SocraticGadfly: 5/7/06 - 5/14/06

May 11, 2006

Bullshit ex-Senator ass-kissing trumps environmentalism

Not one Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted against Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as next Secretary of the Interior, though Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu voted “present” for fiscal reasons, wanting a cut of federal offshore revenues. (She’s not known as a strong environmentalist.)

Reason No. 1,044 to continue to look toward voting Green again.

May 07, 2006

Chickenshit Democratic leadership strikes again. — no impeachment; no investigation on Iraq or NSA

Democratic Congressional leadership has already pledged “just investigations, not impeachment” if they gain a majority after the November elections.
"I said we'd be having hearings on the war, we'd have hearings. But I don't see us going to a place of impeachment," (House Minority Leader Nancy) Pelosi said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has called for the creation of committee to recommend grounds for possible impeachment of Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

But Pelosi said such a decision rests with her and the Democratic caucus.

“John Conyers is an enthusiastic advocate. I am the leader. Our caucus will decide where we go,” she said.

Meanwhile, although she did temper her categorical denial of impeachment proceedings arising, she specifically did NOT include Iraq or the NSA warrantless wiretapping among investigative hotpoints.
While she declined to rule out impeachment, Pelosi focused on investigations of the White House's energy task force and the prescription drug bill.

I’ll remember that, too, in both November 2006 and November 2008.

Calling all stellar wingnuts — that’s just a cloud up there

An in-depth study by Britain’s Ministry of Defence says there is no information UFOs are anything other than natural phenomena.
“No evidence exists to suggest that the phenomena seen are hostile or under any type of control, other than that of natural physical forces,” the report said, according to extracts quoted by the BBC.

“Evidence suggests that meteors and their well-known effects, and possibly some other less-known effects, are responsible for some unidentified aerial phenomena.

“Considerable evidence exists to support the thesis that the events are almost certainly attributable to physical, electrical and magnetic phenomena in the atmosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere,” it said.

Of course, the True Believer will certainly have non-real (Please, don’t trot out the phrase “alternative reality”) answers to this.

What could some of those be?

1. The aliens implanted engrams in the heads of Ministry of Defence members. As Jon Lovitz would have said years ago on “Saturday Night Live”: “Yeah, that’s it, it was the Ennngrraamms.”

2. Alien superpowers use cloaking devices to shield themselves from those in power while continuing to reveal themselves to John and Jane Doe.

3. The act of scientific measurement, as with the paranormal, homeopathy, etc., destroys or alters what is being measured so proper information cannot be obtained.