Black Box Report

Forget about the Global War on Terror. The administration’s War on Science is coming along splendidly. The White House wants to provide a balanced view of the climate change issue, much the way Christopher Columbus' naysayers "balanced" their debate by insisting the earth was flat, so they took it upon themselves to cut out all references to global warming-related health hazards from a Center for Disease Control report. This would be shocking, if it didn’t happen all the time:

The Bush administration has not only repeatedly attempted to suppress global warming facts, but has also muzzled its officials from speaking out. A January report found 435 instances in which the Bush administration interfered into the global warming work of government scientists over the past five years. The administration also attempted to censor the government’s top global warming scientist, James Hansen, who has been outspoken about the dangers of climate change.

But it’s not just a war on science, it’s also a war on logic, as seen by White House Press Secretary Dana Perino’s response to the administration’s evisceration of the CDC report:

As I understand it, in the draft there was broad characterizations about climate change science that didn't align with the IPCC.

And we have experts and scientists across this administration that can take a look at that testimony and say, this is an error, or this doesn't make sense. And so the decision on behalf of CDC was to focus that testimony on public health benefits -- there are public health benefits to climate change, as well, but both benefits and concerns that somebody like a Dr. Gerberding, who is the expert in the field, could address.

"Or at least Dr. Gerberding could address those things - the concerns, mostly - if we let her. But we're not." Quite frankly, I nwouldn't trust an "expert" or "scientist" from this administration to predict thunder after lightning, much less second-guess the CDC. And "public health benefits?" Are you kidding?

“Public health benefits.” Seriously. The White House touched up the director of the CDC’s Senate testimony, coincidentally taking out the information the Bush gang finds politically inconvenient, and the president’s press secretary is left talking about the silver lining of global warming.

Too bad she didn’t get into specifics; I’d love to know what these “public health benefits” might be. Less hypothermia? Fewer instances of frostbite? A steep decline in the number of snowball-fight-related injuries?

And as for the report not jibing with conclusions from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Jonathan Patz, the IPCC’s lead author of its 1995, 2001 and 2007 reports calls that "nonsense," that "Dr. Gerberding's testimony was scientifically accurate and absolutely in line with the findings of the IPCC." But this is what happens when you pound the square peg of propaganda into the round hole of reality:

The truth is simple: Bush and crew don't want us to know how harmful global warming will be to our personal health, not to mention the future of our planet. By each act of "editing" the facts, (they) hope to avoid debate, not engage in it. If the "truth shall set you free," it follows that "what you don't know WILL hurt you."

Infectious diseases, air pollution hazards, food and water scarcity.... Nothing to see here, folks. Talk amongst yourselves about something else.

Nice unseasonably warm October weather we’re having, isn’t it?

Look, just because the Spanish Inquisition and Cambodian Communists did it, is it really torture?

Rudy Giuliani told an audience in Iowa that waterboarding might not be torture. It all depends on how it’s being done and who’s doing it. If the right person does it, why, it’s not torture at all! If you could back slowly and fearfully away from an online article, now would be the time:

At the risk of sounding impolite, these are the words of a crazy person.

Remember, Giuliani is running for president as an expert on counter-terrorism and national security policy. And yet he told this Iowa audience that he doesn’t know whether waterboarding is torture, and doesn’t know if newspapers can be trusted to describe the torture technique. Apparently, reality continues to have a “well-known liberal bias.”

Let me see if I can clear this up....

Waterboarding. Is. Torture. !.

If it wasn’t, ESPN 8 ("the Ocho") would be covering it as the latest fad among thrill seekers. All the kids would be doing it! But they’re not, because it’s torture! But if Rudy's unclear, he could always check with an expert:

A piece of advice to Mr. Giuliani: Next time you have a debate, sidle over to Senator McCain and ask him if waterboarding is torture or not. He'll set you straight.

But Rudy’s not trying to be straight, he’s trying to blur the line between torture and the conveniently vague euphamism, "aggressive questioning."

The line between the two is very delicate, but the Geneva Conventions are very blunt. Those who don’t deem the treaties clear muddy the lines of distinction so they can do indelicate things.

And by “indelicate things”, he means torture! But it’s not just how to fight the war on terror that Rudy’s lost his mind on, but the scope of the war itself. And to that end, Rudy's surrounding himself with the creme de la creme of right wingnuts. Seriously, Bush surrounded himself with a few ethics-free thugs, but most were garden-variety cronies who were as incompetent as they were loyal. Not Rudy, he's going for the "big thinkers":

Norman Podhoretz believes that America needs to go to war soon with Iran. As far as he knows, Rudy Giuliani thinks the same thing. “I was asked to come in and give him a briefing on the war, World War IV,” said Mr. Podhoretz, a founding father of neoconservatism and leading foreign policy adviser to Mr. Giuliani. “As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how he sees the war and how I see it.”

You heard the man. World War IV. Not III, which despite rightwing alarmism we're ostensibly not even fighting now with the GWOT, as we're the only world power involved and WWIII is generally assumed to mean the end of the world, nuclear apocalypse...but IV. With Iran. These are the same views of the Bush / Cheney administration with the volume cranked up to 11:

Rudy Giuliani is the guy you'd get if you put George Bush and Dick Cheney into a wine press and squeezed out their pure combined essence: unbounded arrogance and self-righteousness, a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood, a studied contempt for anybody's opinion but his own, a vindictive streak a mile wide, and a devotion to secrecy and executive power unmatched in presidential history. He is a disaster waiting to happen.

Rudy-BOO!

Happy (early) Halloween!