friday doctor who blogging

Oh, so much Doctor Five for you!

i spit on your grave

Photo ops are go!

Corpwatch:

When Hurricane Katrina swept through St. Bernard Parish, to the east of New Orleans, it hit the aging Murphy Oil refinery hard. The wind and water swept one tank off its foundation, and spilled about a million gallons of crude oil into the surrounding neighborhood.

Two years after Katrina, the neighborhood still isn’t fully cleaned up. Murphy paid to remove the topsoil around the 1,700 contaminated homes, but some residents are still waiting for the replacement sod to arrive. Empty houses bear a faint brown line on their outside walls, marking the level that the contaminated water reached.

The damage suffered by the Murphy Oil Refinery during Hurricane Katrina should serve as a warning, says Anne Rolfes, director of the environmental group Louisiana Bucket Brigade. "They spilled a million gallons of oil – there’s never been such a big oil spill in a residential area," Rolfes says. "The neighbors are basically guinea pigs. You just don’t know what’s going to happen to them," she says. Rolfes says many of the residents around the Murphy refinery have complained of respiratory problems and high cancer rates for years.

But for Louisiana state lawmakers, the spill didn't serve as a warning about the inherent danger of siting a refinery in a flood zone. Rather, they are using a federal recovery program to encourage oil companies to expand their refineries and build new petrochemical facilities.

In the fall of 2005, the U.S. Congress created "Gulf Opportunity Zone" (GO Zone) bonds to encourage businesses to invest along the Gulf Coast. The multi-billion dollar program gave the state governments of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama a bundle of tax-free bonds that they could assign to private businesses, which would in turn issue the bonds to finance repairs, new construction or expansions. Because the interest earned on the bonds is tax-free, businesses can get better interest rates from lenders.

[snip]

The Louisiana State Bond Commission had a $250 million-per-project cap, but waived that limit for both Marathon Oil Corporation and the petrochemical company U.S. TransCarbon LLC. Both companies were approved for $1 billion in GO Zone bonds. Another oil company, Valero Energy Corporation has also applied for $1 billion in bonds, but that application is on hold while the commission tries to round up more money.

Both Marathon and Valero are seeking to expand their oil refineries at a time of skyrocketing demand around the world, and record profits for oil companies. For 2006, Marathon reported $60 billion in revenues. According to Marathon’s CEO, the Louisiana refinery expansion will generate $350 million in new revenue each year, and that’s a conservative estimate.

Meanwhile, U.S. TransCarbon plans to construct a new facility to produce industrial grade carbon dioxide, which is pumped into partially depleted oil fields along the Gulf Coast to force up the "stranded" oil.

[snip]

Environmental groups are extremely disturbed by the government-aided expansion of refineries across the Gulf South, and say state funds would be better spent developing industries that do less harm to the environment and neighboring communities. "This, to me, is Louisiana and the oil industry at its worst," says Rolfes.

Besides, says Becky Gillette of Sierra Club’s Mississippi Chapter, the oil companies would probably expand even without government aid, because it still makes good business sense. She is opposing the proposed expansion of the Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, which is not being financed by GO Zone bonds. "No one wants a new refinery in their town, so the strategy is to expand them in towns that are already used to breathing the fumes," she says.

Reuters:

NEW ORLEANS - President George W. Bush on Wednesday declared "better days" ahead for New Orleans despite complaints over slow rebuilding and amid lingering political fallout two years after Hurricane Katrina's destruction.

Widely criticized for a slow federal response to the disaster that left buildings in ruins and thousands homeless, Bush made his 15th visit to the region and tried to calm frustration at the pace of relief efforts.

"My attitude is this: New Orleans, better days are ahead. It's sometimes hard for people to see progress when you live in a community all the time," he said following a moment of silence at 9:38 a.m. local time, the time of day when the levees broke and the city began to flood two years ago.


Environmental News Service:

"A strong recovery requires an efficient, effective and expedient government that is not caught in a bureaucratic nightmare," said [Governor Katherine] Blanco.

President Bush received the governor's requests in the form of a letter, but did not respond directly to them today.

