Entries by Dr. Miguelito Loveless

I have managed to not comment on the entire Edwards blogger controversy because I wanted to see how it was going to play out.

Let start by saying that I am happy that Edward chose to do the right thing and stick by his choices to handle his blog, though he did make a point of saying he was personally offended by the messages that Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan wrote on their blogs.

I submit that if Mr. Edward is offended by this type of thing, he is probably in the wrong business. It is really time that politicians and reporters stopped pretending that politics in a genteel business were everyone uses polite language and abides by the Queensbury rules during campaigns. The rules changed years ago, and civility was tossed out the window by the Right during the Reagan years. There are no longer any rules, and it is high time for the press to stop pretending there are, especially when they only apply them to the Left, while giving a free ride to the Right.

And while we are talking about what is, or isn't offensive, why does John Edwards care that a sanctimonious prick like Bill Donohue is offended? Given Donohue's bigoted and slimy remarks, I would think Edwards would be PROUD of offending him. Donohue is an anti-semite and a defender of sexual predators. He is a vile man who blames molested children for being molested. (Oh, and by the way, I was raised Catholic, was a Catholic for most of my life until I had too many run ins with sick, sick people like Bill Donohue. When he and most of the church leadership were exposed as apologists, enablers, and co-conspirators of child molesters, that was the last straw for me. I left and will NEVER return).

The other person offended by these two blogger's remarks was Michelle Malkin, a women who proudly supports concentration camps and wishes we would start using them again. Is this really the kind of person whose feelings John Edwards should concern himself with?

Still, I am happy that John Edward has overcome his offended sensibilities and has forgiven Marcotte and MacEwen. Perhaps one day, the families of 3,118 dead American soldiers will forgive him for colluding with George Bush to launch an illegal invasion based on lies, that has deprived them of their own flesh and blood. If we are going to talk about offending people and forgiving them, I think a little perspective is called for, don't you?

Still, I can't get over why Edwards cared what these societal parasites and members of the right-wing blogsphere thought. After all, these are people, that if they saw him crossing a road, would stamp on the accelerator and try to run him down. These are people who are NEVER going to vote for him in ANY context.

Isn't the reason that Edwards and his staff hired these two bloggers is because they were EFFECTIVE? And isn't it obvious that the reason the forces of darkness wanted to drive them off is because they WERE EFFECTIVE?

Yet, instead of immediately coming to these people's defense, they were initially fired, then after much back and forth (in which it became very apparent that the liberal blogsphere would blackball his ass), he magnanimously hired them back.

Lord, give me a politician with a fucking spine!

What did these women do that was so offensive? They spoke the truth about some of the most vile individuals on the Right. Then those very same individuals clutched their pearls and got the vapors because these women used "vulgar" language and expressed themselves in a blunt fashion that these self-anointed guardians of civility deemed "uncivil".

As my friend Lex said, "Civility is the last refuge for the bully whose victim has started to fight back."

Civility is fine if everyone is going to play by the rules. But the rules were tossed out years ago. And there is a word for politicians who insist on being civil while their opponent uses every filthy, scummy trick in the book to win; and that word is LOSER.

Civility must NEVER take a back seat to the truth, especially when your opponent is barraging the public with lies. It is up to you to call your opponent a LIAR, because if you don't, no one else will, CERTAINLY not the press.

Civility is DEAD! Either you fight fiercely, or you LOSE. Fighting fiercely does NOT mean using the same tactics as your opponent. But as long as the Left keeps playing the little games where we try to be civil while our opponents are using racism, homophobia, religious extremism, xenophobia and all out thuggery, we are going to LOSE.

Our opponents on the Right are bullies. The only way to confront a bully is to square off and fight back. Now that some of our tribe are doing this, the little bully has run to teacher to whine that we are picking on them. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO APOLOGIZE FOR STANDING UP TO BULLIES!

If you want people who've got your back, and will fight tooth and nail for the truth, and will NEVER back down, we're your guard dogs. If you don't have the spine to stand up to bullies with us, go away, you are wasting our time.

Update: Another thing that concerns me is that both women have "apologized" for their remarks.

Shakespeare's Sister writes:

Shakespeare's Sister is my personal blog, and I certainly don't expect Senator Edwards to agree with everything I've posted. We do, however, share many views - including an unwavering support of religious freedom and a deep respect for diverse beliefs. It has never been my intention to disparage people's individual faith, and I'm sorry if my words were taken in that way.

