Return Of The Mob - Or The Mob Strikes Back?

This ignoramus represents what the Republican party is now - a devolution we've witnessed all too well (more examples here, here, here, here, here and here) during the past U.S. Presidency campaign and which is now fully achieved:

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Joe the Plumber suggests some members of Congress should be shot

On Wednesday, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher said that if he were in Congress, he would “probably be in jail” because he’d be charged with “slapping some member.” He added, “And that’s not [bull] either.” ThinkProgress asked Joe at CPAC yesterday which members he would most like to slap. “Pretty much anybody that’s stood there and said anything bad about our troops, pretty much anybody who sat there and talked treasonous talk about America,” Joe said. He then implied that some members of Congress should be shot:

Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don’t talk about our troops. You support our troops. Especially when our congressmen and senators sit there and say bad things in an ongoing conflict.

Watch it:

Of course, politicians aren’t the only ones Joe thinks should be banned from speaking about war. Last month, he said that journalists shouldn’t “be anywhere allowed war.” “I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting,” he said.

Update: ThinkProgress also asked Joe about his recent trip to Israel. Wurzelbacher repeated his claim that Obama’s victory means “death to Israel.” He also seemed to say that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. Watch the video here.

If you think that Joe is not representative of today's devolved G.O.P., then try this for size:

This morning, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He tried to up the fear quotient in the room by raising the prospect of an Iranian-sent nuclear attack on an American city. “It’s [a] tiny [threat] compared to the Soviet Union,” Bolton said, “but is the loss of one American city — pick one at random: Chicago — is that a tiny threat?” The audience erupted in cheers and laughter at the idea of Obama’s home city being obliterated. Watch it:

Later during the conference, Joe Scarborough warned the audience that conservatives would have to work on their “tone.” “We’re not going to win votes, we’re not going to win elections by calling Obama a communist,” Scarborough said.

Update: The Wonk Room's Matt Duss, who attended CPAC today, notes that Bolton also fearmongered on Obama's dedication to Israel. He told an audience member that he "very much fear[s] it's right" that Obama would not aid Israel were it attacked.

And even this, as well:

ThinkProgress is attending the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference today. Earlier this afternoon, Cliff Kincaid, head of a conservative group Accuracy in Media, introduced Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). Kincaid suggested that President Obama is a communist, then suggested Obama was not born in the United States — to which the crowd cheered wildly. Watch it:

Despite the fact that it has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked, radical conservatives continue to peddle the ridiculous myth. Last weekend, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) noted that he had never seen Obama’s birth certificate. Trying to calm the ensuing firestorm, a spokesman for Shelby claimed the senator “was not saying and I’m not saying he (Obama) is or isn’t [a U.S. citizen], he was just saying he hasn’t seen one (a birth certificate).”

The more things change ...

Aah, those primitive minds (here's yet another one) - it is fascinating - and also worrisome - how much they are uncivilized, crass, savage barbarians, don't you think?

This picture taken at this year's CPAC is quite telling (h/t):
Rush Limbaugh must be ever so proud (and then some) of his United Haters of America Party - where fear and hate are the end all, be all, of the game.

Good thing Joe's book of wit and wisdom is apparently failing to thrive ...

Maybe then there's still hope for us.

But we still have a long way to go ... a very long way to go.

Yet one more case in point.

(More here, here, here and there)

(Cross-posted from APOV)

... And So Here We Are - Yet Again

Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Indeed - the way things are already going in 2009, and regardless that we are fast approaching the so-called "New Dawn" which many folks apparently await breathlessly and which is supposed to occur following Barack Obama's inauguration, I just don't see how anything will change for the better by the time we reach 2010 ... or 2020 ... or even 2050, for that matter.

Here's why ...


