Mother's Day Proclamation, made in the year 1870

by Julia Ward Howe



Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.



Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."



From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with

Our own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God -


In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Iowa senator Tom Harkin has posted an online petition to help convince the more chicken-hearted democrats in the senate to support Feingold's resolution of censure. We need to pass the word and get as many people to sign up as possible before the senate comes back into session after next week. Here's the link:

Tom Harkin online Petition for Censure

Thanks to my fellow Iowan and webmeister Steve Godwin.

Battle for Baghdad 'Has Already Started'
    By Patrick Cockburn
     The Independent UK

    Saturday 25 March 2006

    The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.

    "The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area." He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.

    Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. "The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control," said one senior official who did not want his name published. "The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government." He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.

    Throughout the capital, communities, both Sunni and Shia, are on the move, fleeing districts where they are in a minority and feel under threat. Sometimes they fight back. In the mixed but majority Shia al-Amel district, Sunni householders recently received envelopes containing a Kalashnikov bullet and a letter telling them to get out at once. In this case they contacted the insurgents who killed several Shia neighbors suspected of sending the letters.

    "The Sunni will fight for Baghdad," said Mr. Hussein. "The Baath party already controls al-Dohra and other Sunni groups dominate Ghazaliyah and Abu Ghraib [districts in south and west Baghdad]."

    The Iraqi army is likely to fall apart once inter-communal fighting begins. According to Peter Galbraith, former US diplomat and expert on Iraq, the Iraqi army last summer contained 60 Shia battalions, 45 Sunni battalions, nine Kurdish battalions and one mixed battalion.

    The police are even more divided and in Baghdad are largely controlled by the Mehdi Army of the radical nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Organization that has largely been in control of the interior ministry since last May. Sunni Arabs in Baghdad regard the ministry's paramilitary police commanders as Shia death squads.

    Mr. Hussein gave another reason why the army is weak. "Where you have 3,000 soldiers there will in fact be only 2,000 men [because of ghost soldiers who do not exist and whose salaries are taken by senior officers]," he said. "When it comes to fighting only 500 of those men will turn up."

    Iraqi officials and ministers are increasingly in despair at the failure to put together an effective administration in Baghdad. A senior Arab minister, who asked not to be named, said: "The government could end up being only a few buildings in the Green Zone."

    The mood among Iraqi leaders, both Arabs and Kurds, is far gloomier in private than the public declarations of the US and British governments. The US President George W Bush called this week for a national unity government in Iraq but Iraqi observers do not expect this to be any more effective than the present government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. One said this week: "The real problem is that the Shia and Sunni hate each other and not that we haven't been able to form a government."

    The Shia and Kurds will have the advantage in the coming conflict because they have leaders and organizations. The Sunni are divided and only about 30 per cent of the population of the capital. Nevertheless they should be able to hold on to their stronghold in west Baghdad and the Adhamiyah district east of the Tigris. The Shia do not have the strength and probably do not wish to take over the Sunni towns and villages north and west of Baghdad.

    Though the Kurds have long sought autonomy close to quasi-independence, their leaders are worried that civil war will increase Iranian and Turkish involvement in Iraq. Mr. Hussein said he feared that civil war in Baghdad could spread north to Mosul and Kirkuk where the division is between Kurd and Arab rather than Sunni and Shia.

    Already Baghdad resembles Beirut at the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, when Christians and Muslims fought each other for control of the city.

Here's the ORIGINAL

Grants Flow To Bush Allies On Social Issues
Federal Programs Direct At Least $157 Million

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 22, 2006;

For years, conservatives have complained about what they saw as the liberal tilt of federal grant money. Taxpayer funds went to abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood to promote birth control, and groups closely aligned with the AFL-CIO got Labor Department grants to run worker-training programs.
In the Bush administration, conservatives are discovering that turnabout is fair play: Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush's agenda on abortion and other social issues.
Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.
An example is Heritage Community Services in Charleston, S.C. A decade ago, Heritage was a tiny organization with deeply conservative social philosophy but not much muscle to promote it. An offshoot of an antiabortion pregnancy crisis center, Heritage promoted abstinence education at the county fair, local schools and the local Navy base. The budget was $51,288.
By 2004, Heritage Community Services had become a major player in the booming business of abstinence education. Its budget passed $3 million -- much of it in federal grants distributed by Bush's Department of Health and Human Services -- supporting programs for students in middle school and high school in South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky.

Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the African American and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush's presidential campaigns.
Programs such as the Compassion Capital Fund, under the Health and Human Services, are designed to support religion-based social services, a goal that inevitably funnels money to organizations run by people who share Bush's conservative cultural agenda.
"If what you are asking is, has George Bush as president of the United States established priorities in spending for his administration? The answer is yes,"said Wade F. Horn, who as assistant secretary for children and families at HHS oversees much of the spending going to conservative groups. "That is a prerogative that presidents have"
Horn and other officials said politics has not played a role in making grants. "Whoever got these grants wrote the best applications, and the panels in rating these grants rated them objectively, based on the criteria we published in the Federal Register," he said. "Whether they support the president or not is not a test in any of my grant programs."
"These are just slush funds for conservative interest groups," countered Bill Smith, vice president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, one of the most outspoken critics of abstinence-only sex-education programs. "These organizations would not be in existence if not for the federal dollars coming through."
H. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said politics plays no role in grant-making decisions. "We don't have that kind of calculation," he said.
Most, but not all, of the money going to conservative groups has come from two programs that did not exist before Bush took office in 2001. The Compassion Capital Fund, which distributed $148.3 million from 2002 to 2005, was created "to expand the role that faith-based and community groups play in providing social services to those in need," according to the White House.
The Community-Based Abstinence Education grant program was enacted by Congress in 2001, and $391.7 million has been appropriated for it.

Beneficiaries of more than $2 million each from the compassion fund include five organizations run by black and Hispanic leaders who endorsed Bush and Operation Blessing, a charity run by television evangelist Pat Robertson. It has received $23.5 million, which includes $1.5 million from the Compassion Capital Fund and $22 million in surplus dry milk from the Agriculture Department.
Hundreds of struggling antiabortion and pregnancy crisis centers have received federal grants that often doubled or tripled their annual budgets, allowing them to branch out and hire staff, especially for abstinence education.
The Door of Hope Pregnancy Care Center in Madisonville, Ky., a small outfit of four part-time employees committed "to the belief in the sanctity of human life, primarily as it relates to the protection of the unborn," operated on an annual budget of $75,000 to $79,000, most of it raised from an annual banquet and a "walk for life." Last year, Door of Hope got an abstinence education grant of $317,017, allowing it to hire staff and expand.
In Dyersburg, Tenn., the Life Choices Pregnancy Support Center, where the staff believes "without reservation or qualification that the Scriptures teach that human life begins at conception," had revenue of $81,621 and could pay Executive Director Natalie Wilson $12,247 in 2001. Two years later, the center got a $534,339 grant for abstinence education. By 2004, annual revenue totaled $617,355.
Altogether, local antiabortion and crisis pregnancy centers have received well over $60 million in grants for abstinence education and other programs, according to a Post review of federal records.
The distribution of new money to conservative organizations is a small part of an estimated flood of $2 billion a year in federal grants to religious and religiously affiliated organizations. For decades, in Democratic and Republican administrations, well over $1 billion annually has been going to such groups, most of it to mainline organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army and Lutheran Social Services.
The shift under Bush in part grows out of the administration's Faith and Community Based Initiative. Under the initiative, White House officials and new offices in 10 Cabinet-level departments have aggressively sought to widen the "pool" of applicants for federal grants for all kinds. Faith-based organizations are encouraged to apply for grants to operate Head Start and subsidized housing programs.
In a Dec. 12, 2002, executive order, Bush addressed one of the major concerns of religious groups considering applying for public money. Bush declared that religious groups receiving federal grants would not be required to comply with certain civil rights statutes, and could discriminate by hiring employees of specific religious faiths.
Skepticism about the distribution of money under the religion-based initiatives abounds in both parties.
Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, said the effort "has gone political."
"Quite frankly, part of the reason it went political is because we can't sell it unless we can show Republicans a political advantage to it, because it's not our base," he said, referring to the fact that many of those receiving social services are Democratic voters.
Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) was more outspoken. "I believe ultimately this will be seen as one of the largest patronage programs in American history," he said.
The Compassion Capital Fund has disbursed many multiyear grants of $1.5 million to $7.5 million to groups designated as "intermediary organizations" empowered, according to the White House to "issue sub-awards directly to qualified faith- and community-based organizations."
In effect, this designation turns the recipient organization into a major dispenser of federal money.
The Institute for Youth Development in Sterling, which is run by Shepherd Smith and his wife, Anita M. Smith, has been awarded $7.5 million over three years. In turn, the institute has parceled out $4.5 million of the federal money in grants of $5,000 to $50,000 to smaller organizations.
Shepherd Smith, who was a top strategist in Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential bid, said the institute's grants were "not an effort on my part to make the right stronger; this was an effort to help little people" who have difficulty getting access to federal money.
The recipients listed on the institute's Web site include many socially conservative groups, among them at least 15 pregnancy crisis and counseling centers that oppose abortion.
The Rev. Luis Cortés's Esperanza USA has received three $2.5 million grants. Cortés is an evangelical Protestant; many of the grants from his organization have gone to Protestant Hispanic providers
Among organizations run by ordained ministers, every Latino group receiving a large grant is headed by a Protestant. Protestant Hispanics are a key Republican target constituency. From 2000 to 2004, Bush's support among Hispanic Protestants grew from 44 percent to 54 percent, while remaining unchanged among Hispanic Roman Catholics, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
In Milwaukee, a 2004 presidential battleground state, Pentecostal Bishop Sedgwick Daniels's Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ was awarded $626,598 in 2003 and $824,471 in 2004 from the Compassion Capital Fund. Daniels, a Bush supporter, was a 2004 Republican National Convention delegate.
In Florida, another presidential battleground state, the National Center for Faith Based Initiatives, run by one of Bush's earliest 2000 supporters in the black community, Bishop Harold Calvin Ray, has received $1.75 million over three years from the compassion fund.
HHS is not the only department making such grants.
The Education Department awarded a $750,000 discretionary grant to the GEO Foundation, run by Kevin Teasley, a former staffer at the libertarian Reason Foundation and conservative Heritage Foundation, and conservative Center for the Study of Popular Culture, to "provide outreach and information" on public-school choice. The department also awarded $1.5 million over three years to the conservative Black Alliance for Educational Options, which was created in 2000 with support from such funders on the right as the Bradley, John M. Olin and Walton Family foundations, to provide information about the No Child Left Behind Act.
In addition to liberals, there are conservative critics of taxpayer funding of groups on the right. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the grant-making is "corrupting.""The danger is that any group that gets money from the government will end up serving the interests of the state rather than the constituencies they are trying to serve," he said. "The guy who writes the check writes the rules."

