It's morning somewhere

...Bush on Earth Day. It's like Satan talking up the joys of Easter. It's like Paris Hilton chatting about treating the planet with humility and grace. It's like Jerry Falwell gushing about his love of Brokeback Mountain, Eli Lilly extolling the virtues of meditation and green tea. It is, in a word, embarrassing. Humiliating. Intellectually bludgeoning. And hypocritical in a way, and at a depth, that is as nauseating to stomach as the testosterone levels at a Duke lacrosse frat party...

...The US report says other state sponsors of terrorism include Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Cuba...

...The report from the Government Accountability Office said another 400 who died in the wars had $300,000 in debt but that the Defense Department doesn't pursue collection of people killed in combat.

"We found that hundreds of separated battle-injured soldiers were pursued for collection of military debts incurred through no fault of their own," said the report. It said that included seeking reimbursement for errors in pay or for equipment left on the battlefield...

The Congressional Research Service has just released a new report on the past and possible future costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pending Congress’ action on the new emergency supplemental, which should complete fiscal year 2006 expenses, the costs will be up to $439 billion by the end of this year.

...But I saw the deformed animals. I spoke to the sick children and their dying parents. America has been fed some big lies lately, but the biggest ever told remains "no one died at Three Mile Island." ...

...The Defense Security Service blames, in part, the sheer volume of requests. Between October and March, more than 100,000 security-clearance applications were submitted.

The service is also struggling with a budget shortfall, McGovern said, noting that its funding was cut by $20 million this year. McGovern said she did not know how much of a shortfall the agency faces...

The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

...The government, in a filing here late Friday, said the lawsuit threatens to expose government and military secrets and therefore should be tossed. The administration added that its bid to intervene in the case should not be viewed as a concession that the allegations are true...

...Some scientists are upbeat. Biodiversity, says the Institute of Ecology in the Ukraine, has increased due to the removal of human influence. Moose, wild boar, roe and red deer, beavers, wolves, badgers, otters and lynx have all been reported in the area, and species associated with humans - rats, house mice, sparrows and pigeons - have all declined. Indeed, of 270 species of birds in the area, 180 are breeding.

But it is not as simple as that. Other scientists report mammals experiencing heavy doses from internally deposited Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 radioactive fallout. One study has found mutations in 18 generations of birds; another that radioactivity levels in trees are still rising. Contamination has been found migrating into underground aquifers...

Inexplicable: Phillip Williams, 47, for some reason approached two uniformed police officers in Tampa, Fla., in March to ask their opinions of whether the substance he had just purchased for the crack pipe he was holding was indeed cocaine. After examining the pipe, the officers suspended their then-current investigation of a burglary and put the cuffs on Williams. The month before, in Orlando, Michael Garibay, 34, approached a sheriff's deputy in a marked patrol car and asked him if he was "straight," which, as Garibay proceeded to explain to the befuddled officer, meant, "Do you want to buy cocaine?" After Garibay pulled out a baggie of white rocks, he was arrested. [Tampa Tribune, 3-22-06] [Orlando Sentinel, 2-3-06]

Recurring Themes: In March, Gary Brunner became the latest person to go to a police station and ask naively if there were any warrants on him, only to find the answer to be yes and that he was under arrest (for drug possession, Carmel, N.Y.). And Bryan Palmer, 21, and Peggy Casey, 31, were interviewed by police investigating a burglary in South Windsor, Conn., in March, but were released. Detectives changed their minds, though, and were futilely searching for them when the pair showed up at the police station to innocently ask how the investigation was going. [Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.), 3-16-06] [Manchester Journal Inquirer, 3-13-06

This week the cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents, more than twice the value of last fall. Because the government spends at least another six-tenths of a cent — above and beyond the cost of the metal — to make each penny, it will lose nearly half a cent on each new one it mints.

...Most Pastors agree that if Christian parents would take their children out of public schools and invest their money in providing a sound Biblical education at a private Baptist School, it would solve most of the world's problems. "Kids won't even want to watch movies like 'Ice Age,'" says Pastor Deacon Fred. "There are so many more interesting stories in the Bible, and they are ALL true!" In most True Christian® schools, like Dr. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, in Lynchburg, VA, they monitor, edit, and approve the movies that students are allowed to watch...

...In Baghdad on Monday for a joint appearance with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Condoleezza Rice suggested that we've now given the Iraqis all the help a liberated people can reasonably expect: We "have forces on the ground and have sacrificed here," she told reporters, so we have "a right to expect that this process [of government formation] will keep moving forward."

Chiming in, Straw called on the Iraqis to shape up and select a prime minister, pronto: "The Americans have lost over 2,000 people [in Iraq]. We've lost over 100…. And billions — billions — of United States dollars, hundreds of millions of British pound sterlings have come into this country. We do have, I think, a right to say that we've got to be able to deal with Mr. A or Mr. B or Mr. C. We can't deal with Mr. Nobody."...

..."We have been chosen to live as Christians at a time when our culture is being poisoned and our world is being threatened," thundered the Texan pest-control entrepreneur who rose to become one of America's most powerful politicians. "The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won."...

...There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq...

..."My lawyers have been told I'm not a target of the investigation," DeLay said. He said he managed his congressional office "by trusting the people I hired. Evidently, they mishandled that trust."...