Scientists have "discovered" another species capable of logical thinking.

It's a fish.

According to experiments, an African cichlid demonstrated "transitive inference," or the ability to figure something out by example.

So fish are added to the species known to think logically: monkeys, rats and birds.

There must be another one.

Oh, yes.

Vulcans.

Are there Klingons in the White House?

And are they friend or faux?


(Thanks to Axinar for these photos)

Controversy continues at Southern Methodist over the proposed Bush Library. This won't help.

Bush's Address on Iraq--A Sneak Preview

My fellah Amuricans. I've been listening to a lot of people with ideas about what to do about Iraq. Lately I've been spending quality time talking to the portraits of LBJ and Nixon downstairs. So now I'm ready to announce my New World Order---I mean, New Way Forward.

I'm going to escalate--I mean surge--by sending 20,000 more soldiers to Iraq to take care of business and bring us to victory, so I can wear that flight suit again and land on the aircraft carrier out in the Gulf just before we start bombing Iran and the weapons of mass destruction they will be building in a decade or two.

Now everybody wants to know where am I going to get 20,000 more troops? Well, we had an election in November, and a lot of good Republicans lost their jobs. So I'm combining my surge with a jobs program, and I figure we can find 10,000 or so unemployed Republicans to send over there. Of course they'll all be officers, which right away ups the quality of our forces. The other ten thou I figure we can get from high school juniors--we'll give them an Ipod as a signing bonus, plus an Xbox or something for every year they survive--I mean, serve.

I look forward to working with Congress to get this done--the Democrats ought to like it, heh heh, heh heh. But it doesn't really matter cause I can do whatever the hell I want. It says right here in my signing statement to the bill making January 9 National Oil Your Squeaky Doorhinges Awareness Day. I like that part about the oil. May God bless the United States of America and the Republic for which it used to stand.

Nuclear Alert(s)

From the Sunday Times in London:ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

From AP:Iran's chief nuclear envoy Ali Larijani said on Friday that Iran is committed to the peaceful use of nuclear technology but warned the situation could change if his country is threatened. "We oppose obtaining nuclear weapons and we will peacefully use nuclear technology under the framework of the Nonproliferation Treaty, but if we are threatened, the situation may change," He told a news conference after two days of talks in Beijing.

From Ynet:
During summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian president hints that if Iran attains nukes, Egypt will have to also in order to defend itself. Up until now Egypt has claimed its nuclear program was for energy purposes only...“We don’t want nuclear weapons,” Mubarak stated, “But since they appear highly present in the area, we must defend ourselves."

From the Sunday New York Times:The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of the country’s first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. It will propose combining elements of competing designs from two weapons laboratories in an approach that some experts argue is untested and risky.

Perhaps it's time to review our Duck & Cover drill. At the first sign of nuclear madness, get under your desk, bend over, put your hands over your head, and kiss your ass goodbye.

The Truth At Last

In 2005 it was reported that Smirk (otherwise known as GW Bush) let it be known that in invading Iraq he was obeying the voice of God.

But now the true source of that voice has been revealed, and as usual, it's the Onion that breaks the story.

Frank & Ernest

Media (Not Enough) Blues

Pity the poor news media. For the past several years, major newspapers, magazines and TV networks have slowly but surely responded to what they must have thought was a major conservative shift in the country, as well as the legendary permanent Republican majority. They got rid of their less-than-conservative executives, editors, writers, columnists and replaced them with neocons, fundamentalists and right wing crazies. Now that their transformation of the media is just about complete, what happens but the American public ain't buying that crap anymore.

Fox News ratings are tanking, which is only the beginning. Really too bad for the newspapers especially, because it took them so long to divest themselves of journalistic standards to wallow in far right bilge, and now it will take years for them to shed these hapless pounds. If they ever can. News as entertainment has already limited the intelligence of the news media gene pool.

