Bad Deeds for 6-20-2008

FISA Bill Destroys the Fourth Amendment – Urgent Action Needed Now to Protect and Defend Our Constitution – Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley sees a “very frightening bill” in a “compromise,” just passed by the House, that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to effectively grant immunity from civil lawsuits to telecommunications companies that agreed to spy on their customers as part of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, starting shortly before the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. If the White House asked a phone company to spy with its assurance that it was legal, the measure says, that’s enough to dismiss a case.

Congressional Democrats, Turley went on, knew about surveillance and torture programs, but were politically unable to oppose them at the same time they were touting themselves to the public as defenders of civil liberties. The bill, he said, is part of a campaign of collusion between Congress and the Bush administration, immunizing not only the telecommunications companies, but the administration and any members of Congress, on either side of the aisle, that may have been involved.

“The Democrats never really were engaged in this,” said Turley. “In fact, they repeatedly tried to cave in to the White House, only to be stopped by civil libertarians and bloggers.”

“I think they’re simply waiting to see if the public’s interest will wane,” he went on, referring to repeated attempts to float said legislation past the public. “This bill has quite literally no public value for citizens or civil liberties. It is reverse engineering, though the type of thing the Bush Administration’s famous for, and now the Democrats are doing–that is, to change the law to conform to past conduct.”

“It’s what any criminal would love to do,” Turley continued. “You rob a bank, go to the legislature, and change the law to say that robbing banks is lawful.”

“People need to be very, very much aware of this bill,” he charged. “What you’re seeing in this bill is an evisceration of (remove the guts from) the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. It is something that allows the President and the government to go into law-abiding homes, on their word alone–their suspicion alone–and to engage in warrantless surveillance.

“That’s what the framers who drafted the Fourth Amendment wanted to prevent.”

This bill will be going to the Senate next.

 

T. Boone Pickens Wants to Make Water the New Oil – T. Boone Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. In the coming decades, as growing numbers of people live in urban areas and climate change makes some regions much more prone to drought, water—or what many are calling “blue gold”—will become an increasingly scarce resource. By 2030 nearly half of the world’s population will inhabit areas with severe water stress, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Pickens understands that. You get thirsty and he gets richer.

 

Lakes Across Canada Face Being Turned Into Mine Dump Sites – Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly “reclassified” as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland. Environmentalists say the process amounts to a “hidden subsidy” to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat. Under the Fisheries Act, it’s illegal to put harmful substances into fish-bearing waters. But, under a little-known subsection known as Schedule Two of the mining effluent regulations, federal bureaucrats can redefine lakes as “tailings impoundment areas.” That means mining companies don’t need to build containment ponds for toxic mine tailings.

 

Who Gets Oil Money and Who Supports the Oil Companies – Here’s how much does my Senators get from oil and gas:

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)
Accepted $1,211,475 from the oil and gas industry since 2000.
Supported the industry in 100% of selected votes.

Senator Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Accepted $903,989 from the oil and gas industry since 2000.
Supported the industry in 100% of selected votes.
How much does YOUR Senator get from oil and gas?

 

How Global Warming “Skeptics” Attempt to Deceive – Patrick Michaels, a global warming “skeptic”, testified to Congress that the graph of expected trends as predicted ten years earlier by NASA’s James Hansen, did not agree with the actual temperature rises observed, and therefore Hansen’s work was not to be trusted. The anti-environmentalists have often repeated Michaels argument. However when, Michaels showed Hansen’s graph, he saw fit to erase the two lower lines, B and C, and show the Senators only Line A.

Line A was a temperature trend prediction based on rapid emissions growth and no large volcanic event; it was a steep climb through the year 2000 and beyond.

Line B was based on modest emissions growth and one large volcanic eruption in the mid 1990s.

Line C began along the same trajectory as Line B, and included the same volcanic eruption, but showed reductions in the growth of CO2 emission by the turn of the century — the result of hypothetical government controls.

As it happens, since Hansen’s testimony, emissions have grown at a modest rate and Mt. Pinatubo did in fact erupt, though in the early 1990s, not the middle. In other words, the Line B forcings scenario came remarkably close to predicting what actually came to pass. Not coincidentally, the observed temperature trend has tracked closely with the Line B prediction as well. Hansen was right on the money, and the models he used proved successful.

Here’s a list of over 100 false arguments often used by global warming “skeptics” and the answers to them.

 

Republican Representative Tells Scott McClellan He Should Have Taken the Truth to His Grave – In the Congressional questioning of Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan today about the wrongdoings of the Bush Administration, Republican Senator Steve King said, “Couldn’t you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?” You see, in bizarro Republican world, staying silent and allowing your fellow citizens to remain clueless about how their leaders lie to them is the right, patriotic thing to do.

 

Science Teacher Who Taught Intelligent Design Burned Cross onto Student’s Arm, According to Parents – The parents of a Mount Vernon boy who says his science teacher branded a cross on his arm have sued the teacher and the school board. In addition to the branding incident, Freshwater is accused of teaching the theory of intelligent design to his eighth-grade science class even though the district ordered him not to in 2003, the lawsuit says.

 

Karl Rove and the US Attorneys Scandal, Jack Abramoff, the Plame Affair, and Swiftboating – Paul Alexander, whose book, Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove, is based on interviews with many sources who have never before gone on the record, told Joe Scarborough that Rove was essentially fired by George W. Bush. “My sources tell me that the president had sort of reached the point where he wasn’t willing to deal with the scandals and the controversies any more,” Alexander stated. “He basically told him to leave.” Alexander explained further that “there were a number of issues that were still potential landmines,” including the US Attorneys scandal, “leftover” Abramoff stuff, and the Plame affair.

Asked by Pat Buchanan whether Rove had “a hand in the Swiftboat thing,” Alexander replied, “Sure, absolutely. He helped arrange the sort of message, arranged the funding. … That was probably the key smear in the 2004 campaign.”

 

Biofuels: Bad Deed or Good Deed? – The alternative of biofuels raises serious questions deserving more depth. Discussing biofuels is like discussing drugs: society recognizes the difference between aspirin and cocaine and we should also be cognizant of differences in biofuels. Biofuels vary dramatically in their environmental impact and their effects on food prices. For instance, biodiesel from food oils like soybean or palm oil have traditionally created environmental negatives, they are unscalable and likely to be fundamentally uneconomic. On the other hand corn ethanol has served as a useful stepping stone to cellulosic ethanol but has recently come under criticism – some of it fair, some absurd. A preferred alternative, cellulosic ethanol is coming fast, but to be environmentally sound it must not directly (or indirectly) force alternative crop production into environmentally sensitive regions like rain forests.

Much of public opinion is influenced by paid-for campaigns of interested parties. Recently the Grocery Manufacturers Association has started a multi-million dollar campaign against corn ethanol; meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute is far more concerned about food prices than oil prices (which hit $127 today). One hears slogans about how much corn and water are required to produce a gallon of ethanol – a 16-ounce steak takes about the same amount of corn and more water. Are opponents of corn ethanol also calling for a ban on steaks, especially since chicken is a healthier food and takes less corn to produce?

Regards,

Jim