While Amanda Marcotte writes:

My writings on my personal blog Pandagon on the issue of religion are generally satirical in nature and always intended strictly as a criticism of public policies and politics. My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are central rights, and the sum of my personal writings is a testament to this fact.

Both of these apologies were apparently required for the two women to keep their jobs. And THAT is something I have a problem with.

Let us examine some of these statements, shall we?

My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics.

To make a statement about any political or religious issue in our society is to offend someone. This is unavoidable. To be a political blogger and claim you never intended to offend anyone is disingenuous in the extreme. The reason many of us took this up is that we got tired of the venom and lies being spewed by the likes of Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, O'Reily et al, and we decided to fight back and counter lies with truth. One thing that you learn very early on about the religiously insane, neo-cons, and other barely sane members of the Right, is that the truth OFFENDS them. To speak the truth, is to give offense to these people. It is unavoidable. Why should anyone apologies for speaking the truth?

People seem to believe that their religion and their religious leaders are somehow "off limits" to criticism. This is simply not so. To say that the Pope protects child-molesters, is homophobic, misogynistic and a former member of the Hitler Youth is the absolute truth. If Ratzinger wishes it not to be true, he should stop hating women and gays, defrock Cardinal Bernard Law, and renounce his Nazi past. It is THAT simple.

We do, however, share many views - including an unwavering support of religious freedom and a deep respect for diverse beliefs.

Here, we really need to clarify a point. This statement is a variation of one I hear all the time:

"We must respect other people's opinion."

This is one of the most moronic claims I have ever heard.

No one -- and let me repeat this -- NO ONE has the right to have their opinion respected. And by "opinion" I also mean "belief", "faith", and/or "religious conviction". I, and everybody else have a civil duty to respect your RIGHT to an opinion, or belief, faith, and/or religious conviction, but NOT the opinion, belief, faith, and/or religious conviction itself.

There are people on this planet who think that the U.S. moon landing was "faked" and that we have never set foot on the moon. This is, at best, a completely delusional view point, and at worst, utterly retarded.

People have a RIGHT to hold that view. I MUST respect their right to that view, but there is nothing -- no law, no moral obligation -- that requires me to respect the actual view point.

Want to believe Earth is only 10,000 years old? You have every right to hold that belief. I respect YOUR RIGHT to hold that believe. Your belief, however, is utter nonsense, and anyone who agrees with it is ignorant, deluded, insane, or a moron.

You have every right to be offended by my expression of the above view point. You have the right to THINK you deserve an apology. You have no right TO an apology. I have no obligation to offer you an apology because you were offended. And while I may actually be sorry you were offended, I am not sorry in the fashion you want.

I have a right to express my views on this blog. You have a right to read, or not read them. You have been granted permission to post comments and respond to my posts on this site. I reserve the right to delete said posts if they break my rules (For the record I have, so far, only deleted spam). I don't have to read, nor respond to your remarks, unless I choose to do so.

No one has a RIGHT to not be offended. If you actually read what is written here, and are offended, that is your problem, not mine. If I determine that something I have written is incorrect, or has offended someone I did not intend to offend, I will apologize to that person or group.

These are the realities of public discourse. Civility is only an issue when all parties agree to the rules of civility.

By apologizing under compulsion, I feel both women have lost the moral high ground and agreed to compromise what they do best: Speak the Truth.

This is certainly their right, but I am not required to approve.

Bush set for high-stakes diplomatic trip
Associated Press

Might as well read "Mentally retarded toddler set for solving Grand Unification Theory"

President Bush reaches out to allies this week for help in quelling violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a burst of diplomacy from a Baltic summit of NATO partners to Mideast talks with Iraq's prime minister.

Just back from an eight-day trip to Asia, Bush was leaving on Monday on another overseas trip as pressure builds at home for a change in his administration's Iraq strategy amid deepening tensions and violence in that country.

The president stops first in Estonia en route to a NATO summit in neighboring Latvia where a debate over peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan is expected to dominate.

Estonia and Latvia have sent troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. considers the two former Soviet republics important allies.

My, Bush is really pulling out the BIG guns of NATO, Latvia and Estonia. Are none of our more traditional NATO allies, France, Germany, etc., willing to join us in the tar pit for an exteded swim?

