the Sugar Conspiracy 

Blog - Info - Archive - Contact - Links

Thursday, December 23, 2004 Happy holidays! (There. I said it.) I probably won't be around much for the next couple weeks. I'll be back around the beginning of January. Have a wonderful holiday, however you celebrate it. posted by chris at 1:49 PM   Because plowing down trees is the same as saving them The Bush administration issued comprehensive new rules yesterday for managing the national forests, jettisoning some environmental protections that date to Ronald Reagan's administration and putting in place the biggest change in forest-use policies in nearly three decades. -clip- The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions and in potentially liberalizing caps on how much timber can be taken from a forest. Forest Service officials estimated the changes will cut its planning costs by 30 percent and will allow managers to finish what amount to zoning requirements for forest users in two to three years, instead of the nine or 10 years they sometimes take now. The government will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. The changes will reduce the number of required scientific reports and ask federal officials to focus on a forest's overall health, rather than the fate of individual species, when evaluating how best to protect local plants and animals. And, hey, who really needs environmental impact analysis anyway? posted by chris at 11:28 AM   ------------------ Wednesday, December 22, 2004 Uh Bill, I think you're on your own here Bill O'Reilly's been freaking out about the secularization of Christmas and blaming it all on that damn secular-progressive movement. Looks like he should be searching out those Christmas-haters a little closer to home. posted by chris at 3:45 PM   Mr. Uber-Confident The United States president said he was "convinced" he would solve the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his second term in office. Mr Bush, who failed to appoint a special US envoy to oversee the Middle East peace process during his first term, vowed to bring the warring sides together within the next four years. "I want you to know that I am going to invest a lot of time and a lot of creative thinking so that there will finally be peace between Israel and the Palestinians," Mr Bush said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth. "I am convinced that, during this term, I will manage to bring peace," he said. Or maybe he's just Mr. Out-of-His-Element. (via A Tiny Revolution.) posted by chris at 3:42 PM   Bush on social security When the subject turned to Social Security, the president made clear that questions about his views on the subject were strictly out of bounds -- as when CNN's John King asked why Bush wasn't talking about "tough measures" such as raising the retirement age or cutting benefits. "Now the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself, John, and others here as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush said. Saying he was trying to "condition" reporters, he added: "I'm not going to negotiate with myself and I will negotiate at the appropriate time with the law writers, and so thank you for trying." His confidence in his program is so shaky, he won't even discuss it, and he expects us to trust that it'll work? posted by chris at 3:22 PM   What happened to that mandate? Republicans like to brag about the sweeping mandate that President Bush received on Election Day. But as he prepares for his second term, Bush approaches Inauguration Day with historically weak job-approval ratings, according to a series of new opinion polls. Unless there's a dramatic turnaround in public sentiment between now and Jan. 20, Bush will be sworn in to office with the lowest job-approval rating -- barely 50 percent -- of any president in the last 80 years, or since modern-day presidential polling began. "It's striking how weak he is right now," says presidential historian Richard Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network. "You'd have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find a president who was reelected in a position as weak as this one. There's been no euphoria around Bush's win." More. posted by chris at 3:20 PM   We can't feed the hungry, but we can give tax breaks to the rich In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty. With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched. Lovely. posted by chris at 2:44 PM   No rich person left behind Consumers like Meehling help explain why upscale retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue have seen their sales soar this holiday season while discounters like Wal-Mart and many mid-price department store chains have struggled. They also help explain how the economy could grow at a healthy 4 percent this year even as it seemed stagnant to so many who had trouble finding a job or whose income did not keep up with higher costs for food, energy, health insurance, tuition and other items. Must be all those tax breaks Bush gave his rich friends. posted by chris at 2:33 PM   Abuse was widespread The Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained. New documents released yesterday detail a series of probes by Army criminal investigators into multiple cases of threatened executions of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers, as well as of thefts of currency and other private property, physical assaults, and deadly shootings of detainees at detention camps in Iraq. Story here. And it's possible that Bush himself may have authorized the torture: A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. -clip- The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized. posted by chris at 2:20 PM   ------------------ Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Aleve might increase heart attack risk The epidemic of bad news about the potential risks of popular anti-inflammatory medications expanded yesterday as federal officials announced that naproxen, a painkiller sold by prescription and also over the counter as Aleve, might increase people's risk of having a heart attack or stroke. The new findings bring to three the number of widely used anti-inflammatory drugs suddenly in the spotlight for their potential health risks. Vioxx was pulled from the market this fall, and its sister drug Celebrex, the blockbuster arthritis drug, was linked to heart attacks and strokes last week, stopping a major clinical trial Story. posted by chris at 10:59 AM   Isn't this what we were saying a year ago? President Bush heads into his second term amid deep and growing public skepticism about the Iraq war, with a solid majority saying for the first time that the war was a mistake and most people believing that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should lose his job, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. While a slight majority believe the Iraq war contributed to the long-term security of the United States, 70 percent of Americans think these gains have come at an "unacceptable" cost in military casualties. This led 56 percent to conclude that, given the cost, the conflict there was "not worth fighting" -- an eight-point increase from when the same question was asked this summer, and the first time a decisive majority of people have reached this conclusion. Story here. And the cost of the war. posted by chris at 10:54 AM   ------------------ Monday, December 20, 2004 Living in a fantasy world In a White House press conference, President Bush says he will submit a budget that will halve the deficit in five years. And he responds to criticism of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war. Listen here. posted by chris at 5:24 PM   6 to go Suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala yesterday, killing at least 62 people and wounding 129. The attacks are likely to increase hostility between the Shia and Sunni communities with exactly six weeks to go until the country is due to go to the polls. This doesn't bode well for a free and safe election. posted by chris at 5:08 PM   Rumsfeld doesn't care about dead soldiers Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, has been using a machine to sign letters of condolence to the relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq, it emerged yesterday. In a statement to the Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, he conceded that he had not "individually" signed letters to the families of more than 1,300 war dead. He said it had been his wish to speed up the process. He added: "I have directed that in the future I sign each letter." His statement follows a flood of complaints to the paper from bereaved families, accusing 72-year-old Mr Rumsfeld of high-handedness and disdain for their loss. Just another example of how far removed from reality these guys are. They don't even think they need to sign letters of condolence. posted by chris at 1:17 PM   ------------------ Sunday, December 19, 2004 Bush: Person of the Year President Bush’s bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2004, its managing editor said on Sunday. At least he's in good company: Some selections have been notoriously unpopular, such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. posted by chris at 10:34 AM   ------------------

    

Blog - Info - Archive - Contact - Links   2005 © Designed by Chris. Take what you want.