Death of Panda Released into Wild: Sad, but not surprising...

... the strategy of protecting the habitats in the first place seems the better and more cost-effective approach, as a WWF director notes.

New Sudan Sanctions: A Different Perspective

Not everyone agrees that the U.S.'s unilateral sanctions are the best approach. My sense remains that they are necessary, but the truth is, I don't have a clue what's actually going on over there, so how could I possibly say for certain?

This guy, the Sudanese ambassador, John Ukec Lueth, a former government dissident now representing the so-called unity government, spoke rather passionately to the National Press Club yesterday about his perspective:

We just want the people of the United States to know that their government is going the wrong way. The situation in Darfur is more complex. You know, don't run away with the issue of genocide. We do not like any woman to be raped. We do not like anybody to be killed. These are our brothers and sisters. We are more concerned about them than anybody who pretends to say that. If they have a fiduciary interest, they should stop that. They should think that, "These are our brothers. They are our brothers and our sisters."

And in the end, I was fighting the Sudanese government. I am back now. They embraced me, and we are trying to build a new Sudan. That's what we said. And as a result, leave the custody of our people in our hands. Leave the solutions of the problem in our hands and help us where we ask for.

We have asked for the African Union to come and help us. Let them come. We will determine on the ground how many troops we need. We will also provide them with what we have. And we will have the U.N. and the African Union, as well as the Europeans, to help us also.

We appreciate also the help that the United States has given us. They have spent $1.3 billion in Darfur and southern Sudan. We do not ignore that.

We must go on the right track. And this unilateral taking of decisions is not a good thing in diplomacy, in good neighborlihood. You know, even though a country is so small, like my country, it has its guts. It belongs -- it is -- we own that country. It is our home. And we cannot be overtrodden about it.

Anything else?

I appreciate you all coming. I am available any time. If you want to know more, I will give you more. I'm around here. I came here to do this. And I want people out there -- you are the medium for getting the truth out there. You know better of how things should be constructive and objective.

I believe most of you are objective. That's what made you come here this afternoon. And thank you for coming. Thank you very much.

The Cold War: We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Apparently, Putin has looked into GWB's soul and seen an imperialist aggressor. Or maybe he just wants an excuse to try out some new toys. Either way, it's not building a safer world for any of us.

Garrison Keillor: Belated Memorial Day Speech

I enjoyed this weekend's episode of A Prairie Home Companion, which described the best Memorial Day speech ever in Lake Woebegone, one acknowledging that silence was the best tribute that could be offered by civilians, who can't really understand, to veterans who could never explain it to them.
This Salon article is in a similar but bolder vein.

And in lighter news -- or darker, rather -- chocolate!

A nice, succinct guide to the healthiest kind.

Cindy Sheehan's Goodbye Letter

from yesterday, Memorial Day, on the Daily Kos.

Today in Darfur...

... is probably much like yesterday, last week, last year...

Stuff like this is still happening regularly.

This is the same world we live in, "over here," but if we truly felt it to be the same world, wouldn't something effective have been done by now to stop it? Does the world lie in thrall to the government of Sudan? What's the deal here?

Clinton-Gore Doubleheader

(Yes, I get nostalgic sometimes...)

• Al Gore has a new book out, The Assault on Reason.

• And this from Bill's commencement address at Rochester Institute of Technology:

Consider what you celebrate today at RIT. You learn together; you master technologies; you have rational arguments; you look at evidence. You learn from each other and you appreciate your differences.

How much of the world is dominated by patterns of thought and action directly opposite to what you have come here to pay tribute to, to political and religious, even emotional fundamentalism, designed to divide rather than unite, to crush argument, to seize power rather than to empower people?

How you think matters. And how people see you thinking matters.

I don't know how many times, when I was president and I was trying to convince people to make peace in one area of the world or another, someone would tell me, I hate it that we're doing this, but we have to because of the way they behave.

How much behavior in the world today; how many tribal wars; how many ethnic and religious conflicts are being driven by people who justify their conduct based on what someone else did to them or how they made them feel ashamed?