copyright The Washington Post Company

Re: our situation with the Eastern ports being taken over by a UAE company, Dubai Ports World: What do you think of this brouhaha? See the digest of yesterday, below.
Of course, people siding with the White House will say that naysayers and folks who want more info are alienating the Arab World further and are being xenophobic and anti-Islamist. After all, the ports are run by British companies now....
The part that bothers me is the Bush family ties to old Arab money; the idea bothers me that any of these scenarios in which the rest of us are all pawns--are merely a game to the big players on all sides....

The Enemy
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 17 February 2006

They called it "Cyber Storm," and it was a war-game exercise run last week by the Department of Homeland Security. The war game had nothing to do with testing the security of our shipping ports, borders, infrastructure or airports. "Cyber Storm" was testing the government's ability to withstand an onslaught of information and protest from bloggers and online activists.

"Participants confirmed," wrote the Associated Press, that "parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events."

Say what? Online expressions of political opinion are so dangerous that the Department of Homeland Security must war-game scenarios to deal with them? Bloggers are potential terrorists now? Bloggers are the enemy? Last week, as far as DHS was concerned, they were.

We hear a great deal about enemies these days. Don't criticize the war, or you'll embolden the enemy. The enemy is clever and cruel. Stick with the White House and we'll defeat the enemy. Since the Bush administration no longer likes to mention the name Osama bin "Stayin' Alive" Laden in public, lest everyone remember a dramatic promise long broken, any specific definition of an enemy changes with the moment.

Sometimes, the enemy is in Iraq, and we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. Sometimes, the enemy is in Iran, allegedly toiling with all its collective might to manufacture nuclear weapons. Sometimes, the enemy is in Palestine, where Hamas used George W. Bush's exported democracy to take over the government. Sometimes, the enemy is an American face on a television offering criticism of the White House. Last week, the enemy was a blogger making a political expression.

The enemy is never in Saudi Arabia, though that nation is the very birthing bed of international terrorism. The enemy is never in Israel, though that nation's far-right leadership has been a good deal of the impetus behind the Bush administration's calamitous push into Iraq. The enemy is never in China, even when they smack our planes out of the sky, because they own a substantial portion of our debt. The enemy is never in Pakistan, though that nation's fundamentalist wing allies itself with the Taliban, and though they actually do possess nuclear weapons. The enemy is occasionally mentioned as being in North Korea, but not often, because we want no part of that fight.

For a time, the enemy was in the United Arab Emirates. Two of the hijackers of the September 11 aircraft were citizens of the United Arab Emirates, and the funding behind those attacks was wired through the UAE's banking system. Republican and Democratic Senators believe the UAE has been used as a conduit for the proliferation of nuclear technology.

That was then, however. A company named Dubai Ports World intends to spend $6.8 billion to gain control of the management of shipping ports in New York and New Jersey, as well as in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. Dubai Ports World is foreign-owned, but is backed financially by the government of the United Arab Emirates. In other words, a nation suspected of being a significant player in the September 11 attacks is being allowed to take control of our borders. For the record, US ports handle an estimated two billion tons of cargo annually, with only 5% of that cargo undergoing inspection. The deal has already been granted regulatory clearance by the White House.*

We hear a great deal about enemies, both real and contrived. Let us ponder, for a moment, the existence of another enemy so insidious that it operates fully in daylight but beyond control. This enemy seeks to destroy the rule of constitutional law in the United States. This enemy seeks to destroy the seed-corn defense against tyranny in this nation, the separation of powers. This enemy gathers more and more power to itself to achieve these goals, and uses fear and division to do so. This enemy will lie with impunity, stonewall endlessly and ruin anyone who might disrupt its plans. READ THE REST HERE, IT'S GOOD!

