What Caught My Eye Today

I don't usually start with sports stories, but today I'm making an exception.

Baseball - Seven-time Cy Young Award winner, eighth on the all-time list with 354 victories, an MVP and All-Star himself and once a lock for the Hall of Fame, Clemens now has another distinction: the biggest name linked by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to illegal use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. In all, the 409-page report identified 85 names to differing degrees. Barry Bonds, already under indictment on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, Miguel Tejada and Andy Pettitte also showed up in the game's most infamous lineup since the Black Sox scandal. The report was unlikely to trigger a wave of discipline. While a few players are subjects of ongoing legal proceedings, many of the instances cited by Mitchell were before drug testing began in 2003. The report took issue with assertions that steroids were not banned before the 2002 collective bargaining agreement. They had been covered, it said, since the 1971 drug policy prohibited using any prescription medication without a valid prescription, and were expressly included in the drug policy in 1991. So there you have it. 20 months in the making and the popular consensus is that nothing will change, that these players were unfairly singled out and that the investigation never should have been conducted in the first place. Frankly, I not inclined to disagree with any of these conclusions. Despite the fact that Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig ordered the investigation, he made it clear that he was the ultimate authority and would decide what was best. MLB Player Union chief Donald Fehr basically blew off the report findings saying that each player had to decide for themselves how to comply with the recommendations contained in the report. Sounds rather arrogant of these folks until you consider the fact that baseball has enjoyed 3 consecutive years of record breaking attendance. If the fans don't care what the players do to themselves, why should baseball. There is, of course, that little issue with impressionable young children emulating their idols, but pish-posh. Let someone else deal with that problem.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled rants on what ails the world...

Global Warming - I'll preface this by saying that the U.N. Conference of Global Warming concludes tomorrow, so you only have to suffer through one more day of this stuff before we can refocus on the Middle East and the upcoming Presidential election.

European nations threatened Thursday to boycott U.S.-sponsored climate talks next month unless the Bush administration compromises and agrees to a "road map" for reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. With the U.N. climate conference in its final hours, Nobel laureate Al Gore said the United States was "principally responsible" for blocking progress here toward an agreement on launching negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The United States, Japan, Russia and several other governments refused to accept language in a draft document suggesting rich nations consider cutting emissions 25% to 40%by 2020, saying specific targets would limit the scope of future talks. European nations and others argued that numerical goals are essential reference points in efforts to curb global warming. All sides agree it is impossible to deal with climate change unless the United States is involved. It is the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and the only major industrial country that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions an average 5% below 1990 levels by the pact's expiration in 2012. Australia was the latest industrial country to ratify the pact. Bush rejected the Kyoto pact on the grounds it would harm the U.S. economy and its provisions did not apply to poorer but fast-developing nations such as China and India, whose emission levels are growing fast. China and India have called on the West to take the lead in cutting emissions and insist they will not agree to any targets that would slow the pace of development. But neither publicly says whether they would support emission targets. A couple of thoughts here. Do you think Gore would be so vocal in his criticism of the U.S. if he were President or a candidate for President? I think we can agree that Bush is no saint, but it must be nice for Gore to stand on his soapbox knowing that he has nothing to lose. Secondly, I have no interest in torpedoing the U.S. economy or anyone else's for that matter, but just how bad would the economic impact be if we took steps to curb greenhouse emissions. Considering the alternatives--none of which seem that pleasant--maybe it wouldn't be as bad as some folks would have us believe. Plus I'm not sure what good it will do me to have a fat bank account if my house is underwater due to the increased sea level brought on by global warming.

It also occurs to me that I have not been giving equal time to those out there who believe that all this climate change stuff is a bunch of hooey. To those individuals I offer my apologies and this next item...

The head of the U.N. panel on climate change compared him to Hitler. Another leading scientist called him a parasite. A third described his latest book as a "stealth attack" on mankind. The list of allegations against Bjoern Lomborg, one of the world's leading climate change skeptics, almost reads like an indictment for war crimes. As Al Gore shows off his Nobel Peace Prize and world policy-makers hammer out a new strategy for saving the planet, climate change contrarians say they have been elbowed out of the debate. They say mainstream scientists have stifled healthy intellectual discourse by demonizing dissenters as oil industry lobbyists or lunatics. Lomborg says global warming isn't a big threat and that international treaties requiring sharp and immediate cuts in carbon emissions would cost a lot but do little good. He accepts that the Earth is warming because of man, but says a changing climate, including the threat posed by rising sea levels to small island nations, is a less urgent problem than, for example, AIDS or malnutrition. Lomborg irks his opponents partly because he looks at global warming from an economist's perspective. He's not a climate scientist nor does he claim to be. Critics say he misleads nonscientific audiences about the dangers of a warmer world with crude cost-benefit analyses, like his contention that if warming means more people will die from heat waves, then it must also mean fewer will be dying from cold. I think two things can clearly be said for Lomborg. He certainly offers a contrarian view, no doubt about it. And, I'm not sure he'll be in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize anytime in the foreseeable future. Now the Nobel Prize for Economics, well that's always a possibility.

Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf will end emergency rule on Saturday as promised, but first he will amend the constitution to protect his decisions from court review. Government legal experts are finalizing the amendments and the changes will be announced before the state of emergency is lifted. Musharraf, who has acknowledged breaching constitutional protections, purged the judiciary, jailed thousands of opponents and silenced television news channels after he suspended the constitution and declared emergency rule Nov. 3. Musharraf, who seized power by ousting Sharif in a 1999 coup, stepped down as army chief last month and was sworn in as a civilian president, meeting a key demand of the opposition and his foreign backers. Washington has been a strong supporter of Musharraf since he dropped Pakistan's support for the Taliban in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and joined the U.S.-led campaign against extremist groups. In a new poll taken of likely Pakistani voters, most of those surveyed listed economic matters as the most important aspect of the campaign in this poor nation: 53% cited inflation, 15% named unemployment and 9% chose poverty. Only 6% listed terrorism. First on the end of emergency rule--if Musharraf amends the constitution to his liking, he really won't need emergency rule anymore. What was considered emergency rule this week will be legal next week. I don't really see that much changing. Next, this poll is kind of interesting isn't it. If you didn't read the headline, you might believe this was a poll conducted right here in the good old U.S. of A. It goes to show that maybe out two countries aren't that dissimilar. The Pakistani people appear to care more about their lot in life than the political aims of some other country. Sound familiar?

Congress - The House approved an intelligence bill Thursday that would prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods. The 222-199 vote sent the measure to the Senate, which still must act before it can go to President Bush. The White House has threatened a veto. Most of the bill itself also is classified, although some portions were made public. One provision requires reporting to the committees on whether intelligence agency employees are complying with protections for detainees from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Another requires a report on the use of private contractors in intelligence work. The White House threatened to veto the measure this week in a lengthy statement, highlighting more than 11 areas of disagreement with the bill. The administration particularly opposes restricting the CIA to interrogation methods approved by the military in 2006. That document prohibits forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees' heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding. I find it rather disappointing that Congress has to actually pass a spending bill that includes protecting U.S. detainees from torture at the hands of U.S. captors. What does that say about how our country has evolved since Sept. 11? I find it even more disappointing that the President plans to veto the bill, because Congress wants to prohibit the use of torture in the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Here I am under the mistaken impression that we've flung our military to the far-reaches of the planet to protect those values that we hold so near and dear to our hearts, when our nation's leadership is freely tosses those values aside when they get in the way of protecting our national interests.