Sat, 15 Oct 2005 05:07:45 GMT

Yet Another Investigation into White House Corruption.

The Department of Education has asked the US Attorney’s Office to investigate improper Bush propogandizing with government resources…

Investigators at the Education Department have contacted the U.S. attorney’s office regarding the Bush administration’s hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its agenda.

…

The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the Education Department engaged in illegal “covert propaganda” by hiring Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind Act without requiring him to disclose that he was being paid. The Education Department’s inspector general has also reviewed the Williams deal, which was part of a broader contract that the education agency had with Ketchum, a public relations firm.

Now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is investigating whether Williams accepted public money without performing his required duties, said Dan Katz, chief counsel for Lautenberg. The attorney’s office has a range of potential remedies, from suing to recover the money to possible criminal charges, Katz said.

“The inspector general wouldn’t refer this to the U.S. attorney unless there was evidence of misconduct that requires further investigating,” Katz said.

Surprised? Didn’t think so.

[Democratic National Committee:]

The hits just keep on coing.

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 05:06:38 GMT

Bird flu virus reported to resist Tamiflu.

An avian influenza virus isolated from an infected Vietnamese girl has been determined to be resistant to the drug oseltamivir, the compound better known by its trade name Tamiflu, and the drug officials hope will serve as the front line of defense for a feared influenza pandemic.

[Science Blog -]

Scary stuff. Remember to ash your hands.

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:28:16 GMT

That’s the way the girls are in Texas. Amanda from Pandagon tells a story about life in Austin:

People often ask me why I live in Texas, in no small part because they mistakenly believe that we are wall-to-wall reactionary Klan-joining rednecks. You can explain a million times that you love it because people’s politics are to the left while they are just as ornery as Texans elsewhere, and probably more so, until you are blue in the face and some won’t get it. But tonight I went to go see The Gossip at Emo’s and the bartender told us a classic Austin story.

He and his brother we driving down I-35 and they saw some guys holding up signs that said, ‘Stop Gay Marriage’. This irritated them, so they went to the bar, got some old signs, flipped them over and wrote, ‘These guys are gay,’ on them with a big arrow and went and stood next to them for a couple of hours with the sign pointed at them and the ‘protesters’ stupidly never even noticed them. Or, it was suggested, they did but they simply didn’t have a problem with the sign. I said that it was probably because they were a gay couple and didn’t want marriage legalized due to parental pressure to marry that they were avoiding.

Anyway, that’s the sort of shit that goes on constantly here and that’s why I’m never going to leave. The ornery attitude that underlies a lot of mean-spirited conservatism can be harnessed to fight it, too, and that’s afight more of us are undertaking than the press would have you believe.

Heh. Indeed, y’all. By noemail@noemail.org (Sid the Fish). [Sid's Fishbowl]

Sounds like the Texas I grew up in. Perhaps we will hear more about these types of Texans.

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:22:37 GMT

On the Origin of The Republican War on Science. My first post at TPM Cafe–explaining how I came to write the book, essentially–is now up. I’m off to catch a plane at the moment, but I’ll be contributing steadily to the dialogue over the next week….. [Chris C. Mooney | The Intersection]

A very interesting book written by someone who can span the scientist and the writter. One this Adminstration’s greatest faults, one that ranks with it egregious spending habits and corruption, has been its overt conversion of science to politics as usual.