Bad Deeds for 1-23-2009

 

Republican Silliness Goes Way Back – Air and Simple Gifts is a classical quartet by American composer John Williams composed for the January 20, 2009, inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. The source piece is famous for its appearance in Aaron Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring. Williams chose the selection from Copland, one of Obama’s favorite classical composers. Copland’s Lincoln Portrait was supposed to be featured in a pre-inauguration concert by the National Symphony Orchestra for Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, but was pulled from the performance when a Republican congressman from Illinois suggested Copland was too liberal, and perhaps a Communist sympathizer. (I guess that’s not as silly as objecting to French fries.)

 

Merrill Lynch’s CEO Spent Over $1 Million to Redecorate his Office as the Firm Faced Financial Crisis – In early 2008, just as Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was preparing to slash expenses, cut thousands of jobs and exit businesses to fix the ailing securities firm, he was also spending company money on himself. Thain spent $1.22 million of company money to refurbish his office.

 

Republicans and Lobbyists Just Don’t Get the Ethics Message – Lobbyists willing to pay a $25,000 fee will mingle with House Republicans at their annual winter retreat next week in Hot Springs, Va. “Of course it’s about access and building relationships — that’s what this town is all about,” said one lawmaker who has attended the retreats for years. He said lobbyists who travel to the retreats often stay on for after-hours socializing throughout the weekend. “It’s not like they’re sitting there plugging their corporate issues — but as with anything, their clients’ interests inevitably come up.” No one attending the conference — lawmakers or lobbyists — are breaking any House rules. (but maybe the rules are pretty lax?)

 

Coal Industry Pressured EPA Head Into Ignoring Coal Ash 8 Years Ago – In March of 2000, during the last days of the Clinton administration, the EPA decided coal ash was a hazardous waste. Then, two months later, it flipped. If the EPA had stuck to its guns, the Kingston Coal Ash disaster in Tennessee might have been averted. Now, momentum is building to federally regulate coal ash. Video at the link.

 

Coal Combustion in This Country Produces 130 Million Tons of Coal Ash Every Year – Senator Barbara Boxer of California noted that coal combustion in this country produces 130 million tons of coal ash every year — enough to fill a train of boxcars stretching from Washington, D.C., to Australia. Amazingly, the task of regulating the more than 600 landfills and impoundments holding this ash is left to the states, which are more often lax than not.

The coal industry has been running a cheery “clean coal” campaign, whose ads would have us believe that low-polluting coal is here or just around the corner. It is neither. Coal remains an inherently dirty fuel, and a huge contributor to not only ground-level pollution — including acid rain and smog — but also global warming. The sooner the country understands that, the closer it will be to mitigating the damage.

 

Most Hospitals Are Demanding Cash Up Front Before Treatment – Fifty-three-year-old Lisa Kelly is fighting Leukemia. With $37,000 of annual hospital coverage, she thought it would at least get her in the door at M.D. Anderson, a leading cancer center. But they told her it was not enough. So Kelly cashed in some of her husband’s inheritance and came in with a check for $45,000. When her tests showed she needed immediate cancer treatment, the hospital asked for another $60,000 to admit her that day. Kelly’s situation is not unique. Nearly 4,200 out of the nation’s 4,900 hospitals are beginning to require proof of payment up front for non-emergency needs. (Only in America!) [Profit before compassion.]

 

Glenn Beck Makes Stuff Up About President Obama’s Swearing In – Yesterday on his new Fox News show, Glenn Beck panicked about the re-do oath of office President Obama took last night, because Obama did not place his hand on a Bible. “I checked. We have never had a president sworn into office without a Bible,” he intoned dramatically. Beck is simply wrong. As Slate recently reported, official records kept by the Architect of the Capitol show that Teddy Roosevelt did not use a Bible in 1901; and Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have used “a Catholic missal aboard Air Force One after Kennedy’s assassination.” According to his own letters, John Quincy Adams placed his hand on a constitutional law book rather than the Bible. Beck’s vaunted devotion to research must have taken a dive when he moved from CNN to Fox.

