Lydia Cornell: GOOD NEWS! IRAN IS NO NUCLEAR THREAT

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

GOOD NEWS! IRAN IS NO NUCLEAR THREAT

Dennis4President.com
Here's a photo of Dennis Kucinich and yours truly. Photo by Jane Shirek at http://www.JaneShirek.net

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On Thursday December 6, 2007, Elizabeth Kucinich – wife of Democratic Presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich - was our guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show which airs daily at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and is simulcast on the web. You can hear this and other brilliant interviews in the audio archives on our website at Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives. We have interviewed John Edwards, John Dean, Valerie Plame, Dahr Jamail, Elizabeth Edwards, Mike Gravel; Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Greg Palast, Paul Krugman, Greg Anrig, Mikey Weinstein, Paul Krugman; Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert and Paul Waldman are regular guests. Upcoming: Obama and Hilary. If you missed any of these shows, check out the archives on our website.

This was Elizabeth’s second appearance on the show - however, her first - by herself.

Elizabeth attended the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2001 and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies and Theology and a Master's degree in International Conflict Analysis.

Her thesis for her Master's was on "Conflict Resolution in World Politics".

In 1996 she went to Agra, India to volunteer at one of Mother Teresa's homes for India's poorest children. Upon earning her bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Kent, she spent 16 months in a rural Tanzanian village and worked as an advocate for regional development.

After leaving Tanzania, she volunteered with a British Red Cross refugee unit; earned a certificate in Peace Studies from Coventry University; and got a job as a fund-raiser for a seafarer's charity in London.

Her volunteer work often brought her to the House of Lords. At that time she heard financial analyst Stephen Zarlenga speak about monetary reform. She was impressed and soon was hired to become Zarlenga's assistant at the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute. That work took her and Zarlenga to Dennis Kucinich's office. She married Dennis Kucinich, in 2005 in Congressman Kucinich's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.

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The NIE, our very best national intelligence, has finally released a top secret report that states unequivocally that Iran stopped all nuclear weapons aspirations over three years ago. But Bush, ever the optimist, wants to "keep worrying" that Iran might someday think about having the knowledge to one day think about making a nuclear weapon. What are we, the Thought Police? Bush refuses to accept the truth -- and instead opts to live in fear.

Bush lies and says he only got this NIE report last week. Despite this definitive evidence, which might have been leaked by some higher ups in the military, Bush says: "My opinion hasn't changed."

Now should we really trust a man who has been wrong on every single thing he ever said?

Reuters
U.S. Report Contradicts Bush on Iran
By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Dec. 3) - A new U.S. intelligence report says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it remains on hold, contradicting the Bush administration's earlier assertion that Tehran was intent on developing a bomb.
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Labels: Bush lies, Elizabeth Kucinich, NIE Report

184 Comments:

Bush lied about a middle east country's WMD program,

Say it ain't so,

Because when a president lies like that,

People get hurt.

By clif, at 2:35 PM
EXCELLENT article.......it appears an itelligence report comes out which makes Bush look like a total idiot whose been dead wrong about EVERYTHING, and like a good little Nazi propagandist he lies and tries to twist things to make it APPEAR the report somehow supports his lies and deceptions...........Bush is doing a good job channeling Goebels even without Rove telling him what to say.

By Mike, at 2:40 PM
When a president lies like that they SHOULD be impeached and charged with treason Clif!

By Mike, at 2:41 PM
mike: I don't think Bush is coming up with the crap he is spewing. I think it is from his handlers.

By libhom, at 5:05 PM
Hillary Rodham Clinton accused presidential rival John Edwards of making "outlandish political charges" in portraying her vote against Iran as a pretext for war as the Democratic contenders confronted each other in a debate in Iowa just one month before the state's leadoff caucuses.

Clinton came under criticism from her rivals, who highlighted her September vote in Tuesday's debate, which came the day after release of a new intelligence report that says Iran stopped development of a nuclear weapon four years ago.

Edwards said Clinton gave President Bush just what he wanted when she voted to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Clinton said her vote was meant to encourage diplomacy.

"Declaring a military group sponsored by the state of Iran a terrorist organization, that's supposed to be diplomacy?" Edwards interjected. "This has to be considered in the context that Senator Clinton has said she agrees with George Bush terminology that we're in a global war on terror, then she voted to declare a military group in Iran a terrorist organization. What possible conclusion can you reach other than we are at war?"

Clinton objected. "You know I understand politics and I understand making outlandish political charges, but this really goes way too far," said the New York senator, who is locked in a tight three-way race with Edwards and Barack Obama in this first-voting state.

"None of us is advocating a rush to war," said Clinton, the only Democratic candidate to vote for the resolution.

Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, responded by telling Clinton that "terminology matters."

"It's not about not advocating a rush to war," he said. "I'm advocating no war."

The seven candidates participating in the debate broadcast on National Public Radio stood together in criticizing Bush's assertion that "nothing's changed" despite the new intelligence report. They began their debate at the Iowa State Historical Museum by agreeing that the United States should shift its focus in dealing with Iran to diplomatic engagement.

"President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology," said Illinois Sen. Obama. "They should have stopped the saber rattling, should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front."

Hillary was busted again for pursuing another war for Bush.

By Larry, at 6:56 PM
Mitt Romney, who has taken a tough stance against illegal immigrants in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, has continued to employ a company that uses illegal immigrants to do lawn work at his home.

Responding to inquiries from the Globe, which had observed the work taking place at his house and interviewed the workers, Romney tonight fired the company for failing to comply with the law.

Why wasn't Romney arrested for aiding and abetting Illegal Aliens, as the law requires?

By Larry, at 6:58 PM
Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics in the beltway in their "Yeas & Nays" column. Want to comment? Got a juicy tip? Send an email to dish the dirt, chew the fat and wag the tongue.

Rudy: I'm more than 9/11!
December 4, 1:40 PM

Although former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani frequently gets ribbed by his opponents as nothing more than the guy who happened to be the mayor of New York City when 9/11 struck, he rejected that idea in an interview slated to air on C-SPAN tonight.

Giuliani told C-SPAN's Steve Scully that Sept. 11 and his leadership in response to that crisis "fits" into the arc of his career, but added, "It wouldn't quite be fair to say September 11, like, made my career. I've had a very varied career and I've done a lot of things."

Guiliani gleefully profiting on the death of thousands of Americans.

By Larry, at 7:01 PM
The New Yorker's Sy Hersh tells CNN that for at least a year the administration has had intel saying Iran isn't working on a nuclear bomb and tried to keep it out of the NIE.