1) Despite living in democracies, with all the rights and privileges this entails, we remain all-too-lazy to actually exercize our duty, our responsibility, as citizens and therefore fail to register and/or cast our vote - regardless of the stakes and whether we acknowledge said stakes or not. Cases in point:

U.S. Nov. 2008 general elections: only 56.8% of the voting-age population (i.e. all residents age 18 and older) voted - despite the obvious stakes. If you prefer taking into account only those who actually registered to vote (i.e. "vote-eligible" population), then you get a "whopping" 61.6% turnout rate - who would've thunk that this election was, you know, crucial for the future of the U.S.?

Canada Oct. 2008 general elections: only 59.1% of the vote-eligible population (i.e. registered voters) turned out to vote. Typical excuses heard for such a low turnout? "A ho-hum campaign", "uninspiring party leaders", and/or "no important stakes involved" (yes - and let's forget about the economy already worsening then, among other things, eh?).

Québec Dec. 2008 elections: only 57.4% of registered voters turned out to vote. Typical excuses heard for such a low turnout? "Too soon after the federal elections", "these elections were not necessary", "bad weather", and/or "no important stakes involved" (again yes - let's forget about the economy already at one of its lowest points then, among other things ...).

In short, our democracies are far from being healthy. Any excuse not to vote, let alone register, is a good one. In the meantime, those who actually care about such a dire state of affairs tend to dwell upon making voting easier, or making voting more accessible, or reducing voter lines by opening more voting polls, etc., etc., etc.

In the end, these, as well as intense time and effort in driving voter turnout from the grassroots, inevitably fall short - being as effective as applying band aids in trying to stem the loss of blood from a gaping wound. Why is that so? Because the actual root of the problem remains largely unaddressed. Acknowledged? Maybe, by some. But is anything ever done to actually resolve such a critical problem which keeps on eating away at our democracies? Any long-term plan and significant investment of time and effort to at least begin to resolve this problem? Nope. Nada. Zip.

You can't save a dying tree by doing everything in order to keep the leaves and branches healthy, when the tree is actually rotting from the roots. And as long as we refrain from fully realizing and understanding this verity, our democracies will keep on slowly - but surely - rotting away.


2) A large part of the "root problem" of our democracies remains our failing education systems:

The purpose of the educational reforms of the last 25-30 years in our modern societies will have had as the primary goal to make education less strict and authoritative, and rather more motivating, enriching and inclusive. That in itself is all well and good. Unfortunately, the reforms put in practice over these years will have brought us to the present situation whereby intellectual sloth is not only encouraged but, even more so, actually rewarded. Indeed, any effort that is slightly substantial is regarded as being incompatible with the cognitive development of a child (or of an adolescent) and, still worse, with the blooming of those who have “difficulties in learning” - in other words, our reforms will have lowered the bar to the lowest common denominator. Point in fact is that any difficulty of learning (except in specific situations like dyslexia) draws its origins from several factors: poverty, parental situation, traumatisms experienced, etc., and thus require specific teaching methods which take into account these factors. But nevertheless, we seek to motivate all children without requiring of them any truly significant effort: this amounts to seeking to motivate an employee into being willing to work with never ending promotions, while without requiring of him to perform his tasks decently. Ridiculous, no? But this is exactly how things are being done in our schools today.

In short, we are trying to teach knowledge while doing everything possible to make knowledge interesting and easily understandable, consequently lowering the bar by standardizing intellectual sloth. Moreover, we are at the point where we are actually making students practice important exams with the aim of improving their performances during these same examinations - what could be more ridiculous? And of course, each successive reform fails in its attempts to increase the motivation, to reduce the rates of failure, or to reverse the dropout rates. Why? Because at the base, all these reforms entrench in their new methods and teaching approaches the rewarding (direct or indirect) of intellectual sloth, as well as its by-products, the search for facility and for instant gratification. In other words, we perpetuate and accentuate the problem!

If this is not intellectual sloth in itself on the part of our educational leaders and decision makers ...

Should one therefore be surprised by the preponderance of the promotion and exercise of leisures and hobbies, in the house as well as outside? As with everything, too much of a good thing is bad. If intellectual sloth is silently (or by negligence) encouraged by parents and at school, how can the children, and their own children, and so on, do anything else but perpetuate this vicious circle at all levels of society?

