From ABC News

Mar 31, 2005 - LONDON (Reuters) - Oil hurtled back up to $56 a barrel on Thursday as Goldman Sachs bank, the biggest trader of energy derivatives, said prices could ultimately surge all the way above $100.

The Goldman Sachs report strengthened gains driven by a fall in U.S. gasoline stocks and fresh buying from investment funds as the dollar weakened.

U.S. light crude -CLc1- jumped $2.11, or 3.9 percent, to a high of $56.10 a barrel, within $1.50 of a $57.60 record high struck on March 17.

Benchmark Brent futures -LCOc1- leapt $2.76 to $54.85, catching up with Wednesday’s late recovery on the New York market, which this week closes an hour later than the London exchange.

Oil prices have climbed around 25 percent this year as signals that rapid demand growth in emerging economies China and India will strain world supply ignited heavy buying from big-money funds.

Goldman Sachs bank -GS.N- said in a research report on Thursday that oil markets have entered a “super-spike” period that could see prices rising as high as $105 a barrel.

“We believe oil markets may have entered the early stages of what we have referred to as a “super spike” period - a multi-year trading band of oil prices high enough to meaningfully reduce energy consumption and recreate a spare capacity cushion only after which will lower energy prices return,” Goldman’s analysts wrote.

Goldman’s Global Investment Research note also raised the bank’s 2005 and 2006 NYMEX crude price forecasts to $50 and $55 respectively, from $41 and $40.

These forecasts sit at the top of a table of predictions from 25 analysts, consultants and government bodies surveyed by Reuters -O/POLL-.

U.S. oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange have averaged $50.02 per barrel so far in 2005 up from a record $41.48 last year.

The U.S. government reported on Wednesday that U.S. gasoline supplies fell 2.9 million barrels to 214.4 million barrels last week, the fourth decline in a row ahead of summer when consumption peaks.

Thanks Bush, now even more people will starve because of you, so much for that “Culture of Life”

From Think Progress and US Newswire

Mrs. Schiavo's death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo's friends in this time of deep sorrow.

Make no mistake about it: Tom DeLay, our Majority Leader, is now threatening judges, doctors and Terri Schiavo's husband, and the Constitution of this great Nation.

As I am sure you know, Terry Schiavo's soul has finally been freed from the shell it has been trapped in. Within the hour of the death, our beloved leader, and savior, Bush had made a statement. “The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak,” Bush said. “In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in favor of life.”

I am glad he was about to find time in his busy day to make a statement, and so quick too. I want to know where his sense of urgency when 10 people were killed in Minnesota last week, it took him 5 days to make a statement, and only after people started to notice the absence of a statement. What about the 1,527 solders that were killed so far in Iraqastan? What about the other people that have passed away today, many of whom passed in much the same way as Terry did, countless people in the same state that Terry was in. What about the 25,000 children that die of hunger in the world every day, where is there statement.

They have taken an event that happens around this nation everyday and turned it into a political photo opportunity, that seems to have backfired. Tom DeLay openly said that he was going to use this event to take the heat off his own mountain of indiscretions. Even the Judge, Stanley F. Birch Jr. (A BUSH ONE APPOINTEE) issued a scathing attack on the White House and lawmakers over their role in the case, saying they “have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people — our Constitution.”.

You should be scared people, this case has shown, the republicans have no regard for our founding doctrine, and anything that stands in the way of them will be destroyed, even if it is the constitution of the United States.

I think this person has hit the nail on the head, I am sure someone is going to threaten his life soon.

Living will is the best revenge
By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor
Published March 27, 2005

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here’s what mine says:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn’t be long enough for me.

* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I’d be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.

* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

* I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.

* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.

* I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start calling me “Bobby,” as if they had known me since childhood.

* I’m not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a “Bobby’s Law” that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.

* Even if the “Bobby’s Law” idea doesn’t work out, I want Congress - especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in “less government and more freedom” - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.

* In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country’s attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.

* And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.

* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.

* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I’d want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best “to err on the side of life.”

* I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF’s care.

* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what’s best for me, I won’t be in any position to argue.

Looks like the Main Stream Media is going to continue to ignore news stories because it may dent Bush, and the rest of the Republican Parties "Mandate to Ruin the World"

From the Anchorage Daily News By WESLEY LOY

Cleanup workers continued efforts Tuesday to mop up a large oily water spill in the Kuparuk oil field, but the cause of a pipeline leak remained undetermined.

State pollution officials as well as a spokesman for oil company Conoco Phillips, which runs Kuparuk, said the estimated size of the spill remains at 111,300 gallons. That ranks as the third largest industrial spill ever recorded in the North Slope oil fields.