Another Bush coverup.

By Larry, at 7:06 PM
By Alec Baldwin:

The entertainment business, movies, TV, music, is divided between buyers and sellers. The sellers are actors, musicians, directors writers and their agents. The buyers are the studios, the networks, the labels. Over the last fifteen years or more, the balance of power has shifted dramatically from the sellers to the buyers. Once, powerful agencies made astronomical deals on behalf of their biggest clients. The rising tide that resulted lifted all boats. Major stars were paid large fees and their supporting castmates made enviable salaries, as well. In the 1990s, that began to change. Today, the biggest stars are still paid huge salaries, but other salaries have dropped significantly. Roles are cast at a fixed price and the producers find the actor who will work at that budgeted amount.

More changes followed. The quote system died. Actors who never read a script without an offer were being told that producers did not want performers passing on their material and, thus, effecting the industry word on the project. Reading without an offer is the way of the world for many now.

Some of the most prominent names in film and television switched sides. The end of the sellers' market meant big name agents became producers, even executives, as the party was ending for many of their clients. Today, most agencies, one could argue, work for the buyers. Agents realize that their ten percent of their clients' income comes from the studios and networks as a cushion shot. It is banked off of their clients, but it comes from the buyers. When I started in this business, agents went to war with the buyers on behalf of their clients over casting and money. Agents still fight for their clients to get a role, but the money discussion is brief. The buyers essentially fax over the deal and the artist says yea or nay.

The strike may go on for a variety of reasons. On one hand, the writers are cursed because they are right on most issues but they are awful negotiators. They got screwed in 1988 and expect the buyers to make up for that, like some kind of reparations. That will never happen. The time for making that situation right was 1988. The studios have a different problem. They are owned by huge, creativity-deadening corporations and operated by lawyers and marketing executives who lord over the worst creative decline I have witnessed in a long time, particularly in films. In television, companies like GE view properties like NBC the way realtors view square footage. GE does not care what is on NBC. So long as the programming is relatively inoffensive, they want to earn as much per square foot as they can. In the current strike, the writers expect the buyers to have a soul. The buyers, who cannot count a real filmmaker or television programmer among them, view a soul as an impediment to business.

The strike should end now. The writers should go back to work. Continue negotiating, but go back to work. The report in yesterday's New York Times about NBC buying blocks of programming from "outside producers" is a view to our future. Just as MOWs were killed off the networks and original movies became the exclusive realm of the cable broadcasters, one can envision a future where more scripted programming moves to cable. Eventually, HBO and Showtime, et al, may become the place to find the bulk of scripted shows. With these people calling the shots, anything is possible.

In the meantime, the writers, and the other sellers as well, have a different idea they can try. I recall when a popular late night talk show host skewered the head of his own network for a prolonged run, right there on his show. On and on it went and, from what I heard, that network head was apoplectic. These people have bigger egos than even the stars themselves, but without any sense of humor. I want the WGA to set up a website and on that website we can all post stories about every no-talent, idiotic, amoral producer and executive we have ever dealt with. Just like they do to us on shows like Extra and sites like TMZ (owned by Warner Brothers.) Set up a website and tell the entire world, via the internet, your own anecdote about some of the witless boobs you have endured in Hollywood and beyond. The strike will end in a week.

By Larry, at 7:14 PM
Last night's "Colbert Report Live" packed in staffers, friends, and family, as well as a few lucky ticket holders to the small Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, site of the previously staged "30 Rock Live" and "SNL Live." UCBT co-founder Amy Poehler and her SNL "Weekend Update" co-anchor Seth Meyers stood in the back, cheering along the writers at every punchline. At the other end of the room stood "30 Rock" star Jack McBrayer. Other than these UCB regulars, there weren't any recognizable faces. The closest I got to a celebrity sighting was a fat guy wearing a beanie who looked like Artie Lange.

Televised episodes of "The Colbert Report" only feature glimpses of the writing staff: "Bobby" the stage manager, played by Eric Drysdale, appears every now and then, and if you're quick you can spot writers like Peter Gwinn and Laura Krafft, who sometimes appear as plants in the audience or pre-taped "On the Road" segments. But while Stephen Colbert still sat center stage at Monday night's show, the attention was definitely on the writers.

Home crowd favorite Peter Gwinn, a UCB instructor and longtime improv stalwart, opened the show, giving thanks to the staff and crew and announcing that the funds collected from the $20 ticket sales would go to the now out-of-work crew. He also thanked everyone who helped "bring things from the offices we can't get into" (these guys aren't about to cross picket lines for a few measly props!). Gwinn introduced Stephen Colbert, who barreled out from backstage with arms in the air and a huge grin on his face, reciprocating the huge amount of applause from the audience by high five-ing everyone in the front row, in typical Colbert fashion. He said a few words about the strike, admitting that he's been doing the show for his dryer machine for the past two weeks. And because he's been able to spend so much time at home with the family, one afternoon his 6-year-old daughter told him "I love the strike," to which his 9-year-old added, "Isn't it great?"

Colbert opened up the floor for questions, in hopes that this would "humanize" him. The first question, which couldn't have been more appropriate for the venue, was about lessons Colbert learned from Del Close, the improv guru who trained John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and the Upright Citizens Brigade. The next question was prefaced with "I come to this theater a lot," to which Amy Poehler perked up and put her hand to her ear. The question was about whether Stephen would return to the UCB. Stephen said that if this kind of situation (strike) happened again, he certainly would return.

The official "Colbert Report" show within last night's show began with "Bobby" counting down to airtime. The lights went down on the stage, which was adorned with red, white, and blue stars and party streamers (no photos were permitted, as per usual, alas), and the audience cheered as the show's intro music played. Colbert did his usual intro: quick jokes summing up the main topics of the show, but with one small difference. Instead of flashy graphics with witty headlines popping up at the bottom of the screen, writers stood over Stephen's shoulder holding poster board with the headlines written on in magic marker. As soon as Stephen uttered "This is the Colbert Report!", writers filed through the stage door, running across stage with signs containing words from the show's intro. The last writer, head writer Allison Silverman, held a sign that said "Strikely." This "back to the basics" style of presenting text was the format for "The Word" segment as well, except two more writers came out to hold up identical signs for the left and right wings of the audience. The subject was the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general. Colbert examined the effect that the confirmation could have on Bush, looking at how past shake-ups (like Katrina) have changed him (Poster board: "Will show sympathy for beads"). The audience was rewarded with a bonus "Word" segment, this one about Dennis Kucinich and his U.F.O. sighting. Title: "U.F.O. No You Didn't!" The audience gave gracious approval for both "Word" features, especially after hearing from Colbert how hard they are to produce. "You have to write two jokes running parallel with each other... It sucks the fucking calcium out of your bones!"

