Shorter George W. Bush:Damn! Those pesky Democrats must have been pulling out the nuts and bolts for weeks!
Our hearts go out to the victims of the Minneapolis bridge accident, which can only be attributed to the Democratic Congress.
The early summer has been the wettest since records began more than 240 years ago, the Met Office has confirmed.
Figures covering three months up to 23 July show more than 387mm (15.2in) of rain fell in England and Wales.
NEW ORLEANS - A federal appeals court ruled Thursday against Hurricane Katrina victims who argued their insurance policies should have covered flood damage caused by levee breaches that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans during the 2005 storm.So tell me again. Just why is it we buy and pay yearly on insurance then?
The case could affect thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana. An insurance expert had said a ruling against the industry could have cost insurers $1 billion.
"This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs' insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written," Judge Carolyn King wrote for a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As a result, she said the panel found those who filed the suit "are not entitled to recover under their policies."
concernedmom Says:
As a resident of south Louisiana, I am seeing the results of the insurance debacle first hand. Prior to Katrina, Louisiana was ranked near the top for citizens who took advantage of the national flood insurance program. Sadly, many who had both homeowners and flood insurance are still getting screwed by these companies. The homeowners policy won’t pay for water damage, even if the house didn’t flood but the roof was ripped off causing water to enter the house. The flood policies won’t pay because the house didn’t actually flood but was inundated by water after the roof was damaged. Those whose homes actually flooded and had flood insurance are finding that even though they held a policy that policy is not coming anywhere close to paying what it costs to clean up the damage from having several feet of vile and toxic water sitting in their homes for weeks. And their homeowners policy won’t pay for any of it. So, unless they are wealthy enough to pay out of pocket for repairs while fighting to get what they paid for, they are stuck. Two years later, there are still areas of the city that look like they did two years ago. And I am not only referring to the 9th Ward, but also Lakeview and the entire parish of St. Bernard. And make no mistake, the damage was not from the hurricane, but from the negligence of the COE, and they have admitted such.
So here we are 2 years later, the promises Bush made from Jackson Square still unmet, and now the water resources bill, currently under consideration in the House, is headed for a veto by Mr. Bush. This is a bill that would help with coastal restoration and hurricane protection. This morning’s Times-Picayune carried an article regarding this bill. It states that all of our state reps have vowed to vote against the veto should it come. Rep. Baker (R), suggested that the Senate wait till after the August recess to keep Bush from issuing a pocket veto, but the Senate will likely pass the bill before the recess. Any takers on a bet that the pocket veto is exactly what will happen? A large portion of the fuel needed to run America passes through or is refined in south Louisiana. It seems that this administration can find trillions of dollars to throw down a rathole in Iraq, but when it comes to protecting American citizens, infrastructure and keeping promises made, well, it’s just too expensive.
In 2005, Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee instituted the single largest Medicaid cuts in history. This is a 3-minute trailer (the 25-minute film is available from Talking Eyes Media) that examines the unconscionable suffering caused by the TennCare cuts and the implications nationally for public health programs.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa., July 25 A bookstore owner's obsession with the written word has cost him his Pennsylvania home after local officials deemed his book collection a fire hazard.
Authorities in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., condemned John Puchniak's apartment this year when a routine inspection raised concern the bookstore owner's collection of nearly 3,000 texts could cause a fire, The (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader reported Wednesday.
Puchniak now resides in a local hotel, while attempting to limit the stacks upon stacks of books that decorate his condemned apartment.
But even if he can restore the apartment to acceptable living standards, Puchniak has said he cannot afford to appeal the city to reopen his home.
Attorney Jim Hayward has become a champion for the troubled literary fan, attempting to convince local officials to let the 59-year-old store his growing collection as he sees fit.
"Their (the city's) priorities are wrong. This is not the guy they should be going after," he told the newspaper. "The average person may not agree with how John stores his books, but does that mean it's wrong?"