The solution is of course quite simple - but would require a complete re-thinking of our educational approaches as well as a definite long-term commitment to solve this critical problem:

(...) the inculcation, beginning in childhood and throughout the educational process, of the need for questioning, for reasoning, for discerning, for gathering information, for contextualizing, for criticizing, for evaluating/re-evaluating, for thinking - in short, for the need of intellectual activity - constitutes the best vaccine against intellectual sloth.

(...) My solution is that we must inculcate intellectual activity, as defined above, as soon as possible in children. Let us not wait until college or university to do so like we have always done so far, for by then it is visibly too late and intellectual sloth has already set in too many students - not mentioning all those who dropped out or ended their education after high school.

Inculcating intellectual activity in our schools as it should be, i.e. without encouraging intellectual sloth in any way whatsoever, is a matter that holds the very future of our modern societies at stake, including that of our cultures and our democratic values and institutions as well. It is by countering intellectual sloth that we will eventually allow the emergence of future leaders who will make better use of reason in establishing the application of true and durable solutions to the problems facing our societies and humanity as a whole.

In conclusion, it is by countering intellectual sloth that we will make way for the inevitable emergence of a majority (in the least) of competent citizens in all spheres of activities within our societies - and the latters will only be the better for this.

And we as well, incidentally.

So far, I still don't see this coming any time soon ... and so intellectual sloth, the constant search for instant gratification and overall incompetence will continue to rule the day in all spheres of activities in our societies - thus further spreading the cancer that keeps on eating away at our democracies.


3) We still wallow in our self-centerism and selfishness, while hypocritically congratulating ourselves at being "good guys" who walk on the bestest of moral high grounds.

Well, let us take a hard, painful look at what we truly are:

The increasing erosion of our constitutions, civil rights and democracies as they are being gradually subjugated by Authoritarian Security Surveillance States. The bloating no-fly lists and terrorist watch-lists. The continuing inhumane and barbaric renditions, "enhanced interrogations" and indefinite detentions - of children, teenagers and adults alike. The continuing standing of Military Commissions, which are nothing more than politically-driven, rigged, kangaroo courts. The seemingly unending wars of choice and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq - both based on lies to justify a vengeance operation for 9/11 and the securing of foreign oil resources. The ever mounting toll of civilian deaths, displaced refugees and soldier casualties.

This is the overall state of things today with regards to our so-called "Western civilization" - especially with regards to the U.S.A., the U.K. and Canada.

Through it all, much of the currently occurring discourse and debating on these above-mentioned, self-evident evils deal largely with semantics and quaint legalese gymnastics in order to defend and justify not only their perceived necessity, but to actually establish, maintain, or cement, their legality as well.

In other words:

We justify breaking laws, war crimes and atrocities because, goshdarnit, we're the good guys and therefore we only do what is necessary - and consequently we can do no wrong.

Nor can our friends do any wrong, because, you know, if we're the good guys, then so are our friends.

But all those who are not our friends, well ... they should be denounced and prosecuted for the same things that we are doing - but since we're the good guys, we can be excused because we are doing those things in good faith. So, there.

To which I am compelled to respond thusly:

In these days when torturing is conveniently justified as a matter of necessity, when debate about torture is more than ever about the effectiveness of torture versus the "ineffectiveness" in following the rule of Law, when torture is apparently no more a cause for tarnishing reputations of countries and governments, when military commissions rule at whim (one more example here) over the rule of civil and human rights, when prosecuting torturers and torture promulgators becomes something to be actually requiring debate, when promulgating/instituting torture is no more a criminal matter but rather one of "good faith" but "misguided/wrong" policy-making, or misguided interpretation of laws or merely a matter of proper "spin", when black holes of human decency and justice have become acceptable, when torture has become nothing more than a "mere legal term" and something done casually that is not to be feared or condemned, but in fact to be made money from, trivialized or joked about ...

Then more than ever, we have lost any semblance of human rationality and grace - consequently rendering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights naught but empty words to make us feel noble, good, principled and civilized - allowing us to conveniently forget however much the deluded, hypocritical, savages and barbarians that we truly are.

