War Room - Salon.com: "Perhaps George W. Bush should have listened to Porter Goss in the first place. Before Bush named Goss to head the CIA, the former Republican congressman and one-time CIA agent said he wasn't qualified to work at the modern-day version of the agency.

...

He'd apparently find plenty of agreement at the CIA. When Goss took over in 2004, he inherited an agency reeling from its failings on 9/11 and Iraq. He promised a fresh start, but, as the Washington Post reported in October, his progress mostly seemed to be of the backward variety. A year into his directorship, the Post said, Goss was 'at loggerheads with the clandestine service' and struggling to deal with the departure of 'at least a dozen senior officials,' including Robert Richer, a top CIA official who quit then told senators that he'd lost confidence in Goss."

(Via Salon.)

Think Progress » Washington Post Perpetuates Myth of Scientific Debate About Basic Facts of Global Warming: "Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity. This scientific debate only exists in newspaper articles."

(Via Think Progress.)

Think Progress » BREAKING: House Passes Sham Ethics Reform: "House conservatives just passed their lobbying reform bill by a narrow 217-214 vote. The Washington Post called the legislation a ‘sham,’ ‘diluted snake oil’ and ‘an insult to voters.’ Instead of the comprehensive reform promised by lawmakers in early 2006, this bill fails to reform parts of the system most in need."

(Via Think Progress.)

Martini Republic » America wins one: "America did lose in many cases in which, after the sucker punch of 9/11, it responded by suspending its usual cumbersome attempts to administrate justice. America lost much, indeed, since 9/11—it lost with warrantless wiretaps, with the blowing of its own spies by politicians, with an accelerated march to war on trumped-up charges, for which, ironically, as many have now died as in the terrorist attack. But America did not lose the Moussaoui verdict—life in prison—not at all. America indeed wins whenever it can still put justice not in the hands of the government, which can be famously capricious when administering justice, but in the hands of We The People, which are the only words on the Constitution writ especially large."

(Via Martini Republic.)

Iran Discovers New Uranium Deposits: "Iran said Tuesday it had found uranium ore at three new sites in the center of the country, an announcement that appeared designed as a fresh challenge to the drive by the United States and allies to curb Tehran's nuclear program.

Iran already has considerable uranium resources available for its nuclear program, a fact that called into question the importance of the new discoveries -- beyond their propaganda value.

'We have got good news: the discovery of new economically viable deposits of uranium in central Iran,' Mohammad Ghannadi, deputy chief for nuclear research and technology, told a conference."

(Via Salon.)

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: Bush's Nuclear Madness: "George W. Bush has a vision for a strong, independent nuclear America. He wants nuclear weapons for everyday use -- deterrence is for Democrats -- and he wants to build dozens of new nuclear energy plants across the United States.

He'll also ship thousands of tons of nuclear waste across the country, first to a huge storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. But that will only contain a little more than what we already have sitting around. We'll need nine more Yuccas by the end of the century if Bush's plans go through.

...

At the heart of Bush's atomic dreams is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) announced in February. Under the plan, we'll dramatically expand nuclear energy production at home, encourage new nuclear generation abroad and import other countries' spent fuel for reprocessing in the United States.

The idea is to limit the two most sensitive parts of the nuclear cycle -- enrichment and disposal -- to a handful of sites in the United States, Russia and perhaps France and Japan. In January Vladimir Putin announced that one piece of the puzzle -- a joint waste initiative between the United States and Russia -- was a done deal.

The GNEP constitutes a sharp break with decades of American nuclear policy, dating back to Jimmy Carter. He banned nuclear fuel reprocessing in 1977, concluding -- along with the American public -- that the costs were too high and the hazards too great."

Emphasis Mine.

(Via AlterNet.)

Salon.com | News Wires: " The trust fund for Social Security will be depleted in 2040, and Medicare will exhaust its trust fund reserves just 12 years from now, trustees for the programs said Monday.

Their annual report showed deterioration in the financial condition of both of the government's two largest benefit programs.

A year ago, the depletion of the Social Security trust fund had been projected to occur in 2041 and the Medicare hospital insurance fund in 2020."

(Via Salon.)

The case for globalized labor | Salon.com : "Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard, estimates that a worker in the first world earns 10 times more than someone with similar qualifications in the third. Even a light loosening of immigration restrictions, Rodrik argues, would provide a far bigger boost to the world's poor than knocking down all the famously crippling agricultural subsidies. After all, for many in those countries, their biggest asset is their labor, and the current system forces them to sell it at much lower than market value. If free trade is a tide that lifts all boats, then so is free labor. But this time, the smallest boats get the biggest boost. If we're going to ask countries to let in our goods, we should be willing to let in their workers."

(Via Salon.)

Controversial Bush judge broke ethics law | Salon.com News: "A Salon/CIR investigation reveals that Terrence Boyle, a key circuit court nominee touted by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, ruled in multiple cases involving corporations in which he held investments.

...

May 1, 2006 | Starting in 2002, Terrence W. Boyle, a longtime federal district court judge in North Carolina, presided over a lawsuit against General Electric, in which the corporation stood accused of illegally denying disability benefits to a long-standing employee. Deep into the case, on Jan. 15, 2004, Judge Boyle bought stock in General Electric, according to a review of his financial filings. Two months later, he made his ruling: Boyle shot down the plaintiff's claims to long-term and pension disability benefits, granting him only a fraction of the money in short-term compensation for a debilitating mental condition.

Boyle, 60, a controversial Bush nominee strongly opposed by Democrats and liberals as a staunch foe of civil rights, is on the verge of joining one of the country's highest courts. An investigation by Salon and the Center for Investigative Reporting has revealed that Boyle apparently violated federal law prohibiting judicial conflicts of interest -- not only in the G.E. case, but in many instances since his nomination by President Bush five years ago."

(Via Salon.)