From Latvia, the president heads to Amman, Jordan, for two days of talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Jordan was deemed a less dangerous setting for the meeting than Baghdad.

But, I thought everything in Baghdad was just fine with all those newly painted schools and freedom breaking out all over. At least that is what the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs, and Michele Malkins have been telling me.

Democrats Call for Ouster of U.S. Health Official
Reuters

Several Democratic lawmakers asked the Bush administration on Monday to replace its new family-planning chief because he has worked for a health provider that opposes the use of birth control.

Dr. Eric Keroack's record as an opponent of birth control and abortion makes him a poor choice to oversee a $280 million reproductive-health program, seven House of Representatives Democrats said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

This guy is five-star whacko and should have his medical license pulled.

Any doctor who allows his religious delusions to interfere with his professional actions has no business being a doctor.

Town makes it illegal to fly a foreign flag
CNN

This is where we've arrived in this country: You have the constitutional right to burn an American flag, but you can get into trouble for simply flying a foreign one.

At least you can in the 30,000-person town of Pahrump, Nevada, which is close to Las Vegas and even closer to stepping over the line with an idiotic, intolerant and insulting ban on foreign (read: Mexican) flags. The town council voted last week, 3-2, to approve an ordinance that makes it illegal to display a foreign flag -- unless an American flag is flown above it. Scofflaws face a $50 fine and 30 hours of community service.

Does this include Confederate flags?

Jennings Contests Election Results
DCCC.org

Citing statistical and eyewitness evidence of significant machine malfunctions sufficient to call into doubt the result of the election for Florida Congressional District 13, the Christine Jennings campaign today officially contested the election in Circuit Court. The complaint specifically requests the judge to order a new election “to ensure that the will of the people of the Thirteenth District is respected, and to restore the confidence of the electorate, which has been badly fractured by this machine-induced debacle.”

More than 17,000 undervotes (15%) were recorded on Sarasota County’s electronic voting machines, a rate nearly 6 times higher than the undervote rate in the other District 13 counties or in Sarasota’s paper absentee ballots. Jennings won Sarasota County by a 53% - 47% margin, while losing the district-wide manual recount by 369 votes. As noted in the complaint:

“The failure to include these votes constitutes a rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to place in doubt, and likely change, the outcome of the election.”

Ever once in a while, every thing goes right, and nobody dies.

Dist. 13 voting analysis shows broad problem
Sarasota Herald

A review of Sarasota County voting results shows that in almost every precinct a high percentage of voters didn't cast ballots in the hotly contested 13th Congressional District, a trend that likely affected the outcome of the race.

Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 368 votes, making it the second closest congressional race in the country.

More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.

That means nearly 13 percent of voters did not vote for either candidate -- a massive undercount compared with other counties, including Manatee, which reported a 2 percent undervote.

Touch Screen systems have always shown a much higher undervote total than any other voting system (OpScan ranges from 0.5%-2%). Clearly there was a problem here.

While some have speculated that people simply chose not to vote in the District 13 race, many voters say the unusual undervote was caused by badly designed touch-screen ballots, which they say hid the race or made it hard to verify if they had cast their vote.

BINGO!!

More than 120 Sarasota County voters contacted the Herald-Tribune to report such problems, almost all regarding the Jennings-Buchanan race.

At a press conference Wednesday, Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent said she did not know specifically what caused the undervote.

"I do not know what to attribute it completely to. It's not a mechanical issue; it would be voters overlooking the race. We did not have any equipment failure," Dent said. "I'm not a mind reader. I can only give you conjecture."

Stop copping an attitude, lady, it pisses of the people you work for (the public, in case you forgot and I know you did).

It IS equipment failure, from the standpoint that the voting equipment did not perform properly. It is really infuriating for you to stand there and claim that 18,000 voters just decided not to vote in that race, it just doesn't happen.

Although some blame the undervote on anger at the mudslinging in the race and general dislike of Buchanan by some other Republicans, that seems unlikely given that the undervote was not repeated in other counties and was not heavier in strong Republican precincts. In fact, in precincts that went for newly-elected Gov. Charlie Crist, the number of undervotes was slightly less than in precincts that went for his Democratic challenger.

In addition, absentee voters, who didn't have to use the voting machines, had only an estimated 1.8 percent undervote.

Q.E.D.