Meanwhile we can watch The Daily Show (which some study showed features as much news content as actual news programs) and Keith Olbermann. Maybe someday there will be a newspaper or magazine worth reading that isn't British.

The Wave of Democratic Progressive victories washes over the nation...  

so voters Wave goodbye to the Republican Congress, Rumsfeld, Pombo, Allen... 

The Wave

The dimensions of this, summarized by kos: We won, and won big. Not only did we take the Senate, take the House, and destroyed Republicans at the state legislative level, but we didn't lose a single senate seat, we didn't lose any House seats, we didn't lose any governorships, we didn't lose any state legislatures. It was a rout of epic proportions.

Kos is also trenchant on the Democrats' agenda, and shoots down the notion that the Democrats elected were conservatives. While some have different positions on social issues (most of which they'll never have to vote on), they are much more progressive and populist on economic issues, against the war and torture, and for constitutional rights. In other words, they aren't extreme right wing lunatics, like the ones who have been running the country. Matt Stoller has more specific details on Dem candidates--the more conservative tended to lose, while the more progressive won. Note especially the support for universal health care.

Georgia10 adds this: When you can't get an abortion ban passed in freakin' South Dakota, America isn't trending conservative. When you can't get a gay marriage ban passed in Arizona, America isn't trending conservative. When opposition to gay marriage bans was more than 40% in 5 of the 8 bans that passed, America isn't trending conservative. When a majority of Americans choose Democrats to represent them, America isn't trending conservative.

Apart from the governator, the Wave swept Democrats into state offices in California. Results on propositions are mixed, but the worst ones were defeated.

Think Progress outlines some of the "firsts" in this tidal wave: the first woman and first Italian American Speaker of the House, more women in the Senate than ever before, the first Muslim elected to Congress, three House committees with African-American chairs, and of course (though TP doesn't mention him) Senator Bernie Sanders, the first declare socialist, who is so down to earth that his socialism is not an issue in Vermont or probably anywhere else.

The first victim of the wave was Rumsfeld, who promptly quit as secretary of Defense. But Bush promptly appointed an insider cut from the same cloth, who may go along with a change in policy but is an interventionist and Republican loyalist deeply involved in Iran-Contra and past machinations that helped create enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere. It seems Bush really wanted to appoint Kissinger, but even the lame duck Senate might not confirm a zombie.

Stop The Insanity

Get rid of the Republican rubber stamp Congress that enables Bush's Iraq madness, that believes getting tough with terrorists means taking away fundamental American and human rights, that cuts taxes to enrich the superrich and impoverish everyone else, that hasn't done anything to address the Climate Crisis but deny it, or make America energy self-sufficient but finds the time to enrich a lot of crony corporations, from Exxon to Halliburton to Enron.

Get rid of this arrogant Republican Congress that has shirked its responsibilities of oversight--that spent all of 12 hours on finding out who was responsible for Abu Gharaib but these same Republicans spent more than 140 hours of hearings on investigating the Clinton Christmas card list.Get rid of this arrogant Republican Congress that has devastated this institution by refusing to listen to minority views, while it invites its favorite lobbyists to literally write the laws it passes.

Get rid of this dangerous Republican Congress that, together with President Bush, gave away nuclear secrets to terrorists and rogue states, while refusing to join the world in limiting nuclear proliferation.Stop Bush's power to intimidate his political adversaries, and his power to disrespect and disgust the world. In the eyes of many Bush has become one of the most dangerous men in the world--in England Bush is rated more dangerous than the president of North Korea. Stop the Torturers in Chief from destroying America's place in the world--from corrupting America's soul.

Get rid of this clueless Republican Congress that won't even raise the minimum wage, that does nothing about health care as businesses fail, families fall apart, individuals die.Send a message to those who support Bush's insane, tragic war in Iraq, who helped him lie his way into it, who together ignored the disaster they should have foreseen. Just as they ignored the lessons of a simulated hurricane in New Orleans, they utterly ignored the recently exposed results of a 1999 war game that predicted every awful consequence of the war they nevertheless arrogantly pursued. They have spilled our blood, spent our treasure, and they kill and maim the innocent and destroy another country, and they will keep doing it until we stop them.