*(Note from J.C. These are my italics...Since Pitt has written, I got this in an email from a friend:)
HOMELAND SECURITY -- ADMINISTRATION OUTSOURCES OPERATIONS OF SIX U.S. PORTS TO UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: The Bush administration has outsourced the operation of six of the nation's largest ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country with troubling ties to international terrorism.
The $6.8 billion sale would mean that the state-controlled Dubai Ports World would control "the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia."
Some facts to keep in mind:

1) the UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan;
2) the UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia;
3) according to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the UAE banking system;
4) after 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden's bank accounts. A bipartisan group of seven members of Congress is calling on the Treasury Department to suspend their approval until they investigate the national security implications of the sale. Such an investigation is required by federal law but hasn't yet been conducted.
You can read their letter here.

Please take action and call your Congressperson, especially if you live near the ports in question. We are all potentially affected by this, and need more information. See also the link below.

more on t r u t h o u t about the prospective Port Takeover

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 14 February 2006

The bar I spend my time in enjoys the patronage of quite a cast of characters. My friends and I refer to this crew as the Wack-Pack. On any given night you might see The Eater, Moleman, Mumbles, Shiny, Suspicious Facial Hair Guy, Earth Pig and The Crotch-Grabber, among others, bellied up before a beer. There is always a buzz when one of the Pack walks in; it's a fair bet that, soon enough, something strange will transpire.

As odd as these folks are, they are straight-up sane and normal compared to the goofballs, idiots, freaks and out-and-out maniacs who are staffing the current administration in Washington. I'll take Earth Pig any day over Dick Cheney, who actually blasted a hunting partner in the face with a shotgun down in Texas this weekend. For the record, the last Vice President to shoot someone was Aaron Burr, who put Alexander Hamilton in the ground with a pistol shot in 1804.

This gives a whole new meaning to the idea that the Bush administration is quite literally The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. James Brady, who took a bullet to the back of the head during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and who went on to found the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, released a statement regarding Cheney's prowess with a shotgun on Sunday: "Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him. I had a friend once who accidentally shot pellets into his dog - and I thought he was an idiot." His wife, Sarah Brady, piled on by saying, "I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time. Now I know I was right to be nervous."

I guess the NRA is going to have to change its rap. Guns don't kill people. Vice Presidents do. Though, to be fair, the fellow who was shot survived the incident. Harry Whittington, who took the buckshot, should be thankful that Mr. Cheney is in such profoundly ill health. Apparently, Dick Cheney goes hunting these days with a full complement of medical professionals. "After the accident," reported the New York Times, "Mr. Cheney's medical attendants helped Mr. Whittington, treating his wounds and covering him in blankets so he would not go into shock." Now that's huntin'.

Another famous member of the Washington Wack-Pack is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding warrantless wiretapping of American citizens authorized by Mr. Bush, said, "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale."

Really. George Washington authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale than what the National Security Agency is capable of today. How did he do this in an age when the whale-oil lamp was the height of technology? Did he use the old two-cans-and-some-string wiretap trick? Perhaps he was able to bug the Hessians using Ben Franklin's kite and key. Mumbles and Moleman have said some pretty bizarre things at my bar, but Alberto blew them both out of the water with this one.

George Washington, of course, justified the magical electronic surveillance of Americans by leaning on the broad powers of the Unitary Executive ... except he wasn't president yet ... and there were no Americans yet ... and, oh yeah, the electron wasn't discovered until 1897. Whatever to all that. If the president does it, it can't be illegal ... or impossible, for that matter.

Perhaps the wackiest of the Washington Wack-Pack is Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, who actually had the gall last week to suggest that weapons of mass destruction were going to be found in Iraq. He said this in front of the National Press Club, no less. "I don't know what we'll find in the months and years ahead," said Rumsfeld. "It could be anything."

Right. It could be anything, except peace or an exit strategy or democracy or freedom. The 26,000 liters of anthrax, the 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, the 500 tons which is one million pounds of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, the 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, the mobile biological weapons labs, the al Qaeda connections to 9/11 and the uranium from Niger for use in Iraq's robust nuclear weapons program that Mr. Bush told us about in his January 2003 State of the Union address are definitely still out there ... but somehow, tens of thousands of American soldiers over there, the intelligence professionals over there, the contractors and the Iraqi police have managed not to find any of it in the 1,061 days since the invasion was first undertaken. Only The Eater could equal this mouthful from Mr. Rumsfeld.

It's funny, but it isn't funny. This is the Wack-Pack that cherry-picked intelligence data to justify a decision to invade Iraq that had already been made, according to former CIA agent Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005. Four more American soldiers were killed yesterday by a roadside bomb, bringing the death toll to 2,267. The wounded number in the tens of thousands, and the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed have become, simply, obscene.

This is the Wack-Pack that basically stood back and allowed the city of New Orleans to be destroyed. Michael Brown, the now-disgraced former head of FEMA, testified last week that he alerted senior White House officials, including chief of staff Andy Card, that the levees had broken on the Monday it happened. The Bush White House, however, claims they didn't hear about it until the next day. Mr. Bush was too busy strumming a guitar and making erstwhile campaign appearances to be bothered with something as piddling as the loss of a major American city.

