Over the last few years, the commodities markets have been on a tear. The value of food, metals and oil products have been going up dramatically, leading to increases in food and energy costs everywhere, not just in the US. Inflation has been running rampant.  Today, the bubble burst.
There was a huge drop in the commodities markets, especially in agricultural products. Inquisitive types, not understanding the reason for such a sudden shift in the markets, will go off in search of an explanation. It didn't take more than 2 minutes. Hedge funds. Driving up the cost of food, fuel and natural resources.

Those irresponsible folks over at McClatchy have done it again.  Pointed out something that most people in Big Pharma already new but weren’t saying and which completely explodes yet another Republican myth.  Remember how our government took action to prevent the states, health plans and individuals from buying their drugs at a significant discount from Canadian Pharmacies?  They did it because well, you just can’t trust those canucks.  The drugs could be contaminated and the FDA couldn’t guarantee their purity or effectiveness.  But they’re sure hustling on the China issue.

Today's issue of Science magazine (firewalled) has an article and panel discussion about the results from a climatology meeting in Cambridge last week. Scientists met to discuss the issue of performing research on "geoengineering", which means large scale perturbation of the planet's atmosphere in an effort to hold back what are the clearly disruptive effects of global warming.  They didn't actually state that we've gone past a tipping point, but they did agree that it was time to start performing research on methods to reverse global warming even though they all admit that it is fraught with huge uncertainties.  What a big step for a group of scientists who went into the meeting with a distinct attitude that we really shouldn't be doing this because the cure could be worse than the disease.  The problem is that once they confronted the realities of political inaction, the difficulties of achieving reductions in greenhouse gases and the significantly worse than predicted increases in CO2 and Arctic sea ice melting, they recognized that their options were limited.

I received an e-mail today from the "Land Rights Network for the American Land Rights Association" calling for the support of Senator Larry Craig.  Judging by the title of the group it should come as no shock that this is a conservative advocacy group. At issue is the behavior of Larry Craig and what the consequences should be. The group is clearly locked in a dilemma; they like Senator Craig and the gay-bashing, gun-toting conservatism that he advocates, but they can't defend his actions. What to do? I'm not sure they recognize it, but they end up advocating liberal positions on the criminalization of GLBT behaviors.  How deliciously ironic! Details below.  

It took me a while to get sufficiently irritated by another diary to toss out a response. And I will get right to it. The ice is still there.  It has not collapsed.  It will not collapse like the Larsen B ice shelf.  The Polar Ice Cap is not an ice shelf.  It's just a lot of floating ice and it's not continuous (at least not at this time of the year). Yes, it has melted more than ever before.  But that was obvious back in May, June, July and now August.  The Arctic Ice Cap has been melting faster than ever before since the start of the melt season.  It has been tracked as such and even diaried as such. This kind of hysterical hyperbole is nice in the sense that it draws attention to a major problem, but frankly it lessens the credibility of those who oooo and ahhh over exageration.

In last week's issue of Nature magazine (behind subs firewall) the Editors drew attention to the fact that the military is at it again, shafting veterans and active duty soldiers on the issue of medical benefits. This time its the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, a bill before Congress that bans the use of genetic information to discriminate against health care recipients. Guess who's fighting the bill using the heavy hand of (R)Tom Coburn. The Health Insurance Industry, of course. Yeah, I know; that was a real difficult guess. You're totally shocked.

But then again, guess who's been granted an exemption, largely without comment or public discussion? The Pentagon. While that might not shock you, it should make you very, very angry.  

The MSM continues to blather on and on about the "improvement" in the coalition casualty figures for July, and has begun to worry about the numbers for August.  For the latest, you can look here, but it's not worth the effort.  For the true impact of the surge, look at the graph below. (Raw Data obtained from icasualties.org)

There have been many comments in dKos (TMTC), and elsewhere ACLU, Schumer to the effect that our Constitution has been placed at risk by the Bush administration’s appointment of Roberts and Alito. These appointments have created a nearly controlling block (the RATS; Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia) that with the periodic support of Justice Kennedy has begun to pillage fundamental human and constitutional rights for ideological purposes.  

While the current conflict between Congress and the President is an important part of the effort to restore democracy and the rule of law to our nation, the fight with SCOTUS is just as important if not more so.   Follow me below to find out why it is so vitally important to restore balance to SCOTUS and to consider how this might be done