Bad Deeds for 2-22-07

TXU Coal Plant Lawyer Says That Global Warming is “For Kings And Presidents…To Decide” – A lawyer for TXU Corp has told the judges who will rule on whether it can build a slew of new coal-burning power plants here that global warming is not on the docket, and none of their concern. “It’s for kings and presidents and world leaders to decide how to address global warming,” argued TXU attorney John Riley. “It’s not for air permit hearings.” With no kings in sight, Texans who oppose TXU’s plan to build 11 new plants across the state are nonetheless looking to two administrative judges to block the plan. They argue it would double CO2 emissions here overnight. Texas already emits more of the greenhouse gas than any other state in the country.

Bush Administration Not Listening to Pentagon, AGAIN – Vice President Dick Cheney called the pullout of British troops from Southern Iraq “an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.” But the Pentagon, in its most recent quarterly report to Congress, listed Basra in Southern Iraq as one of five cities outside Baghdad where violence remained “significant,” and said the region was one of only two “not ready for transition” to Iraqi authorities.

Health Spending On Pace to Double in 10 Years – U.S. spending on prescription drugs, hospital care and other health services is expected to double to $4.1 trillion – nearly 20 cents of every dollar spent – over the next decade, up from $2.1 trillion in 2006, according to a report out Wednesday from the National Health Statistics Group.

State ID Laws Causing Low Voter Turnout – States that imposed identification requirements on voters reduced turnout at the polls in the 2004 presidential election by about 3 percent, and by two to three times as much for minorities, according to new research, supporting concerns that blacks and Hispanics could be disproportionately affected by ID requirements.

Conservative columnist backs homophobic athlete, says NBA ‘love machines’ wouldn’t shower with gays or ‘morbidly obese women’ – A columnist known for his conservative stance on morals writes that former NBA star Tim Hardaway was right to some degree in his harsh dismissal of homosexuals, and says most basketball players wouldn’t want gays showering with them any more than they would want “profoundly unattractive, morbidly obese women.”

Fox News Claims Iraqi Insurgency Is Not “Homegrown”, is Made up Mostly of Foreign Fighters – Fox’s Red Eye panel discussed the development during the Feb. 21 show where the panel claimed the Iraqi insurgency is made up mostly of foreign fighters “which we’ve pretty much known all along”, and is not “homegrown.” Fox is either completely ignorant of the war in Iraq or is plainly lying to the audience. The Iraqi insurgency actually is “homegrown”, with only 10% of insurgents made up of foreign fighters. These numbers come from a U.S. government study that states, “Up to 3,000 foreign insurgents may be fighting in Iraq, but they remain a small part of the overall rebellion, a US military analyst has suggested…The figure is three times as large as unofficial Pentagon estimates, but may total no more than 10% of insurgents.”

Fox News Conflates MoveOn Members With “Perverts and Arsonists” – On Feb. 22, Fox’s Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld and panel discussed the topic of virtual child pornography by saying, “Isn’t it better to create an alternate universe where perverts and arsonists and people who belong to Moveon.org, can go and do these things without causing any problems?” This blatantly offensive comparison is not worthy of a news station. To contact Red Eye about the slur, you can send an e-mail to redeye@foxnews.com.

Bush Escalation May Shorten Downtime for National Guard Units – The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, with units from Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio facing the prospect of drastically shortened breaks between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday. The Oklahoma unit had not been scheduled to go back to Iraq until 2010, and brigades from the other three states not until 2009.

Fox News’ Repeatedly Attempts To Discredit Barack Obama – The short video (linked below) exposes Fox News’ repeated attempts to discredit Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Watch at the link below to see Fox anchors misrepresent Obama’s education, the implications of his middle name, and focus on his smoking habit.

Regards,

Jim