I don't care if you've got a Ph.D. and if you've been to outer space and back, every time, for the rest of your life -- you remember this -- every time, for the rest of your life, you say, do, or feel anything because you say, I have no choice because of how destructive people were to me, or because I had this problem or that problem, you give up your freedom.

You are only a free person when you recognize that every moment of every day, no matter what happens to you, no matter what is said to you, no matter what is done to you or your crowd, you still are free to decide how to respond.

(APPLAUSE)

That's why Gandhi was a free man and a great man.

(APPLAUSE)

That's why Mandela is recognized for the enduring greatness, not of his sacrifice, but of the way he responded to his sacrifice, not just inviting his jailers to his inauguration, but putting the leaders of the political parties that supported apartheid in his government, because, he said, "If I want us to go forward together, that means them, too."

He was a free man because no one could make him hate or kill or react. He got to decide.

Masters of compromise

The final incarnation of the war funding bill is another example of what I don't mean by "radically moderate."

But to be fair, the pork that made it in this bill is the best kind of pork, things (e.g. Katrina, health care for veterans and impoverished children) that would have had separate bills of their own, if the monster that is this mismanaged war didn't have its hooks in everything.

Off Topic: Louie Gohmert wins the prize...

... for the most tangential Republican digression in today's all-day House Judiciary hearing on the U.S. attorney firings, featuring the Plame-blonde Monica Goodling, who actually held her ground better than Gonzales or Sampson did (if they'd guessed that, would they have let her testify sooner?)

GOHMERT (R-TX): The Latin phrase meant "truth for Christ and the church," and that was the official motto of Harvard in 1692.

And the rules and precepts of Harvard in 1646 said, "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ at the bottom as the only foundation."

It is part of the foundation.

And I would also submit to my colleagues that the hate crime bill passed out of this committee and taken to the floor and passed recently leaves an opening. If someone here seems to indicate there's something wrong about being a Christian and someone is induced to commit violence against that Christian, then the person on this committee could possibly be charged under the hate crime bill as the principal for having committed the act of violence.

Obama to world: Don't give up on us yet.

Barack Obama* at a campaign event today in Philadelphia
*Note that this quote does not indicate an endorsement of any particular candidate, just an endorsement of these particular sentiments. ;)

Listen, when George Bush steps down, the entire world is going to breathe a sigh of relief.

(APPLAUSE)

And we will have an opportunity to go before the world, to stand before them and say, we are back; that we want to work with you, that we want to work to deal with the transnational threats of climate change and nuclear proliferation.

We want to work with you to deal with global poverty. We want to end the genocide in Darfur.

(APPLAUSE)

We want to bring an end to malaria and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

And while we're at it, we want to close Guantanamo and we want to restore habeas corpus...

(APPLAUSE)

... because that's who we are. We want to lead not just with our military but with our values and with our ideals.

Big Gulp: The Ashcroft Hospital Visit

Don't they have security in hospitals to keep people like Al Gonzales and Andrew Card away from vulnerable convalescents?

If you're like me and somehow missed the revelation of this story at a Tuesday congressional hearing, it bears repeating.

As Chuck Schumer said, it "makes you almost gulp."

And Jon Stewart's Latin American soap opera reenactment is pretty hilarious. On that note, I'll never be able to hear Ashcroft belt "Let the Eagle Soar" from now on without a sentimental tinge of respect, statue-drapings notwithstanding.

Seriously, though, I wonder if Ashcroft, whom his deputy Jim Comey described as being barely conscious at the time of the visit, ever has nightmares about those two looming apparitions at his bedside...

Well, if the 'pubs don't want Ron Paul...

... the Libertarians could consider taking him in. Isn't it time he came out as a Lib, anyway?

Apparently, there's a petition to kick Paul out of the Republican debates.

What next, the Dems trying to kick out Mike Gravel?

And even vitamins...

