Bad Deeds for 2-20-2009

John Cornyn Introduces Bill That Would Require Home Owners To Retain Internet Access Logs – Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations. The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.”

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let “law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals.”

Judge’s Office Wouldn’t Stay Open for Extra 20 Minutes to Spare Life – On September 25, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Sharon Keller refused to keep her clerk’s office open an extra 20 minutes to receive a last-gasp pleading from the attorneys for condemned inmate Michael Richard. Richard’s lawyers were having computer problems that prevented them from turning in their motion on time. The 49-year-old murderer was executed just hours after Keller locked the door. Keller’s decision to close her court at 5 p.m.—a move that has since been blasted by even her Republican colleagues—violated the court’s unwritten policies for handling executions. It also broke sharply from tradition. In Texas, it’s not unusual for judges and clerks to take last-minute pleadings at their homes. On execution day, the courts don’t have a strict closing time. (What are the chances that she labels herself “Pro-Life”?)

Here are some other cases concerning this judge.
And more information.

Limbaugh: Trying To Understand A Democrat is Like Trying To Understand A Murderer Or Rapist – Rush Limbaugh likens Democrats to murderers, rapists, and “this Muslim guy” that “offed his wife’s head. He also says that Democrats are now socialist liberals who will establish separate rules for themselves, such as not having to pay their taxes and not being subject to greenhouse gas laws. Hear the audio:

Sean Hannity Recommends Stanford Company – Mention ‘Sean Hannity’ to Stanford Coins & Bullion and get a free guidebook. Yup, that’s Stanford as in Stanford Financial Group, or Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire who was apparently on the lam after being charged Tuesday in connection with a multi-billion-dollar fraud. “Stanford Coins & Bullion, a member of the Stanford Financial Group, their name as good as gold,” Hannity intones on advertisements that regularly run on his radio show.

How Industry and the EPA Failed To Stop the Growing Environmental Disaster of Coal Ash – Pat Nees never liked the water at the Moose Lodge. Almost everyone in tiny Colstrip, Montana, drank and dined at Lodge #2190, but the well water was notorious — it smelled like a sewer. It felt oily, gritty from sediment. Lodge members braving a drink — Nees among them — frequently doubled over from indigestion. Nees, 57, a board member at the lodge, fielded numerous complaints about the water. But he and fellow Moose members, many of them equipment operators and technicians at the nearby Colstrip Steam Electric Station, a giant coal-fired power plant, never thought twice about the massive waste ponds a half mile away. They never fathomed they were drinking water laced with coal ash.

Coal ash is the collective term for the various solid remnants left over from burning the black rock to produce electricity at more than 500 power plants nationwide. The ash amounts to dirty stuff, replete with toxic constituents — arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury, and many others — that can wreak havoc on the environment and human health. Exposure to its toxins can lead to cancer, birth defects, gastro-intestinal illnesses, and reproductive problems. For decades, the dangers of coal ash had largely been hidden from public view.

BP Guilty of Violating Clean Air Act – BP has plead guilty to violating the Clean Air Act and agreed to pay a separate fine of $50 million. The settlement addresses what the government identified as the company’s failure to comply with a 2001 consent decree requiring tight controls on benzene during the refining of petroleum. Benzene is a hazardous air pollutant known to cause cancer, damage the nerve and immune systems, and affect reproduction and development. The government says the new efforts will reduce emissions of benzene and other volatile organic compounds at the site by 6,000 pounds a year. BP has also agreed to eliminate roughly 51,000 pounds of ozone-depleting hydro-chlorofluorocarbons, often referred to as HCFC’s, by modernizing industrial cooling appliances at the refinery.

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence (As He Tries to Rewrite History) – Richard Perle is known as the Prince of Darkness — so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon . He was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday’s forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.
2. Neoconservatives do not exist.
3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn’t be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy,” Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. “It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy.”
So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the study group,” Perle explained. “I didn’t approve it. I didn’t read it.”

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a “moral” basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? “I don’t have the letters in front of me,” Perle replied.
Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? “I don’t know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements,” Perle maintained. “My guess is he didn’t.”

Pearle had been a leading cheerleader for the Iraq war, predicting that the effort would take few troops and last only a few days, and that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. Perle was chairman of Bush’s Defense Policy Board — and the president clearly took the advice of Perle and his fellow neocons. And Perle, in turn, said back then that Bush “knows exactly what he’s doing.”

All in the Neocon Family

Richard Perle, Neocon and Key Architect to Bush’s Iraq War – “It is victory or holocaust.”

Right-Wing Radio Host Repeatedly Replaces Female Congresswoman’s Name With Female Genital Reference – During a discussion about President Barack Obama’s signing of the economic recovery bill in Denver, Peter Boyles repeatedly referred to Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who attended the ceremony, as “Vagina DeJet” and “Vagina DeGette.”

Conservative View of Bicycle Paths – OCCULT WITCHCRAFT – This bike path is used by people who are practicing a pagan ritual that involves an unholy avoidance of the use of fossil fuels. Adherents also believe “bicycling” will increase their health and lifespan, thus forestalling their eventual doom in the fires of Hell.

Regards,

Jim