Instead he said, "New Orleans, better days are ahead," and "We're still paying attention. We understand."

The president reminded Louisiana that, "The citizens of this country thus far have paid out $114 billion in tax revenues - their money - to help the folks down here."

Counterpunch:

When pressed on the slow pace of recovery in the Gulf Coast, President Bush insists the federal government has fulfilled its promise to rebuild the region. The proof, he says, is in the big check the federal government signed to underwrite the recovery -- allegedly more than $116 billion. But residents of the still-devastated Gulf Coast are left wondering whether the check bounced.

"$116 billion is not a useful number," says Stanley Czerwinski of the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm.

For starters, most federal money -- about two-thirds -- was quickly spent for short-term needs like debris removal and Coast Guard rescue. As Czerwinski explains, "There is a significant difference between responding to an emergency and rebuilding post-disaster."

That has left little money for long-term Gulf Coast recovery projects. Although it's tricky to unravel the maze of federal reports, our best estimate of agency data is that only $35 billion has been appropriated for long-term rebuilding.

[snip]

The fact that, two years later, most federal Katrina funds remain bottled up in bureaucracy is especially shocking considering that the amounts Washington allocated come nowhere near the anticipated costs of Gulf rebuilding.

For example, the $3.4 billion FEMA has available to recover local public infrastructure would only cover about one-eighth of the damage suffered in Louisiana alone. But this money is spread across five states -- Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas -- and covers damage from three 2005 hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Congress has acted on some of the money holdups, like changing a requirement in the Stafford Act that mandates local governments pay 10 percent of rebuilding projects up front before receiving federal aid. The Bush administration had refused to waive the rule -- like it did for New York after 9/11 -- grounding countless projects. The effect of the rule was particularly devastating in the hardest-hit places like Mississippi's Hancock County, where communities lost most of their tax base after the storms.

Many in Washington claim that state and local governments are to blame: The money's there, they say, but the locals just aren't using it. And it's true that there have been problems below the federal level. For example, Louisiana's "Road Home" program -- created by Congress but run by the state -- has been so poorly managed that 18 months after the storms only 630 homeowners had received checks. Closings have sped up since then, but administrators admit many won't see money until 2008, if at all -- the program is facing a projected $3 billion shortfall.

But the White House and Congress have done little to exercise oversight of these federally backed programs, much less step in to remove red tape and make sure taxpayer money gets to its intended destination.

This is especially true when it comes to tax breaks and rebuilding contracts. Included in the $116 billion figure is $3.5 billion in tax breaks to jump-start business in Gulf Opportunity Zones -- "GO Zones" -- across 91 parishes and counties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. But many of the breaks have been of questionable benefit to Katrina survivors, like a $1 million deal to build 10 luxury condos next to the University of Alabama football stadium -- four hours from the Gulf Coast.

Reuters:

Later in Mississippi Bush acknowledged local officials' complaints about bureaucratic hurdles.

In the Bay St. Louis area, which he called the hurricane's "ground zero," Bush said: "There are still obstacles and there's still work to be done, but there's been a lot of progress made."

cheap suit gets costly award

Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne does it his way.

The mighty mighty Grist reports that friends of the Lab the Center for Biological Diversity have given the man Jeffrey St. Clair called "Gale Norton slacks" the 2007 Rubber Dodo award. Click to find out how and why Kempthorne out Watted the infamous James Watt.

remember, tuesday is soylent green day

Maybe I could be the spokesperson for Soylent Green - because I know it's made of people!

AdAge (via the mighty mighty Cursor)

Not too long ago, a premier ad agency wouldn't touch a campaign warning about the effects of global warming, fearing backlash from the automakers and oil companies that keep Madison Avenue's lights on. But now one of the most hotly contended pitches out there is for the Alliance for Climate Protection, the organization formed last year by Al Gore.

Four elite agencies -- Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the Martin Agency and Y&R -- are squaring off for the business and are expected to present to the former vice president himself early next month, according to executives familiar with the review. The budget for the "historic, three-to-five-year, multimedia global campaign," as the request for proposals puts it, is contingent on how much money the alliance raises. Media spending will likely be more than $100 million a year.

