Palin Kills Wolves!
Category: News and Politics

Have you ever heard of aerial hunting? It's a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then killed at point-blank range.

Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. To encourage the killing, she even proposed a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf!

We have to get the word out about this! Please watch this powerful new television ad by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover you know:

http://actionfund.defenders.org/palintvwolf

The video is on my page!

Roland

10:33 PM - 41 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

Duh! Obama is a Black guy!
Category: News and Politics

Duh!  Obama is a Black guy!

Unfortunately, that is what I believe to be the underlying issue in this campaign. People won't admit it.  The press won't report it.  But it is the 800 pound gorilla in the living room.

Even so, we must get people to the polls.  Even the closet racists!  We've got to achieve a veto proof Senate.  We have to stop any misadventure that a McCain presidency might wish to undertake.

With a veto proof Senate, not one war can start!  No troops will be sent anywhere!  No right wing lunatic can be appointed to the Supreme Court.

A veto proof Senate also means that the Democrats can pass legislation without the concurrence of the president.  All the things that need doing can get done without regard to who sits in the White House wielding a veto pen.

So, fellow environmentalists, animal activists, feminists, progressives, etc:  Let's get out the vote!

Get your friends, colleagues, and neighbors to the polls.  I'll be doing the same here in the Mojave Desert.  And I'm sure it will be easier for you to call on your neighbors than it will be for me!

Roland

PS:  I saw a great T-shirt:  Democrats are Sexy!  Whoever Heard of a Great Piece of Elephant?

6:26 PM - 23 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

Believe It Or Not, It All Comes Down To Joe Biden
Category: News and Politics

Believe It Or Not. It All Comes Down To Joe Biden

Joe Biden, a Democratic Senator and genuine nice guy, was the wrong choice for Obama to make for Veep.  Even a fifth grader could do the math that added up to Hillary being the logical, and probably only, candidate that could help Obama secure the White House.

Now that the Republicans have added Palin to their ticket, her positions must be fully exposed.  Sure, she's a perky hockey mom and knows how to appeal to the right wing of the Republican Party.  Yes, she is an attractive woman who tries not to be by wearing big ugly glasses.  Of course, she can spit out sound bites on cue.   

And if American women don't become familiar with her anti-women positions on issues such as a woman's right to chose, health care, sex education, equal pay, etc, we all may well end up with Sarah Palin one heart attack away from the presidency.

Joe Biden stands between Sarah Palin and the vice presidency.  Only Biden can take Palin apart in a public forum: The Vice Presidential Debate.

Hillary and others can take shots at Palin in the press.  But she doesn't have to respond.  And she doesn't.  She won't.  But Biden can make her positions look as ridiculous as they are.  He can wipe the floor with Sarah Palin in that debate.  

He can elect Barack Obama. 

It's too bad that it is up to him.   It was Hillary's job.

Roland

9:16 AM - 8 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Are Women Stupid?
Category: News and Politics

The stereotypical view of women as stupid, incompetent and malleable that has been embraced by the Republicans in their nomination of Sarah Palin for Veep may not, in fact, be all that wrong.

The latest Gallup Poll shows suburban white women, previously undecided or leaning toward the Democrats, breaking now to the Republican ticket, giving McCain the first lead of the race.

I continue to believe that as Palin's positions are revealed to the electorate, her popularity will become a liability to McCain, and that we actually will have a shot at the White House.

Consider: 

Palin supported the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates seceeding from the United States!

Palin supports shooting wolves on the ground from planes and helicopters!

Palin believes that women who have abortions are murderers!

Palin is a Creationist!

Palin wants Roe v Wade overturned!

Once these views are squarely placed before American voters the Republicans' view of women will prove to be wrong.

Otherwise, we will have to concede that women are, in fact, stupid, incompetent and malleable. 

At least, those who vote Republican are!

12:01 AM - 48 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

McCain’s Choice Of Running Mate As Dumb As Obama’s
Category: News and Politics

We're back in the game!

