Monday, December 15, 2008

36 Day until Inauguration - Human Induced Global Warming really got rolling in the 1960s, didn't it?



Obama's green team (click title to entry - thank you)
Obama's choices to lead the Energy Department and the EPA must seize the opportunity to turn around national policy.
December 15, 2008

...Also said to be on tap: Carol Browner, President Clinton's EPA chief, in an as-yet-undefined position coordinating climate-change policies, and Nancy Sutley, a Los Angeles deputy mayor overseeing energy and environmental issues, as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Together, they'll aim to head off the worst effects of global warming, a vast challenge that will be complicated by the nation's economic woes. Yet the political support for the needed changes is enormous -- if they can't get it done, it may never happen.





NASA reports that 2006 was the fifth warmest year on record and 2007 will likely be even warmer - possibly the warmest year in the history of instrumental measurements. Over the past 30 years Earth has warmed by about 0.6 degrees Centigrade or 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA has documented this increase with an animation. The first and last frames of their climate change animation can be seen in the image at right. It shows the increase in annual mean temperature in one year increments between 1880 and 2006....




design by Robert Simmon

May 21, 2007
The original version of this fact sheet, published in 2002 and written by John Weier, is archived as a PDF.
Over the last five years, 600 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sifted through thousands of studies about global warming published in forums ranging from scientific journals to industry publications and distilled the world’s accumulated knowledge into this conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”...

Drivers halt Afghan supply route


By Syed Shoaib Hasan
BBC News, Islamabad
Lorry drivers in north-west Pakistan say they will no longer deliver supplies to Nato and US-led forces in Afghanistan due to worsening security.
The move follows a spate of hijackings and attacks on their vehicles by Taleban militants.
At least 75% of overland supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan travels through North-West Frontier Province.
The supplies are critical for troops in an increasingly drawn-out campaign against Taleban insurgents....

Shi'ite Revenge - Quite a difference between NOW and the attacks on The Imam Ali Mosque, huh?

The 'real' crime of it all is that the USA didn't speak the language and the Shi'ites were oppressed. When they found the will to publish a newspaper it was closed. What were their options in facing still more oppression in a so called 'liberated' Iraq? Mind you, there was blanket anarchy throughout Iraq and the militias were part of the local security to the extent they could arm themselves and stand their ground.

Bremer never used diplomacy to any degree within Iraq in the villages and hamlets of Iraq. He used force and oppressive control. That isn't what Iraq or the Shi'ites needed. And this particular incident was sparked when the Grand Ayatollah was wisked away to Britain for a heart procedure. It was a deliberate strategic act to separate the Grand Ayatollah from his people in order to victimize Sadr and attempt to kill him once forced to take refugee at his Mosque.

It's getting better in Iraq for the Shi'ites, but, it has been a long road of bloody civil war. I can understand the anger and frustration with Bush's appearance and in all honesty, the journalist wasn't seeking attention, he was expressing the views of his readers. At least, this time, there was no blood shed.

Inside Najaf's Imam Ali mosque (click title of entry - thank you)
"We will do anything to stop the Americans. They have sex and drinking and other things, and we don't want this."
By Rory McCarthy

...For seven days the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel Iraqi Shiite cleric, had been fighting the Americans on the edge of the holy city of Najaf. Yesterday, on the eighth day, the Americans finally advanced toward the narrow streets of the old city. The push began before 7 a.m. with a wave of heavy bombing; then dozens of tanks and Humvees drove in, blocking roads and fighting off the ragtag militia....

ALI AL-BAYATI, SUPREME COUNCIL FOR THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAQ (click here): First of all, we are very pleased that Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani has arrived in Najaf safely and he is going to announce his mission and his plan to come out of this crisis for this holy city.Basically, it's about a peaceful solution to the whole crisis.The Mehdi Army will have to leave the holy shrine of Imam Ali and then all the arms from the city has got to be collected and then everybody will have to go back home, and the multinational force, they have to cease fire, they have to stop flying the helicopter gunship and use heavy tanks and they will have to leave the city and we'll have to go and solve the whole crisis by peaceful and political means.And for Moqtada al-Sadr, he will have to go into the political process, everybody is opening his arms for him to go into that process, and we look forward to new Iraq, with the election coming in 2005....

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Democratization of Iraq in Post-Saddam (click here)

He did gave an interesting assessment of Afghanistan and lets hope the people of that country continue to move toward stability with the confrontation of terrorist networks in Pakistan.

The Republicans cannot accept the FACT they have failed the country and are out of office !

The entire scandal is a Post-Republican Defeat attempt at character assassination. Nothing has happened here except some high riding hubris with some Chicago Powerplayers. Now, the Republicans are going to try to cast doubt on Emanuel and Obama himself.

Ask yourself, "Is this out of character for the people involved?" and the answer will most assuredly be a resounding 'yes.' Barak Obama has never used any opportunity for his own personal wealth. He went from President of the Harvard Law Review into being a ? Community Organizer ?. Come on, already, if he wanted to be wealthy becoming a Community Organizer was not the way to go.

These maneuvers are unscrupulous because the Republicans are desperate.

Enough already.

There is nothing 'going on' that anyone needs to care about and I remind whom is still in the White House pulling strings in every way possible. The Bush/Cheney Administration attempts to demoralize this nation all the time, there is nothing surprising about this or any other high jinks until January 20th.


22 months ago: BERKELEY, CA - FEBRUARY 01: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (L) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger shake hands during a press conference at UC Berkeley February 1, 2007 in Berkeley, California. BP announced that it has selected UC Berkeley along with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to be part of a $500 million research program exploring how bioscience can be used to increase energy production while reducing the impact of energy consumption. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Rod Blagojevich;Arnold Schwarzenegger

RNC Goes on the Offense re: Blagojevich and Obama. McCain Comes to the Defense (click here)
December 15th, 2008 By: Michael Merritt Tags:
The Republican National Committee yesterday released an ad titled “Questions Remain.” It posed that Question everyone’s been asking regarding the scandal surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: What did Obama know and when did he know it? Obama, for his part, says that he knew nothing, and reversed what his former chief strategist David Axelrod said last month about being in contact with the Governor regarding his preferences for the seat.
Meanwhile, it transpires that even if Obama himself didn’t have contact with Blagojevich, his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel may have. Of course, there’s nothing yet to suggest anything sinister between Emanuel and Blagojevich, but I think it shows that this first real test of an administration not even in power yet is not going well. The inability to handle possible scandal well is definitely one of Obama’s weaknesses that, while he’s improved upon during the campaign, still is not that well oiled of a machine.
Obama can count on some bi-partisan help though, namely from his former rival John McCain.
Via Politico, McCain blasted the RNC ad today:...


Emanuel "Dispatched" To Discuss Senate Seat (click here)
With unanswered questions fueling speculation about the extent of President-elect Obama's transition team's contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich regarding his vacant Senate seat, new details emerged about the controversy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama "had begun thinking about his Senate successor even before the presidential election, and dispatched Rahm Emanuel days after the vote to contact" Bagojevich aides "to begin talking up Mr. Obama's preferred candidates, associates of Mr. Emanuel said this weekend." Emanuel "didn't talk to Mr. Blagojevich directly about the matter, by phone or in person, according to people familiar with the matter. He spoke by phone with aides to the governor, those people say."...