A worker for Conoco Phillips discovered the spill Saturday morning after spotting wet snow at the 2H drill site in the western reaches of the massive Kuparuk field. Kuparuk is the state’s second richest oil field after Prudhoe Bay.

Round-the-clock cleanup efforts continued Tuesday, and the cleanup could take weeks, DEC officials said.

As many as 80 workers are helping clear away snow covering the spill site and a six-inch underground pipeline suspected of springing a leak and releasing the oily, salty fluid known as “produced water.” The pipeline runs underneath the gravel drill pad.

Water typically is mixed with crude oil as it comes out of North Slope oil wells. The water is removed from the oil in a separation plant and then piped back to drill sites for injection back into the ground. The water helps maintain underground pressure, forcing out more oil.

Corrosion has been suspected in past oil field spills, but Conoco spokeswoman Dawn Patience said no firm cause had been determined.

Oil production has not been interrupted, she said.

Alaska Clean Seas, a consortium of equipment and staff paid by the North Slope oil industry to respond to spills, is helping with the cleanup. Other spill response contractors and the Village Response Team of Barrow also have sent workers to the site.

Cleanup workers plan to place booms around the nearly 2 acres affected by the spill and then flood the area with warm, fresh water. The idea is to gently lift away trace amounts of crude oil in the leaked water, as well as salt, which can kill tundra vegetation.

These flushing operations could begin in the next three days, according to a status report the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued Tuesday afternoon.

Leslie Pearson, the DEC’s spill prevention and emergency response manager, said the fact that the ground is still frozen might help reduce damage. In summer, the spilled water could more easily penetrate to the roots of tundra vegetation, she said.

The on-site temperature Tuesday was reported as minus 10.

Inspections last October and in 2001 found no problems in the pipeline, Pearson said.

Conoco is majority owner of Kuparuk, with BP holding a large minority interest. The other owners are Unocal, Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco.

For some time, I thought the actions of Tom DeLay and his pack of immoral followers had in fact forged new lows in the daily conversations that move our nation. I was desperately wrong. The bar could in fact go much lower, and the parents of Terri Schiavo have set it.

For some time, years in fact, the Schindler's have maintained a website describing the issues from their side, and soliciting money to help pay for mounting legal bills, and many people have given. The Schindler's are not even going to go wait for their daughter to die before they start profiting on this whole ordeal. How you may ask? Well the Schindlers are going to sell the list of donors to right wing organizations, so they can use this list for, anything they want.

Here is some of a story from the NY Times…

“These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler’s legal battle to keep Terri’s estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri,” says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo’s father. “These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!”

Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.

“I think it’s amusing,” said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. “I think it’s absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information.”

— snip —

Direct mail and mass e-mailings are ubiquitous fund-raising tools of interest groups on the left as well as the right, and others in the direct-mail business defended the sale of lists like the roster of donors to the Schindlers as a useful way for potential donors to learn of causes that might appeal to them.

Pamela Hennessy, an unpaid spokeswoman for the Schindlers, said she was initially appalled when she learned of the list’s existence.

“It is possibly the most distasteful thing I have ever seen,” Ms. Hennessy said. “Everybody is making a buck off of her.”

Ms. Hennessy, who operates the Schindlers’ Web site, www.terrisfight.org, said the family had not released any of the names or e-mail addresses gathered there. “Obviously these people are enterprising, and they are taking advantage of this very desperate father,” she said.

Read the whole think… HERE

I have learned 2 things, and the more I grow, the clearer these truths become. The first thing I have learned is that Evangelical Christian Values do not hold up well to science, philosophy, and even biblical studies. The second thing I learned is, Evangelicals fear education like Superman fears Kryptonite, mainly because of lesson one.

So here is something I found from Commondreams.org, hear are some highlights…

n the Florida legislature, House Republicans, on the Choice and Innovation Committee, recently voted to pass a bill that threatens to restrain academic scholars. The law would allow students to sue teachers for beliefs that do not concur with conservative perspectives. If, for example, professors argue that evolution is a scientific fact instead of a theory, and if they don't devote equal time to creationism, under this bill, initiated by conservative David Horowitz's campaign, students can sue the professor for being biased.

Although the bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House, it represents a growing threat against the very foundation of scholarly research. The intended goal of this bill is to portray professors as tyrannical monsters who terrorize Republican-conservative students, rendering them into poor, helpless victims under the authority of those, ah yes, Brutal Liberal Dictators!

Indeed, the phrasing of the bill is comical. It turns the essential meaning of "liberal education" upside down: "leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors" in university classrooms. How's this for an Orwellian twist? The bill is titled "The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights," sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

It is a great read, but it is very long. So, what do we do to stop these people who want “free speech”, as long as it is what they want to hear? For Shame. READ IT ALL

From the NY Times
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people’s beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.