And if you need more reason to dump the Republican 109th Congress, Think Progress has 109 more.Stop the death, stop the madness. Vote Democratic today. It won't solve everything, but it will slow this insanity down. This is for the future.

Fix It AND Stop It

This is what I've been afraid of. This is what I saw coming: A debate among climate change experts has some researchers now suggesting that we focus on limiting the damage done by climate change, rather than on passing laws intended to prevent global warming.

This piece by Kate Raiford chooses two advocates to represent these opposing views. On the Fix It side is Sterling Burnett, an environmental ethicist and senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative nonprofit organization in Dallas dedicated to free market solutions. On the Stop It side is J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director at Fresh Energy in Minnesota.

Burnett says we should concentrate on efforts like building seawalls on threatened coasts and innoculating people in Africa who are in greater danger of malaria because of the spread of mosquitos in the regions getting hotter: that is on dealing with the consequences of the Climate Crisis, and even preparing for what effects we anticipate in the short term. Hamilton says that we must reduce greenhouse gases by 60% by 2050 to "protect against the most dangerous consequences" farther in the future, which according to scientists could include the end of civilization and a planet scoured of most life as we know it.

This is not an academic or even political argument (though it has elements of the latter), nor is it just a trumped up debate for the sake of a story. It is a battle for commitment, attention and resources, with the explicit premise--at least in Burnett--that there is only enough to do one or the other.

As consequences of the Climate Crisis become more obvious, more frequent and more serious (even when not everyone agrees to the causal link) the demand for action to respond to effects will grow. We are learning as we go, as we have already in the Californa heat wave of July and early August; there are problems (and solutions) few have anticipated.

The demands to concentrate on Fix It will grow louder. But can we really afford to concentrate only on that? Burnett argues additionally that we don't know enough about what might happen in the future to act now, especially on large scale changes such as dramatically scaling back greenhouse gases and switching to alternative energy.

Hamilton argues that we can't afford not to act to Stop It--stop the heating from reaching the tipping point of global catastrophe-- for scientists are telling us how horrendous the future is likely to be if we don't. Morever, by its very nature we must anticipate it, because the greenhouse gases we'll send into the atmosphere now and in the next decade will affect the climate years later. Once we find out the tipping point is passed and the accumulating climate changes are feeding on themselves, it will be too late to stop it.

Hamilton also maintains that action towards stopping it will improve the present: cleaner energy reduces dependence on foreign oil, reduces pollution and can help create a stronger economy and a healthier world.

Hamilton is right that many of the necessary steps to stop it in the long term will be of benefit in the short term. But those steps alone will not fix it. Wind turbines will not attack malaria; solar power doesn't help elders endangered by heat stroke.

Burnett is right that we have to pay attention to the effects of the Climate Crisis in the short term, in the now. But he is wrong that we would be wasting resources or taking an unnecessary risk by working to stop it. Both are necessary.

They are in fact equally necessary. But the reason I have been pounding on this theme of fix it and stop it is that very soon there is going to be a lot of pressure to fix it, and this is likely to be a right wing theme. Working to stop it has become identified as a left wing theme. Neither side so far embraces both, even though both are crucial. We must be here for each other now. And we must work and sacrifice for our children and grandchildren and the future.

The left so far is largely ignoring the fix it side. And they leave that issue to the right, which will sooner or later take it up, and run with it hard. Some will use it to end efforts to stop it. This is an early indication of that. But we can't let that happen. It is defeatist to say we don't have the resources to do both, before we've tried to do either. But we will certainly waste the precious resources of time and energy by getting into a political war about doing one and only one, take your pick.

We must work simultaneously to fix it AND stop it. Doing both is the test of our civilization. Even if we fail to see this we will surely fail as a civilization, and we will deserve to fail.