... should be taken in moderation, according to this study linking high-dose vitamin use with death from prostate cancer. Once again, we're talking high, high doses. When I see the 1,000+ percentages RDA on the Nutrition Facts lists on the backs of some vitamin bottles, I always wonder if they'd done enough studies like this. Apparently not.

The Da Vinci Diet

The epitome of moderation. No wonder he was a rare person.
Most of these are actually very simple and do-able; it seems the challenge would be doing them all, all the time. (That's always the challenge.)

Chimeras Among Us

MIT scientist offers help to cyclist accused of blood doping.
Apparently, DNA tests to look for chimerism have found that about 50 to 70 percent of healthy people are chimeras, a medical term meaning that their blood may have originally mingled with a vanished twin in utero, early on, or with their mother's own blood.

"And if not now, when?"

said the Rabbi Hillel, perhaps not thinking of this commentary in the Baltimore Chronicle, but if the shoe fits...

Impeach Bush or Get Rid of the Impeachment Clause

Blocked film on KBR/Halliburton: Wonder where the money went?

Progressive film director Robert Greenwald [was] scheduled to testify at a hearing on Thursday, May 10 about war profiteering. He requested to show a few minutes of one of his films [see it here] but Republicans blocked his request.

I'm a sucker for anthropomorphicized robot buddy stories

Robots in Iraq

(this blog's first and perhaps only post to get both the war tag and the warm and fuzzy tag.)

Recommended Viewing: Outfoxed

I just saw this 2004 film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which popped out of the Netflix queue just in time to coincide with Murdoch's current bid for the Wall Street Journal, and to freak me out about the future of our society if the Bancroft family does eventually cave.
Be strong, Bancrofts!
One Fox coup I'd almost forgotten about (although it was probably mentioned in Fahrenheit 9/11, and I just have a short memory) was how instrumental they were in the 200o election by prematurely proclaiming Bush the winner at one point in the night, prompting the rest of the networks to desperately follow suit within minutes, not wanting to be scooped (accuracy be damned.) And that's not the only instance of the other networks following Fox's lead, sadly...

Even green tea...

... can be harmful in large quantities, according to this New Scientist article.
However, we're talking very large quantities, more than 10 cups a day, at least (I go through 2-3 if I'm lucky.) The only danger is really to people taking supplements, which contain 50 times the amount in a single cup of tea.

French "celebrity" atheist Michel Onfray: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Once again, I have to give the creds to fake news anchor Stephen Colbert for tipping me off on real news; in this case, to the growing popularity of French atheist philosopher Michel Onfray. I'm not sure how I feel about the concept of what this Northwest Herald article characterizes as "militant atheism," and as a humanist, I find Onfray's almost apocalyptic language and confrontational manner disconcerting. He goes way beyond the wry-verging-on-smug wit of Richard Dawkins. But he does raise some interesting questions about the direction we're headed, globally, given the growing atmosphere of religious fervor over the past several years.

And these lines about Onfray's encounter with France's right-wing presidential candidate inspired a touch of envy, when I considered the impossibility of a similar encounter in the U.S. between a right-wing candidate and a prominent American atheist (no names even come to mind immediately, besides Penn Jillette and James Randi.) I guess Sam Harris would be a good choice.

Ahead of France’s presidential election later this month, Philosophie Magazine arranged a meeting recently between Mr. Onfray and the front-running candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, who sometimes attends church. [envious italics mine, given this is a right-wing candidate!] They argued about faith, politics and philosophy.

Are these supposed to be the good guys?

To be fair, this is an insular, non-Islamic sect not representative of the larger Kurdish population, who generally practice a form of Islam more tolerant than that practiced by others in the region, and it's probably not fair even to generalize about the sect based on this one incident, but WTF?
I couldn't even watch it, honestly. Just the thought that humans behave in this manner makes me ill. But it needs to stop, yesterday.

Kurdish Yezidi girl is stoned by a large mob for living with a Muslim man, having been lured back home by her family's claims of forgiveness.