Enough With the Obamathon

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The president is on TV more than the ShamWow guy, but I want to see a little more action.

Bill Maher
June 12, 2009 - The Los Angeles Times

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President Obama should just join the cast of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" It's not that farfetched; he's been on everything else.

I'm still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking the wife to Broadway and Paris - this is the best season of "The Bachelor" yet!

I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."

Remember during the campaign when John McCain attacked Obama for acting like a celebrity and we all laughed at the grumpy old shellshocked fool? Well, it turns out he was right. Sorry, senator. I'm sending a nice gift basket of high-fiber muffins your way.

It's getting to where you can't turn on your TV without seeing Obama. Who does he think he is, Dick Cheney? Come on, sir, you don't have to be on television every minute of every day. You're the president, not a rerun of "Law and Order." Save some charisma for a rainy day. Taking strangers from a TV show on a tour of your house? We have that show; it's called "Cribs." And letting reporters ask you questions like "You like to be the one who picks out the shaving cream, don't you?" Or as it's called today, "journalism." I was willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt until I saw him take Brian Williams into his bedroom, and at the end of the bed there was a teleprompter and it said, "Who's your daddy?"

I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

I know that's harsh. But when I read about how you sat on the sidelines while bailed-out banks used the money we gave them to hire lobbyists who got Congress to stop homeowners from getting renegotiated loans, or how Congress is already giving up on healthcare reform, or how scientists say it's essential to reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years, but your own bill calls for 4%, I say, enough with the character development, let's get on with the plot.

And let's stop worrying so much about doing anything that might tarnish the brand. See, this is why I don't want my president to be a TV star: Because TV stars are too worried about being popular - and too concerned with getting renewed.

You can relax about that, Mr. President, knowing that there's a large, rich organization doing everything it possibly can to ensure that you'll get reelected: It's called the Republican Party.

Speaking of which, if you can't beat Republicans now, when they're so down they take orders from Rush Limbaugh, then when? The way to get renewed for your reality show that you love so much is to act boldly now.

Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us."

Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"

Bush had horrible ideas, like torture and deregulation and preemptive war and tax cuts for the rich, but he pushed them through, in their full measure, never mind Congress or the Constitution or the Geneva Convention or the Magna Carta or the Code of Hammurabi.

The point is, he didn't care if it made him unpopular with every human on the planet not named Cletus or Fred Barnes. Which it did.

And we need to marry the good ideas Obama really believes in with that Bush attitude and Bush certitude. I'd love for Obama to come out one day and say, "Jesus told me to fix healthcare." Or, "History will decide whether stopping the polar ice caps from melting and drowning us all was a good thing."

In conclusion, Bush was a jerk, but he never cared about being seen having a burger with Dick Cheney. He picked up the phone in the White House and said, "I'm the president, bring me a burger." And they'd say, "Sir, this is NORAD. Would you please stop ordering burgers with the red phone?"

I'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.

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Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Why the World Should Be Watching Central Asia

Mosque at Naryn, Kyrgyzstan

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Ishaan Tharoor
June 15, 2009 - Time

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When Pakistani troops began to pummel Taliban positions in the Swat Valley last month, there were other military advances against insurgent outposts - barely noticed by the global media - taking place in valleys not so far away. In late May, Uzbek soldiers and tanks patrolled parts of the troubled Ferghana Valley following shootouts with suspected Islamist extremists and a suicide bombing in the valley's main city of Andijan. In neighboring Tajikistan, government forces fanned out across the remote Rasht Valley in a supposed attempt to hunt down a notorious militant commander named Abdullo Rakhimov. The veteran jihadi, according to some local reports, had recently abandoned Taliban allies in Pakistan to resume the struggle in his nearby native land.

While much of the focus of the U.S.-led war on terror now surrounds that theater of operations the Obama administration terms "Af-Pak," the post-Soviet 'Stans to the north present their own strategic quagmire. The tactical support of governments in the region is becoming increasingly vital for U.S. plans to bring stability to Afghanistan. Central Asian countries also sit atop a significant chunk of the world's untapped oil and natural gas reserves, assets which are eyed covetously by both neighboring Russia and China, as well as the West. Yet the region - dominated by corrupt and repressive regimes - is itself precariously poised, home to its own native Islamist insurgencies vulnerable to domestic upheaval. "There is the possibility for really unpredictable change," says Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow for Russian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. And it's change few Central Asia watchers expect to be positive. While great powers vie for
resources and influence, countries that were once seen as a bulwark against more turbulent nations to the south and west are themselves lurching toward crisis.

