seat of an exercise bike. They also glued his feet to the pedals and hands to the handlebars. Finally, his lips were sealed with the adhesive.

From the Current Federal Administrator’s letter threatening a veto of any bill that liberalizes access to abortion:

“I will veto any legislation that weakens current federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage,” he wrote.

A tip to Harry Shearer for catching the irony.

. . . from the forgotten war. You know, the one we should have finished.

It was the first time I’ve spoken with him since Christmas.

He is among those whose tours have been extended to 15 months. Although he’s been there since January, for all practical purposes he arrived two weeks ago.

It is boring in Afghanistan, except for the periodic outbursts of violence. Since the eye of Sauron no longer looks there, neither the food nor the recreational facilities are as good as in Iraq.

He works nights, but there are no 24-hour facilities on base, as there were in Iraq. Consequently, about the only place he can go after work is the gym. I guess there is a bright side–he’s benching 260 now. That’s 80 more pounds than he weighs.

He has grown into a good man. It’s a damned shame that his boss is a delusional asshole who sacrifices American blood and treasure for a lie–oh, never mind.