Yes, President-elect Barack Obama recently renewed his pledge to end the practice of torture - and yet, what are we to make of calls for him to keep pro-torture Bush appointees in his administration-to-be, of those potential alternatives floated around and those other "torture-is-necessary" elected representatives (like this fatuously-reasoning barbarian) so far?

In other words: it remains to be seen whether hypocritical, quaint rationalizations (like this, or that, or this, or that) to justify torture will be at last dumped in the trash bin of history of savagery, so that the barbarian practice of violating human and civil rights will be abandoned once and for all ...

(...) .. and we have quite a long way to go in order to finally make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not only a reality, but an absolute, unalienable standard of what it means to be human and civilized.

Then again, I should not be surprised that we claim to hold onto noble principles, and congratulate ourselves for this, yet nevertheless dismiss said principles whenever we feel threatened.

After all, are we not still in the habit of proudly claiming our adherence to high ideals while we summarily ignore them for the sake of convenience, of expediency? Here's a few examples from the top of my head:

How often have I witnessed self-proclaimed and self-righteous followers of this or that "peace-loving" religious faith (Christian, Muslim, Hebrew, et al.) promulgate lack of compassion, or intolerance, or hate and even violence onto others?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above) express xenophobic remarks, or summarily condemn the homeless, poor and/or jobless as "lazy slobs"?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above) demonstrate utter indifference at injustices perpetrated onto other fellow citizens by security agencies, either because they automatically assume guilt and/or said other fellow citizens so unjustly abused are perceived as "not regular, honest folks" (i.e. ethnic minorities)?

How often do I still hear self-proclaimed "good, decent, caring people" (or the same religious adherents as above), men and women both, exhibit lack of outrage at a woman being raped while muttering that "she was probably asking for it by dressing like a slut"?

How often have I witnessed self-proclaimed "pro-environment" people still failing to separate their recyclable trash from the rest of their waste, and equally failing to put said recyclable trash into the proper recyclable trash bins for pick-up by city services, because doing so is "too much trouble"?

How often have I heard self-proclaimed "concerned citizens" railing against the government ... and yet rarely get off their couches to go out and vote when they are called upon to do so?

And I could go on and on and on.

All these things I have seen, heard, witnessed in my own province of Québec, as well as in many other places in Canada and the U.S.

Overall, such rank hypocrisy on our part, such repugnant self-delusions about our grandeur, our goodness, our moral high ground, borders on the pathological.

We have a long way to learn the simple truth that holding on to noble principles is worth nothing unless we steadfastly hold them closer to our hearts and minds whenever we are tempted to ignore them - regardless of the reasons, the justifications or the opportunities, to dismiss them.

Claiming the moral high ground means that you stay on said moral high ground - through thick and thin, through rain or shine, through beautiful or stormy weather.

Then again - as long as intellectual sloth, the constant search for instant gratification and overall incompetence will continue to rule supreme in our societies, all that we have lived just in 2008 alone - from political hypocrisy and incompetence to unfettered, unchecked and encouraged corporate greed, from wars of choice to genocide, and everything in between - we will continue to experience time and time again.

And so we'll keep on getting right back where we started - until that fateful day when the house of cards we so proudly call "civilization" comes down crashing hard on our bewildered, dumbfounded, hypocritical and deluded collective heads ...

... unless, of course, the bulk of Humanity finally wises up and stops itself from repeating history in one way or another year after year after fucking year.

Granted - this may be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.

And yet ...

And yet, I remain convinced that once we tackle the three main problems outlined above, we will be well set onto that so-elusive road to maturity as a species of sentient beings.

As opposed to stubbornly - and stupidly - running in circles, as we're still doing now.

So, in conclusion, I reiterate that which I stated at the top of this post: the way things are already going in 2009, and regardless that we are fast approaching the so-called "New Dawn" which many folks apparently await breathlessly and which is supposed to occur following Barack Obama's inauguration, I just don't see how anything will change for the better by the time we reach 2010 ... or 2020 ... or even 2050, for that matter.

