Office of the Independent Blogger

Why do Republicans in the White House need a different server than the one provided them by the Government to send emails with?

You might guess, “They want to protect their personal emails with family members and mistresses and God,” or you might guess, “They’re trying to cover up acts of corruption such as the selling off of the forests.” I say: they have really bad, freaky porn habits. I know that’s the obvious answer, but they are, after all, Republicans.

A dear friend of mine once kidded me that I was sounding more and more like a Republican by the day with every complaint I made about bureaucratic nonsense in the federal government. I countered that there’s nothing partisan about insisting that government programs make sense and do good, and this does not fit the bill, but we’ve got to pay for it anyway.

The search for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction appears close to an official conclusion, several years after their absence became a foregone one. The United States and Britain have circulated a new proposal to the members of the United Nations Security Council to “terminate immediately the mandates” of the weapons inspectors. Staff meetings on the latest proposal have already taken place, and officials say that the permanent Council members, each of whom has veto power, seem ready to let the inspection group — the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission — meet its end.

That’s absurd, and it isn’t even the silliest thing to come out of the international community. That honor belongs to this.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday. “The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change,” Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column. UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons. “This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming,” the South Korean diplomat wrote.

“It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought,” Ban said in the Washington daily. When Darfur’s land was rich, he said, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water, he said. With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing. “For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out,” he said. A UN peacekeeping force may stop the fighting, he said, and more than two million people may return to rebuilt homes in safe villages. “But what to do about the essential dilemma: the fact that there’s no longer enough good land to go around?”

I will say this, first: it isn’t that bad an assertion to make if it’s qualified accurately. “A small part of the Darfur issue is, There’s not enough good land to go around and the drought hurts. But the truth is that the black Darfurs don’t like the blacker Darfurs; then you throw in a little God, and you’ve got yourself an explosive situation. But that’s not what he said, and what he did say — while mildly defensible — is ridiculous and inspires Americans to loathe the United Nations. Or mistrust it, at least.

First from Hersh: a new look at the man who wrote the report on Abu Ghraib, General Taguba. It doesn’t inspire confidence in the government.

The American government doesn’t inspect drugs coming into our country from India and China, making it possible that someone — probably a poor person, since we’re talking prescription drugs — is going to die from a pill that is under/over-strength or tampered with.

What else is new? If expensive pills were being made in the Orient, and the rich were taking them, there wouldn’t be these concerns.

Oh, and hey, environmentally conscious people: in fifteen years, there’ll be a sweet eco-friendly jet out there for airlines and celebrities. Hold on tight until then.

Washington just keeps getting worse.

It was a $100 million mistake, and a federal judge said Friday he doesn’t have the power to fix it.

The Justice Department goofed last year and cited the wrong law in a binding plea agreement with telecommunication entrepreneur Walter Anderson, the largest tax scofflaw in U.S. history. That mistake made it impossible for the government to recover between $100 million and $175 million, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said in March.

Prosecutors urged him to reconsider but Friedman reluctantly said Friday that his hands were tied.

“The court is not free to read something into a contract that is not there or to interpret uncertain language in the government’s favor,” Friedman said.

And if you don’t think that’s enough, the Middle East is exploding again, with Palestinians fighting Palestinians for Palestinian control of Palestine’s war.

Wow.

Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas complained yesterday about his press coverage in comparison to the coverage given skanky pop stars. I just want to express my sympathies to him by saying: I’m sorry you’re not a skanky pop star.

Unfortunately, he’s a good candidate, so everyone loses out when he can’t gain traction because nobody knows who he is. He’s better than McCain, Giuliani, Romney and Actor, that’s for sure.

I’m not feeling well at all, so I’ll keep it brief and leave it at that, dear readers. Wish me well.

The Iraqi Government has failed to meet almost every benchmark we have set for them.

No wonder George W. Bush thinks we can get along with them so well and should lead their country!