McCain's handlers seem to think that they can appeal to disenfranchised Hillary supporters by merely adding someone to their ticket who has a uterus.  This misstep may well obviate Obama's idiotic exclusion of Clinton from the Democratic ticket and put the presidency within our reach. (See some of my previous posts)

The gameplan for the Republicans should have been to stay out of sight and let the voters decide that they would, on balance, rather not have a black man running the country.  To accomplish this, McCain need only occasionally put his white face on the tube and keep his mouth mostly shut.  The idea should have been to allow Obama to be the issue and the focus of the media coverage.  McCain needed to be the nation's go-to guy for stability, security, tradition, etc. Play it safe.  Be the nation's refuge.  Be the reasonable white guy. He needed race to be the undiscussed issue of the campaign.  Not to allow any discussion of real issues interfere with the unspoken fact that we might get a White House full of brothers.

And I think it would have worked.  And Obama may be unable to to bridge the river of racism that runs through our country.

But McCain's choice of a running mate, a right-wing zealot (married to an oil company magnate) who believes that women who undergo abortions are murderers, has changed the dynamic of the campaign.  Her positions are more important than her ovaries.  And the Republicans have made women's rights the central campaign issue.  McCain's stealth campaign is dead.  And women don't vote for women because they are women.  They vote for women because they support issues important to women.

McCain's handlers are steeped in 19th Century psychology as well as politics.  They actually believe that women are stupid, shollow, inattentive and easily manipulated. 

I can't wait to see them proved wrong.

9:03 PM - 17 Comments - 24 Kudos - Add Comment

5,000 Horses Died on Racetracks Since 2003!
Category: News and Politics

And that doesn't count the thousands that ended up in slaughterhouses!

Check out this story from Associated Press:

5,000 Horse Deaths Reported Since 2003

Getty Images / AP

Horse racing has come under heavy criticism following the tragic deaths of George Washington, left, at the Breeders' Cup, and Eight Belles, right, at the Kentucky Derby.

Countless other deaths went unreported because of lax record keeping, the AP found in the broadest such review to date.

The catastrophic breakdown of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last month made the fragility of a half-ton horse vivid for the millions watching, but the AP found that such injuries occur regularly in every racing state. Tracks in California and New York, which rank first and sixth in thoroughbred races, combine to average more than one thoroughbred death for every day of the year.

Questions about breeding, medication, synthetic surfaces versus dirt and other safety issues have dogged the industry for some time, and a congressional panel has asked key players in the sport to testify this week about its direction, particularly the influence of steroids.

The AP compiled its figures from responses to open records inquiries sent to the organizations that govern the sport in the 29 states identified by Equibase Co., a clearinghouse for race results, as having had at least 1,000 thoroughbreds start a race last year.

Arkansas, Michigan, Nebraska said their organizations don't track fatalities at all, and only one of Florida's three main thoroughbred tracks provided numbers. There were wide differences among the other states in what types of deaths are monitored and how far back the records go.

"Nobody really knows how big of a problem it is," said Rick Arthur, California's equine medical director. "They just know it's a big problem."

When a horse breaks a leg - let alone two, as Eight Belles did - often the only choice is to euthanize the animal. A thoroughbred's bones are thinner than most breeds. Usually it's not possible for the horse to lie down for long periods because that could disrupt the blood flow to the arteries in the lower limb, causing an extremely painful hoof infection called laminitis.

Barbaro, who won the Kentucky Derby in 2006, broke down in the Preakness Stakes and was euthanized with laminitis several months later after a gallant effort to save him.

Despite the regularity of such breakdowns and the money involved in the sport, no one is certain how many horses are lethally injected on the nation's tracks each year. The Jockey Club, which registers all North American thoroughbreds, did not know of another comprehensive, state-by-state tally of fatalities at tracks before the AP's, said Bob Curran, a Jockey Club vice president.

Larry Bramlage, the on-call veterinarian at Churchill Downs in Louisville, who made the grim announcement that Eight Belles had been euthanized after the Derby, said fatality numbers don't seem to be dropping, despite major medical advancements. To Bramlage, that suggests racing injuries are becoming more frequent because vets are already pulling the most injury-prone horses before post time.

"We're able to pick them up better, with digital X-rays, bone scans and MRIs, which give us the information we need to take those horses out of training," Bramlage said. "In spite of that fact, we're not denting the total number of deaths."

California officials became alarmed in 2005 when the number of thoroughbred racing deaths there spiked by nearly 50 percent from just two years earlier. Last year, 314 horses - 261 of them thoroughbreds - died at California's tracks, including those hurt in training or barn accidents, and a few that suffered other injuries or medical complications.

"Just seeing the totals and the recurrent theme, it's eye-opening," said Bon Smith, assistant director of the California Horse Racing Board.