That elite shops aren't scared off from crafting environmental messaging that could be tacitly critical of big business's sometimes unsustainable ways is yet another sign of the mainstreaming of green thinking within the corporate world at large. And within the ad community it points to newfound willingness to embrace hot-button social causes. The alliance account, some are saying, could even lend some luster to the winner's roster, given many major marketers' recent embrace of sustainability throughout their value chains, from product development to manufacturing to marketing communications.

Many agencies do high-profile and often award-winning work for causes such as smoking cessation, drug-use prevention and disaster relief, but they typically steer clear of more divisive issues and political campaigns, making executives who want to work on them do so outside the auspices of the agency.

Until very recently at least, global warming would have been seen as such an issue. Long accepted by the scientific community, research suggesting human activity is raising the earth's temperature with dire environmental consequences has been disputed by many in the business community, especially automakers and other sectors with big industrial outputs.

But corporate America has begun an about-face in the wake of a groundswell of popular interest, having seen what developing an environmentally friendly product such as the Prius has done for Toyota's reputation and its bottom line. July's Live Earth concert, whose proceeds are going to the alliance, was loaded down with corporate sponsors, among them Microsoft, whose MSN division had web rights to the show.

Chris Becker, chairman-chief creative officer of DraftFCB's New York office, said blowback from less-than-eco-friendly marketers is unlikely. "It's such a loud issue and so accepted that no one can get away with that," he said. "There's already such a broad platform for agencies."

Y&R, for instance, was involved in promoting Live Earth, despite counting oil giant Chevron as a client. Y&R CEO Hamish McLennan even appeared with Mr. Gore at this year's Cannes Advertising Festival. A Chevron spokesperson couldn't be reached for comment. And as more evidence of just how comfortable agencies are with the issue, DraftFCB last week sponsored an auction of global warming-inspired art created by employees at the agency that benefits an environmental nonprofit organization.

answered prayers

Don't forget your goddamn pronouns!

Alberto Gonzales, pictured above*, sure to be spending time with the family. Norbizness writes the elegy.



* He said it, man. He'd know.

combat baby combat baby combat

Dexter's Lab political framing expert Emily Haines wants to know when we'll fight, fight, fight off the lethargy, inre: global warming.

Reuters (yes, I know, again), via ENN, via UN News Wire:

NY ALESUND, Norway (Reuters) - Climate change is the biggest security challenge since the Cold War but people have not woken up to the risks nor to easy solutions such as saving energy at home, experts said on Tuesday.

"We're not yet collectively grasping the scale of what we need to do," British climate change ambassador John Ashton told a seminar of 40 scientists and officials from 13 nations in Ny Alesund, Norway, about 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole.

He said global warming should be recast as a security issue, such as war or terrorism, to help mobilize support for tougher global action to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

"The Cold War was the last big problem the world faced on so many fronts -- economic, political, industrial," he said.

Other experts at the talks, in an Arctic scientific research base, also said there was too much focus on costs of cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, rather than on risks of rising seas, droughts or floods projected by U.N. studies.

Global warming "should be looked at as a totally different type of challenge instead of asking 'what does it cost?'," said Joergen Randers, a leading Norwegian economist. Casting global warming as a security issue could make it easier to confront.

Most said that costs of fighting global warming were likely to be manageable. A report by the U.N. climate panel this year said that even the most stringent measures would mean a loss by 2030 of just three percent of global gross domestic product.

[snip]

Randers said that the cheapest way to cut greenhouse gas emissions in cooler climates would be to get everyone to turn down the temperature at home by a degree Celsius (2 Fahrenheit) and wear a sweater if needed to keep warm.

"This can be done with no loss of comfort," he said, adding jokingly that it might be have to be enforced by "sweater police". Another solution would be to charge higher prices for heating homes beyond about 18C (64F).

Researchers noted that people often act without weighing up long-term consequences -- many smoke cigarettes or eat too much without rationally reviewing risks of lung cancer or obesity.

