Chrenkoff has a post on a good article. How come I can never find these interesting articles on my own? I always end up stealing his, or somebody else’s. Anyhow, go read it.
Archive for February 24th, 2005
Bush? Right? Never.
Thursday, February 24th, 2005Specter
Thursday, February 24th, 2005Arlen Specter is in the news again, this time for worrying about judicial confirmations. His fear of using the “nuclear option” (changing the filibuster rules in the Senate) is fairly well founded — Democrats are likely to be extremely unhappy about such a maneuver and will undoubtedly be more than willing to sabotage whatever else they could as revenge.
The filibuster, in my mind, does need to go. It would be best if that could be decided by a bipartisan agreement, but as such a move would limit the power of whichever party was in control of the Senate at the time, it’s unlikely to happen that way. Requiring 60 votes to allow a 51 vote majority to pass something strikes me as being fairly ridiculous. Yes, it is a procedural rule that encourages bipartisan cooperation, but it essentially allows the minority party (or any single individual) to block the will of the majority; something that strikes me as extremely undeomocratic.
Specter says he’ll try his best to pass Bush’s nominees, and I believe him. I also don’t think that Bush is likely to try to force the issue for small-fry judicial nominees. Expect more of a fight over Supreme Court nominees. Hopefully Specter (much as I dislike his politics) will be able to work things out, but it seems to me possible (if not likely) for him to step down as Chair (citing his illness) if things become too unworkable. I just realized I put three parenthetical phrases in that last sentence alone.
Another Article On Contaminants
Thursday, February 24th, 2005It seems they’re now finding rocket fuel in breast milk. If I were trying to be funny, I’d speculate that this was causing more ADHD in the population today. All those little jet-propelled kids. But that wouldn’t be particularly funny, so I won’t.
I will point out, however, that if you actually read down in the article, you find that perchlorate is also naturally occurring. The human body would tend to concentrate any perchlorate that it absorbed (and it does absorb some; the chart with the article is actually about perchlorate in drinking water), and naturally would put some of it out in breast milk. This is like saying that if you inhale pollutants, you’re likely to exhale them as well — doesn’t really say much, but sounds damning from an environmental standpoint.
UPDATE 02/24/05 02.54PM: Forgot to mention that this site has a link so you can also have a look at the “Top Ten Useless Limbs (and Other Vestigal Organs)”. Somebody had a little too much free time on their hands.