the there out there

" A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.”

Another freshly minted and anonymously backed organization, Use Your Mandate, which presents itself as a liberal gay rights group but purchases its television time through a prominent Republican firm, is attacking Mr. Hagel as “anti-Gay,” “anti-woman” and “anti-Israel” in ads and mailers.

Those groups are joining at least five others that are organizing to stop Mr. Hagel’s confirmation.."

But saying there's a military-industrial cabal that wants to keep us in endless war for its own profit is sheerest conspiracy theory.

Of course, gravity is a theory, too.

attack of the killer turkeys

We must take a lead in the war against the North African jihadist threat that we created when we gave money to Al Qaeda to overturn the Libyan government.

Among many funny things about Ms. Clinton's little talk yesterday was how they danced around the fact that Petraeus Caesar headed the CIA when they were funneling all that money there- as well as they money they continue to give them in Afghanistan. Not to mention the drug trade they let go untouched.

One supposes someone in the Cheney faction of the CIA thought they were letting a zinger loose when they told Rand Paul's handlers about the weapons connection to Turkey. Old news, but something Hillary knew Paul knew less about than even she did. One also supposes a major stratagem of the Democratic wing of the CIA is to give Brennan enough rope to hang himself- and the Tea Party.

Tell it to Jebbie Bush, who knows all about the known unknowns from his Poppy's knee. 

totally unrelated

Over the last few weeks, unbelievable heat in Australia, and unbelievable cold in Russia.

 Of course, this has nothing to do with the weakening global conveyor current.

conflicted interests

They write letters

The huge reserves of coal, oil and gas held by companies listed in the City of London are "sub-prime" assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability, a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists has warned Bank of England's governor, Sir Mervyn King.

In an open letter on Thursday, they tell King that the global drive to reduce carbon emissions could mean billions of pounds of fossil fuel reserves will rapidly lose value and cause a "major problem" for institutional investors and pension funds.

At the most recent UN climate change summit in December, 194 of the world's nations agreed to enact legally binding curbs on greenhouse gas emissions within three years to limit global warming to 2C. But meeting this limit would mean just 20% of existing fossil fuel reserves could be burned, according to recent research.

"These high-carbon assets pose significant strategic challenges for the future prosperity of Britain that just can't be ignored," said investment manager James Cameron, who is a member of the prime minister's business advisory group. "Investors continue to pour cash into unsustainable assets without understanding the risks associated with these investments, such as climate change, local pollution, fossil fuel price volatility, political risk and catastrophes such as Deepwater Horizon."

Which more likely means that the agreements are probably not worth the trees that died to publish them.

Although the posturing's in the right place, for some of our fearless Leaders anyway, who wax climatological greenness in Inaugural speeches, to the growling of their partisan opponents.


Of course,  it appears that some of those minty greens are also heavily invested in that tar sand black gold. But who are you going to believe? Our forward leaning champions, or the Party of Business? Like there's a difference.

Hot Item

But torture in pursuit of virtue sells well to a big audience, like the Taliban or the Tea Party,

gifts on a winter day

From Glenn Greenwald

chaos is the plan

"Negotiators have yet to work out a deal to stop the arbitrary spending cuts known as the sequester..." This is a serious mistake if these are allowed to go forward. The Clinton era tax rates did no real damage to the economy. But, the sequester will plunge us back into Recession or worse all by itself. Of course, that was what it was intended to do in the first place.