In a similar way "most people don't see the benefit of switching to a more expensive bulb that will last longer," said Nebojsa Nakicenovic, of Vienna University of Technology.

A couple of things:

* The "global warming = cold war" frame sounds good, sure - just makes you want to run outside and man the barricades, any kinda barricades, don't it? - but I don't think I'm really hep to a whole other paradigm of global elite management. This is, no doubt, what's driving the radical critique behind global warming, behind all the bullshit denialism (is that a word? it is now!). But frames don't have to fit facts - so are we staring down a necessary linguistic and intellectual evil? Yes? No? Maybe so?

* We accept so much centralized, state planning in our lives, and in many instances, with slavish devotion, but why the drama over large-scale enviro planning (and you can bet your ass that that "sweater police" remark will make the Glenn Beck wing of global warming deniers choke on their Cheetoes and Dr. Pepper)? Are our capitalism stories and private property myths so pervasive?

bonus friday blogging: "you like fine, yeah, when you go like this"

That's the Detroit Cobras, yo, and that's me tonight at the Bluebird.

friday doctor who blogging

On the heels of this most excellent rumor, more Fifth Doctor excellence in the most excellent episode, "Enlightenment".

just in time for the clinton/obama inauguration

Behold, a pale horse!

Reuters, via Scientific American:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global warming is forecast to set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record, scientists reported on Thursday.

Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the decade that started in 2005.

To make this kind of prediction, researchers at Britain's Met Office -- which deals with meteorology -- made a computer model that takes into account such natural phenomena as the El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean and other fluctuations in ocean circulation and heat content.

A forecast of the next decade is particularly useful, because climate could be dominated over this period by these natural changes, rather than human-caused global warming, study author Douglas Smith said by telephone.

In research published in the journal Science, Smith and his colleagues predicted that the next three or four years would show little warming despite an overall forecast that saw warming over the decade.

"There is ... particular interest in the coming decade, which represents a key planning horizon for infrastructure upgrades, insurance, energy policy and business development," Smith and his co-authors noted.

The real heat will start after 2009, they said.

Until then, the natural forces will offset the expected warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Don't worry, tho, the Maize God will save us and our SUVs, each and every last one.

Do I hear odds on when in '09 Right Blogistan will begin posting in earnest on the Hugo Chavez-bankrolled weather control machine Hillary ordered renegade North Korean scientists to build?

How about when one of said earnest bloggers turns up on Fox? CNN?

remember, tuesday is soylent green day

What about cutting back on Soylent Green? Because it's made of people!

Reuters, via Scientific American:

LONDON (Reuters) - Hundreds of climate change protesters marched near London's Heathrow airport on Sunday and pledged civil disobedience to draw attention to the impact of aviation on global warming.

Protest organizers say they plan to form a human chain at the site of a proposed third runway at the world's busiest international airport and to picket the headquarters of Heathrow's operator BAA through the night.

The protesters want Heathrow's expansion plans dropped and the growth of air travel halted. Their action comes at the height of the holiday season at an airport that handles nearly 70 million passengers a year.

Marchers with carnival-style floats and speakers adorned with flowers blaring music left a tented camp chanting "No third runway" and carrying a banner saying: "We are armed ... only with peer-reviewed science."

A smaller group of protesters scuffled briefly with police blocking their path as they marched down a road near the camp.

Scientists say air transport contributes to global warming, and the carbon dioxide gas and water vapor emitted by aircraft are four times more potent at high altitude than at sea level.

The British government says it is committed to tackling climate change and plans to set legally binding targets for cutting CO2 emissions -- but it also backs an expansion of air travel, which is set to double in the next 25 years.


This sort of thing will ultimately be the kind of global warming struggle that'll come to matter: it's fun to have concerts and talk about carbon sequestration and new gadgets to throw money at to combat the climate crisis, but a huge part, the biggest part, will be how much we're going to be willing to give up.

like a raisin in the sun

Keep on dream-deferrin'!

AP:

One reactor at a north Alabama nuclear plant was idle Friday and two others operated at reduced power because of the record-breaking heat wave, an outage that an industry watchdog said could be a sign of trouble for nuclear energy in a warming climate.