Still, Central Asia exists on the periphery for most policy makers in the U.S. When not the illusory realm of Borat or an exotic waypoint of horse markets and mutton skewers, the region has been cast off as a dysfunctional Russian annex, easily manipulated by a Kremlin that still views these young republics as satellite states. From Ashgabat to Astana, the ruling elites are all holdovers from the Soviet era, and sometimes more fluent in Russian than their national tongues. "Their regimes operate," says Eric McGlinchey, a Central Asia specialist and professor of politics and government at George Mason University, "along almost pathological networks of patronage" - and ones that Moscow knows how to navigate. That close working relationship has been on full display recently in Kyrgyzstan: spurred by a Russian promise of $2 billion in aid, the Kyrgyz government signaled its intent to shut down the U.S.'s pivotal Manas air base there in January, and
reaffirmed that pledge this week despite recent overtures from the Obama administration.

Russia may be keen to deter an entrenched American presence in its traditional sphere of influence, but is more muted about China's expanding role in the region. Resource-hungry Beijing has steadily made inroads west, tying up lucrative energy contracts in Kazakhstan, while committing tens of million dollars to infrastructure and hydropower projects in impoverished Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. China has also become the single largest investor in Afghanistan, building roads through Kabul and setting up a massive $3 billion copper mine. In 2001, China formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a geo-political grouping aimed at improving economic and political relations with Russia and other Central Asian nations - as well as a vehicle for Beijing to quash support for separatists in its restive Xinjiang province, whose Muslim Uighurs share ethnic ties with Central Asia's Turkic populations. The SCO - which is set to convene at a summit in
Yekaterinaburg, Russia this week - also declared in 2005 that there must be a timeline for withdrawing all U.S. military bases in Central Asia, a clear sign of Beijing and Moscow's intent to limit U.S. influence. "Russia and China are both interested in maintaining the status quo," says Sean Roberts, a Central Asia expert at George Washington University. See pictures of Chinese investment in Africa.

That translates into a somewhat depressing reality for the over 50 million people living in the region. The world's "freedom rankings" compiled by Freedom House, a Washington D.C.-based human rights NGO, place all five of the post-Soviet 'Stans near the bottom. Independent media is almost non-existent. Human rights activists are frequently detained and tortured, and many others live in exile. Even in Kyrgyzstan, where a so-called "velvet" revolution toppled the ruling president in 2005, the subsequent government has done little to distinguish itself from the past. "Central Asians tolerate an awful lot," says Roberts. "They've inherited a mentality from the Soviet days where they don't necessarily believe in politics, or have faith that turning over the government yields a lot of results."

Yet they are hardly isolated from global events: the impact of the worldwide recession is pushing some Central Asian societies to the brink. Tajikistan, like other poor Central Asian nations, has over the years seen many of its able-bodied men leave to work in the more prosperous cities of Russia and oil-rich Kazakhstan - at least a tenth of the Tajik population of 7 million is migrant labor. Remittances sent home comprise some 40% of the country's total GDP, according to UN figures, and account for only slightly less in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Now, with the collapse of the Russian economy and the drying up of its construction boom, tens of thousands are returning to rugged homelands that offer few opportunities and to families that depended on their labor abroad. Observers in Tajikistan tell of depressed village after village where groups of unemployed men amble around. The situation "is a potential time bomb," says the International Crisis Group, a
Brussels-based think-tank, in a report earlier this year that labeled the country "on the road to failure."

Analysts fear that the deteriorating economic climate, a legacy of ineffectual governance, and an increasingly frustrated population may feed into the designs of established militant groups in the region. The Ferghana Valley, the most densely populated pocket of Central Asia, straddles the Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz borders, and is home to the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a State Department listed terror organization. Militants are known to slip easily across the porous 1,300 km boundary between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which is also a chief thoroughfare for Afghan opium into the markets of the West. According to Pakistani media, the IMU has helped contribute some 4,000 Uzbek and Tajik fighters to the Taliban forces warring with Islamabad.