Beginning this year, California has mandated that all its major tracks replace their dirt surface with a synthetic mixture found in some studies to be safer for horses and jockeys.

While California's thoroughbred fatalities are nearly triple those reported by any other state, its warm weather and bounty of tracks make it the nation's busiest racing state. And it has received high praise across the industry for the way in which it tracks deaths - every death that occurs on the public grounds of a California racetrack is recorded in detail, largely through veterinary reports.

Some other major racing states have no records of fatalities that occur during morning training exercises, even those that happen on the tracks where races are run in the afternoon. Kentucky listed 228 deaths since 2003, but none of them from training accidents, which in some states that track them account for nearly a third of the total.

Other states, such as Colorado and Iowa, run mixed breed meets, in which quarterhorses might appear in one race a day while thoroughbreds make up most of the rest. Often, these states list the deaths only by meet, not breed, although veterinarians say the more muscular torsos and spindly ankles of thoroughbreds make them more susceptible to injury.

Many states that do closely track horse deaths haven't been doing it for long, and some states that do monitor deaths don't differentiate between horses that die in freak accidents in their barns, for instance - the consensus is that such deaths are rare - and those that break down in training or racing and are destroyed.

Such discrepancies have made the task difficult for Mary Scollay, a veterinarian at two Florida racetracks who has created a uniform national injury reporting system that aims to record every thoroughbred fatality. Scollay, who next month will become Kentucky's equine medical director, said 65 tracks are participating in the program now, but only 30 have compiled a full year's worth of data.

She declined to release the preliminary numbers, explaining the sample size is still too small to draw conclusions. It could take years, Scollay said, before major trends can be identified.

"Certainly we know more than we did last year at this time, and one fatal injury is one too many," Scollay said. "We know we need to do better. I think within the last few weeks, there's been a mobilization of the industry to do some pretty serious things."

Those who own and handle the animals stand to lose plenty when a horse is put down.

Timothy Capps, a professor at the University of Louisville's equine industry program, said most racehorses don't carry mortality insurance. The ones that do typically carry only a fraction of their projected value as a stallion or mare, Capps said.

After the gruesome breakdown of Eight Belles, the Jockey Club created a national panel to examine safety, and the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority did the same on the state level.

Among the topics being reviewed are track surfaces, medication (particularly steroids), the use of the whip by riders, and whether - as Bramlage suggests - thoroughbreds are becoming less durable because they're being bred to emphasize speed rather than stamina early in their careers.

"Those that do get hurt maybe get hurt worse because of their speed and size," said Larry Jones, who trained Eight Belles. "A good big horse will outrun a good little horse, and they can be more fragile because their legs and joints have to hold a lot more."

A congressional Energy and Commerce subcommittee has asked states for the figures they have on fatalities ahead of a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Of particular interest to Congress is the influence of steroids, which were legal this spring in most racing states including Kentucky, Maryland and New York - which host the Triple Crown races.

Those advocating a steroid crackdown got ammunition when Big Brown, who easily won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes with the steroid Winstrol still in his bloodstream, ran the Belmont without it and finished last.

Congressman Ed Whitfield, said steroids should be banned - not regulated - in horse racing but questions whether the sport has the ability to police itself.

"There are enough people I have great respect for who say this industry is really beginning to be in trouble," Whitfield said.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said the sport gets a bad rap for what he believes it does best - take care of the animals.

"There isn't a trainer worth his salt that doesn't look into this 24 hours a day," Lukas said. "I'll guarantee you that if any one of those purists who feel like it's an abusive sport would spend two weeks in my barn, they'd walk away a different person and have a greater appreciation for the care. Animals don't have a say in it, but when they get to this level, they have a pretty good deal going."

1:20 PM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Bush Administration Seeks To Block Testing For "Mad Cow" Disease
Category: News and Politics

Government asks court to block wider testing for mad cow

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Arkansas City, Kan.-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

"They want to create false assurances," Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department's regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers.

"This is the government telling the consumers, ..You're not entitled to this information,'" Frye said.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle seemed to agree with Creekstone's contention that the additional testing would not interfere with agency regulations governing the treatment of animals.

"All they want to do is create information," Sentelle said, noting that it's up to consumers to decide how to interpret the information.

Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Three cases of mad cow disease have been discovered in the U.S. since 2003.

