BUSH IS ALL WET-- TODAY IS WORLD WATER DAY

I know "a billion" anything is hard to conceptualize for most people. It's really, really a lot. But on World Water Day you might want to stop for a moment and think that something we have tended to take for granted for all our lives-- easy access to clean drinking water-- is something that is not part of the lives of one billion people.

14,000 is an easier number to get a grip on. And that's the number of people who die from water-related diseases each and every day; no time off for Sundays.

Our country is under the control of a pack of looters and bandits with exactly zero concern for anything smacking of science, environment, health. Bush and rubberstamp congressional allies like House Natural Resources Committee chair Richard Pombo would rather come up with schemes for short term financial advantage for themselves and their families than to consider the public good, even in the U.S., let alone in remote areas of the world like Bangladesh or Honduras (although less and less remote as unlivable conditions force desperate people to immigrate).

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has expressed its feeling of "embarrassment and disgust" over the way the Bush Regime uses-- or misuses-- science when making policy decisions. The scientists have found that the Regime routinely ignores the recommendations of advisory panels and "suppresses, distorts and manipulates" scientific work. In particular, the group is concerned about Bad Science affecting environment, emergency contraception and endangered species policies. It being World Water Day, I'd like to ask DWT readers to take a moment or two out of their day to forget for a moment-- and this is hard for me-- the earth-destroying Bush Regime and its criminal cronies and look at the other side of the environmental spectrum. I want to recommend Water Partner International as a grassroots, bottom-up organization trying to step in and solve water-related problems. They are one of the leading organizations providing sustainable water solutions to countries around the world, using innovative credit programs and other cutting-edge resources to provide the needy with access to this resource most of us take for granted. They seem to be doing it as right as the Bushites are doing it wrong.