The Tennessee Valley Authority said it shut down the Unit 2 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant and scaled back operations 25 percent at the plant’s other two reactors because of overheated water in the Tennessee River, which is used to cool the plant.

“This all comes down to the drought and the hot weather,” said plant spokesman Jason Huffine.

Industry watchdog David Lochbaum said the shutdown highlights a problem for nuclear power even as it is touted as environmentally friendly by President Bush, who visited Browns Ferry in June.

“This is an unforeseen impact of global warming. These plants don’t do very well in extremely hot weather,” said Lochbaum, a former Browns Ferry engineer now with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

Ken Clark, a spokesman with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Atlanta, said such shutdowns were rare but had occurred elsewhere.

Air temperatures soared to 105 degrees in north Alabama Thursday afternoon. Around that time, the temperature of the water downstream from the plant reached 90 degrees, the limit set by environmental regulators.

[snip]

Lochbaum said Browns Ferry can’t efficiently turn water into steam or return it to its liquid form if its temperature is above 90 degrees.

“There’s not a reactor safety issue, there’s an economic issue,” he said. “These plants were designed for cooler temperatures. If something drives those up — whether it’s global warming or whatever — you have to account for that.”

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded earlier this year that global temperatures could rise as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and that climate change already is affecting animal and plant life.

A TVA study from 2005 predicted that operations at Browns Ferry would have to be scaled back once every three to five years and could be completely shut down because of overheated discharge water.

Alabama has had 11 straight days with triple-digit temperatures, breaking records that dated back to 1881 in some areas.

friday doctor who blogging

Courtesy some patient fellow geek over at YouTube, here's about 10 minutes of one of my favorite Fifth Doctor episodes, "Enlightenment." Happy Friday, yo.

just speculatin' about a hypothesis

Totally irresponsible.

(PLEASE NOTE - what follows contains exactly the kind of paranoia and irresponsible jibber-jabber shrill lefty Z-grade bloggers like yours truly are routinely accused of. Very sorry, but someone's got to keep the stereotypes alive.)

So, it's pure and unadulterated speculation, but I got to thinking...could this have anything to do with the fact this keeps happening again and again? Or that this is mostly shrug-worthy? Because it's all beginning to sound an awful lot like this. Or do I just need a girlfriend?

remember, tuesday is soylent green day (wednesday can be tuesday too edition)

The World Bank's done the same thing with reports on Soylent Green! Even though it's made of people!

The Independent UK:

The Bush administration has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include global warming in its calculations when considering whether to approve major investments in industry and infrastructure, according to documents made public through a watchdog yesterday.

On one occasion, the White House's pointman at the bank, the now disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, personally intervened to remove the words "climate change" from the title of a bank progress report and ordered changes to the text of the report to shift the focus away from global warming.

But the issue predates Mr Wolfowitz's appointment as president of the bank in June 2005. According to the Government Accountability Project (GAP), which has tracked efforts to censor debate on global warming, environmental specialists at the World Bank tried unsuccessfully to press for consideration of greenhouse- gas emissions in a paper written - but never published - in 2002.

[snip]

The GAP has uncovered evidence of one striking instance of Bush administration censorship. In 2006, the bank's vice presidents responded to a request from the Group of Eight industrialised countries and commissioned a draft report entitled Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Development: Towards an Investment Framework. They endorsed the report, according to the minutes of a meeting obtained by the GAP.

Subsequently, however, Mr Wolfowitz's office put out a memo asking the team to rework the paper, "shifting from a climate lens mainly to a clean-energy lens". The edited paper issued a few months later was eventually called Clean Energy and Development: Towards an Investment Framework.

The World Bank has come under fire from environmental groups for a number of decisions, including a recent grant to develop lignite mining and power plants in Kosovo. Lignite - or brown coal - pollutes the air heavily when burnt and is generally regarded as one of the dirtiest fuel sources on the planet.