A review of precinct-by-precinct voting results in Sarasota County shows that voting problems were widespread and cut across party lines. Virtually every precinct had relatively high undervotes. Among the worst was La Casa Mobile Home Park, a retirement park for seniors where 30 percent of people who showed up at the polls did not have a vote recorded in the Buchanan-Jennings race.

Meanwhile, the estimated undervote in DeSoto County was 1 percent based on the number of people who voted in the governor's race versus the District 13 race. In Hardee County, the undervote was roughly 5 percent.

Both Desoto and Hardee County have OpScan systems. If this was an accusation of terrorism, Sarasota election officials would all be in Guantanamo in the waterboarding suite.

A squeaker in Montana, more substantial in Virginia.

Daily Kos points out that both Burns and Allen are on record in 2000 as opposing recounts. Of course hypocrisy is not out of the question, and is expected. A fight will be expensive and very costly in terms of public opinion. It will ultimately fail.

"It is time, as some have said, for Vice President Gore to stop being a litigant and start being a Patriot.

Conrad Burns

"We'll need to move America forward as soon as those votes are cast."

George Allen

Now the question on my mind. Do the Dems have the spine to punish Bush and his collaborators?

Waiting for link to confirm.

This will be Bush's BIG announcement at 1:30.

Now if we can just prosecute him fot war crimes.

Update: Confirmed.

Bush has appointed Robert Gates as his replacement. Given how quickly Rumsfeld was replaced, it would seem they were planning to dump him for some time, even as Bush was saying he would keep Rummy around until 2008.

Ehrlich Wants Paper Ballots For Nov. Vote
Washington Post

A week after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and revert to a paper ballot system for the November election.

When we told them the system was unreliable in 2003, the cost was just $50 million. Now they have wasted twice the money and still got burned.

I would be suing me some Diebold about now.

Linda H. Lamone, the administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, quickly denounced the plan to swap voting systems just seven weeks before the general election as "crazy." And Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said it "cannot happen. It will not happen."

You know, you really have to wonder why Lamone insists on backing Diebold, you really do. The answer comes down to either insanity or corruption, you decide. (I suppose arrogance could also be a factor, but I don't believe it is physically possible for a human being to contain that much arrogance).

Ehrlich said that, if necessary, he would call a special session of the Maryland General Assembly to change the law to allow paper ballots. But Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) dismissed the idea of a special session, saying elections officials should focus instead on fixing the current system.

"We paid millions. These are state-of-the-art machines," said Miller, who called Ehrlich's announcement a political ploy to energize his Republican supporters.

You paid millions for over-priced, under-powered computers, with buggy software, zero security and running a vintage 1988 processor. Hardly "state of the art".

In Montgomery and Prince George's counties yesterday, election officials continued to count the thousands of paper provisional ballots that could determine the outcome of the 4th Congressional District Democratic primary race between incumbent U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn and challenger Donna Edwards. Prince George's officials cracked opened 26 machines yesterday and retrieved votes that had not been counted.

At the rate they are going, they should be through with the primary sometime just after the November midterm election.

Ehrlich's statement came after a State Board of Public Works hearing at which Lamone said her staff would "work around the clock" to correct the problems that plagued the primary. She vowed that her office would help local election boards retrain judges, recruit new ones and force Diebold Election Systems to fix the problems that caused some of its machines to malfunction.

"Round the clock?" Gee, who is paying for all this overtime? Have we added that to the cost of Lamone's Lemons?

In the spring, Ehrlich advocated leasing optical scan machines that use paper ballots, a proposal that won unanimous support in the House of Delegates but was rejected by the Senate.

Keep this in mind kiddies, when it comes time to assign blame.

Many of the problems that marred this month's primary resulted from human error. Election judges in Baltimore failed to show up, meaning the polls opened late. In Montgomery, voting at nearly all 238 precincts was delayed because officials forgot to distribute plastic cards needed to operate voting machines.

As I have said before, this is all about a poorly designed system, with poor training and faulty equipment. Human error? Yes. The errors occurred with the idiots who bought the junk, the drooling cretins who wrote the software (I'm guessing in Crayon) and the salesmen who sold it to the state.

In Prince George's, election officials struggled to transmit data electronically from polling places to a central office on election night, delaying the counting process for hours. In the days since, they have also discovered that dozens of memory cards were not counted after the election; some remained locked in voting machines for days.

Where they are perfectly safe, unless someone has a hotel mini-bar key, in which case they have complete access.