The specter of an Islamist threat has often worked in favor of the region's governments. After 9/11, U.S. Central Asian strategy was dictated largely by the Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. Uzbekistan, ruled its entire independent life by the iron-fisted Islam Karimov, was brought into the fold as a staging ground for American operations in Afghanistan, as well as a willing accomplice in the renditions of suspected terrorists. That cozy partnership ended in 2005 when the Uzbek army gunned down hundreds of civilians protesting for reform in the Ferghana Valley under the pretense that it was curbing an Islamist revolt. U.S. and European condemnation only led the government to turn to Moscow's embrace and throw out numerous international NGOs and foreign aid agencies. The country's dissidents receded further into the margins; the more pronounced opposition now tends to be radical and violent. "Islamic militancy here," says McGlinchey, "has
almost always more to do with the oppressiveness of the local governments than some kind of trans-national religious calling."

With the anticipated loss of Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. has again turned to Karimov's Uzbekistan for logistical assistance. Central Asia watchers in the U.S. say that part of the difficulty Washington now faces in the region stems from its own short-sightedness in engaging governments there. "The U.S. approach was one-dimensional," says Mankoff of the Council on Foreign Relations. "A lot of attention has been paid to cooperating with military and security forces at the expense of a broader relationship." The Obama administration has no dedicated Central Asia envoy nor is it willing to pursue a strong agenda for change and reform at the risk of provoking Moscow. "Many think it's a battle not worth fighting," says Roberts.

Events may soon outpace that calculus, given the alarming collapse of the region's economies and spikes in militant violence. It's unclear, though, what a beefed-up American role in the region could look like, and whether it would be in concert - or at odds - with Moscow or Beijing. Headlines in the international press tout the advent of the new "Great Game" in a region that for centuries has been at the whim of larger forces. Not many locals are that interested, though. "We waited and hoped for democratic change after the influence of America," says Umida Niyazova, a journalist and prominent Uzbek activist living in exile in Germany. "But the years since have only brought more instability."

Eating Meat Is Not Natural

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Eating meat is a relatively recent phenomenon in human evolution. And our bodies have never adapted to it.

Kathy Freston
June 15, 2009 - AlterNet

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Going through the reader feedback on some of my recent articles, I noticed the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it's simply not true, scientifically.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study (please check out the link), explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that "the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods."

That jibes with what Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, in which he explains that "early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. Research suggests that meat-eating probably began by scavenging -- eating the leftovers that carnivores had left behind. However, our bodies have never adapted to it. To this day, meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other problems."

There is no more authoritative source on anthropological issues than paleontologist Dr. Richard Leakey, who explains what anyone who has taken an introductory physiology course might have discerned intuitively -- that humans are herbivores. Leakey notes that "[y]ou can't tear flesh by hand, you can't tear hide by hand ... We wouldn't have been able to deal with food source that required those large canines" (although we have teeth that are called "canines," they bear little resemblance to the canines of carnivores).

In fact, our hands are perfect for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables. Similarly, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly get rid of all that rotting flesh they eat). We don't have sharp claws to seize and hold down prey. And most of us (hopefully) lack the instinct that would drive us to chase and then kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Dr. Milton Mills builds on these points and offers dozens more in his essay, "A Comparative Anatomy of Eating."

The point is this: Thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, we may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in times of scarcity, but we don't need it now. Says Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, "Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."

Sure, most of us are "behavioral omnivores" -- that is, we eat meat, so that defines us as omnivorous. But our evolution and physiology are herbivorous, and ample science proves that when we choose to eat meat, that causes problems, from decreased energy and a need for more sleep up to increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Old habits die hard, and it's convenient for people who like to eat meat to think that there is evidence to support their belief that eating meat is "natural" or the cause of our evolution. For many years, I too, clung to the idea that meat and dairy were good for me; I realize now that I was probably comforted to have justification for my continued attachment to the traditions I grew up with.