Iraq’s political leaders have failed to reach agreements on nearly every law that the Americans have demanded as benchmarks, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until progress reports are due in Washington, the deadlock has reached a point where many Iraqi and American officials now question whether any substantive laws will pass before the end of the year.

Kurds have blocked a vote in Parliament on a new oil law. Shiite clerics have stymied an American-backed plan for reintegrating former Baathists into government. Sunnis are demanding that a constitutional review include more power for the next president.

And even if one or two of the proposals are approved — the oil law appears the most likely, officials said — doubts are spreading about whether the current benchmarks can ever halt the cycle of violence gripping Iraq’s communities.

For the handful of party leaders with the power to make deals, the promise of compromise now carries less allure than the possibility for domination. Long-suppressed Shiites and Kurds now see total victory within their grasp. Previous American benchmarks like elections have failed to bring peace and, after four years of unfulfilled promises, bloodshed and sprawling chaos, once wary glances have become cold, unblinking stares.

How long will it take before we declare the War over and failed?

This is mildly humorous. What a situation for the Chinese government to be in!

With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday. Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang.

In a country of around 1.3 billion people, about 85 percent share only 100 surnames, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Security in April and published in the China Daily newspaper on Tuesday. The survey found 92 million people shared the surname Li, while 88 million were called Zhang. A further seven surnames — including Chen, Zhou and Lin — are held by at least 20 million Chinese.

Another report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found at least 100,000 people share China’s most popular name, Wang Tao. Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities, the China Daily reported. For instance, a father named Zhou and mother named Zhu could choose to call their child either Zhou, Zhu, Zhouzhu or Zhuzhou, the report added.

When so many people are named “Wang,” you know there’s something wrong with your country.

Fidel Castro can cigar-assassinate himself if he doesn’t like it, which he doesn’t – the President of the United States and the country he leads were greeted with nothing but love and admiration in Albania and Rumania this weekend.

It’s moments like these that make me proud to be an American.

Freedom and Democracy are not jokes. The President is an abysmal President but he’s got one thing right and there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who admire him for it. I am one of them.

More of this, less of this.

Link I

Senior Democrats have reached agreement with the National Rifle Association on what could be the first federal gun-control legislation since 1994, a measure to significantly strengthen the national system that checks the backgrounds of gun buyers. The sensitive talks began in April, days after a mentally ill gunman killed 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech University. The shooter, Seung Hui Cho, had been judicially ordered to submit to a psychiatric evaluation, which should have disqualified him from buying handguns. But the state of Virginia never forwarded that information to the federal National Instant Check System (NICS), and the massacre exposed a loophole in the 13-year-old background-check program.

Under the agreement, participating states would be given monetary enticements for the first time to keep the federal background database up to date, as well as penalties for failing to comply. To sign on to the deal, the powerful gun lobby won significant concessions from Democratic negotiators in weeks of painstaking talks. Individuals with minor infractions in their pasts could petition their states to have their names removed from the federal database, and about 83,000 military veterans, put into the system by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2000 for alleged mental health reasons, would have a chance to clean their records. The federal government would be permanently barred from charging gun buyers or sellers a fee for their background checks. In addition, faulty records such as duplicative names or expunged convictions would have to be scrubbed from the database.

Link II

President George Bush’s proposed reform of the US’s crisis-hit immigration system, intended to be the administration’s lasting legacy, was in tatters yesterday. His bill, destroyed by a combination of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, highlights the extent of his weakness and isolation, even though he still has a year and a half left in office. Immigration is a hugely divisive issue in the US - the hottest political topic after Iraq - and there have been repeated attempts over the years to fix it. There are an estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the US, mainly from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

If the Democratic Party and the NRA can work together on sensible gun reform, why can’t both parties and immigrants rights groups?

I guess immigrants rights groups don’t have enough guns to take out the government? Maybe if they took out our toilets, the Congress would get something done!