Commercial breaks were provided by Peter Gwinn and Peter Grosz, who improvised a Sonic commercial. The crowd went nuts seeing Grosz, an actual Sonic commercial star, poking fun at himself. During the second commercial break Stephen asked "Bobby" what he's been up to since the strike began. "Bobby" said he's been building a shelf.

The show featured the popular "Threat Down" segment, for which Stephen provided the laser-like sound effects himself (byou! byou! byou! byou!). We were even treated to the flashy "Threat Down" graphics from the show that played on the overhead screen behind Stephen. The number two threat, eccentric billionaires, gave Stephen another excuse to play the clip of Richard Branson throwing water on him. The number one threat was, you guessed it, BEARS! The threat was centered on this article from FoxNews.com about officials in Alaska dyeing problem bears certain colors to mark them as dangerous. According to Stephen, bears already have a color coding scheme to alert people about their dangers. "If the bears are black, brown, or white, you've already got a problem." "If you want to make kids scared of bears," he added, "paint them to look like things kids hate, like peas, piano lessons, or Tucker Carlson."

Instead of the usual guest interview segment, Colbert brought out the authors of I Am America (And So Can You!), who also happen to be the show's writers, to read the sections of the book that they are responsible for writing. Peter Gwinn read about Stephen's first memory, Eric Drysdale discussed what it takes to have foreign balls, Laura Krafft read about higher education, and Rob Dubbin read from "When Animals Attack Our Morals." The segment concluded with a comparison of Colbert's book, which held the top spot of the New York Times Bestseller list for six weeks, to the new top seller, Glenn Beck's An Inconvenient Book. Somewhere between there and the end of the show there was a Van Halen concert on the moon and a love song for Karl Rove, sung by Stephen, ending with "I love you and your big baby head." The song was penned after Rove's resignation, and was performed as a "come back to me" type song. It was a fitting ending for a show that everyone misses.

Stephen Colbert supports the writers who are on strike.

By Larry, at 7:17 PM
Evangelist Benny Hinn, raises his hands in prayerAmong the many conservative Christians who feel misunderstood by the general public, the six televangelists under investigation by a Senate committee are an embarrassment.

“We’re not representing any of the parties involved, but when I see a senator charging into organizations, wielding this kind of budget ax and laying bare religious figures and expenditures, huge constitutional questions are being raised,” said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty legal group founded by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and other influential evangelicals.
[…]

ll the ministries preach a form of Word of Faith theology, known as prosperity gospel, which effectively teaches that God wants believers to be rich. The ministries have said separately that they are committed to following the tax laws, but it is not known whether they will all comply with Grassley’s request by the deadline.

But Grassley irked some religious leaders when he quipped about the lifestyles of the preachers under investigation, saying Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a Rolls Royce.

Why not include Dobson and Robertson in this investigation?

By Larry, at 7:29 PM
Hey larry that article by Alec Baldwin is perfect.

Les Moonves was quoted as saying something like this a few years ago.... (paraphrase) "CBS had a rep of being a network that skewed toward older viewers with shows like "Murder She Wrote" and Diagnosis Murder. Both stars -- Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke --
CBS wants to be the young network. We don't want to hire anyone over 30. Thirty is too old for CBS. We like 18 year olds.

This was about the time he left his long-time wife for the younger exotic Julie Chen.

By Lydia Cornell, at 8:31 PM
By the way, the pic in this posting definitely belongs on bushorchimp.com

By libhom, at 8:36 PM
Lydia here is a quote from Les Moonves from earlier today:

"I think our product's as good as anyone's," Moonves said. "I am concerned that the average person who watches evening news is 61 years old. We tried to get that a bit younger. People flipped over to [ABC's] Charlie Gibson, but those are mostly 60-plus[-year-old] men. That's not a demographic we want."

But Moonves was quickly called out on his sour-grapes answer. "I wanted to provide some consumer research I thought you might find useful," began the next questioner. "I'm 61, and I just bought a new car."

By Larry, at 8:38 PM
Hey Libhom that photo does look appealing to the chimp population of the U.S.

By Larry, at 8:39 PM
As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.

While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee's intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond's behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.

"There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said Sunday on CNN when asked to reflect on the horrific outcome caused by the prisoner's release. "None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out."

But the confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.

In a letter that has never before been made public, one of Dumond's victims warned: "I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time." Before Dumond was granted parole at Huckabee's urging, records show that Huckabee's office received a copy of this letter from Arkansas' parole board.

[See the full letters sent to Huckabee's office here.]

The woman later wrote directly to Huckabee about having been raped by Dumond. In a letter obtained by the Huffington Post, she said that Dumond had raped her while holding a butcher knife to her throat, and while her then-3-year-old daughter lay in bed next to her. Also included in the files sent to Huckabee's office was a police report in which Dumond confessed to the rape. Dumond was not charged in that particular case because he later refused to sign the confession and because the woman was afraid to press charges.

Huckabee kept these and other documents secret because they were politically damaging, according to a former aide who worked for him in Arkansas. The aide has made the records available to the Huffington Post, deeply troubled by Huckabee's repeated claims that he had no reason to believe Dumond would commit other violent crimes upon his release from prison. The aide also believes that Huckabee, for political reasons, has deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of Dumond's other sexual assaults.

Another Republican moralist at work.

By Larry, at 3:54 AM
Lydia,

You're very beautiful!

By Christopher, at 3:57 AM
DETROIT - Dow Chemical Co. announced Tuesday it is cutting 1,000 jobs, or about 2.3 percent of its work force, as part of a plan to rid itself of underperforming businesses and boost its global efficiency.

The Midland-based company, one of the nation’s biggest chemical makers, said it will exit the automotive sealers business within the next nine to 18 months in North America, Asia and Latin America. It will look at options in its European operations.

Other cutbacks include idling a styrene plant in Camacari, Brazil, on Jan. 1 and closing a cellulose manufacturing facility in Aratu, Brazil, in the first quarter of next year.

Another ressult of the Bush economy.

By Larry, at 4:27 AM
Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday was incredulous over President Bush’s statement that he learned only last week that a recent intelligence estimate says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. “If that’s true … he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.” Biden said.

So True! So True!

By Larry, at 4:30 AM
(Reuters) - A Taliban suicide bomber slammed his car into a bus filled with Afghan soldiers in Kabul on Wednesday, killing 13 people, the second such attack in as many days around a visit by the U.S. Defense Secretary.