We can see this failing clearly in other countries. In the Netherlands, for example, a culture of tolerance led the nation to ignore the growing influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous.

But it’s also true of the United States, where dangerous extremists belong to the majority religion and the majority ethnic group, and wield great political influence.

Before he saw the polls, Tom DeLay declared that “one thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America.” Now he and his party, shocked by the public’s negative reaction to their meddling, want to move on. But we shouldn’t let them. The Schiavo case is, indeed, a chance to highlight what’s going on in America.

One thing that’s going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose. Randall Terry, a spokesman for Terri Schiavo’s parents, hasn’t killed anyone, but one of his former close associates in the anti-abortion movement is serving time for murdering a doctor. George Greer, the judge in the Schiavo case, needs armed bodyguards.

Another thing that’s going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.

Make sure you read it all Click Here

If you recall, the Republicans and BushCo went nuts on Michael Moore's Movie Fahrenheit 911, one of the points made in the movie, and jumped on by the right wingers was that BushCo helped get the Saudis out of the country after 9/11. I recall speaking to a wing nut, and he said this was false, and therefore the rest of the movie was jest crap. Well, it looks like Michael Moore was dead on…

From AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The FBI played an active role in arranging chartered flights for dozens of well-connected Saudi nationals — including relatives of Osama bin Laden — after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The New York Times reported that the documents show Federal Bureau of Investigation agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, while several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, citing newly-released US government records.

The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, had requested the FBI escorts out of concern for their personal safety in the wake of the attacks.

The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, which provided copies to the Times.

FBI officials contacted by the daily reacted angrily to the allegation of preferential treatment for the Saudis.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, when queried by the Times about the airport escorts said “we’d do that for anybody if they felt they were threatened — we wouldn’t characterize that as special treatment.”

The Saudis’ chartered flights — arranged in the days after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks when most aircraft were still grounded — long have been a topic of allegations related to close family ties and associates of US President George W. Bush and the Saudi royal family.

The charges received their most prominent airing last year by the filmmaker Michael Moore, in his “Fahrenheit 9/11″ documentary.

White House officials have strongly denied any special treatment for the Saudis.

How many more lies will we now start to see? When are we going to hold someones feet to the fire for 9/11?

DeLay may have wanted to make a political show out of Terry's case, but according the LA Times, there was no fan fair for his own father's death, who the family removed from life support. While all premature deaths such as the Senior DeLay, I do find it very hypocritical that he did not afford the Schiavo family the privacy his family received when they were going thought such issues. Republicans - The "Do as I say, not as I do" party.

From the LA Times

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family standing vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and a ventilator, was DeLay’s father, Charles Ray DeLay.

nd he is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo’s husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls “an act of barbarism” in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old mother, recalled in an interview last week. “There was no way he (Charles) wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

“The situation faced by the congressman’s family was entirely different than Terri Schiavo’s,” said a spokesman for DeLay, who declined requests for an interview.

“The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him,” said Dan Allen, DeLay’s news aide.

There were also these similarities: Both stricken patients were severely brain damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without continuing medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared life sustained by machine. And neither left a living will.

This previously unpublished account of the majority leader’s personal brush with life-ending decisions was assembled from court files, medical records and interviews with family members.

The BushCo puts the nation in a Constitutional crisis over one self induced brain dead person in Florida, meanwhile, ten people have been slaughtered at gun point, and the media has basically relegated this to a craw at the bottom of the screen.

I have no idea what these families are going thought right now, bless them.

In the ever growing list of proof that Republicans do in fact hate Americans. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s Phil Singer wrote the following:

As Senate GOPers Up For Re-Election Vote Against Common Sense Efforts to Make Budget Better for Everyday Americans, Democrats Vow To Hold Them Accountable

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) warned Senate Republicans today that votes they cast this week against initiatives intended to help America's communities would come back to haunt them during the 2006 campaign.

Senate Republicans voted against a number of measures aimed at improving the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year, including initiatives geared toward protecting Social Security, improving homeland security, increasing access to affordable prescription drugs and providing quality health care to veterans.

“Senators are defined by their voting record,” DSCC Executive Director JB Poersch said. “Senators who vote against priorities like protecting Social Security benefits, making our neighborhoods safer, or providing veterans' health care can rest assured that they will pay a price come election time. We guarantee it.”

