Tjadendevries's blog

The Assembly Health Committee approves SB840

[It doesn't mean that it is over, it's another step in the process. Keep calling your Senator and Assemblyperson]

ASSEMBLY HEALTH COMMITTEE PASSES SB 840 AND OTHER MEASURES

By Anthony Wright
Executive Director of Health Access California

SB840: First among the bills considered was SB 840, Sen. Shiela Kuehl’s universal, single-payer health reform measure. “If you don’t have single payer, someone is going to get left behind,’’ said Kuehl, in calling on lawmakers to support her legislation.

Science Friday: Coriolis Effect: fact or fiction?

WEIRD SCIENCE

June 28, 2007

Fact or Fiction?: South of the Equator Toilets Flush and Tornadoes Spin in the Opposite Direction How small a system can the Coriolis force control?

By Robynne Boyd

SiCKO spurs Texans into action

SiCKO Spurs Audiences Into Action

By Josh Tyler: 2007-07-01 17:15:27

So when I went to see Sicko for a second time this afternoon, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the audience. I wasn’t watching it downtown, where the city’s few elitist liberals congregate and drink expensive lattes. I went to a random mall in the mid-cities, where folks were likely to be just folks. As I sat down, right behind me entered an obligatory, cowboy hat wearing redneck in his 50s. He announced his presence by shouting across the theater in a thick Texas drawl to his already seated wife “you owe me fer seein this!”

Sicko started; the stereotypical Texas guy sat down behind me and never stopped talking. He talked through the entire movie… and I listened. The first ten to twenty minutes of the film he spent badmouthing Moore to his wife and snorting in disgust whenever MM went into one of his trademark monologues. But as the movie wore on his protestations became quieter, less enthusiastic. Somewhere along the way, maybe at the half way point, right before my ears, Sicko changed this man’s mind. By the forty-five minute mark, he, along with the rest of the audience were breaking into spontaneous applause. He stopped pooh-poohing the movie and started shouting out “hell yeah!” at the screen. It was as if the whole world had been flipped upside down. This is Texas, where people support the president and voting democratic is something only done by the terrorists.

CA SoS Debra Bowen Refuses to Support HR 811

About two/thirds of the way down

"I have worked with the author to try and strengthen the bill, but have not taken a position in support," she told Collins last Wednesday before explaining the dangers of institutionalizing the DRE paper trail, as the Holt bill will do.

Operation CYA in full effect: The Boy King Commutes Scooter Libby

[About the picture. What? You expect a bully and a cheat to change?]

Full text of Bush statement on Libby decision

President Bush's released a statement Monday sparing former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term. The following is the full text of the document.

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected Lewis Libby's request to remain free on bail while pursuing his appeals for the serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, Mr. Libby will be required to turn himself over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison sentence.

I have said throughout this process that it would not be appropriate to comment or intervene in this case until Mr. Libby's appeals have been exhausted. But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision.

From the very beginning of the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, I made it clear to the White House staff and anyone serving in my administration that I expected full cooperation with the Justice Department. Dozens of White House staff and administration officials dutifully cooperated.

After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Science Friday: The Boobtube is an opiate ... btw, so is that video game

You are getting sleepy, very sleepy ... ok, not really ... but maybe you are. Read how teevee and video games in the wrong hands could be used to manipulate people, which would be very helpful for ... oh, I don't know ... someone or some people who would want to manipulate us into doing things we would not be normally inclined to do by repeating the message over and over and over again on the teevee. ... 911, 911, 911. (I'll get to how the Bushies manipulated the voters in a future blog)

Don't believe it, about video games? Read all the way through then click on the second picture

Opiates of the Masses

[...]

Of course, not all addictions are chemical. Any behavior that leads to a pleasurable experience will be repeated , especially if that behavior requires little work. Psychologists call this pattern "positive reinforcement" . This is what we mean, technically speaking, by addiction. In this sense, television certainly fits into the category of an addictive agent.

Democratic Assembly capitulates to hospital lobbyists on patient dumping (SB 275)

Assembly Democrats Cave on Hospital Dumping (SB275)

by: Brian Leubitz
Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 13:58:58 PM PDT

You know hospital dumping as the practice featured in SiCKO. Michael Moore talks about it in this video clip from his premiere for SiCKO at Skid Row.

So, SB 275 attempts to deal with this problem. Under the bill, as passed by the Senate, the transportation of patients against their will was a crime, not just a finable offense, but a real misdemeanor. Real people could get real convictions for this deplorable practice. The prospect of criminal charges meant that this law would have teeth. Well, the AHA decided that they totally didn't dig on the idea of having their staff arrested for doing what the CEO demanded. So, the Assembly accepted a hostile amendment to neuter the law by removing criminal penalties until the third offense, as if the first two homeless people don't matter.

The author, proud progressive, and my personal-favorite senator, Gilbert Cedillo spoke against the hostile amendment.