Six soldiers and seven civilians were killed during the morning rush hour attack in Kabul's southern outskirts. Seventeen people, including seven army officers, were wounded, the defense ministry said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear if the civilians were traveling in the bus or caught on the road by the blast, which also caused gas containers in a nearby shop to explode, witnesses said.

Four of the civilian dead were children, a health ministry official said.

Didn't Bush claim he had won this war?

By Larry, at 4:38 AM
LOU DOBBS TO LAUNCH NATIONAL RADIO TALK SHOW IN PARTNERSHIP WITH UNITED STATIONS RADIO NETWORKS, INC.

Prominent CNN Anchor and Best-Selling Author to Hit the Afternoon Airwaves

Each Weekday Beginning March, 2008

The Lou Dobbs Show Will Occupy Gap Between Conservative and Liberal Talk Radio

New York, NY – December 4, 2007 – Award-winning broadcast journalist and author Lou Dobbs announced today that he will be bringing his influential and popular point of view to a coast-to-coast radio audience with a new daily Talk Show. The show, tentatively titled The Lou Dobbs Show , will be produced, distributed to affiliates and sold to advertisers by United Stations Radio Networks, Inc. (“USRN”), a privately-held radio programming company based in New York. Dobbs, who is best known as the anchor of the nightly Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, has become an ideological flashpoint himself in recent years and is certain to bring his insightful journalism along with his provocative views to this new daily program. Lou Dobbs and United Stations Chairman/CEO Nicholas J. Verbitsky made this announcement today in New York City.

“Lou Dobbs brings a true independent voice to Talk Radio, occupying the vital middle ground between the conservative and liberal voices that dominate much of the segment today, particularly as we move toward a critical election for our country,” said Verbitsky. “At the same time, this announcement demonstrates the growing importance of the Talk Radio segment to the industry today, both on AM and increasingly on FM. We look forward to stirring up the competitive mix in Talk Radio.”

Commenting on the announcement, Dobbs remarked, “The political climate is rapidly changing. Independents are registering at an unprecedented rate and will determine the outcome of the 2008 election. I’m excited to be adding my voice to the talk show arena and have an opportunity, along with my listeners, to help enrich our national dialogue.”

United Stations, an independent leader in network radio programming, will collaborate with Lou Dobbs to create the daily content for this new Talk Radio series. The program is slated to begin daily broadcasts on March 3, 2008 and will be fed to affiliates live-via-satellite each weekday (Monday through Friday) from 3 – 6 pm Eastern Time. The format of the program is still in development, but both newsmaker guests and caller interaction are expected to be important components of the program along with stories brought to the forefront by Dobbs.

A new interactive website for the show is currently under construction at www.loudobbsradio.com .

For over twenty-five years, Lou Dobbs has been an innovator in the field of news programming and reporting. During his long tenure at CNN, Dobbs has earned a reputation as one of the most trusted voices in financial reporting. His broad range of expertise encompasses the most pressing developments in domestic and international business news, government policy, Wall Street, corporate crime and technology. Dobbs has won nearly every major award for television journalism, including the prestigious Peabody Award, a Horatio Alger Association Award, and two Emmys, including one for Lifetime Achievement. He’s currently the anchor and managing editor of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight and the author of three recent best-sellers, Exporting America, War on the Middle Class and the brand new Independents Day.

United Stations has a seven-year history working with Dobbs as the co-creators and distributors of his daily short-form features known as The Lou Dobbs Financial Report. The financial news pieces are one-minute headline capsules provided by Dobbs to affiliates three times each weekday, in the morning, the midday and at the close of the US markets.

But it’s the expansion by Lou Dobbs into the daily long-form landscape of Talk Radio that takes center stage as of today’s announcement. Talk Radio (counting the News, News/Talk and Sports formats) is currently the format of choice on roughly 2000 commercial frequencies. That makes it a close number two (behind Country Music) as the format occupying the greatest number of commercial dial positions in the US. Most headline-driven Talk Radio leans either to the conservative side of the political spectrum or the liberal. With The Lou Dobbs Show, Dobbs plans to take the same stance he has in his recent books, and that is the role of the independent pluralist, a stance from which he examines issues and promotes points of view that are in the common good of all Americans.

On the network side, USRN CEO Nick Verbitsky added that "United Stations is incredibly proud to be the radio partner for the new Lou Dobbs Show. Lou is a broadcaster of integrity and quality and plenty of charisma. Lou is also currently voicing exactly what most Americans are feeling, and when you combine that with his ability to entertain and engage listeners, in our medium, that’s a bulls-eye."

United Stations Radio Networks, Inc., is the nation’s largest independently owned and operated radio network. The company currently distributes and produces dozens of format specific programs and services to over 4000 rated radio stations across the country. Formats served by USRN include Adult Contemporary, Album Rock, Contemporary Hit, Country, Oldies, Smooth Jazz, Urban, All News and News/Talk.

By Larry, at 5:32 AM
Lydia Cornell said...
Hey larry that article by Alec Baldwin is perfect.

Les Moonves was quoted as saying something like this a few years ago.... (paraphrase) "CBS had a rep of being a network that skewed toward older viewers with shows like "Murder She Wrote" and Diagnosis Murder. Both stars -- Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke --
CBS wants to be the young network. We don't want to hire anyone over 30. Thirty is too old for CBS. We like 18 year olds.

This was about the time he left his long-time wife for the younger exotic Julie Chen."

Like I said before the talent has to all stick together and buy content and distribution/delivery pipelines so THEY can threaten to cut out the greedy CEO's just like the Greedy CEO's are threatening to cut them out............it doesnt have to happen over night but the actors and writers should start to buy up production companies, cable and sattelite companies so they have an alternative and no longer need the greedy media conglomerates........without the creative talent they are just greedy corporate stooges who are a dime a dozen.

Think how worried the Media moguls would be if all the talent refused to work for them because they had an alternative............it would serve to keep the other companies in line.

By Mike, at 9:25 AM
Speaking of the media becoming TOO powerful check out this article: The Media consolidation NEEDS to end......these Conglomerates NEED to be broken up to insure diversity of opinion and Kevin Martin NEEDS to be fired as soon as the Democrats take back the White House..........we need someone who reprtesents the best interests of the people not the a corporate stooge who represtents the interests of the wealthy elites.

There is a massive bipartisan ground swell of public opposition building against the attempt of the FCC chairman on accelerated notice to sneak through the most devastating decimation of media diversity ever. Multiple groups are mobilizing around this, including more than 10,000 submissions to the FCC and your members of Congress from our first alert on this last week.