Also yesterday, Gene Raynor, the Baltimore election director, resigned, saying Lamone and the General Assembly "have set dangerous precedents that, in my opinion, threaten the integrity of November's elections." Raynor previously sat on the State Board of Elections, where he had joined members in trying to oust Lamone two years ago.

Ooo, that can't be good.

There were also technical problems during the primary, mainly with the electronic poll books that were used in the state for the first time. They replaced the paper printouts of the voter registration rolls, allowing election judges to check in voters electronically.

Some crashed and needed to be rebooted, election judges reported. Others failed to transmit the name of a checked-in voter to the other machines in the same polling place. That meant, theoretically, that a voter could cast more than one ballot. Officials said they had no evidence of any voter fraud.

Not that they would see it even if it bit them in the ass.

Lamone said the electronic poll books, purchased from Diebold in June and July, were tested in the days before the election. But those tests did not reveal any problems.

That's because you just ran the tests Diebold told you to, rather than REAL WORLD tests which would have actually revealed these problems.

Mark Radke, a Diebold spokesman, said many of the poll books crashed because software created exclusively for Maryland caused the machines' memories to fill up after about 40 people had checked in to vote.

Please go back an re-read that paragraph. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now imagine you bought a brand new fleet of cars and the first day you drove them, quite a few of them broke down. You call the salesman and ask what gives, and his answer is:

"The engines stopped after you drove 40 miles."

THIS IS AN EXCUSE YOU WOULD ACCEPT?

Also, if the machines failed after 40 people check in because the memory filled up, why did only SOME systems fail? Given that the data needed for a single voter probably come to 1K of RAM (1,024 bytes), and your average laptop has 256MB of RAM (260 million bytes+), this would seem to indicate shoddy programming bordering on the retarded.

But Ehrlich said he wasn't willing to risk the possibility that such glitches would remain for the November election, in which he is seeking a second term.

"I'm not sure we can afford another experiment," Ehrlich said after the Board of Public Works hearing. "I want to play it safe."

His position was supported in the hearing by Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who worked as an elections judge during the primary and has long been critical of the touch-screen voting machines.

Gilles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said his panel has requested that Diebold officials appear at its meeting Tuesday.

"Their feet are going to be held to the fire," Burger said.

Not likely, since it will demonstrate again how stupid you were for buying something we warned you was not going to work three years ago.

Maryland's election law leaves it to the State Elections Board to pick a voting system and certify its reliability and security. Mark Davis, the assistant attorney general who represents the board, said it has already performed required tests on the touch-screen machines.

No Markie, the "required tests" were performed last week and your system failed miserably.

"The board feels it would be catastrophic to try to do that for another system between now and the general election," he said. "It just doesn't make any sense."

Better the catastrophe you know, than the one you don't? Can we engrave that on the tombstone marking your professional career, Markie?

[Posted from blackboxvoting.com]

Lieberman confronts anti-war criticism
Associated Press

Facing intense pressure in his bid for the Democratic primary, Sen. Joe Lieberman strongly distanced himself from President Bush, saying he opposed the White House's domestic agenda and its handling of the Iraq war.

"I am the only Democrat in America to run against George Bush in a national election twice."

And you lost both times.

"You know why I ran for president in 2004? Because I believe that his agenda was wrong for our country and our future. And that's the truth."

So, why did you continue to support him and his policies, going so far as to tell your fellow Democrats that they shouldn't criticize him?

"Don't think for a minute I do not grieve for every casualty of this war," Lieberman said. "In fact, as someone who voted for the war, I feel a heavy responsibility to try to end it as quickly and successfully as possible."

And we feel a heavy responsibility to vote you out of office before you support any more illegal wars.

Army Guard Units Said Not Combat Ready
Associated Press

More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not ready for war.

The budget won't allow the military to complete the personnel training and equipment repairs and replacement that must be done when units return home after deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, they say.

"I am further behind or in an even more dire situation than the active Army, but we both have the same symptoms, I just have a higher fever," Blum said.

One Army official acknowledged Tuesday that while all active Army units serving in the war zone are "100 percent" ready, the situation is not the same for those at home.

"100% ready"? Really? Our combat units have all the armor they need, all the ammo they need, and all the equipment they need?

Why am I skeptical?