This reminds me of a hilarious cartoon I saw the other day where Bush is delivering a speech and his handlers are watching, whispering, “Don’t mispronounce it, don’t mispronounce it, don’t mispronounce it” to themselves. The word? “Niger.”

US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as “sir” instead of the expected “His Holiness”, pool reporters said. They could clearly hear the US leader say “Yes, sir” when the pope asked him if he was going to meet with officials of the lay Catholic Sant’Egidio community at the US embassy later during his visit. A handful of pool reporters were on hand as Benedict greeted Bush at the door of his private library ahead of a private audience of about half an hour.

On his way to see the 80-year-old pontiff, the US leader apparently recognised someone he knew, and could be heard greeting the person with a casual “How ya doin’?” The pool reporters also noted Bush’s relaxed posture, crossing his legs “Texan style” while facing the pope across his desk in the private study of the apostolic palace.

I’m not sure I understand what the big deal is. “Sir” is respectful and besides, I’ve always hated people who get uppity over their title, like doctors who go nuts if you don’t call them doctor. I do think it was disrespectful and flippant for Bush to sit there crossing his legs casually and the “How ya doin’?” might be a little inappropos but it isn’t that big a deal, either.

It’s not like he called him Poopy Benedict or something and with George Bush, that might be all you can ask for.

In 2004, a policeman ran over two small children, killed one of them and fractured the other’s skull. He made up a story about chasing an invisible gunman, and even his made up story conceded several inappropriate actions that he should’ve been fired for, if not for killing a small child and fracturing another’s skull (not to mention breaking the girl’s little heart by killing her best friend). What happened to this cop? He’s kept his job and the department has covered up for him.

I’d excerpt the article but it’s too long for any one excerpt to do it justice.

You know, I believe that there should be term limits for policeman because after several years, everyone begins to look the same to the officers, and you start to worry more about keeping your role in the department and protecting your friends than protecting the citizenry. I firmly believe that we should have term-limits for policemen in an effort to prevent them from becoming too cynical, both from their entrenched power and their experiences.

On another note: if Gregory Jones and Datondra Mitchell were white, there’s absolutely no way this policeman survives the scandal. I don’t like to race-bait but in this case there’s absolutely no way that’s untrue. No way at all.

Easy answer to this question: “Will anti-Mormon sentiment cost Romney the nomination?” Yes, along with anti-Massachusettsism.

This is a very interesting recap of the day’s G8 meeting. Russia offered to work with us on missile defense (do it); we’re working with the world on Global Warming (do more); we’re working with the African Union on AIDS and other diseases (do even more).

I’m glad there’s been more progress made at the G8 than I expected.

Call me crazy, but I think Roger Ailes just outed Billy O’Reilly.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

Or is it Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes that he just outed? Maybe just Colmes. He is a Liberal. You know what, though: I haven’t watched H&C in years, but the last time I did was during the whole “Aruba!” scandal, when Colmes was sent down to Aruba to “investigate” and effectively kill all Liberal presence on the show.

I wonder if he ever got back from Aruba. He always looked a little like a corpse so they might’ve just put string to him and played him on the air. Wouldn’t surprise me! That is, after all, what’s been done with Walt Disney.

Speaking of gay Republicans, Bush’s new nominee for Surgeon General is causing quite the controversy for saying that “gay sex is hazardous to your health.” You know what I think? It’s all well and good to take offense at his right-wing righteousness (of which I see there’s a ton) but I’d really like to know what he believes about cancer, AIDS, the availability of vaccines, the funding of technologies, myself. Everybody’s always ready to have a social battle, which is fine sometimes, but I really wish the President wouldn’t bait the world by nominating a firebomber. I’d really like to hear about a surgeon general’s credentials and medical beliefs myself, but that’s impossible because the press wouldn’t cover it if a real doctor were nominated and Bush won’t nominate a real doctor.

Nobody whose appointment revolves around the words “hazardous” and “gay sex” has any business being nominated for Surgeon General.

I’m very happy to hear this news.