Stop The FCC Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/stop_media_consolidation.php

Facebook Action Page: http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum738

Though deliberately been rushed through to try to evade critical analysis, it is now clear that the proposed rule changes would affect every city and hamlet in every market, not just the 20 biggest as deceptively advertised. It's nothing but a giant cave in to the media moguls who have already degraded the public discourse with systematic propaganda masquerading as news.

But the good news is that members of both sides of the aisle in Congress are acting to stop this last minute bum rush, by bringing forward the Media Ownership Act of 2007, to tell the FCC in no uncertain terms, "Whoa horsey!" Please submit the action page above so we can turn the tide on this eminently winnable struggle, just as we did in 2003, turning back virtually the same attack by then FCC chairman Powell.

We need to really pour it on. We need every voice we can muster to tell our members of Congress we stand behind them as one on this, and to tell the FCC that we the people unanimously oppose our media being sold out to those who have sold the public interest so short.

We only have until December 11, to make our voices heard. Please bring the weight of your personal comments to bear at this pivotal time for the future of our public media. You can submit either of the action pages above, the second being the new Facebook alternate option.

OpedNews Brings Their Numbers To Join The Fight

Coming through in a major way in this mobilization is the entire contributing writer staff at OpedNews, who have submitted seven pieces on this policy crisis in the last couple days alone. The articles below contain much insightful analysis and information, for example the fact that FCC Chairman Martin has been nothing but a Bush political hatchet man since day one, including a stint as a Bush campaign attorney.

Please read and promote these articles of truth as well, on any networks you participate in like Digg, Reddit and so on, to get the word out that it's time for the people to be heard again.

Censored: Media Consolidation Debate
by Steve Fournier
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steve_fo_071127_censored_3a_media_cons.htm

Cross Ownership Proposal
by Kenneth Briggs
http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_kenneth__071127_cross_ownership_prop.htm

Confronting the FCC Monolith
by Kevin Gosztola
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kevin_go_071127_confronting_the_fcc_.htm

The Bush Push To Take Control Of Our Media and What You Can Do About It
by Cliff Carson
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_cliff_ca_071127_the_bush_push_to_tak.htm

Stopping the FCC from Consolidating Media Ownership
by Mike Kuykendall
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_kuy_071127_stopping_the_fcc_fro.htm

When Fox News Brags.....and the FCC
by Michael Shaw
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071126_when_fox_news_brags_.htm

Media for the Masses, not amassed media monopolization
by Richard Mathis
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__071127_media_for_the_masses.htm

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

By Mike, at 9:30 AM
BTW.............Now THESE are great pictures!

By Mike, at 9:31 AM
Yea those are great pictures.

The one with Kucinich is a keeper.

By BARTLEBEE, at 11:37 AM
Mike and Bart - what pics are you talking about? You mean on the blog thread?

I have one with Elizabeth Kucinich (who will be on our show tomorrow.

She is amazing, she has some wonderful solutions for sustainable agriculture...

Thanks for tuning in.

By Lydia Cornell, at 12:29 PM
Yeah the one with you and Dennis Kucinich and the one of Bush..............those are awesome!

By Mike, at 1:24 PM
Yea, the ones on the blog thread.

You look good in the Kucinch photo.

By BARTLEBEE, at 1:29 PM
I hope you're keeping a photo album of these. You're meeting and interviewing the who's who of the current poltical arean.

By BARTLEBEE, at 1:31 PM
We are trying to get Obama. For some reason his rep in Vegas doesn't think he needs to do press. I guess since he's got Oprah and he's done Ed Schultz show, they don't think local cities such as Las Vegas are that important.

I think she's wrong. But we won't give up on getting an interview with Obama.

John Edwards and his wife are good friends of our show and we'll be having them on again soon.

Again, ELIZABETH KUCINICH tomorrow.

By Lydia Cornell, at 2:27 PM
You know, this should be good news but it is not. it will not deter the chief idiot but will only make him dig deeper to instigate this war. He got caught lying what's new. He will deny it say he is doing a great job, and continue his underhanded plan. He will not relent.
Israel says they don't care about the NIE from another part of the world. They are convinced Iran has a nuclear weapons program. they will not relent.
Since the NIE finding Iran now says the US must be punished for thei damaging lies. They will not relent. one of these countries will get this going. They do not want peace. that is a fact and the simple truth.

By an average patriot, at 3:51 PM
Dennis Kucinich is MY candidate regardless who the Democraps put up.

By Dusty, at 5:02 PM
Finally someone tells the truth, the reichwing trolls were just foisting the neo-con crap for the white house;

A Rare Moment of Candor

Dan Bartlett, on the White House's use of right wing blogs:

I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

--David Kurtz

It's not like we didn't know already, after all far too many times reichwingers went into the white house with out kneepads, so they weren't there for the same thing Jeff Gannon was over 200 times.

They were there just to spread reichwing neo-con crap all over this country. (any toe tapping in or near the oval office and executive office building was just incidential.)

By clif, at 5:47 PM
Here is one of the reasons I don't think it will be easy for Cheney and Bush to attack Iran;

Commander's Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup

Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.

The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.

Admiral Fallon's resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.

Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, "As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job."

Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to "send a message to Tehran".

But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.

Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was "likely".

That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.

The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment programme.

At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran's leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.

"He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it," says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon's message from a Pentagon official who had read it.

Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Fallon's opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon's predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post's Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending "pointed messages" to Iran.

CENTCOM commander Fallon's refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, "There is no plan to overlap them at all."

The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.

Within two weeks, the administration's stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran's suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as "extortion". But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorisation for high level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.

The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it "had leverage" on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.

Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.

Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.

The commander of CENTCOM thinks Cheney and the neo-cons are as he put it;

"the crazies"

That is priceless.

By clif, at 5:58 PM
We can't trust some international wussie organization. Iran is a grave threat and we need to invade.

It'll be a cakewalk, and throngs of grateful Iranians will shower our soldiers with ice cream and flowers.

Who Hijacked Our Country

By Tom Harper, at 6:42 PM
Directly contradicting Mike Huckabee's claims, his former senior aide tells the Huffington Post that, as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee indeed told the state's parole board that he supported the release of a convicted rapist.

The senior aide, Olan W. "Butch" Reeves, personally attended a controversial parole board meeting with Huckabee in Oct. 1996.

"The clear impression that I came away with from the meeting was that he favored Dumond's release," Reeves said, referring to convicted rapist Wayne Dumond.

Moralist Huckabee is another Republican liar.