This is the Wack-Pack that authorized the exposure of a deep-cover CIA agent in order to cover their backsides and eliminate a critic of the war. Lewis Libby has testified to a grand jury that he was authorized by his superiors to expose the name of Valerie Plame in June and July of 2003. This was done after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, shredded the administration's "uranium from Niger" war rationale in the editorial pages of the New York Times. Libby served as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, so when he refers to being authorized to leak Plame's name by his "superiors," you can bet he is talking about none other than Ol' Shotgun Dick himself.

It's funny, but it isn't funny. Not really. Not at all.


William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

Global warming: passing the 'tipping point'

Special investigation reveals that critical rise in world temperatures is now unavoidable

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

the INDEPENDENT UK 11 February 2006

A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.

Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.

The implication is that some of global warming's worst predicted effects, from destruction of ecosystems to increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people, cannot now be avoided, whatever we do. It gives considerable force to the contention by the green guru Professor James Lovelock, put forward last month in The Independent, that climate change is now past the point of no return.

The danger point we are now firmly on course for is a rise in global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.

At the moment, global mean temperatures have risen to about 0.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era - and worrying signs of climate change, such as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice in summer, are already increasingly evident. But a rise to 2 degrees would be far more serious.

By that point it is likely that the Greenland ice sheet will already have begun irreversible melting, threatening the world with a sea-level rise of several metres. Agricultural yields will have started to fall, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the US and Russia, putting up to 200 million more people at risk from hunger, and up to 2.8 billion additional people at risk of water shortages for both drinking and irrigation. The Government's conference on Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, held at the UK Met Office in Exeter a year ago, highlighted a clear threshold in the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which should not be surpassed if the 2 degree point was to be avoided with "relatively high certainty".
Read the rest in the INDEPENDENT UK

Alas, swing votes didn't swing. I called, faxed my ass off, emailed and blogged for weeks.
You hear NOTHING in the MSM except the right wing talkers calling dems do-nothing whiners. Which I ALSO believe. I wanna be Green, but it's not easy being Green, either. Help, where's Kermit when ya need him? Well,

LET OUR SENATORS KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. CALL OR FAX ALL OF THEM and tell them you cannot abide Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court Justice. Keep trying all the numbers 'til you get one. Burn the midnite oil, cuz the vote is at 8 am pacific time tomorow morning.

Stop Alito; Support the Filibuster

There are FOUR branches of government... judicial, executive, legislative and
WE THE PEOPLE !!!!! Call your Senator NOW and in the next hour before they vote for cloture....


(I thank Evan Austin of the Ojai Peace Coalition and www.nocrony.com for the following:)

NOW: call some Senators. You’re probably hearing a LOT about the possible filibuster against Alito’s confirmation, but the fact is that we can still make a difference.
John Kerry is willing to lead the filibuster, but he needed 41 other Senators to support it. He’s got more because of our calls. Daunting, YES. Impossible, NO. important, YES. Evidence of our calls making a difference is right in front of us: Senator Feinstein changed her position just YESTERDAY I just called,and BIDEN changed his mind....they now supports the filibuster! Here is your assignment:

The following Senators will probably vote against Alito, but oppose the filibuster. Call them first!:


Senator Bill Nelson [FL - D]
Washington, 202-224-5274 (phone), 202-228-2183 (fax)
Tallahassee, 850-942-8415 (phone), 850-942-8450 (fax)
West Palm Beach, 561-514-0189 (phone), 561-514-4078 (fax)
Tampa, 813-225-7040 (phone), 813-225-7050 (fax)
Jacksonville, 904-346-4500 (phone), 904-346-4506 (fax)
Coral Gables, 305-536-5999 (phone), 305-536-5991 (fax)
Ft. Myers, 239-334-7760 (phone), 239-334-7710 (fax)
Davie, 954-693-4851 (phone), 954-693-4862 (fax)
Orlando, 888-671-4091 (phone), 407-872-7165 (fax)

Senator Daniel K Akaka [HI - D]
Washington, 202-224-6361 (phone), 202-224-2126 (fax)
Honolulu, 808-522-8970 (phone), 808-545-4683 (fax)
Hilo, 808-935-1114 (phone), 808-935-9064 (fax)

Senator Mary Landrieu [LA - D]
Washington, 202-224-5824 (phone), 202-224-9735 (fax)
Lake Charles, 337-436-6650 (phone), 337-439-3762 (fax)
New Orleans, 504-589-2427 (phone), 504-589-4023 (fax)
Shreveport, 318-676-3085 (phone), 318-676-3100 (fax)
Baton Rouge, 225-389-0395 (phone), 225-389-0660 (fax)

