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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Alkaline
Published Letters: 1729 Editor's Choice: 44
... from Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama:
“It has raised questions that I wish had not been raised, because when United States attorneys go into court, they have to appear before juries, and those juries have to believe that they’re there because of the merit of the case, and that they have personal integrity,” Mr. Sessions said.
I think Mr. Sessions has hit the nail on the head. What good is a DOJ that will prosecute to the President's taste if they can't win cases because juries doubt the sincerity/honesty of the prosecutors?
... whatsoever
As a practical matter, Mr. Bush has about a year to deliver a dramatic improvement in Iraq. If he fails to do so, his support in Congress will either evaporate or will be replaced in the coming election. Mr. Bush himself will certainly be replaced in that election, and his successor is unlikely to continue his policies.
Whether Mr. Bush likes it or not, he has a hard deadline coming up. If I can figure this out, so can the enemy in Iraq (whoever they are). All Mr. Bush is doing is delaying the inevitible, and doing more damage to the Republicans in the process.
... who was one of the people who pushed Congress to pass the so-called "Patriot Act". He insisted that he was a victim of prosecutorial impropriety when he was indicted for violations of campaign finance laws. He has lately been trying to get as much as he can of the "due process" that he saw fit to deny others.
"...the Iraq war his latest attempt to prove that he knows better than Father."
That's the best guess I've heard so far about why we're there.
If Gonzales does step down, I'll be he does it just before congress goes on Memorial Day break. That would let the Current Occupant use a recess appointment to stick us with another dirtbag.
... why don't we also include the cost of inspecting all that incoming cargo for "terrorist" goodies?
I've seen news items about congress voting billions of dollars for improved port security to protect us from nasty stuff that might be hidden inside cargo. Why is the taxpayer bearing this cost? Shouldn't the cost of a risk created by an activity be born by the parties that profit from that activity? Let Wal*Mart and the other "Big Box" stores pay the cost and reflect it in their prices.
In this case, it wasn't the patents themselves that were so bad, it was Monsanto's enforcement practices.
Plants naturally cross-pollinate in a variety of ways (bees, wind-blown seen or pollen, etc) that do not respect fences or property lines. Every time one farmer planed a Monsanto GM crop, there was a good chance that these mechanisms would spread the proprietary Monsanto genes to neighboring farmers' crops.
Monsanto knew this, and they went out of their way to find crops that were inadvertent recipients of Monsanto's proprietary genes. When they found such, they would sue the farmers for patent infringement.
This is about as fair as it would be if my butcher sued my neighbors for "stealing" his products because they could smell the aroma of steaks he sold being cooked on my backyard grill.
"...But we are "protecting the school's intellectual property portfolio" --- whatever that means."
It means that our descendants will sit around naked picking fleas out of each other's hair while the Chinese build hotels on the moon.
"...The amount of energy being put on the earth, every day, remains relatively contant, because there are only three sources of energy: gravity (as in hydropower), geothermal, and the sun. All of these, for all practical concerns, are inexhaustible."
Hydropower is not driven by gravity, it is driven by the sun. The heat of the sun "pumps" water uphill by evaporating it: Some of the vapor re-condenses to water at higher elevations than the water that was evaporated.
"You are saying that because we have not discovered them they are not there."
The rate of oil discovery has declined precipitously since its heyday in the middle of the last century. I doubt this happened because the oil companies have lost interest.
Perhaps there are significant oil sources that we haven't found yet, but I don't think we should bet our civilization on an assumption that they exist.
"Just what in the world were they doing before Comey, Jack Goldsmith and others pulled the plug?"
How do we know the plug was pulled? AFAIK, the actual snooping is done by people who are not under DOJ control. It would be very easy for them to continue doing what they had been from the beginning and just tell DOJ that things had changed.
Considering other of Mr. Bush's behaviors, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is what actually happened.
Sure, let's give for-profit corporations the powers to levy taxes AND to decide what services to provide in return.
What could possibly go wrong?
</sarcasm>
"... if we lose and fall under religious law, there not only will be no gay marriage, there will be no women's rights, no freedom of the press, no basic human rights, not even – as in the case of Iran – any music."
One path to this sorry condition would be the creation of an all-powerful executive branch having the power to do anything it wants without legislative or judicial support. Once this is accomplished, the islamists just need get a mole elected president and it's game over.
Congress is still on summer recess, so Bush can use a recess appointment to stick us with another Bush bootlicker.
... you can be pretty sure that the good of our country will be the last thing considered when the players choose their strategies.
"Gee whiz, you honor. I know I plead guilty, but cut me a break and let me change that. You know I'm a U.S. Senator, so I am completely unfamiliar with the idea that my decisions might have consequences."
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