In the meantime, I'll keep on "commenting on/documenting the horrors" ... while still hoping against hope that we'll somehow, some way, actually improve and better ourselves as democratic societies.

(Oh - and a belated happy new year 2009, folks ...)


(Cross-posted from APOV)

The Primitive Mind-Thinking Syndrome

Here is the primitive mind of Sarah Stillson Palin the parochial theocon at work:

This morning, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) gave her first policy speech urging the federal government to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), “a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation.” In the speech, Palin cited the need to do more for children with disabilities such as autism:

For many parents of children with disabilities, the most valuable thing of all is information. Early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference.

Palin claimed that the amount that Congress spends on earmarks “is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA.” She then ridiculed some of the projects — such as “fruit fly research” — saying they have little or no value:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

Watch it:

At this point, I would start writing something about such drivel, such nonesense, such insanity - however, anything I would write would end up exactly the same as what I've already written before in previous posts ...

So instead, I'll let Dr. P.Z. Myers speak my mind:I am appalled.

This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.

Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation. Molecular genetics has revealed that humans share key molecules, the basic developmental toolkit, with all other animals, thanks to our shared evolutionary heritage (something else the wackaloon from Wasilla denies), and that we can use these other organisms to probe the fundamental mechanisms that underlie core processes in the formation of the nervous system — precisely the phenomena Palin claims are so important. To be frank, I am far from surprised - because that is how intellectual sloth-afflicted primitive minds think - of which Sarah Stillson Palin constitutes a "fine" example:It never ceases to amaze me to what levels of utter irrationality the fundamentalists, neocons and other right-wing madhaters are willing to descend into.

They lie, they misrepresent, they use decoy arguments and make ad hominem attacks. For them, the use of duplicity, of secrecy, of arguments of (non-existent) conspiracy, of fact (and non-fact) selectivity/cherry-picking, of quacks/fake experts, as well as putting forth logical fallacies, are simply means to an end.

And this "end" is the following: to promulgate, support and defend their beliefs or their ideologies.

Truth be told: these are the only things that truly matter to them.

Why else would they try to censor science, attempt to control it, seek to falsify it or rewrite it, quietly hide it, brazenly deny funding for it, attempt to change its mission/purpose, actually lie about it, use spin games to deny it, go to great lenghts to confuse people about it, attempt to dismiss it as a matter of differing beliefs or philosophies, or go as far as to demonize it?

Why else would they use the politics of fear, ignorance and lies? Now, here's why they do so:(...) the fundamentalists, neocons and other right-wing madhaters are very much alike the people from the allegory of the cave, and somehow made flesh and blood.

They are indeed living in a cave, their backs to the entrance while facing the sunlit cave wall, seeing only shadows of reality. And it is from watching these two-dimensional shadows that they construct myths and stories to comfort themselves - because they not only fear the shadows that they see, but they also fear even more what these shadows represent.

Thus, they find themselves frightened to the deepest levels of their fragile souls by the glorious truth of the multi-dimensional reality in which we live, whenever they get out of their cave. Their intellectual sloth-driven, ignorant and fearful minds simply can not, or flatly refuse, to comprehend it.

That is why their beliefs and ideologies are not only parochial, but adamantly intractable.

Consequently, at the end of each day, the fundamentalists, neocons and other right-wing madhaters return to the safety and comfort of their cave, vowing to say and do everything in order to transform our multi-dimensional reality into the simpler, two-dimensional one made of shadows that they are accustomed to.

Hence, my conclusion is that the fundamentalists, neocons and other right-wing madhaters are the same ignorant, fearful and surperstitious primitives that our ancestors were, thousands upon thousands of years ago - except that they now use newspapers, magazines, television, radio, politics, and the internet, to spread their intellectual sloth-driven non-understanding of the world and, consequently, working hard at bringing us down to their level of ignorance. To which I add: that, coupled to their pathetic inhability to accept - or deal with - reality, along with their typical shameless hypocrisy in trying to justify any and all duplicity on their part in the face of whatever self-deluded moral ground du jour that they claim, make them not only nothing more than primitive minds, but utter incompetent modern human beings as well.