Senator Byron L Dorgan [ND - D]
Washington, 202-224-2551 (phone), 202-224-1193 (fax)
Grand Forks, 701-746-8972 (phone), 701-746-9122 (fax)
Bismarck, 701-250-4618 (phone), 701-250-4484 (fax)
Minot, 701-852-0703 (phone), 701-838-8196 (fax)
Fargo, 701-239-5389 (phone), 701-239-5112 (fax)

Senator Olympia Snowe [ME - R] REPUBLICAN SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-5344 (phone), 202-224-1946 (fax)
Bangor, 207-945-0432 (phone), 207-941-9525 (fax)
Presque Isle, 207-764-5124 (phone), 207-764-6420 (fax)
Biddeford, 207-282-4144 (phone), 207-284-2358 (fax)
Auburn, 207-786-2451 (phone), 207-782-1438 (fax)
Augusta, 207-622-8292 (phone), 207-622-7295 (fax)
Portland, 207-874-0883 (phone), 207-874-7631 (fax)

Senator Mark Pryor [AR - D]
Washington, 202-224-2353 (phone), 202-228-0908 (fax)
Little Rock, 501-324-6336 (phone), 501-324-5320 (fax)

Ken Salazar (D- CO) , 202-224-5852
Kent Conrad (D- ND) (1,), 202-224-2043

These Senators will also probably vote against Alito, but are unsure of how they feel about a filibuster:
Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln [AR -D] DEMOCRAT SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-4843 (phone), 202-228-1371 (fax)
Dumas, 870-382-1023 (phone), 870-382-1026 (fax)
Texarkana, 870-774-3106 (phone), 870-774-7627 (fax)
Little Rock, 501-375-2993 (phone), 501-375-7064 (fax)
Fayetteville, 479-251-1224 (phone), 479-251-1410 (fax)
Jonesboro, 870-910-6896 (phone), 870-910-6898 (fax)

Senator Joseph I Lieberman [CT - D] DEMOCRAT SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-4041 (phone), 202-224-9750 (fax)
Hartford, 860-549-8463 (phone), 860-549-8478 (fax)

Thomas R. Carper (D- DE), 202-224-2441
Senator Daniel K Inouye [HI - D] DEMOCRAT SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-3934 (phone), 202-224-6747 (fax)
Wailuku Maui, 808-242-9702 (phone), 808-242-7233 (fax)
Lihue Kauai, 808-245-4611 (phone), 808-246-9515 (fax)
Kaunakakai, 808-642-0203 (phone), 808-560-3385 (fax)
Honolulu, 808-541-2542 (phone), 808-541-2549 (fax)
Hilo, 808-935-0844 (phone), 808-961-5163 (fax)
Kealakekua, 808-935-0844 (phone), 808-961-5163 (fax)

Senator Tom Harkin [IA - D] DEMOCRAT SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-3254 (phone), 202-224-9369 (fax)
Des Moines, 515-284-4574 (phone), 515-284-4937 (fax)
Cedar Rapids, 319-365-4504 (phone), 319-365-4683 (fax)
Davenport, 563-322-1338 (phone), 563-322-0417 (fax)
Dubuque, 563-582-2130 (phone), 563-582-2342 (fax)
Sioux City, 712-252-1550 (phone), 712-252-1638 (fax)

Senator Barack Obama [IL - D] DEMOCRAT SWING VOTE
Washington, 202-224-2854 (phone), 202-228-4260 (fax)
Springfield, 217-492-5089 (phone), 217-492-5099 (fax)
Chicago, 312-886-3506 (phone), 312-886-3514 (fax)
Marion, 618-997-2402 (phone), 618-997-2850 (fax)

Evan Bayh (D- IN), 202-224-5623
Barbara A. Mikulski (D- MD), 202-224-4654
Carl Levin (D- MI), 202-224-6221
Mark Dayton (D- MN), 202-224-3244
Max Baucus (D- MT), 202-224-2651
Frank Lautenberg (D- NJ), 202-224-3224
Robert Menendez (D- NJ), 202-224-4744
Jeff Bingaman (D- NM), 202-224-5521
Jack Reed (D- RI), 202-224-4642
Lincoln D. Chafee (R- RI), 202-224-2921
Patrick J. Leahy (D- VT), 202-224-4242
Maria Cantwell (D- WA), 202-224-3441
Patty Murray (D- WA), 202-224-2621
Herb Kohl (D- WI), 202-224-5653
John D. Rockefeller, IV (D- WV), 202-224-6472
James M. Jeffords (I- VT), 202-224-5141

These Senators support Alito and oppose the filibuster! Call them third and try to convince them to change!
Ben Nelson (D-NE) 202-224-6551
Tim Johnson (D- SD) , 202-224-5842
Robert C. Byrd (D- WV) , 202-224-3954

Senator Ted Stevens [AK - R]
Washington, 202-224-3004 (phone), 202-224-2354 (fax)
Fairbanks, 907-456-0261 (phone), 907-451-7290 (fax)
Juneau, 907-586-7400 (phone), 907-586-8922 (fax)
Anchorage, 907-271-5915 (phone), 907-258-9305 (fax)
Kenai, 907-283-5808 (phone), 907-283-4363 (fax)
Wasilla, 907-376-7665 (phone), 907-376-8526 (fax)
Bethel, 907-543-1638 (phone), 907-543-1637 (fax)
Ketchikan, 907-225-6880 (phone), 907-225-0390 (fax)

Other actions you can take:
Click here NOW!