By Larry, at 7:21 PM
Vice President Cheney today predicted Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office, calling the current U.S. surge strategy “a remarkable success story” that will be studied for years to come.

Can't Cheney realize people are sick of this same old lie?

By Larry, at 7:25 PM
The ONLY way Iraq can become a self governing democracy is if A$$HOLES like Cheney and the other neo-cons who illegally invaded and occupied Iraq are willing to bring the US forces home and allow Iraqi people to rule their own country.

By clif, at 7:28 PM
Chrysler LLC Chief Executive Robert Nardelli told a group of employees this week that the company is headed for a $1.6 billion (€1.09 billion) loss this year, according to a person familiar with his statements.

Nardelli told a group of engineers and designers that revenue will be less than $63 billion (€42.8 billion) but costs will exceed $64 billion (€43.48 billion), said the person, who requested anonymity because Chrysler is a private company and no longer has to report its earnings. Nardelli, the former CEO of The Home Depot Inc., was hired in August by Chrysler's new private equity owner, Cerberus Capital Management LP.

If his prediction is correct, it would be the company's second straight year of losses. Chrysler lost $618 million in 2006, but made $1.8 billion in 2005.

More fallout of the Bush economy.

By Larry, at 7:30 PM
By MAUREEN DOWD

At the White House news conference yesterday, The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Silva gingerly snuck up on a state-of-mind question.

“I can’t help but read your body language this morning, Mr. President,” he said. “You seem somehow dispirited, somewhat dispirited.”

W. did look like a kid who’d just had his toys taken away. But he acted humorously exasperated, as he always does when the talk turns introspective.

“This is like, all of a sudden, it’s like Psychology 101, you know?” he said, as reporters laughed.

The reporters pressed on about whether the president was troubled about a possible “credibility gap” with the American people, given that the facts had failed him on Iraq and Iran and that Harry Reid had charged that “the president is not leveling with the American people” on war spending.

Even though Norman Podhoretz is conjuring up a “Seven Days in December” spy thriller scenario in which the intelligence agencies colluded to sabotage the president and prevent him from the noble mission of air strikes on Iran, W. insisted he felt “pretty good about life.”

He said that the breathtaking and embarrassing reversal in the National Intelligence Estimate about Iran’s nuclear capability — from “high confidence” in 2005 that the mullahs were developing a nuke to “high confidence” that they stopped the program in 2003 — somehow made it clear that he was right.

If W. can shape the intelligence to match his faith-based beliefs, as with Iraq, then he will believe the intelligence — no matter how incredible it is.

If he can’t shape it to match his beliefs, as with Iran, then he will disregard the intelligence — no matter how credible it is.

Even though Sy Hersh claims that the top echelon of the White House has long known of the conclusion that Iran had stopped its nuke program, and that Dick Cheney “has kept his foot on the neck of that report,” the president says he was briefed on it only last week. Others conspiratorially speculate that the president had to have green-lighted the report to take the air out of the hawks’ Iran push.

Just because the facts on which he based his white-hot rhetoric about Iran possibly sparking World War III have been debunked, W. said with his usual twisted logic, why should his policy change?

Indeed, John Bolton, who must have been paying attention in his Psych 101 class, argued to Wolf Blitzer that the intelligence analysts “got Iraq wrong and they’re overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran.”

George Tenet helped hawks like Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bolton overstate the case on Iraq W.M.D. Then, when things went wrong, W., Cheney and Condi made Mr. Tenet the fall guy.

After getting Iraq wrong and Iran wrong in 2005 and almost every other big thing wrong since the nation began spending billions every year on intelligence, the burned spooks may not have wanted to play the patsy again while W., Cheney and the neocons beat the drums for an Iran invasion.

Now the apple-polishing George Tenet is gone. The man who oversaw the new estimate is Tom Fingar, a former State Department intelligence officer who was smart and brave enough to object to the cooked-up intelligence on Iraqi W.M.D.

“The way they used to do business was to write estimates in a way that couched things so they said, ‘We may not always be right, but we’re never wrong,’ ” said Tim Weiner, the reporter for The Times who wrote the award-winning history of the C.I.A., “Legacy of Ashes.” “This is a slam-dunk reversal, admitting error. Now, when they play poker, they show their hands to each other, so they don’t get another Curveball.”

The president, who has shut out reality for seven years, justified continuing in his world of ideological illusion by saying that he would not be “blinded” to the realities of the world. You can’t get more Orwellian than that.

“And so,” W. concluded triumphantly, and nonsensically, “kind of Psychology 101 ain’t working.”

W. loves to act as though psychology is voodoo even though his whole misbegotten foreign policy has been conducted from his gut, by checking the body language of his inner circle and looking into the hearts and souls of dictatorial leaders.

If I were looking at the latest fiasco from a Psych 101 point of view, I’d say it was another daddy issue for W.

Poppy Bush, who was once C.I.A. director, loved the agency and liked to sign notes: “Head Spook.” The C.I.A. headquarters bear his name.

W., by contrast, has voiced contempt for the intelligence community. In 2004, he dismissed a pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate that didn’t match his sunny vision of the Iraq occupation, saying that the analysts were “just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.”

When W.’s history is written, he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father’s three most cherished spots — diplomacy, intelligence and the Gulf.

By Larry, at 7:33 PM
Christopher, thank you. YOU are very handsome!!

By Lydia Cornell, at 7:43 PM
A series of bombings in several major cities rocked Iraq today. Overall, at least 31 Iraqis were killed and 70 were wounded in the latest attacks. Most of the victims were civilians. Also, three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate incidents.

Are you happy tonight Bush?

By Larry, at 8:10 PM
Joe Scarborough Rips Bush On Iran NIE: He’s Either ‘Lying’ Or ‘Is Stupid’
Yesterday in his press conference, President Bush asserted that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told him “we have new information” on Iran’s nuclear program, but “he did not tell me what the information was.”

This morning, the cast of Morning Joe chided Bush’s claim. Co-host Willie Geist said, “It’s just not a credible answer, I’m afraid.” Host Joe Scarborough ripped into Bush, saying that president is either “lying to the American people” or is simply “stupid”:

We are left with only two options here. Either the President of the United States is lying to the American people about what happened during that meeting, or the President of the United States is stupid.

The little neocon will be defending Bush tomorrow.

By Larry, at 8:20 PM
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a committee vote Thursday on contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential political guru Karl Rove for failing to respond to subpoenas.

