Global Warming Crisis, Global Moral Crisis, Buttman Acquitted

Space.com

Nicholas Kristof

"According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet." -- Jay Leno

"Arnold Schwarzenegger is blaming man for global warming. And today, Al Gore agreed with him. That's so typical. Two cyborgs, 'Oh, let's blame the humans.'" -- Jay Leno

"Barbra Streisand told Diane Sawyer that we're in a global warming crisis, and we can expect more and more intense storms, droughts and dust bowls. But before they act, weather experts say they're still waiting to hear from Celine Dion." -- Jay Leno

We can debate the reasons for global warming until you turn blue in the face, the fact is that the climate of our planet is changing. The worst-case scenario is that it is caused by human greed triumphing over conservation, and we are all gonna die in 2012, so it doesn't matter if Obama wins re-election or Sarah wins, or whomever wins... From the link to livescience.com, comes these results from global warming. I want to add that the Northwest Passage is free of ice and now ships can circumnavigate the globe, from polar region to polar region. Sources of water are drying up for a large part of the globe, North Africa and the Middle East may soon become inhabitable, with places like Pakistan predicted to go dry in 20 years. One reason that so many countries want nuclear capability is to run large desalination plants, which may become their only source for potable water. Otherwise, look to mass migrations within the next five years that will strain the capacity of Europe, South America, Canada, and the US... Unless we can funnel them all through Arizona, where their dreaded immigration policy will surely stop them in their tracks...

1) Over the past few decades, more and more Americans have started suffering from seasonal allergies and asthma. Though lifestyle changes and pollution ultimately leave people more vulnerable to the airborne allergens they breathe in, research has shown that the higher carbon dioxide levels and warmer temperatures associated with global warming are also playing a role by prodding plants to bloom earlier and produce more pollen. With more allergens produced earlier, allergy season can last longer.

2) Starting in the early 1900s, we've all had to look to slightly higher ground to spot our favorite chipmunks, mice and squirrels. Researchers found that many of these animals have moved to greater elevations, possibly due to changes in their habitat caused by global warming. Similar changes to habitats are also threatening Arctic species like polar bears, as the sea ice they dwell on gradually melts away.

3) Research has found higher levels of the form of the photosynthesis product chlorophyll in modern soils than in ancient soils, showing a biological boom in the Arctic in recent decades.

4) A whopping 125 lakes in the Arctic have disappeared in the past few decades, backing up the idea that global warming is working fiendishly fast nearest Earth's poles.

5) Not only is the planet's rising temperature melting massive glaciers, but it also seems to be thawing out the layer of permanently frozen soil below the ground's surface. This thawing causes the ground to shrink and occurs unevenly, so it could lead to sink holes and damage to structures such as railroad tracks, highways and houses.

6) Though the average hiker wouldn't notice, the Alps and other mountain ranges have experienced a gradual growth spurt over the past century or so thanks to the melting of the glaciers atop them. For thousands of years, the weight of these glaciers has pushed against the Earth's surface, causing it to depress. As the glaciers melt, this weight is lifting, and the surface slowly is springing back. Because global warming speeds up the melting of these glaciers, the mountains are rebounding faster.

7) Rising seas and more extreme weather have the potential to damage irreplaceable sites. Floods attributed to global warming have already damaged a 600-year-old site, Sukhothai, which was once the capital of a Thai kingdom.

8) While it's melting glaciers and creating more intense hurricanes, global warming also seems to be heating up forest fires in the United States. In western states over the past few decades, more wildfires have blazed across the countryside, burning more area for longer periods of time. Scientists have correlated the rampant blazes with warmer temperatures and earlier snowmelt. When spring arrives early and triggers an earlier snow-melt, forest areas become drier and stay so for longer, increasing the chance that they might ignite.

With more global disasters heading our way, we need to reform the way we respond and deal with the aftermath. You would think that we learned valuable lessons from how badly we handled the destruction from Hurricane Katrina, yet our government was slow to react to the BP spill, and even now that the spill has been successfully capped, their is criticism over the quality of government oversight.