Visit here for more links and background....

(The text of a speech that Senator Boxer delivered yesterday, laying out her opposition to the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court:)

Today, I am announcing my opposition to the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States.

According to Article II of the Constitution, justices of the Supreme Court may not be appointed by the president without the advice and consent of the United States Senate. So it is our solemn duty to consider each nomination carefully, keeping in mind the interests of the American people. And this nomination is particularly crucial because the stakes have rarely been so high.

First, consider the context in which this nomination comes before us. The seat that Judge Alito has been nominated for is now held by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who came to the Court in 1981.

For years, Justice O'Connor has provided the tie-breaking vote and a commonsense voice of reason in some of the most important cases to come before the Court, including a woman's right to choose, civil rights, and freedom of religion.

Second, consider the tumultuous political climate in our nation. President Bush understood that in 2000 when he promised to govern from the center, and be "a uniter, not a divider." Sadly, this nomination shows that he has forgotten that promise because it is notnfrom the center and it is not uniting the nation.

The right thing to do would have been to give us a justice in the mold of Justice O'Connor, and that is what the president should have done.

Let me be clear: I do not deny Judge Alito's judicial qualifications. He has been a government lawyer and judge for more than 20 years and the American Bar Association rated him well qualified. He is an intelligent and capable person. His family should be proud of him and all Americans should be proud that the American dream was there for the Alito family.

But after reviewing the hearing record and the record of his statements, writings and rulings over the past 24 years, I am convinced that Judge Alito is the wrong person for this job.

I am deeply concerned about how Justice Alito will impact the ability of other families to live the American dream -- to be assured of privacy in their homes and their personal lives, to be secure in their neighborhoods, to have fair treatment in the workplace, and to have confidence that the power of the executive branch will be checked.

As I reviewed Judge Alito's record, I asked whether he will vote to preserve fundamental American liberties and values --

Will Justice Alito vote to uphold Congress' constitutional power to pass laws to protect Americans' health, safety, and welfare? Judge Alito's record says NO.

In the 1996 Rybar case, Judge Alito voted to strike down the federal ban on the transfer or possession of machine guns because he believed it exceeded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. His Third Circuit colleagues sharply criticized his dissent and said that it ran counter to "a basic tenet of the constitutional separation of powers." And Judge Alito's extremist view has been rejected by six other circuit courts and the Supreme Court. Judge Alito stood alone and failed to protect our families.

In a case concerning worker protection, Judge Alito was again in the minority when he said that federal mine health and safety standards did not apply to a coal processing site. He tried to explain it as just a "technical issue of interpretation." I fear for the safety of our workers if Judge Alito's narrow, technical reading of the law should ever prevail.

Will Justice Alito vote to protect the right to privacy, especially a woman's reproductive freedom? Judge Alito's record says NO.

We have all heard about Judge Alito's 1985 job application, in which he wrote that the constitution does not protect the right of a woman to choose. He was given the chance to disavow that position during the hearings -- and he refused to do so. He had the chance to say, as Judge Roberts did, that Roe v. Wade is settled law, and he refused.

He had the chance to explain his dissent in the Casey decision, in which he argued that the Pennsylvania spousal notification requirement was not an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion because it would affect only a small number of women, but he refused to back away from his position. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, found the provision to be unconstitutional, and Justice O'Connor, co-writing for the Court, criticized the faulty analysis supported by Judge Alito, saying that "the analysis does not end with the one percent of women" affected... "it begins there."

To my mind, Judge Alito's ominous statements and narrow-minded reasoning clearly signal a hostility to women's rights, and portend a move back toward the dark days when abortion was illegal in many states, and many women died as a result. In the 21st century, it is astounding that a Supreme Court nominee would not view Roe v. Wade as settled law when its fundamental principle -- a woman's right to choose -- has been reaffirmed many times since it was decided.

Will Justice Alito vote to protect Americans from unconstitutional searches? Judge Alito's record says NO.

In Doe v. Groody in 2004, he said a police strip search of a 10-year-old girl was lawful, even though their search warrant didn't name her. Judge Alito said that even if the warrant did not actually authorize the search of the girl, "a reasonable police officer could certainly have read the warrant as doing so..." This casual attitude toward one of our most basic constitutional guarantees -- the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches -- is almost shocking. As Judge Alito's own Third Circuit Court said regarding warrants, "a particular description is the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment." We certainly do not need Supreme Court justices who do not understand this fundamental constitutional protection.