But in fact top nutritional and anthropological scientists from the most reputable institutions imaginable say categorically that humans are natural herbivores, and that we will be healthier today if we stick with our herbivorous roots. It may be inconvenient, but it alas, it is the truth.

Link:

http://www.alternet.org/story/140643/eating_meat_is_not_natural/

EPA Withholds Locations of 'High Hazard' Coal Ash Sites

Under the stacks of TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant, the ash spill cleanup continues. (Photo courtesy TVA)

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Public Not Allowed to Know Location of Hazardous Coal Ash Sites

June 14, 2009 - Environmental News Servivce

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There are 44 coal combustion waste sites nationwide that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified as "high hazard," but the agency cannot make the locations of these hazardous sites public, Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters today. The California senator chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the federal environmental agency.

In the aftermath of last December's spill of more than a billion gallons of coal ash waste at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired power plant, the U.S. EPA conducted inspections of the nation's coal combustion waste sites.

Agency inspectors identified several hundred coal ash piles across the country including 44 sites that pose a "high hazard." These sites are located in such a way that if the coal ash ponds were to fail, they would pose a threat to people living nearby.

But, Senator Boxer said, "the EPA, after consulting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security, has indicated that they cannot make the list of 'high hazard' sites public."

"If these sites are so hazardous and if the neighborhoods nearby could be harmed irreparably, then I believe it is essential to let people know," Boxer said. "In that way, they can press their local authorities who have responsibility for their safety to act now to make the sites safer."

"There is a huge muzzle on me and on my staff, and the only people I can tell about this are the senators whose states are impacted," said Boxer. "We cannot talk to any of their staffs. This is unacceptable. The committee is going to continue hearings into this matter."

Today, Senator Boxer sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the EPA seeking further information on whether the public disclosure of coal ash waste sites is consistent with the treatment of other hazardous sites.

"One of the lessons we all learned from the TVA spill is that a close look at these facilities is extremely important, and we cannot rely on general assurances that these sites are safe," the senator said. "That is why I am pleased that on-the-ground inspections have begun."

At 1:00 am on December 22, 2008, a retaining wall failed on an 84-acre surface impoundment holding a half century's worth of coal ash at the TVA's Kingston power plant about 35 miles west of Knoxville, Tennessee, at the junction of the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

More than one billion gallons of coal ash "rushed down the valley like a wave," Boxer said. Ash covered nearly 400 acres, destroying three homes and damaging a dozen others. No one was injured.

"The volume of ash and water was 100 times greater than the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster," Boxer said today. "The cost of cleaning up that spill has been estimated at over a billion dollars."

After the devastating Kingston spill, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held an oversight hearing to better understand this incident and how to avoid similar disasters in the future.

"When EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson came before our committee for her confirmation hearing a week later, she committed to move immediately to address the threat posed by coal ash waste," Boxer said today, expressing confidence Jackson would act to regulate coal combustion waste sites.

"Coal combustion waste is subject to very limited regulation," Boxer said. "In fact, there are stronger protections for household garbage than for coal ash across the country."

The EPA has the authority to regulate coal ash, which can contain toxic substances such as arsenic, selenium, lead, cadmium and chromium.

"I do have great confidence in Administrator Jackson's commitment to move forward with regulations," said the senator. "I hope and expect we will have these regulations by the end of this year."

At the site of the Kingston coal ash spill, cleanup continues. On May 11, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency that is the nation's largest public power provider, and the EPA signed an agreement by which TVA recognizes EPA's role and specialized expertise in responding to large-scale environmental clean-ups.

While TVA will retain its status as a lead federal agency, EPA will approve all work plans and schedules going forward.

"This agreement will continue the collaborative work between EPA, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and TVA, using EPA's expertise under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act," said TVA Senior Vice President of Office of Environment and Research Anda Ray.

"All of the agencies involved have a common goal, to meet the nation's highest standards for effectiveness, transparency, and public involvement," said Ray.

Transparency is exactly what Senator Boxer is after. The Environment and Public Works Committee will continue its ongoing investigation of coal ash waste sites and Boxer announced plans to conduct additional hearings on the 44 "high hazard" sites with the intention of learning why their locations are being withheld from the public.