Gitmo:

Yet another U.N. report is urging the U.S. to shut down the torture center that is Gitmo. Unfortunately for the right, this time no one said that Gitmo "isn't as bad as Belgian prisons". Hmmm.....
The same concerns kept popping up in the report - concerns that the Bush administration continues to ignore.

The committee said it was worried that detainees were being held for protracted periods with insufficient legal safeguards and without judicial assessment of the justification for their detention.

"The state party should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close the detention facility," the panel of 10 independent experts said.


Wait a minute. If the BA continues to ignore a United Nations decree, does put them in the same slimy boat as Saddam? After all, W invaded Iraq because Saddam was ignoring the U.N.
How about a coalition to dethrone W and Co.




Good news:

Yes, if you can believe it, good news out of D.C. The outcome of two House votes yesterday saw two surprising results. The first, and most important, especially here in FLA, was the defeat of another right-wing GOP plan to open the coasts of Florida and California to oil and gas drilling. This was a shocker, considering the mood of Washington and rest of the country in regards to gas prices. Not that drilling would have immediately alleviated this problem - even though the GOP was essentially saying just that. This is a big victory for those California and Florida rep's that worked to defeat this.

The second bit of good news is yet another House vote yesterday, this one "pressuring" oil companies to renegotiate their sweetheart public land leases, which enables them to extract oil and gas on public lands while only paying a pittance in royalties. The O&G's could end up paying nearly $7 billion. About time for them to own up to this outrageous giveaway. However, it remains to be seen whether this plan will be implemented, or if the GOP leadership, which, not surprisingly, vehemently opposed this bill, will kill it.