Will Justice Alito vote to let citizens stop companies from polluting their communities? Judge Alito's record says NO.

In the Magnesium Elektron case, Judge Alito voted to make it harder for citizens to sue for toxic emissions that violate the Clean Water Act. Fortunately, in another case several years later, the Supreme Court rejected the Third Circuit and Alito's narrow reading of the law. Judge Alito doesn't seem to care about a landmark environmental law.

Will Justice Alito vote to let working women and men have their day in court against employers who discriminate against them? Judge Alito's record says NO.

In 1997, in the Bray case, Judge Alito was the only judge on the Third Circuit to say that a hotel employee claiming racial discrimination could not take her case to a jury.

In the Sheridan case, a female employee sued for discrimination, alleging that after she complained about incidents of sexual harassment, she was demoted and marginalized to the point that she was forced to quit. By a vote of 10 to 1, the Third Circuit found for the plaintiff.

Guess who was the one? Only Judge Alito thought the employee should have to show that discrimination was the "determinative cause" of the employer's action. Using his standard would make it almost impossible for a woman claiming discrimination in the workplace to get to trial.

Finally, will Justice Alito be independent from the executive branch that appointed him, and be a vote against power grabs by the president? Judge Alito's record says NO.

As a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, he authored a memo suggesting a new way for the president to encroach on Congress' lawmaking powers. He said that when the president signs a law, he should make a statement about the law, giving it his own interpretation, whether it was consistent with what Congress had written or not. He wrote that this would "get in the last word on questions of interpretation" of the law. In the hearings, Judge Alito refused to back away from this memo.

When asked whether he believed the president could invade another country, in the absence of an imminent threat, without first getting the approval of the American people, of Congress, Judge Alito refused to rule it out.

When asked if the president had the power to authorize someone to engage in torture, Alito refused to answer.

The Administration is now asserting vast powers, including spying on American citizens without seeking warrants -- in clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- violating international treaties, and ignoring laws that ban torture. We need justices who will put a check on such overreaching by the executive, not rubberstamp it. Judge Alito's record and his answers at the hearings raise very serious doubts about his commitment to being a strong check on an 'imperial president.'

In addition to these substantive matters, I remain concerned about Judge Alito's answers regarding his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton and his failure to recuse himself from the Vanguard case, which he had promised to do.

During the hearings, we all felt great compassion for Mrs. Alito when she became emotional in reaction to the tough questions her husband faced in the Judiciary Committee. Everyone in politics knows how hard it is for families when a loved one is asked tough questions. It is part of a difficult process, and whoever said politics is not for the faint of heart was right.

Emotions have run high during this process. That's understandable. But I wish the press have focused more on the tears of those who will be affected if Judge Alito becomes Justice Alito and his out-of-the mainstream views prevail.

I worry about the tears of a worker who, having failed to get a promotion because of discrimination, is denied the opportunity to pursue her claim in court.

I worry about the tears of a mentally ill woman who is forced by law to tell her husband that she wants to terminate her pregnancy and is afraid that he will leave her or stop supporting her.

I worry about the tears of a young girl who is strip searched in her own home by police who have no valid warrant.

I worry about the tears of a mentally retarded man, who has been brutally assaulted in his workplace, when his claim of workplace harassment is dismissed by the court simply because his lawyer failed to file a well written brief on his behalf.

These are real cases in which Judge Alito has spoken.

Fortunately, he did not prevail in these cases. But if he goes to the Supreme Court, he will have a much more powerful voice -- a radical voice that will replace a voice of moderation and balance.

Perhaps the most important statement Judge Alito made during the entire hearing process was when he told the Judiciary Committee that he expects to be the same kind of justice on the Supreme Court as he has been a judge on the Circuit Court.

That is precisely the problem. As a judge, Samuel Alito seemed to approach his cases with an analytical coldness that reflected no concern for the human consequences of his reasoning.

Listen to what he said about a case involving an African-American man convicted of murder by an all white jury in a courtroom where the prosecutors had eliminated all African-American jurors in many previous murder trials as well.

Judge Alito dismissed this evidence of racial bias and said that the jury makeup was no more relevant than the fact that left-handers have won five of the last six presidential elections. When asked about this analogy during the hearings, he said it "went to the issue of statistics... (which) is a branch of mathematics, and there are ways to analyze statistics so that you draw sound conclusions from them..."

That response would have been appropriate for a college math professor, but it is deeply troubling from a potential Supreme Court justice.

As the great jurist and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote in 1881, "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

What Holmes meant is that the law is a living thing, that those who interpret it must do so with wisdom and humanity, and with an understanding of the consequences of their judgments for the lives of the people they affect.

It is with deep regret that I conclude that Judge Alito's judicial philosophy lacks this wisdom, humanity and moderation. He is simply too far out of the mainstream in his thinking. His opinions demonstrate neither the independence of mind nor the depth of heart that I believe we need in our Supreme Court justices, particularly at this crucial time in our nation's history.

That is why I will oppose this nomination.