And this shows the rest of the world that we are serious about containing bomb making plutonium? What does this action tell Iran? Who the hell thought this action up? WTF??:
WASHINGTON (August 1, 2007)—The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today condemned the Department of Energy for proceeding with construction of a $5 billion South Carolina plant designed to turn plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors without honoring its commitment to make the plant available for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist in UCS's Global Security Program, said this move undermines the credibility of nuclear non-proliferation efforts at a time when the international community is struggling to stop the spread of nuclear weapons materials and technologies around the world.
In a letter sent to Energy Secretary Samuel L. Bodman, Lyman wrote, "…the U.S. has a responsibility to set the gold standard for safeguards and security as an example for Russia and for the rest of the world. Yet DOE has already failed to live up to that responsibility by shutting the IAEA out of the process for developing a safeguards regime for the MOX plant prior to construction."
An IAEA review of the plant design would provide assurances to the international community that the facility will be used for peaceful purposes, Lyman said. Such a gesture would be a "powerful symbol" to the rest of the world that the United States plays by the same rules that it urges other countries to follow.
If the Energy Department had arranged to put the plant under IAEA safeguards, it would have had to provide facility design information to the IAEA at least 180 days in advance of the start of construction.
"Unless the United States leads the way in demonstrating its commitment to the highest level of safeguards and security for facilities that process bomb-usable nuclear materials, it will be a virtually impossible task to encourage other nations to adopt high standards," said Lyman. "The Energy Department's irresponsible actions today will only increase the chance that other nations will defy the IAEA and nuclear weapons materials will fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists."
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported a nationwide recall Thursday of French Style Green Beans sold under various brand names.
Lakeside Foods Inc. of Manitowoc, Wis., initiated the voluntary recall of 15,000 cases of 14.5-ounce cans of the beans after determining some cans might have been underprocessed and some might have leaked, posing the risk of botulism, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning.
The recalled product has can codes EAA5247, EAA5257, EAA267, EAA5277, EAB5247, EAB5257, ECA5207, ECA5217, ECA5227, ECA5297, ECB5207, ECAB5217, ECB5227 and ECB5307.
Beijing now has trade missions in every Central Asian country: it's investing in local enterprises and donating money to aid projects.
And by filling the markets with plastic fans and cheap DVD players, China is becoming an increasingly powerful player.
"We'll have shopping malls, business centres, restaurants, hotels, anything your heart desires," Ibragim described.
But when asked about the common fear that China's growing economy may overpower its smaller neighbours, Ibragim laughed and said that he was not allowed to comment.
"Official policy here is to say that China is a very good neighbour, but unofficially there are plenty of fears," said Dostym Satpaev, the head of the regional Risk Assessment Group.
There is, Mr Satpaev says, a real worry in the region that China will simply become too much to handle, and that the growing number of goods and people it sends will pose a serious demographic and economic threat.
"When it comes to China, Kazakhstan is in a tricky position. We need to remember that China is our neighbour, a very ambitious neighbour and economically a very strong neighbour. So we need good relations with Beijing.
"But at the same time we should be wary about its increasing activity here and what consequences it may have," Mr Satpaev said.
[snip]
The region's growing reliance on Chinese goods is a major source of Beijing's new political leverage in the energy-rich region.
"China went from being a non-player in the 1990s to becoming a major geopolitical force, and its role is still growing," said Dostym Satpaev of the Risk Assessment Group.
"But the problem is that the only thing China is interested in are the region's minerals; oil, gas, natural resources. It does not want to open factories or invest into manufacturing goods here."
But still, for millions across this impoverished region, China is a lifeline.
Whether they like it or not, people rely on Chinese goods here, and where China's economic influence leads, its political might will follow.
Just one more move on the oil chess board in that region.
Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.
The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.
The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio's 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists.
"The extent of the destruction of records is consistent with the covering up of the fraud that we believe occurred in the presidential election," said Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney representing the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association, which filed voter suppression suit. "We're in the process of addressing where to go from here with the Ohio Attorney General's office."
"On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud," he said, "but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."
“The Attorney General’s legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States. It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing.What? You gave me an F?! Look at all the work I've done to answer your questions!“The Attorney General has until the end of this week to correct and supplement his testimony. I hope he will take that opportunity to clarify the many issues on which he appears not to have been forthcoming and to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people the whole truth.”