" Our offices have been committed to a thoughtful process on this issue. We do not want to do something that is not significant," said Cedillo.

Senate Judiciary Committee issues subpoenas to Bush Administration - Cheney reacts

Office of Senator Leahy

Chairman Leahy issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security Council for documents relating to the Committee’s inquiry into the warrantless electronic surveillance program. The subpoenas seek documents related to authorization and reauthorization of the program or programs; the legal analysis or opinions about the surveillance; orders, decisions, or opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) concerning the surveillance; agreements between the Executive Branch and telecommunications or other companies regarding liability for assisting with or participating in the surveillance; and documents concerning the shutting down of an investigation of the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) relating to the surveillance.

“Over the past 18 months, this Committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program,” Chairman Leahy wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas to Bush Administration officials. “All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of Administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.”

“There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this Committee,” Leahy wrote. “The Administration cannot thwart the Congress’s conduct of its constitutional duties with sweeping assertions of secrecy and privilege. The Committee seeks no intimate operational facts and we are willing to accommodate legitimate redactions of the documents we seek to eliminate reference to these details.”

Why am I getting a "Seven Days in May" vibe?

Special Operations Prepared for Domestic Missions

By William M. Arkin | June 22, 2007; 7:32 AM ET
Washington Post

The establishment of a domestic special operations mission, and the preparation of contingency plans to employ commandos in the United States, would upend decades of tradition. Military actions within the United States are the responsibility of state militias (the National Guard), and federal law enforcement is a function of the FBI.

Ist Derr Boobengrabber Totenkopf?

Notice anything strange here? Besides the creepy blue ring he usually wears.

Click to enlarge

And that he's not wearing the creepy blue ring but what appears to be a ring with a skull on it (what!?!); what's with the Totenkopfverbände belt buckle?

A few things about Totenkopfverbände (Deaths Head Division)

... the Skull or "Death's Head" Formations — were made up of Nazi Germany's camp guards. During World War II the SS-TV also provided troops for one of the first combat units of the Waffen-SS, the Totenkopfdivision, which eventually evolved into one of Nazi Germany's most formidable combat formations.

Those are drumbeats of MORE war. Do you hear them?

Nearly unnoticed Congress (Democratic majority) yesterday (Wednesday June 20th) declared all but open war on Iran. The House passed Resolution 21:

Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Only two representatives voted against the resolution. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
Paul said:

Having already initiated a disastrous war against Iraq citing UN resolutions as justification, this resolution is like déja-vu. Have we forgotten 2003 already? Do we really want to go to war again for UN resolutions? That is where this resolution, and the many others we have passed over the last several years on Iran, is leading us. I hope my colleagues understand that a vote for this bill is a vote to move us closer to war with Iran.

Clearly, language threatening to wipe a nation or a group of people off the map is to be condemned by all civilized people. And I do condemn any such language. But why does threatening Iran with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as many here have done, not also deserve the same kind of condemnation? Does anyone believe that dropping nuclear weapons on Iran will not wipe a people off the map? When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide? And we wonder why the rest of the world accuses us of behaving hypocritically, of telling the rest of the world “do as we say, not as we do.” ...

What exactly did Ahmadinejad say?

Professor Juan Cole explains

Science Friday: Build a radio that needs no batteries OR electricity

From geekdads @ wired.com

Aha! Glad you asked. They use the ingredients of the first radios, solid state bits of matter wired up in various circuits, including long antennas and coil tuners.

Why is Homer Simpson running the California DFG? Or Isn't that what they used to say about DDT?

No human hazard seen in using poison against predator in Lake Davis.

By Jane Braxton Little - Bee Correspondent
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, June 21, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B4

A study by the state Department of Health Services determined the toxic chemicals would have no short- or long-term adverse health effects on Lake Davis or surrounding wells used for drinking water.

"Detection levels for these contaminants are below levels known to be safe," the 13-page report concludes.

Really??? Not so much according the MSDS [PDF File] which says ...

SECTION 2: HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION SUMMARY
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN – DANGER – POISONOUS – Fatal if inhaled. May be fatal if swallowed. Causes substantial, but temporary, eye injury. Causes skin irritation. Do not breathe spray mist. Do not get in eyes, on skin, or on clothing. Wear goggles or safety glasses. This product is an orange, viscous liquid with slight petroleum odor.

D.C. Circuit Court Denies Habeus Corpus Rights to Gitmo Detainees

Detainee ruling put into effect by Circuit Court

General Petraeus wants 20 more FU's for Iraq

Petraeus: “Historically, Counter-Insurgency Ops Have Gone At Least 9 or 10 Years”

Petraeus: ” I think just about everybody out there recognizes that a situation like this with the many, many challenges that Iraq is contending with is not one that’s going to be resolved in a year or even two years. In fact, typically - I think historically, counter-insurgency operations have gone at least nine or ten years.”

What's a Friedman Unit?