The district court's ruling last year in favor of Creekstone was supposed to take effect June 1, 2007, but the Agriculture Department's appeal has delayed the testing so far.

12:25 AM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Federal judge in Montana rejects bid to delay wolf lawsuit
Category: News and Politics

Federal judge in Montana rejects bid to delay wolf lawsuit

A federal judge in Montana has rejected a request by the government to delay a lawsuit seeking to place the gray wolf back on the endangered species list, saying he's "unwilling to risk more deaths."

At least 39 of the Northern Rockies' 1,500 gray wolves have been killed since they lost federal protection in March. That action placed wolves under the authority of state wildlife agencies in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

The three states have relaxed rules for killings wolves that harass or harm livestock. The states are also planning public hunts later this year — the first in decades.

Environmental and animal rights groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week, claiming the loss of federal protection threatens the wolf's successful recovery. They also asked for a court injunction to restore federal control over wolves while the case is pending.

In rejecting the agency's request for a two-week extension in the case, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy set a hearing for May 29 in Missoula.

"The court is unwilling to risk more deaths by delaying its decision on plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction," Molloy wrote in Wednesday's court order.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had argued that even if the wolves were still on the endangered list, many would have still been killed by government wildlife agents responding to livestock attacks. Molloy wrote that assertion was "neither compelling nor comforting."

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Sharon Rose said the agency would have preferred more time, but will be prepared to argue the case on May 29. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversaw wolf recovery efforts over the last two decades.

The environmentalists' attorney, Doug Honnold with Earthjustice, declined comment on Molloy's order, saying it spoke for itself.

4:28 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Obama open to Clinton as possible running mate
Category: MySpace

Obama open to Clinton as possible running mate

Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday did not rule out selecting rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate if he ultimately defeats her in a race in which he has an almost insurmountable lead.

"There's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president," Obama told NBC News.

In a CNN interview, he said he had not wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination, but when he does, he will start going through the process of selecting a running mate.

"She is tireless, she is smart. She is capable. And so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," said Obama, who inched closer to winning the nomination by routing Clinton in North Carolina and almost defeating her in Indiana on Tuesday.

Some Democrats are saying Obama and Clinton would be a formidable team against Republican John McCain in the race to the November election.

According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.

The Clinton campaign has deflected such talk. Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters on Wednesday that it was premature to discuss such a ticket and he had not heard her express any interest in the vice presidency.

4:16 PM - 3 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Republican Priorities: $250k Relief for Burma, $12 BILLION/Month To Kill Iraqis
Category: News and Politics

US provides initial aid to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar

The United States said Monday it is providing an initial sum of 250,000 dollars in aid to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar through its embassy in Yangon and is looking at what more it can do to help.

"The embassy (in Yangon) did issue a disaster declaration authorizing an immediate release of 250,000 dollars in support for the Burmese government," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

Casey said a US disaster assistance response team was "standing by and ready to go into Burma (Myanmar) to help try and assess needs there," but had apparently not received permission from the ruling junta in Yangon.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel, who expressed US concern "about the reports coming out of Burma and mourn the loss of life," and Casey suggested more aid would be available.

"We provided some initial assistance under our disaster declaration that was issued by our (embassy) charge, Shari Villarosa, in response to some of the immediate needs that are there," Casey told reporters.

"And we're looking at what other assistance we might be able to provide," he added.

Casey said he understood that the authorities in Yangon have not tried to block financial contributions which would be sent to "UN relief agencies for water, sanitation, food and shelter for the affected populations."

He expected the money would go towards the same items covered in previous disaster declarations.

"That can include things from, you know, plastic sheeting, water containers, purification systems," he said.

Myanmar said more than 10,000 people had been killed in the cyclone that tore into the impoverished and secretive Asian nation at the weekend, and that tens of thousands more could also be dead.

The announcement on state television increased the death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis more than ten-fold in the country once known as Burma, which has been under military rule for decades and is one of the poorest on the planet.

It said more than 2,100 people were missing and that tens of thousands more could have perished in other regions -- areas where rescue workers had not yet been able to gauge the full scope of the destruction.

Casey said the US embassy in Yangon had decided or was moving toward allowing non-essential US personnel and families to leave Myanmar temporarily because public services had deteriorated following the cyclone.

He added he was "unaware of any Americans affected, injured or killed" by the storm.

2:20 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment