It's Good to be the King

This is one of those situations where you don't know if you should laugh or you should cry - from the polygamy to the 'new' constitution.

Swazi king waits two weeks for wife No. 12

MBABANE, Swaziland (Reuters) -- Swaziland's King Mswati III took an 18-year-old former Miss Teen Swaziland finalist as his 12th wife during the weekend, barely two weeks after marrying his 11th, media in the tiny African kingdom said.

Nothando Dube was selected as Mswati's fiancee after last year's Reed Dance, an event where thousands of maidens dance bare breasted in honor of the Queen Mother and where Mswati has chosen wives in the past.

The Times of Swaziland's Sunday edition quoted Mswati's traditional prime minister, Jim Gama, as saying that Dube's nuptials had been concluded Saturday night.

Palace officials were unavailable for confirmation on Monday, when Mswati was due to leave on an overseas trip.

In late May, Mswati married his 11th wife, 20-year-old Nolichwa Ntenesa, who was also selected during a Reed Dance.

Mswati, 37, has drawn criticism for spending money on luxury cars while many of his 1.1 million subjects struggle by on food aid, ravaged by the world's highest rate of HIV/AIDS which affects around two in every five adults.

Mswati early in June said he was not sub-Saharan Africa's only absolute monarch, contending that although political parties were banned in Swaziland, he only made decisions after consulting with the people.

In 1973 Mswati's father, Sobhuza, whose authorized biography says he had 45 official wives, tore up the constitution of the former British protectorate, sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique.

Mswati's officials are drafting a new constitution, which is set to uphold the ban on political parties.

Friday Humor

George Bush is visiting the Queen of England.
He asks her, "Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient
government? Are there any tips you can give me?"

"Well," says the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround
yourself with intelligent people."

Bush frowns. "But how do I know the people around me are really
intelligent?"

The Queen takes a sip of tea. "Oh, that's easy. You just ask them to
answer an intelligence riddle.

The Queen pushes a button on her intercom. "Please send The Prime
Minister in here, would you?"

Tony Blair walks into the room. "Your Majesty..."

The Queen smiles. "Answer me this, please, Tony. Your mother and father
have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is
it?"

Without pausing for a moment, Blair answers, "That would be me!"

"Yes! Very good!" says the Queen.

Back at the White House, Bush calls in his vice president, Dick Cheney.
"Dick, answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child.
It's not your brother and it's not your sister. Who is it?"

"I'm not sure," says the vice president. "Let me get back to you on
that one."

Dick Cheney goes to his advisers and asks every one, but none can give
him an answer.

Finally, he ends up in the men's room and recognizes Colin Powell's
shoes in the next stall. Dick shouts, "Colin! Can you answer this for
me? Your mother and father have a child and it's not your brother or your
sister. Who is it?"

Colin Powell yells back, "That's easy. It's me!"

Dick Cheney smiles. "Thanks!"

Cheney goes back to the Oval Office and asks to speak with Bush.
"Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It's Colin
Powell."

Bush gets up, stomps over to Dick Cheney, and angrily yells into his
face, "No, you idiot! It's Tony Blair!"

H/T Dad

Republicans Want to Serve Big Bird Up for Thanksgiving Dinner

Your family friendly GOP wants to eliminate PBS from the air within two years. This year, the subcommittee that oversees its budget have proposed cutting PBS's budget by 25%, with complete elimination of funds two years later.

But don't worry. Who really needs Sesame Street when you still have Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh to teach you kids good moral values.

Public Broadcasting Targeted By House
Panel Seeks to End CPB's Funding Within 2 Years

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 10, 2005; Page A01

A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster."

In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.

In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue.

Expressing alarm, public broadcasters and their supporters in Congress interpreted the move as an escalation of a Republican-led campaign against a perceived liberal bias in their programming. That effort was initiated by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's own chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.

"Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source," Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement. "Perhaps that's what the GOP finds so offensive about it. Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control. . . . Now they are trying to put their ideological stamp on public broadcasting."

(Full Story)

Roll'n, Roll'n, Roll'n... Get Those Fairies Move'n... Rawhide!!!

As NBC5 reports, Texas Governor Perry claims Texas is no place for homosexuals... It's time to pick up and move to Vermont, Mary. Head north young man... and, err... other young man.

"Texans have made a decision about marriage and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas then maybe that's a better place for them to live," Perry said.

This was at the Texas constitutional amendment signing that bans same-sex marriage.

H/T Faerietales

Update: Perry has also changed the official state motto from "The only thing that comes from Texas is steers and queers" to "Texas - if you don't like 'em... beat 'em"

Judge Adds Jail Time for Texas Men Who Beat Black Man

This is after 4 white men beat a mentaly retarded black man and left him laying on a fire ant hill in the middle of a field. The Texas jury recommended no jail time for the assault. Too bad the black man was not a fetus because then the bigots would have got a life sentence.

No offense, Smokey, I don't make the news, just report it.

GOP Lackey

Talk about being in the back pocket of industry... Representative Pet Sessions (R-Texas), introduced the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005, which would make it illegal for a State or local Municipalities to provide free Wi-Fi services in city centers such as parks. I wonder how much money the Telecom industry has donated to his campaign coffers? He is, after all, a former employee of Southwestern Bell.

Federal Anti-Municipal Wi-Fi Bill Introduced

H/T Daily Kos

The US and the ICC

I saw this quote on one of my favorite blogs - Maxed Out Mama - about the International Criminal Court.

"Anyone that can’t understand why the US should not join the International Criminal Court should be able to figure it out now."

It was in relation to a Spanish Judge wanting to question some US Soldiers in relation to the death of Spanish soldiers. It was off base because the Spanish judge had nothing to do with the ICC. But, it also showed the general misunderstanding of the ICC in relation to prosecution of US soldiers. It has been the argument from the right as to why we should not join the ICC. It is an argument that is wholly unfounded. The Rome Statute that set the rules of the court specifically exempts its jurisdiction from any signatory state that is willing to investigate and hold accountable their own citizens

Article 17
Issues of admissibility

1. Having regard to paragraph 10 of the Preamble and article 1, the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where:
(a) The case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution;
(b) The case has been investigated by a State which has jurisdiction over it and the State has decided not to prosecute the person concerned, unless the decision resulted from the unwillingness or inability of the State genuinely to prosecute;

(c) The person concerned has already been tried for conduct which is the subject of the complaint, and a trial by the Court is not permitted under article 20, paragraph 3;

(d) The case is not of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the Court.

The argument that US soldiers would be brought before the ICC for perceived or real human rights abuses is complete false and without merit. Even as an ICC member, the US would retain its right to investigate, prosecute, convict or acquit our own military personnel. Arguing that the US military would be beholden to a world court is just another attempt at misleading the American people.

That's It?

This is all Bush and Blair could muster to answer questions about the Downing Street Memo, the British memo that alleges that the British government knew that Bush was deliberately lying to the American people. The best they could do from this:

"The so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action," Holland mused to both leaders. "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?"

is this:

"Well, I can respond to that very easily," he said, before Bush could open his mouth. "No, the facts were not being fixed, in any shape or form at all."
Bush started out by suggesting that the memo wasn't credible because British media had "dropped it out in the middle of his [Blair's] race." Skipping any discussion of the intelligence, Bush said he had not settled on war from the start. "There's nothing farther from the truth," he asserted. "My conversations with the prime minister was, how can we do this peacefully?"

I deliberately didn't blog on the Downing Street Memo because I wanted to have some sort of better commentary first that explained it, but Bush and Blair dropped the ball on this one. For me, this confirms the validity of the memo.

Memo: Bush manipulated Iraq intel

Seldom-Discussed Elephant Moves Into Public's View

White House Still Stalling on Bolton Papers

Senate Democrats have pledged to hold an up or down vote on the Bolton nomination to the UN as soon as the White House offers up evidence the Senate has been requesting for the past several months. The White House has again rejected Senator Dodd's (D-CT) attempt at compromise. While the White House tries to blame the hold up on Democrats, it has only itself to blame for the delay.

Senate Impasse on Bolton Persists
The White House rejects Democrats' proposal to obtain information on the U.N. nominee. The GOP seeks the 60 votes needed to end debate.

By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The Senate standoff over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations continued Tuesday, with the administration rejecting what Democrats said was their latest compromise offer.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) searched for the 60 votes he would need to cut off debate on the nomination, but it was unclear whether he would seek a Senate vote this week or delay the confirmation battle until at least next week.
Democrats narrowly blocked a confirmation vote on Bolton late last month, saying the administration was unfairly withholding information. At the time, Democrats insisted they would be prepared to vote once the administration answered questions about State Department disputes over Bolton's 2003 congressional testimony on Syria and about top-secret electronic surveillance reports Bolton sought over the last four years.

But prospects of an early vote seemed unlikely Tuesday. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) told colleagues at a closed-door luncheon that the administration had rejected a plan he offered over last week's recess to provide Democrats with information on reports sought by Bolton about National Security Agency intercepts of overseas communications. The agency electronically monitors such contacts on a regular basis.

Although it is not unusual for senior officials to seek edited transcripts of NSA intercepts, Bolton sought unedited versions that included the names of U.S. officials whose conversations were recorded. Democrats have said they want to be sure that Bolton did not do so to intimidate intelligence analysts.

Democrats have pressed for weeks to see the versions of the intercepts given to Bolton. Dodd said he had several conversations with John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence, during the recess. Dodd then proposed in a letter to Negroponte that Democrats would prepare a list of names and submit them to the administration to be checked against the names included in the intercept transcripts provided to Bolton.

Negroponte said, according to Dodd, that he "spoke to higher authorities" and was told the administration could not accept the proposal.

"I got a response saying, 'No, they're done with it,' " Dodd said. "They've said no to everything we've asked for."

The White House dismissed Dodd's appeal as "another political stalling tactic."

"It is just more politics; it's not about documents," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "The Democratic leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee has already seen the information and said there was nothing improper."

Democrats have complained that the administration has refused to act on their request for the names of those who were monitored. As part of weeks of talks about Bolton, Senate Intelligence Committee leaders were shown the documents with the names edited.

(Full Story)

The Softer Side of Science

I'll be the first to admit that global climate change due to greenhouse gas emission is uncertain, but there is no doubt that the Bush administration will do anything and everything to protect the oil and gas industry he so loves. In addition to rebuffing Blair yesterday (the only real ally we have left in Iraq) on global warming, Bush aides edit government science reports to soften the language.

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: June 8, 2005
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.

The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.

A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment. "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record," Ms. St. Martin said. "He's not a cleared spokesman."

In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertainty by adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."
(Full Story)

Is the World Flat, Aslo?

This is why I don't want theologians in charge of creating the science curriculum of our schools. It took them 359 years to get it right. Now, if they will only admit that you won't "go blind doing that."

Vatican admits Galileo correct

by the Los Angeles Times, October 31, 1992

VATICAN CITY -- It's official: The Earth revolves around the sun, even for the Vatican.

The Roman Catholic Church has admitted erring these past 359 years in formally condemning Galileo Galilei for entertaining scientific truths it long denounced as anti-scriptural heresy.

Pope John Paul II himself turned up Saturday for a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to help set the record straight on behalf of the 17th century Italian mathematician, astronomer and physicist who was the first man to use a telescope and who is remembered as one of history's greatest scientists.

"The underlying problems of this case concern both the nature of science and the message of faith," the pope said. "One day we may find ourselves in a similar situation, which will require both sides to have an informed awareness of the field and of the limits of their own competencies."

Thirteen years after he appointed it, a commission of historic, scientific and theological inquiry brought the pope a "not guilty" finding for Galileo, who, at age 69 in 1633, was forced by the Roman Inquisition to repent and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest.

The commission found that Galileo's clerical judges acted in good faith but rejected his theories because they were "incapable of dissociating faith from an age-old cosmology" -- the biblical version of the Earth as the center of the universe.

"God fixed the Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever," says one Bible verse contradicted by Galileo's pioneering notion that the Earth spins daily on its axis and makes and annual journey around the sun.

Unable to comprehend a non-literal reading of Scripture, according to the commission, the judges feared that if Galileo's ideas were taught, they would undermine Catholic tradition at a time when it was under attack by Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

"This subjective error of judgment, so clear to us today, led them to a disciplinary measure from which Galileo 'had much to suffer,'" Cardinal Paul Poupard, the commission chairman, told the pope. "These mistakes must be frankly recognized, as you, Holy Father, have requested."
(Full Story)

A Litmus Test?

A Litmus Test? By Republicans? On abortion? They would never do that since that would be so incredibly hypocritical, right? Republicans are always crying when the Democrats might want to know if a judicial nominee would uphold Roe. Well, apparently they would be that hypocritical.

But, it gets even better. Not only is a Senator applying a litmus test to Julie Finley as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, it is being done by a single Republican. Not 41, the number needed for a filibuster, but one single Republican has placed a hold on the Bush nomination because she is pro-choice. A hold, like the filibuster, is a procedural move used by senators to delay or block a nomination from going to the floor vote.

Even though the ambassador's job has nothing to do with reproductive rights, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has placed a "hold" on the nomination for only one reason. Not because she is not qualified for the job. Not because she does not back Bush's agenda, but because she is pro-choice.

An Up-or-Down Vote?