Climate Crisis Denial--Lucrative but Lonely

Climate Crisis denying is a lucrative job, but it's getting very lonely. In recent days, scientists who authored the two studies principally used by deniers to support their claims have written opeds saying the deniers are misusing and distorting their data, and that they fully accept the reality of global heating as caused mostly by our years of dispersing greenhouse gases.

One is in the New York Times today. Peter Doran is the coauthor of a 2002 study that found some cooling in Antarctica, which deniers Michael Crichton and Ann Coulter (among others) have cited as proof that heating isn't happening, or that scientists don't agree, or that scientists don't know what they're talking about.

Here's what Doran says...

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals -- thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals -- all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

Another scientist, whose data was misused by the Wall Street Journal and others, corrected the record in a Los Angeles Times oped reprinted here. This was a study of studies by Naomi Oreskes:

My study demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is warming and that human activities are the principal cause.

Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have already been addressed and questions that have already been answered will, of course, be rejected by scientific journals, and this explains my findings. Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Of actual deniers, one in Virginia, it was revealed today, is on the payroll of coal-burning utilities. A secret coal industry memo calling for more financing of deniers admits that most deniers, scientists or not, have "no involvement in climatology."

As is documented in An Inconvenient Truth, most climate crisis denying research was financed by the fossil fuel industry. And with another $10 billion+ in just the last reported three months soaked in by Exxon-Mobil alone, that financing is likely to grow. Considering all the available cash and the few folks with the credentials to claim it, if climate crisis denying were a stock, every broker in the world would be advising clients to buy it---a high growth opportunity. For as long as it lasts.

How Hot Is It?

Armageddon will start next week said the supermarket tabloid I passed at the checkout. Maybe I should have checked the date. What's going on in the Middle East looks like the start of it.

Meanwhile, most of the U.S. is gripped by the other apocalypse--just as this story asserted that this year so far has been the hottest in the U.S. ever, and it's not even August yet, most of the nation was broiling. Our little coastal strip is foggy but cool, so I wasn't that aware of the high heat elsewhere today, until I posted Climate Crisis "Fix It and Stop It" piece on the usual community blogs, and got some comments at dkos about how insanely hot it was today in the high Rockies and upper Michigan. Southern California is choking, and vast forest fires continue.

So I looked at the Weather Channel tonight for the first time in awhile, and saw a weather map that was solid red--all 80s, 90s and over 100 degree F highs in the east, midwest, south, southwest, west, north, everywhere but a few coastal strips. And the forecast for the coming week is equally brutal. DC over 100, and Detroit mighty close. Boston and New York, Pittsburgh and Philly in the upper 90s.

There is now ongoing drought, the above cited article says, in 45% of the US. And though 2006 may turn out to be the hottest year on record, it would only be beating out 2005.

So how is the Weather Channel, and hence the nation, handling this? They are now outfront about linking global heating to longer, hotter and more frequent heat waves, with thousands of deaths because of them. But that report comes and goes. While we're looking at the very red map (meaning all heat, though it does give a certain meaning to that other red signification on US maps), the weather man is cheerily advising ways to "beat the heat," like playing with water balloons.

After the forecast (cheerful delivery to horrendous information), we return to the ongoing taped dramas of super storms, the Weather Channel's equivalent of horror movies, or maybe reality shows.As bizarre as this schzoid imagery is, it looks familiar. Where have I seen this before?

Then it hits me--this is America in the 50s and 60s, coping with nuclear weapons that could obliterate life as we know it in a second. But the government assured us there was nothing to worry about, nuclear weapons were our friend, and so we were officially cheerful about them, while we were told to duck and cover. In the meantime, the movie theatres and drive-ins were showing horror films about radiation monsters and invaders from space with invincible heat-rays.

This is how we behave in the face of official denial. Our government won't admit or face the problem and so obviously is not going to do anything about it, so our only defense is to not think about it. Or we'd go crazy. Although in trying to pretend we aren't thinkng about it, and we don't know the government is failing us, we are going crazy anyway.