Scientist challenges Florida agency's stance on red tide
Associated Press

A scientist is challenging a state report that says there is no clear evidence that toxic red tide is on the rise in the waters off southwest Florida.

"Red tide is more abundant," said Larry Brand, a professor of marine biology at the University of Miami. "You can count on it getting worse."

Brand was part of a panel that spoke Sunday to about 170 people at a Sierra Club red tide community forum on St. Pete Beach.

A recent study by Florida's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute found data collected between 1954 and 2006 was too scattered to show a trend in red tides.

Brand said he was able to filter the results and document an increase in nutrients off Florida shores that has fed a 14-fold increase in red tides since the 1950s.

He said the most likely source of the increase is the state's fast-growing human population, who are dumping increasing amounts of sewage, fertilizer and other nutrients into Florida's waters.

Cynthia Heil, a senior research scientist and harmful algae bloom group leader at the institute, disputes Brand's analysis. Nutrients also come from natural sources and there is no evidence of a single source contributing to increased red tide in Florida, she said.

"We really can't analyze the data," Heil said. "Are we seeing an increase in red tide? We can't really tell from this data set."

"Can't" analyze the data, or "won't"?

Florida was hammered by a record red tide bloom in 2005. Officials said the financial impact of the 2005 red tide, which expanded at one point cover to about 25,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, is impossible to estimate. Estimates ran from $49 million to $240 million in the Tampa Bay area alone.

I though it was "impossible" to estimate?

"I get the impression they're moving forward, but very slowly," said Lenne Nicklaus-Ball, vice president of the Sirata Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach. "When they say we can't prove this and we can't say that, they're not giving us the answers we need. The state of Florida needs to wake up."

Brand said Florida can't afford to wait for a perfect answer.

"When you're dealing with a complex ecosystem, there is no such thing as absolute proof," he said. "If you do something now, it will take years to see the effects."

By then, the main culprits will be out of office and enjoying cushy jobs provided by the industries they protected from regulation.

Rewriting The Science
CBS News

As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn't want you to hear but he's going to say them anyway.

Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But as correspondent Scott Pelley first reported last spring, this imminent scientist says that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.

But he didn't hold back speaking to Pelley, telling 60 Minutes what he knows.

What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.

Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?

"There's no doubt about that, says Hansen. "The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."

Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen has a theory that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.

NASA has been keeping an eye on Hansen. NASA let Pelley sit down with him but only with a NASA representative taping the interview. Other interviews have been denied.

This is just like the old Soviet Union.

Dozens of federal agencies report science but much of it is edited at the White House before it is sent to Congress and the public. It appears climate science is edited with a heavy hand. Drafts of climate reports were co-written by Rick Piltz for the federal Climate Change Science Program. But Piltz says his work was edited by the White House to make global warming seem less threatening.

"The strategy of people with a political agenda to avoid this issue is to say there is so much to study way upstream here that we can’t even being to discuss impacts and response strategies," says Piltz. "There’s too much uncertainty. It's not the climate scientists that are saying that, its lawyers and politicians."

Congressional Hopeful Blames Troubles On The Devil
Associated Press

Republican congressional hopeful John Jacob believes the devil is impeding his efforts to unseat five-term Representative Chris Cannon.

He says there's another force that wants to keep him from going to Washington and the devil is what it is.

Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.

Jacob said during a Wednesday immigration event that the devil was working against him, then reiterated his belief yesterday in a meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board.

He says there's been a lot of adversity, and there's no question he has had experiences that believes are due to an outside force.

Once they start seeing the devil is a killing spree far behind?

I have noticed with considerable amusement that the some Christians™ are VERY concerned about babies born today. Stories abound, (but as ususal, with little hard evidence) about women inducing or suppressing labor in order to avoid demonic offsping.

Far be it from me to encourage delusional behavior, but it seems to me that a child with Satanic aspirations would do better to be conceived today, not born today. Also, I believe you have to have sex with Satan in order to have Satan's child and even though they do it in the dark with the their eyes closed, I would think that a woman would notice that the man mounting her had killer abs and a monstrous penis, unlike the beer-bellied, needle-dick she has be submitting to?

Also, a question for our Right-to-Lifers out there: Is it OK to have an abortion if you are pregnant with Satan's child? Should not that exclusion be written into any anti-abortion law?

More importantly, shouldn't anyone who beleives that a number can harm them or their child be allowed to run free in society? Shouldn't the child be removed from the mother for its own safety?