Republicans Say NO to Protecting Social Security Benefits: Allen, Burns, Chafee, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas voted against a Resolution rejecting any Social Security plan that “requires deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt.” [CQ, Vote #49, 3/15/05]

Republicans Say NO to First Responders: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against $1.6 billion for first responder programs. [CQ, Vote 50, 3/15/05]

Republicans Say NO to Veterans Health Care: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas Voted against $2.8 billion for veterans health care and $2.8 billion for deficit reduction. [CQ, Vote #55, 3/16/05]

Republicans Say NO to Keeping Medicaid Viable: Allen, Burns, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas Voted Against Restoring $14 billion to Medicaid and Establishing a Bipartisan Medicaid Commission. [CQ, Vote #58, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to America's Homeland Security: Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Kyl, Lott, Santorum and Thomas voted against $855 million for Homeland Security Grants: first responder programs, port security grants and border patrol agents. [CQ, Vote #64, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to America's Communities: Allen, Burns, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against restoring $1.9 billion in cuts to the Community Development Block Grant Program. [CQ, Vote #65, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Vocational Training: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against $7.46 billion for the Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act and deficit reduction. [CQ, Vote #61, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Fiscal Sanity: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas Voted against restoring pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. [CQ, Vote #53, 3/16/05]

Republicans Say NO to Protecting ANWR: Allen, Burns, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas voted against protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska from oil drilling. [CQ, Vote #52, 3/16/05]

Republicans Say NO to Keeping Amtrak Operating: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas voted against restoring $1.04 billion for Amtrak. [CQ, Vote #51, 3/16/05]

Republicans Say NO to America's Schools: Allen, Burns, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against $4.75 billion for education and $4.75 billion for deficit reduction. [CQ, Vote #45, 3/14/05]

Republicans Say NO to College Students: Allen, Burns, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas voted against restoring $5.4 billion to education program cuts and increasing the maximum Pell Grant award to $4,500. [CQ, Vote #68, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Farmers: Allen, Burns, Chafee, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against restoring $2.8 billion to agriculture programs. [CQ, Vote #69, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to COPS: Allen, Burns, Chafee, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against increasing funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) by $1 billion and use $1 billion to reduce the deficit. [CQ, Vote #70, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to America's Highways: Allen, Burns, Chafee, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against increasing the budget authority for surface transportation projects. [CQ, Vote #71, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Talent and Thomas voted against a resolution supporting $1 billion for family planning programs, such as teen pregnancy prevention. [CQ, Vote #75, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Disclaimers on Fake News: Allen, Burns, Chafee, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against refusing to establish any appropriations bill that allows funds to be provided for “prepackaged news stories” that do not have a disclaimer stating “Paid for by the United States Government” running throughout the presentation. [CQ, Vote #77, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Special Education: Allen, Burns, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against a reserve fund that would provide $71.3 billion for special education programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. [CQ, Vote #79, 3/17/05]

Republicans Say NO to Advanced Technology: Allen, Burns, Chafee, DeWine, Ensign, Frist, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Santorum, Snowe, Talent and Thomas voted against making every effort to provide funding for the Advanced Technology Program. [CQ, Vote #80, 3/17/05]

In the nonstop Terri Schiavo coverage a very important new story has gotten lost, and I am sure Bush is pleased as punch.

The CBS Poll of Bush's approval rating has dropped to a stunning 43%. He is also about to break the 50% threshold on those that "Disapprove" of his doing as president, with a 48% of those polled.

Oddly a few weeks after the election Bush's approval rating had climbed to staggering 51% , it was covered by the main stream media to ammonium. Where are they now.

So in short, the Republicans are on a down hill slide, they made a huge mistake trampling on the State of Florida's right, and the rights of the Schiavo family. Their "base" is starting to see the light, which is Republicans have convinced them to vote against their own best interests. The President is near a record low in his approval rating (I expect a terrorist attack, or new Osama Bin Ladin tape real soon), the Republicans shot their political wad with the Schiavo case, and Americans were stunned at the blatant disregard they had for the foundation of this nation. DeLay is on the ropes, his corruption is catching up with him, and so much more. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, yes it does.

Tom DeLay shows himself to be the most despicable human being alive today. While the drama unfolds in Florida over the Terry Schiavo issue, Tom was already hatching a plan to use her. Unbeknownst to him, while at a conservative social gathering at the Washington Hotel, someone snuck in a tape recorder.

The NY Times picks up the story…

“One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America,” Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others,” Mr. DeLay said.

Mr. DeLay complained that “the other side” had figured out how “to defeat the conservative movement,” by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged that “the whole syndicate” was “a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in.”

What do you believe in? His plans were to use this poor women for political gain, his words clearly show that he cared less about her, and only for her "issue"

Wow, I am sure you have made Jesus proud today Tom, I am sure he is saving you a seat, but where?