How hot is it? Our leaders have thrown enough money down the sinkhole of Iraqnam to stop the Climate Crisis in its tracks, and go a long way towards fixing the problems it is causing. They have thrown enough destruction into Iraqnam to destabilize the Middle East, and they've crippled our ability to deal with other countries, including those fighting there, and including allies elsewhere, so the American people can only watch as the world tears itself apart.

Any sane government would have a cabinet level Climate Crisis team working on fixing it and stopping it. But then, no sane government would have lied and blundered its way into the Iraqmire. Both failings are crippling the future, and making a lot of people suffer in the present.

So before you duck and cover, don't forget your water balloon.

Lack of Intelligence (Son of Iraq)

Sy Hersh in the New Yorker warns that the Bushites are still intent on the rockets red glaring in Iran, with signficant opposition from within the US military:

Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States.

According to Hersh, these commanders point to a lack of reliable intelligence on possible targets. But there is also the lack of intelligence already displayed by Bushite leaders, who not only failed to heed warnings of their disastrous course in Iraq, but apparently failed to learn anything when those disasters happened.Hersh quotes a senior military planner: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior aides “really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary,” he said. Hersh adds: I was told, the current chairman [of Joint Chiefs], Marine General Peter Pace, has gone further in his advice to the White House by addressing the consequences of an attack on Iran. “Here’s the military telling the President what he can’t do politically”—raising concerns about rising oil prices, for example—the former senior intelligence official said. “The J.C.S. chairman going to the President with an economic argument—what’s going on here?”

These military sources have themselves learned something from Iraq, however. The high-ranking general added that the military’s experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. “We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq,” he said.

In essence, the generals and planners don't know enough about the targets or the military response. They see the likelihood of a wider war, with the US military already stretched thin. The economic and political repercussions they must factor in their planning include oil price rises and oil shortages, and condemnation by other nations, including current allies.

If there is any good news in this story, it's that the administration may no longer be considering using nuclear bombs in such an attack on Iran. But the situation remains dangerous on many levels. Apparently Las Vegas oddsmakers are pegging the chances of an attack on Iran this year (like for instance shortly before November elections) at fifty-fifty.

The No Rove Blues

Karl Rove's lawyer dashed visions of Karl Rove frog-marched into prison when he announced that he'd received a letter from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald stating that there were no plans to indict Rove.The responses on the lefty sites were varied. Some questioned whether Rove was "cooperating," maybe to get Cheney. Some dissed those who had reported that Rove would be indicted, and those who believed them. An Associated Press report suggested that while Rove was lying to the press and public, he was telling the truth to the FBI:" The decision not to charge Karl Rove shows there often are no consequences for misleading the public."

And some went after Fitzgerald, previously an unquestioned hero. Though Fitzgerald's office refused to confirm it had sent this letter, some of those who accepted his lawyer's veracity said Fitzgerald's decision didn't make sense. "Those of us who have dealt with Fitzgerald in Chicago know that he has been a political pawn of the Bush Administration since he was appointed," wrote Sheldon Drobny. He suggests the White House gave Libby up to limit the damage.

Frank Dwyer suggested the only reason so many believed Fitzgerald is an incorruptible hero who would bring Rove and others to justice was because they needed to believe somebody was going to save the country: "I suspect if you put your faith in Fitzgerald, you did it for the same reasons I did: because you wanted to, because you needed to.The point here (here and everywhere) is that no institutions in a democracy are safe if the party that holds power is ruthlessly determined to corrupt and subvert those institutions to keep that power, especially when the rest of us are too disorganized or demoralized or lazy or stupid or afraid to stop them.Our situation is very serious.

This country is in very great danger, more danger than it faced in 1861. (Even if it had split apart on Lincoln's watch, one part would still have been, potentially, honorable, good, just, faithful to the idea of the Constitution.)He calls for focus:We need to decide very specifically what we want and who can best lead us in achieving it; and then we need to fight as hard as we can one more time to persuade enough Americans to vote with us--against greed, meanness, and corruption; for the Constitution and the idea of democracy."