The result is the fierce undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, anti-science and tribalist-racism that bubbles up increasingly to the surface (especially thanks to the recent strategy of the McCain-Palin campaign), despite these modern, scientific and technological times of ours. It's what I've come to call our "Semi-Dark Ages". A few cases in point:Congressman Rohrabacher's Floor Speech on Global Warming: "(Are we to believe) buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle?"

Bachmann Calls For McCarthyite Investigation Into Anti-American Activities Of Liberals;

Sarah Palin Says She Open To Teaching Creationism In Public Schools;

Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted;

Palin Explains What Parts Of Country Not "Pro-America";

Bachmann: ‘Not all cultures are equal’;

Palin: Iraq is a task "from God";

Conservatives Call Obama’s Correct Pronounciation Of Pakistan ‘Exotic’ And ‘Annoying’;

Palin Sees America As Wealthy And White: New Hampshire And Alaska Are ‘Microcosms’ Of The Country;

Another McCarthyite Republican: Rep. Robin Hayes says “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God";

Bachmann tells Pelosi to give up on global warming because Jesus already saved the planet;

McCain: Washington D.C. and NYC = Fake America;

Racism, hate bubble up yet again at Palin's rally in Vegas. Thus I give you primitive mind-thinking at work - and I could go on and on and on with further examples, just for this year alone.

Oh - and the fruit fly thing? Here's but one example of how useful the knowledge of its cellular and molecular biology as a scientific, experimental animal model has lead to a better understanding of human diseases:

Palin did not specify what fruit fly research earmark she was referring to (presumably a grant for olive fruit fly research), but she is apparently unaware that scientific research with fruit flies has led to valuable discoveries that have boosted autism research, as a study at the University of North Carolina demonstrated last year:

[S]cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for ... nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.

The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.

The study of fruit flies has also been used for other autism research and “revolutionize[d]” the study of birth defects.

Other animal models, such as laboratory mice, are likewise extremely useful in understanding our own genetics, physiology and diseases. Just two cases in point among countless others:First-ever Genetic Animal Model Of Autism;

New Treatment Strategy Possible For Muscular Dystrophy, Mouse Studies Show. In case you would want to know more, instead of being a primitive mind like Sarah Stillson Palin, you might want to begin here, here, here and here - and from there, you may go as deep as you want.

(And be most welcome to my world, as well as that of all cellular and molecular biologists, geneticists, biochemists, etc.)

Feed your mind, eh?


(Cross-posted from APOV)

Bush: Incompetent To The Bitter End

George W. Bush, the Incompetent-In-Chief of the U.S.A. to the bitter end of his disastrous, criminal Presidency (via C&L; emphasis added):

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private (G8) meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Q.E.D.

And then some.

Now, I wonder whether Bush's BFF, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper was among those who "looked on in shock" or whether he was too busy restraining himself from actually cheering on his idol approvingly.

For some reason (cynicism here), I keep thinking of the First, Fourth and Fifth Principles of Incompetence here ... especially the Fifth Principle.

What do you think?

In any case, where Bush is concerned: looks like it is going to be a loooong goodbye tour to irrelevance indeed.

One more case in point:

The Bush administration, dismissing the recommendations of its top experts, rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming Friday, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile:

Today, the EPA published its response to the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA — which mandated that the agency determine whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health — listing various ways to control emissions. In letters attached to the document, however, administration officials “disavow[ed] the document’s conclusions.” The Wall Street Journal reports:

In a letter accompanying the EPA document…Susan Dudley, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, bluntly disavowed the analysis, saying it relied on “untested legal theories” and “cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration.”

See also this gem and this one.

Or this other one.

(It just never stops, does it?)

Incompetence to the bitter end indeed.

Once again - I told you so.

Yet, how I wish I'd be proven wrong ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)