We could practice with Haiti. Six months after the earthquake hit that devastated the capitol, it looks the same, with hundreds of thousands of people still homeless and living in squalid conditions. There is a glut of humanitarian aid agencies running about in expensive humvees, spending money in bars and restaurants, yet spending very little on helping people. It's become such a scam, from relief in Iraq to Somalia, to Haiti, the charities are taking in billions of money and spending most of it on themselves, including the big ones like the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services. The US donated the use of a couple of hospital ships during the worst of the crisis, but they were sent home after a couple of weeks. In the meantime, people are coming down with diseases from bad water and living conditions, gangs are taking over the camps, and many women and children will not survive. We have a global moral crisis, with the predators coming out in the guise of good, religious people, who own multi-million dollar houses and take planes instead of cars... I guess that is what happens when the money being raised is in the million and billions, and people like the Palestinians living in Gaza are played as political pawns by their fellow Muslims.... Haiti is such a poor place, filled with uneducated people of color; I'm beginning to suspect that the richer nations wish that it is easier if , somehow, they would all just go away. Get what few out that are related to families in the US, and wait for the next hurricanes to hit and do the dirty work for you. Maybe the lesson learned from Katrina is one of genocide...

I didn't even know that porn companies were being taken to Federal courts until I read about the Buttman case in Politico.: "U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered the acquittal of Stagliano and two companies related to his Evil Angel studio on a defense motion before the defense presented any rebuttal to several days of evidence from the Justice Department. Leon called the government's case "woefully lacking" or "woefully inadequate," depending on whose account you follow." What happened was the FBI ordered two DVD's from John Stagliano's distribution company, Evil Angel, which mailed them to the agents. The agents also downloaded a XXX trailer from the website, and took them to court for owning and distributing obscene material. What lost the case was not over the definition of obscenity, but several flubs and gaffs the Bush era prosecutors made during the initial presentation:

"Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled against the defense on a series of pretrial motions, including some seeking dismissal of the rare federal obscenity indictment on First Amendment grounds. However, once the trial got underway, Leon seemed to have little patience for prosecution flubs. A balky video recording led to dismissal of one count regarding a video trailer. Then a comment on the witness stand from an FBI agent about the judge allegedly giving advice to the prosecution led to a prosecutor having to issue an affidavit saying the statement never occurred.


Ultimately, Leon ruled there wasn't enough evidence to send the case to the jury. He gave the defense a win not on Constitutional grounds but on what he viewed as a basic failure to prove the involvement of Stagliano or his companies in the production and sale to an undercover FBI agent of the films in question. The judge's ruling cannot be appealed." The Justice Dept did have a win earlier against Extreme Associates, but Buttman is more mainstream, even donating money to the Libertarian Party and candidates.

"Why it matters: Recent Democratic administrations haven't been big fans of obscenity cases, preferring instead to work on child pornography prosecutions. The Bush administration was eventually cajoled into setting up the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which brought a handful of cases against purveyors of what the government viewed as "extreme" pornography. No such case has been newly filed since President Barack Obama took office, but the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder allowed the prosecutions still underway to continue." This could be cited as another example of the Bush administration knowingly hiring incompetent people, filling the government with them until various departments are rendered ineffective, and why our response to the BP oil spill and the financial crisis was predictably inadequate. A good bureaucrat is hard to find, and there were stories in the papers that many of the Bush appointees were squirreling themselves away so that they wouldn't be fired once Obama took office. Maybe he should have cleaned house instead of letting these people play house...

~Talking~

Oh my god

Becky, look at her butt (scoff)

It is so big (scoff)

She looks like one of those rap guys' girlfriends

But y'know, who understands those rap guys? (scoff)

They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute ('kay)

I mean her butt, it's just so big (scoff)

I can't believe it's so round, it's like out there

I mean - it's so gross

Look, she's just so black

~rap~

I like big butts and I can not lie

You other brothers can't deny...