His hope, like that of others, is desperate. The only person he sees out there who can do this is Al Gore, and so far Gore is not running for anything. "We really shouldn't argue too much with each other: we need to unite and move quickly, boldly, the way we would if we were being attacked by an enemy from another planet--because, in a very real sense, we are. Make no mistake: it will be hard, even now, to defeat a party that believes it has a special dispensation from God to lie and cheat because God wants it to keep power. Losing to this party again is unthinkable--but it can't be. We have to think it, and let the thought of the meaning and consequences of that defeat inspire our greatest efforts. Otherwise, all we will be left with is a slim doomsday consolation: my apologies to the penguins and the polar bears, but an electorate so stupid as to be taken in again by these terminally greedy aliens among us will get what it deserves and deserve exactly what it gets. "

The worst thing about Rove not being indicted is that he'll be out there for the next election. He's already pumping up the Republican troops with his usual character assassination and bullshit rhetoric.But maybe it's good to realize just how hard it is going to be to reverse this flow, even with Bush bottoming out at 33% or so, and Democrats irrationally exuberant over their chances to retake Congress in November. Recent press treatment of moderate Democrats, let alone progressives, reverted to Clinton era form. They never gave Clinton a break, they hated Gore (and still do) and disdained Kerry. Here's Jonathan Schwartz on what we can expect from the trad media:

"Of all the things that drive me crazy about my progressive compatriots, it’s this belief that you can change the corporate media with accurate criticism of it. They believe at some point the people within the media will realize they’re wrong, and their behavior will improve.This is insane. The corporate media is the way it is because it exists to make as much money as possible. It doesn’t exist to give people an accurate picture of the world. It doesn’t exist to provide jobs for honest journalists. On rare occasions it will do both. But mostly it won’t, because the need to make as much money as possible usually conflicts with everything good.

Waiting for this to change is like waiting for Santa Claus to bring us presents. But Santa Claus won’t ever bring us presents, because THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS."

While we look for some space in that "usually," we also feel obligated to add AND NO SANITY CLAUSE EITHER.

Climate Crisis: Some Inconvenient Hunters

While oil companies pour millions into absurd ads singing the praises of carbon dioxide, and rabid right swiftboaters spread their usual false stories (claiming that Al Gore and others used five cars to travel a few blocks to a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," when in fact they all walked), Gore's movie opens to widespread attention, which for the forces of darkness makes it an inconvenient hit.

But that's not all that's happening in the Climate Crisis. NOAA issued its official prediction for hurricane season: 13 to 16 named storms, with 4-6 hurricanes of level 3 or higher intensity. NOAA's predictions last year were way low. Ocean temperatures are warmer than normal, which feeds the storms. Other stories indicate New Orleans is in the crosshairs again this year, and though levees are repaired, there's not a lot of confidence they would hold under the stress of a major storm.

Longterm, the results of two new studies assert that global heating may be more intense than the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions--by as much as 78% higher. According to the BBC, the studies take into account various feedback mechanisms not measured in other studies.

And closer to the ground and to today, there's this story:

A recent nationwide survey shows that it's no longer just radical environmentalists who think global warming is real. About half of America's hunters and anglers -- including many who said they voted for President Bush in 2004 -- told pollsters they are witnessing firsthand, in the outdoors, the effects of some form of climate change, according to the results of a nationwide survey of sportsmen released Tuesday by the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C.The sportsmen are seeing climate change in the form of lakes that no longer freeze over for ice fishing in the winter, fall-hunting seasons without enough snow to track deer and other drastic environmental changes they consider a threat to wildlife, the group says.Of those who say they have seen such changes, the majority attribute those changes to global warming, and many go a step further to blame the burning of fossil fuels as the cause of the warming.