Hot Button Revenge woohoo!
I wanted to pass this along --a chance to see some
very funny political cartoons on my favorite topic: politicization of science.
On issues from air quality to global warming, government science is being censored, manipulated, and distorted on an unprecedented scale. To draw attention to this problem and have a little fun, the Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest.
These are funnier one at a time, seeing a bunch on the same topic dilutes them some. And so it goes.
Update, Bush moves presidency out of executive branch.
Joining Cheney in the exemption from an executive order that was supposed to cover the executive branch, the White House is now saying that the order was sposed to mean some are more equal than others, like those named Bush or Cheney. As
reported in the LA Times:
"An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said." The oversight mentioned deals with national security issues. Like, say, when a CIA agent gets outed. More specifically: "The order aimed to create a uniform system for classifying, declassifying and otherwise safeguarding national security information. "
This has been a problem for years. Today I was reading some of the recently declassified CIA files on
National Security Agency Declassified. In particular I was reading about the USS Liberty, an American spy ship shot up by the Israelis during the Six Day War. There is considerable controversy over whether Israeli force knew they were firing on a US flagged ship. Anyway, the
declassified report talks about how misuse of classification labels interfered with the US Sixth Fleet response to the tragedy. The EO amended by Bush aims to fix this ongoing problem. But Bush and Cheney are now refusing to cooperate. Not surprising given this administration's penchant for classifying damn near everything as too secret for us to know.
If I could get Dubya to exempt us from the law of gravity, we might finally get those cool personal jet packs I've been promised all my life :p
Cheney rewrites the Constitution to move VP out of the executive branch.
Amazingly Cheney has claims
not to be covered by an executive order signed by President Bush regarding national secrets. Tried to eliminate the very department charged with enforcing the E.O.
Darfur update: I like this idea.
I joined up with Amnesty International about 20 years ago, have always liked their reports and the way they helped members write to politicos to accomplish real results.
Today, however, they opened a new, 21st century fight on genocide on Darfur. Called
Eyes On Darfur, it utilizes satellite monitoring of small towns threatened by the conflict in Sudan and Chad. They haven't abandoned their tried and true practice of confronting leaders by mail/fax/email, butthis new layer of info allows people to see what has happened, watch towns under threat of violence, and feel more of a connection.
I highly recommend a new bookmark.
U. S. Torture policy: I can't say it any better, or more succinctly, than
Andrew Sullivan. Go read.