Under Judiciary Committee rules, the vote could be postponed for a week, but Leahy said he intends to move the criminal contempt resolutions as soon as possible. Last week, he rejected the White House's executive privilege claim in preventing Rove and Bolten from appearing before his panel, calling it "overbroad, unsubstantiated, and not legally valid," setting the stage for Thursday's showdown.

Rove and Bolten were subpoenaed earlier in the year by the Senate panel as part of the investigation into the sacking of nine U.S. attorneys. President Bush, citing executive privilege, refused to make the two senior aides available for questioning by the committee.

Leahy predicted that the contempt resolutions could reach the Senate floor sometime early next year.

Believe it when you see it.

By Larry, at 8:28 PM
According to internal State Department cables obtained by TPMmuckraker, the State Department has slated two Diplomatic Security officials who oversee private-security contractors guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan for salary bonuses. The optional bonuses, called Senior Foreign Service Performance Pay Awards, come months after administrative investigations have raised questions about the propriety of State's relationship with security contractors like Blackwater.

In late October, Richard Griffin, head of the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, resigned after an internal State Department review of contractor relationships implicitly rebuked the office for insufficient oversight. That lack of oversight contributed to the September shooting deaths of over a dozen Iraqi civilians by Blackwater security guards at Nisour Square, and has inflamed Iraqis, who view State Department guards Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as having a license to kill without legal consequence. Yet shortly after Griffin's resignation, ABC News reported that two key deputies who worked closely with the security contractors, Kevin Barry and Justine Sincavage, received quiet promotions. One outraged State official told ABC, "What does it say when State promotes the two people into DS' most senior positions, when if they had properly managed the programs under the responsibility, we wouldn't be in this mess?"

That question could also be asked of their recent pay bonuses.

On November 20, an internal cable, listed as State 158575, went out to State employees announcing the recipients of bonuses ranging from $10,000 to $15,000 for "outstanding performance." Among them: Kevin Barry and Justine Sincavage. You can read the cable here. Barry's name is listed on page 2, and Sincavage's is on page 5. Both Barry and Sincavage already earn approximately $150,000 annually. Their bonuses are scheduled to take effect on December 20, in time for the holidays.

According to the cable, a merit board issued recommendations this summer to award the bonuses, but approval from higher up in the State Department came relatively recently. It's unclear who approved awarding Barry and Sincavage their bonuses, or even how big they are. A State Department spokeswoman, Nancy Beck, told TPMmuckraker that she was "not going to be able to help" or "comment in any way" on "internal communications." The cables are stamped "unclassified."

This is pathetic: Bush secretly giving financial bonuses to the murdering Blackwater thugs.

By Larry, at 8:31 PM
With cracks and holes in the Greenland ice sheet, we may well have to 'geo-engineer' the climate

Next week, policy makers, scientists and activists from around the world will gather in Bali, Indonesia, to try to produce a climate-change agreement that will take us beyond the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Accord. This meeting will take place in an atmosphere of sharply heightened unease among leading climate scientists.

A few years ago, these scientists regarded global warming as a matter of serious concern; now many appear to think that it's a matter of grave urgency — that we may be running out of time. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports are increasingly viewed as out of date.

Because the IPCC reports incorporate only scientific findings published up to about mid-2005, they don't reflect almost two years of extraordinarily important results from multiple streams of research. Immediately after the Working Group 1 report was released (last February), many scientists said it significantly underestimated sea-level rise this century.

Since then, we've seen sharply higher global carbon dioxide emissions than the IPCC expected (2006 emissions were almost half a billion tonnes above the worst-case IPCC prediction), while the absorptive capacity of ocean and land-based carbon sinks appears to be decreasing more rapidly than predicted.

Two issues particularly exercise climate scientists: positive feedbacks and ice-sheet dynamics.

Water is not white, like ice

A positive feedback is a causal cycle — essentially a vicious circle — in which warming causes a series of changes that reinforces warming. One feedback of special importance to Canada is the ice-albedo feedback in the Arctic. The sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean is white, so it reflects a large proportion of the sun's radiation back into space. As this ice melts from global warming, it leaves behind open water that absorbs about 80 per cent more of the sun's radiation. This ocean water becomes warmer. Then, after the summer passes and fall comes, the water releases its heat back into the atmosphere, which impedes refreezing. So winter generates thinner ice, which melts more easily the next summer.

This feedback is one of the reasons why the planet is warming, and will continue to do so, much more rapidly in its northern reaches. The IPCC predicts about 3 C average warming by 2100, and in the neighbourhood of 6 C to 7 C across much of Canada. Some people say we will benefit. Well, we may have lower heating bills in the winter for a few years, but because we're a northern country, warming here will be about twice as fast and the ultimate magnitude will be twice as great as the planet's average.

The consequences will be immense for our flora and fauna, for our forests that can't adapt and die en masse, for our grain-growing regions that could turn to desert, for the Great Lakes as their levels fall, for transportation in the St. Lawrence Seaway and for northern permafrost that melts.

This summer, melting of Arctic sea ice sharply diverged from the trend of the past decade — which suggests feedbacks in the north are gaining enormous force. By mid-September, we'd lost about a third of the Arctic ice cap compared to the 1979-2000 average and about 50 per cent compared to the 1950s. Scientists now expect a completely ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer by the end of the next decade, perhaps as early as 2013.

The ice-albedo feedback is an example of one of two main kinds of positive feedback: the kind that operates more or less directly on energy flows and temperature. Feedbacks of this kind are reasonably well built into current climate models. But there's another kind that operates on the carbon cycle.

In these cases, warming produces a change in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon cycle feedbacks are not so well understood, but it's becoming increasingly clear that they could literally be deal-breakers for humanity. We may be quite close to creating circumstances in which the biosphere releases huge quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.

At that point, warming could become its own cause; it would no longer really matter what we do to mitigate our emissions of carbon dioxide. The global ecosystem would take over.

One worrying carbon feedback involves the permafrost in Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada. As the permafrost melts, it emits large quantities of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas that, in turn, causes more warming.

And then there's the matter of pine bark beetles. As the climate warms, they reproduce through two generations during the summer, and their mortality is lower during the winter. Both these changes mean that beetle populations become much larger overall. We've already lost swaths of pine forest in British Columbia and Alaska to bark-beetle infestation. If they cross the Rockies into the boreal forest that stretches from Alberta to Newfoundland, and kill much of it, the forest will be susceptible to fire that could release astounding quantities of carbon dioxide. When I asked Stephen Schneider, a leading climate scientist at Stanford, about the implications, he just shrugged and said, "Well, we're talking about billions of tonnes of carbon."