 

Bill O’Reilly says, “This is not the time for ideology” — Then he presents his ideology – O’Reilly has never been short on self-conflict. BillO, The Walking Oxymoron, said the following:

You may have noticed that “The Factor” has not nitpicked Barack Obama. We don’t play the gotcha game because that doesn’t do you any good. This is not a time for ideology. This is a time for problem-solving.

Far-left zealots want to destroy America so they can rebuild it as a socialistic paradise, a hyper-Sweden. Those people are dangerous, and we will watch them closely.

(O’Reilly seems to use a template that says, “Tell the audience that it’s not good to do XXX, then do XXX.)

 

Schoolgirls Banned From Lessons for Being ‘Too Blonde’ – A headteacher has come under fire from parents and pupils after banning two 16-year-olds from school for being ‘too blonde’. Raegan Booth, 16, and Aby Western, 15, say they were threatened with expulsion by David Alexander unless they dyed their hair brown. The girls claim they are being forced to adhere to the strict dress code of Rednock School in Dursley, Gloucestershire, UK. The school rules clearly state that there are to be no “unnatural” hair colours on students. ‘Unnatural hair colours are blue, purple, green and bright red. Blonde is considered a natural hair colour and there are many different shades. The headmaster claims that he must follow the rules. The headmaster said, “‘I think the problem is how you interpret the rules and we need to make it clearer for the students and parents.” (Maybe it’s how he interpret the rules – a classic problem for authoritarians.) Judge for yourself: photo at the link.

 

British Bishop Says Nazi Gas Cambers Did Not Exist – British bishop, Richard Williamson, 68, said on Sweden’s SVT television channel this week, “I believe there were no gas chambers … I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers,” he said. “There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies!”

 

Global Warming Killing Trees Faster in the Pacific Northwest – Forests in the Pacific Northwest are dying twice as fast as they were 17 years ago, and scientists blame warming temperatures for the trend, according to a new study. “Much of the world’s population in North America, Europe, most of China and large portions of Russia live near temperate forests, so what happens in these forests has global importance,” said Jerry Franklin, a professor of forest resources at the University of Washington whose work was instrumental in maintaining the research plots.

 

Cheney Says Bush Should Have Pardoned Libby – George Bush should have pardoned I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week. Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into the revelation that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent. (Mr. “Protect America” thinks it’s OK to reveal the identity of our CIA agents and to lie about it. – JLV)

[Libby was showing his ‘moral’ discipline by unquestioningly accepting Cheney’s authority and following Cheney’s commands. Libby was loyal to Cheney so pardoning Libby would give recognition to Cheney’s ‘moral’ authority.]

 

Rush Limbaugh Says, “Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.” – In an interview on Sean Hannity’s Jan 21, 2009, show on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh said, “Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.” And what did Hannity say to Limbaugh? He said, “You have defined conservatives for over two decades.” Would you want to [be] defined by that?

 

Coal Plant Spill Worse Than Exxon Valdez – Burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution. As the recent environmental disaster at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee proves, coal plants represent a major danger to the environment in more ways than one. On December 22, 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry spilled at the Kingston Fossil Plant. Fly ash is a byproduct of coal combustion. The slurry (a mixture of the ash and water) traveled downhill, covering the surrounding land with up to six feet of sludge, damaging homes and flowing into nearby waterways. It was the largest coal slurry spill in U.S. history, and the amount released was more than 50 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Yet the story has not received the level of press coverage it deserves. The first independent test results showed significantly elevated levels of toxic metals in samples of slurry and river water, which can cause cancer and liver damage, among other health issues. The devastating environmental impact of the spill has yet to be fully determined. Hopefully the spill will ignite the debate over the environmental safety of coal power plants.

 

Global Warming is Causing an Increase in the Frequency of Storms According to NASA – The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth’s tropics — the type associated with severe storms and rainfall — is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

In a presentation to the recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.

For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade.

Regards,

Jim