Some Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI’s concern about conserving the Earth’s resources, a Vatican engineer said Tuesday. The roof of the Paul VI auditorium will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said. The 6,300-seat auditorium is used for the pontiff’s general audiences on Wednesdays in winter and in bad weather during the rest of the year. Concerts in honor of pontiffs are also staged in the hall, with its sweeping stage. The cells will produce enough electricity to illuminate, heat or cool the building, Cuscianna said. “Since the auditorium isn’t used every day, the (excess) energy will feed into the network providing (the Vatican) with power, so other Vatican offices can use the energy,” he said.

I’m glad to see the Vatican taking a more progressive stance toward the sun than they did during Galileo’s day! Boy, I tell you, there’s something terribly wrong when the Vatican and the Kremlin are more Progressive on an issue than the American President.

This makes me feel sick to my stomach.

President Vladimir Putin called himself the world’s only ‘’absolute and pure democrat'’ in an interview published Monday, and launched scathing attacks on the U.S. and Europe ahead of this week’s Group of Eight summit. At the same time, the 54-year-old Putin hinted that he may not be ready to leave the public stage after all when his second term expires next year. ‘’I am far from pension age and it would be absurd just to sit at home doing nothing,'’ he told a group of reporters invited to dinner over the weekend.

Despite Russia’s agreement last month to tone down the rhetoric, Putin’s statements exposed vast gaps between Russia and the West ahead of this week’s Group of Eight summit. He called Britain’s decision to demand the extradition of the man suspected of killing former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive poison an act of ‘’stupidity.'’ The interview touched on much that the rest of the world finds disturbing about Putin’s Russia: the backsliding on democracy, the increasing assertion of military power, the general perception of a leader who feels immune to international criticism.

To the many Westerners who say he has rolled back Russia’s democratic reforms, Putin responded with the startling assertion that he is the world’s one true champion of democracy. ‘’I am an absolute and pure democrat,'’ Putin said. ‘’But you know what the misfortune is? Not even a misfortune but a real tragedy? It’s that I am alone, there simply aren’t others like this in the world.'’ The transcript noted that Putin laughed when making that comment, suggesting he was joking. A few moments later he added: ‘’After the death of Mahatma Gandhi, there’s nobody to talk to.'’

Sandwiched between his acid criticisms and ironic assertions was a brief but brutal criticism of the West. ‘’We look at what has been created in North America — horror: torture, homelessness, Guantanamo, detention without courts or investigation,'’ he said. ‘’You see what’s going on in Europe: harsh treatment of demonstrators, the use of rubber bullets, tear gas in one capital, the killing of demonstrators in the streets in another,'’ he added, in an apparent reference to the death of an ethnic Russian in the Estonian capital during protests over the removal of a Soviet-era war memorial.

Rather than try to soothe nerves before the G-8 summit in Germany, Putin repeated, and even amplified, recent Kremlin criticism of the United States — including his allegation in February that the United States was engaging in a ‘’hyper-use of power,'’ and Russian officials’ denunciation of purported Western attempts to destabilize Russia by funding pro-democracy groups.

The first response is the obvious one: Is Bush still giddy when he looks into Putin’s soul?

Next is just an observation. Russian leaders are so evil and quirky, it’s like they come from a different world that only they and their mothers know about (or maybe they don’t, and get taken there by force?). From Stalin, to Yeltsin to Putin, all they do is bitch and murder, then take the highest high road with the rest of the world.

It breaks my heart to read about Russian life. It scares the hell out of me to think about Putin in office for many more years, and then it scares me to think about his replacement, who will likely be just as bad as he is.

I don’t get much of an opportunity to write about it, but hey, listen: I support women’s rights, and I think the Supreme Court of the United States needs to do more about them. I think this case that you’ve probably never heard of before is disturbing, and don’t think it doesn’t affect you, even if you’re not a woman. It’s a terrible ruling that affects your families and friends, but it also affects workplace discrimination of all sorts and might one day work against you.