Our climate has many positive and negative feedbacks. The positive ones are self-reinforcing, while the negative ones counteract the warming tendency. The big question for climate scientists then is: What is the balance is between the positive and negative feedbacks? A consensus appears to have emerged over the past two years — not yet reflected in the recent IPCC reports — that the positive feedbacks are much stronger and more numerous than the negative ones.

Melting that outpaces warming

The second issue that particularly concerns climate scientists is ice-sheet dynamics. The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest mass of ice in the world, after Antarctica's. If we melt Greenland entirely, the sea level rises by seven metres. The recent IPCC estimate of sea-level rise by 2100 was only 20 to 60 centimetres, because the report assumed Greenland's melting would take many centuries.

In the past two years, though, two studies using very different methods have suggested that the ice sheet is now melting much faster than expected — at a rate of 200 to 250 cubic kilometres a year. According to the most recent study, which used satellite measurements of Earth's gravity to estimate changes in Greenland's mass of ice, that rate has doubled in the past 10 years.

Climate scientists now recognize that the ice-sheet melting models in the IPCC reports were radically inadequate. These models were "static"; they assumed that atmospheric warming melts the ice, and the resulting water then runs off the surface of the ice sheet into the ocean.

Scientists now know that these ice sheets have cracks in them. In the summer, melt water runs down the cracks, and as these expand into wide gaps, millions more tonnes flow downward. This water takes heat to the bottom of the ice sheets and also lubricates the movement of glaciers into the ocean.

Commenting on the Ilulissat glacier in northwest Greenland just a few weeks ago, Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said, "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at two metres an hour on a front five kilometres long and 1,500 metres deep." He had flown over the glacier and seen "gigantic holes in it through which swirling masses of melt water were falling. I first looked at this glacier in the 1960s and there were no holes. These so-called moulins, 10 to 15 metres across, have opened up all over the place. There are hundreds of them."

The consensus now emerging is that oceans will rise by a metre this century and perhaps even two. A two-metre rise would have enormous effects on coastal areas of Canada — on places where people live in Victoria and Vancouver (especially on Delta and Richmond in the Lower Mainland) and on the ports of Vancouver, St John's and Halifax. With such a rise, concerns about rebuilding infrastructure and moving people inland will — in a few decades — become real, even urgent.

In light of these two trends, climate scientists are now beginning to discuss a topic that only two years ago many fervently hoped they'd never have to discuss: geoengineering, or the intentional human modification of the planet's climate to arrest or slow global warming. Geoengineering would involve, for example, putting sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere or putting mirrors into space to try to block a fraction of incoming solar radiation.

An idea no longer at the margins

Today the topic is at the margins of the public-policy dialogue about climate change, but I expect it will be at the centre of public discussion within five years. In 10 years, we will see demands from some segments of the public and many opinion leaders that we carry out geoengineering. And we'll probably start doing it within 20 years, likely when it becomes apparent that the Greenland ice sheet is starting to collapse.

We will do it, because by then we'll be experiencing major socio-economic impacts of climate change — for instance, shortfalls in global food supply, as droughts and heat waves affect grain-growing regions. At that point, we will wonder about what kind of world we've created for our children and grandchildren. We'll recognize that we're facing an emergency unlike anything humankind has ever faced before, and we will demand that our leaders and experts do something, anything, to stop the slide.

Where is everybody's favorite "widdle trucker" to tell all us there is nothing top worry about?

Probably wondering why the NIE isn't what georgie and dead eye said it said.

Or wondering why the reichwing has collapsed like the ice sheet did in the arctic this summer, and neither looks to be in good shape come next fall.

Poor poor widdle trucker and the rest of the reichwing, wrong on so much for so long, they don't know where to begin the spin,

It has gotten so bad that even some of Rove's co-conspirators are callin' him on his bullsh*t now a days ...........

By clif, at 8:38 PM
It was more or less an open secret that Chimpy was sitting on the NIE for quite awhile. Nobody knew exactly why.

Now we know.

By Jolly Roger, at 8:47 PM
Bush will still attack Iran. The weapons inspectors said there wwre no weapons in Iraq, but the monkey attacked anyway.

Bush isn't detoured by the truth.

By Larry, at 8:55 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 5 — A suicide bomber smashed his car into a bus carrying Afghan Army personnel here in the capital early Wednesday, killing 13 people.

I thought Bush won this war.

By Larry, at 9:00 PM
Strike Update:

To Our Fellow Members:

Yesterday, the WGAW and WGAE presented to the AMPTP a response to its proposal on streaming television programs.

We accepted the framework in their proposal of last Thursday for a fixed residual in the first year.

But rather than basing the residual for the entire first year on a small percentage of the applicable minimum, we proposed that the fixed residual be paid on a higher percentage of applicable minimum for each 100,000 streams per quarter.

This is a readily ascertainable number. In fact, the companies are already keeping records of streams for their advertisers. Both the advertisers and the companies are already using these numbers as the basis for their business model.

We believe these formulas will protect the writer even if all television reuse migrates to new media. This is our real goal – we simply want to make sure that writers keep up if reuse moves to the Internet. If new media reuse turns out to be additive, both partners will benefit.

After the first year, following the companies’ proposal, reuse is paid on a percentage formula. We held to our proposal that the appropriate rate for that payment is 2.5% of distributor’s gross and the same rate should also apply to streaming of theatrical motion pictures.

Finally, we modified our position to move closer to the companies on determining fair market value and ensuring our ability to obtain documents to enforce these revenue-based residual formulas.

Our fixed residual proposal is based on thorough analysis. To reach our formula, we looked at the value to writers under existing fixed television residuals and blended those residuals to the scale of new media. Our proposal protects the interests of both parties.

We look forward to the AMPTP’s response as we continue to pursue a discussion of all the issues important to writers.

By Larry, at 9:06 PM
On our radio show this morning, the idea was put forth that the NIE report was deliberately leaked at this time to calm everyone's fears for the Christmas season so people would go out and shop in a good mood. It was to give people hope that there will be no war with Iran.

Then in january they will ratchet up the "Iranian threat" to put us in fear again.

By Lydia Cornell, at 9:19 PM
I believe this senario of fooling shoppers so they will spend money.

Either Bush will attack Iran, or he will have Israel to attack then "defend" them with his own attack.

By Larry, at 9:27 PM
Lydia, this NIE is a BIG NAIL in the neo-con coffin,

dead eye fought it for almost a year, and it came out basically unchanged, which means he can no longer force what the evidence is used to push policy.

The official determination of the US intelligence community is saying Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the neo-con community if full of horse hockey.

By clif, at 9:56 PM