Tuesday, June 7, 2005; Page A22

WHILE REPUBLICAN senators insist on prompt votes for every judicial nominee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has placed a "hold" on President Bush's nomination of Julie Finley as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mrs. Finley is well qualified. Like many ambassadorial appointees, she has been a major Republican fundraiser, but she has also been a strong and active advocate in Washington for the expansion of NATO, the integration of Turkey into the European Union and the spread of democracy to countries of the former Soviet Union. These are issues that would be central in her new post -- and issues that Mr. Brownback also has highlighted. Nevertheless, Mr. Brownback, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, as of last night was employing a parliamentary maneuver to block any Senate vote -- on the grounds that Mrs. Finley is pro-choice on abortion.

The move may please Republican anti abortion activists, who have launched a campaign against Mrs. Finley, demanding that the president withdraw her nomination. But the hold is repugnant, on both procedural and substantive grounds. If a filibuster is at best a controversial way of deciding policy, allowing a single senator to have effective say over whether to hold a vote on a particular presidential appointment would seem completely unacceptable.

More to the point, Mrs. Finley's opinions on abortion, whatever they may be, have nothing whatsoever to do with European security and democracy, peacekeeping in Chechnya, or the enforcement of arms control treaties, the main issues of concern to the OSCE. Mr. Brownback has in the past shared Mrs. Finley's enthusiasm for expanding NATO and promoting democracy in Eastern Europe. That he would slight those ideals and abandon a firm supporter of those causes bodes ill for his potential candidacy and for the next presidential election more generally.

GOP Lose Washington Election Case

After months and months of recounts, disputes, and court cases, a Washington judge has ruled that the Washington Gubernatorial election shall stand as it is - with Democrat Christine Gregoire as the victor. The Judge ruled that Republicans did not make their case that the election was tainted and deserved to be overruled. In fact, the GOP attorneys accomplished the exact opposite and had another 4 votes subtracted from Rossi's total, making the Gregoire's margin go from 129 to 133. Rossi, the losing GOP candidate, has vowed to appeal this to the Washington Supreme Court.

Wash. Judge Upholds Gubernatorial Vote
By REBECCA COOK, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

WENATCHEE, Wash. - A judge Monday upheld Democrat Christine Gregoire's victory in the closest race for governor in U.S. history, rejecting Republican claims that last fall's election was stolen through errors and fraud.

The election — decided by an amazingly close 129 votes out of 2.9 million cast — included 1,678 illegally cast ballots, Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges found. But he said Republicans failed to prove that GOP candidate Dino Rossi would have won if those votes had been disregarded.

"Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts," Bridges said. Nullifying the election, he said, would be "the ultimate act of judicial egotism and judicial activism."

The judge threw out only a few illegally cast votes and raised Gregoire's margin of victory to 133.

Gregoire, who has held office for five months under a cloud of uncertainty, said she burst into tears upon hearing the news.

"I think the cloud is over and I think it's time for Washington state to move on and to make sure we set this behind us," she said in Olympia. "We don't have to be the attention of the nation about an election that took place six months ago."

The Republicans were hoping the judge would nullify the election and then either declare Rossi the winner outright or open the way for a new election in the fall.

Rossi has not decided whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court, spokeswoman Mary Lane said. Rossi scheduled a news conference for late Monday afternoon.

"We're obviously disappointed in the ruling," his spokeswoman said. She added: "Our attorneys are worried about the precedent this decision would set and also worried about holding people accountable, if this kind of incompetence and errors is allowed to stand."

Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator, was considered a long shot last November against Gregoire, who was Washington's attorney general.

Rossi won the first count by 261 votes, then watched his lead shrink to 42 in a machine recount. In a hand recount completed in late December, Gregoire was pronounced the winner by 129 votes — the smallest margin of victory in percentage terms of any statewide election in the nation's history. Five days before Gregoire's inauguration, Rossi sued to contest the election.

Monday's ruling came after a two-week trial that turned over flaws and quirks in election departments around the state.

The Republicans argued that large numbers of votes were illegally cast by felons or cast in the names of dead people; that there were errors in the counting of ballots; and that there was stuffing of the ballot box and destruction of ballots. They concentrated their attacks on Seattle's heavily Democratic King County, the state's most populous county.

While the Republicans characterized the election problems as "sinister," Democrats described them as innocent mistakes that happen in every county, in every election. They said the GOP lacked the clear and convincing proof needed to justify overturning the election.

In his ruling, the judge said the GOP failed to make the case for any deliberate, widespread fraud. He rejected the GOP's argument that an analytical technique called "proportional deduction" showed that most of the illegal votes cast in the election went to Gregoire. He also held that even using Republicans' proposed analytical technique, Gregoire still won.

The judge found that the Republicans failed to prove that Gregoire received one illegal vote among those improperly cast. In fact, he said, the only "clear and convincing" evidence he saw was the statements of four felons who said they voted for Rossi and one who said he cast a ballot for a Libertarian candidate.
(Full Story)