"The shame for journalism is that it has always been so easy to expose those few 'scientific' voices claiming there is nothing to global warming. When the money for 'scientific research' on such a subject comes from oil companies, skepticism is required.
Instead, many 'journalists' let the bullies on the right cow us with the 'liberal media' nonsense and reported there was 'a debate' over global warming. There was no debate. The only question is how fast it's happening. And the answer that keeps coming up is 'faster than we thought. And still faster.'
....
It's true the United States could make a good thing out of specializing in green energy and green technology -- but we are still living with an administration that subsidizes the oil industry. The question is where the political leadership is going to come from before we reach the Panic Point, before Miami Beach sinks underwater, before Wall Street needs a seawall.
Al Gore is all we've got, and the right wing is still prepared to dismiss him with contempt and ridicule, not because he's wrong but because they'd rather talk about the time he was supposedly advised to wear earth tones.
As the Earth drifts toward crisis, our president does not yet seem capable of grasping even the First Rule of Holes. We're in one, and it is time to quit digging."
"The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000."
"Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding Louisiana's levees, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, threatened Wednesday to block all executive appointments requiring Senate confirmation until 'significant progress' is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina last August."
"'Send your Levee beads to the President. Tell him we want New Orleans for another 300 years!'"
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Include this simple message:
Mr. President:
Please fully fund the additional $6 billion the Army Corps of Engineers needs to rebuild the levees for our fellow Americans in New Orleans.
Sign it and include either a "Friend of New Orleans" or a "Resident of New Orleans"
"Researchers said yesterday that they have grown complete urinary bladders in a laboratory and transplanted them into patients, improving their health and achieving a Holy Grail of medicine: the first cultivation of working replacements for failing solid organs in people."
"The ants' hang time was impressive not because their bodies were particularly aerodynamic, but because they knew how to move their long limbs around to reduce drag. They moved their left hind legs outward and rotated them, an off-kilter motion that allowed them to maintain altitude.
'Any object can generate lift if it's asymmetric to the air stream,' Dr. Dudley said. 'If you put your hand out the window of a car and rotate it, you'll feel it being lifted. Hands aren't that aerodynamic, and neither are the ants, but you'll get this effect just the same.' The legs' increased distance from the ants' center of mass also creates torque, spinning their bodies around — and accounting for the spectacular swerves they often display before coming in for a landing."
"...the newly formed LitPAC, a coalition of authors that plans readings around the country to register voters and raise money for liberal candidates in this year's congressional elections."