The investment appears to go against the bank's own policy, from 2001, whereby it decided to try to phase out oil and gas investments by 2008 and to extend an existing moratorium on investments in coal mining.

julee cruise blogging, part iii: the sucking continues

The Summer That Would Not Stop Sucking Bitter Ass:




Things that are teh suck include, but are not limited to:

* mucking around with dense library research databases that cruelly mock me and my loose, lame ideas about doctoral work, and

* ridiculous underemployment gets even ridiculouser.

the smiles we left behind

A blast from Labs past:

"Mr. President, the Business Round Table of the country's leading CEOs says the focus should be on boosting consumption demand. Their warehouses are full. They need a boost in demand to clear away inventories. I'm not sure that a tax cut that benefits mostly wealthy investors, many of whom will just push these gains into savings, will do much for demand."

Bush nodded. He was in a cul-de-sac. The ideology of ongoing tax cuts seemed to make less sense when certain economic realities were considered. Finally he spoke, haltingly: "The dividend tax cut could repair corporate balance sheets," he said, feeling his way, "and that's a kind of growth package, isn't it?" O'Neill was thinking that this is true only if you believe that companies will increase their spending on capital goods, even if demand remains sluggish, because their stock has risen. You also have to be certain the proposal would have that effect on the markets, a vey long string of imponderables.

Hubbard rushed to the President's aid. "Households who desire to save more can do so through higher stock prices."

Bolten attempted closure: "I think we have agreement on the components. Now, how big should the package be? How much extra should we allow for so we have something to give back in the legislative process?"

The President didn't seem quite ready to close: "Didn't we do the investment package already? What would you rather have? We went through this last year, are you telling me we did it wrong?" The "investment package" was what they often called the 2001 tax cut, which had investment incentives for small business and rate cuts for the high-end "investment class."

"There are headwinds," Hubbard said.

"Not additional headwinds," Bush countered. "They can say, 'They did it twice and it didn't work.' Why do we play our hand now, negotiate against ourselves? I want to stay with principle."

This seemed to be a cue to Rove. Trying to discuss the basics of fiscal policy had left the room in tatters. Karl moved to tactics. "We want to dictate the debate, Mr. President. Not to be too specific out of the box. That is a prescription for piling on; we have to have something to trade."

Daniels, still looking to redeem himself for his earlier deficit hawk comments, jumped to support Rove: "I suggest a $50 billion package - $50 billion a year - and that we go on the offensive, including accelerating the rate cuts, and expensing, and dividends."

The President seemed relieved, as though the key issues had been considered. "Thank you for all the briefing materials, this was good research. So when do we roll this out?"

"You are speaking in Chicago on December 10," Lindsey said.

Bush looked surprised. "That's news to me."

Rove leaned toward the President. "Sir, that's not scheduled yet, but it is important to move earlier rather than later. The Democrats are coming out with a plan."

Then Ari Fleischer, seeing that matters had moved safely from the whys to the hows, summoned an overall precept, one of the administration's guiding principles. "Perception lags reality," he said importantly.

O'Neill looked on astonished. Rove and Fleischer and the others rarely spoke this way around the centrist Treasury Secretary. Maybe this meant they didn't care anymore what he heard. Not a great sign.

"Democrats will say we don't care about the middle and bottom, but these class arguments work less and less," Fleischer added. "We should do the right package and roll out in early December."

Throughout the meeting, Hughes sat back, observing. She was now a consultant, traveling every few weeks from Austin to Washington, and not in on the White House's day-to-day workings. But she still carried clout, as the only one with equal weight to Rove's. She eased in: "Will the announcement of a package boost Christmas spending?"

"Yes, this could be important for consumer confidence," Hubbard said.

O'Neill shook his head. "The truth is nobody knows."

The President was absently watching the back-and-forth. He was thinking of something else.

"What are we doing on compassion?" Bush asked.

No one answered.

The President seemed to get agitated. "Well, you know...do you know what the unemployment rate is?" he said, raising his voice. "It is 5.7 percent! There are a lot of presidents who have had to confront much higher unemployment. This argument that the economy is bad does not resonate with voters. This is all posturing...that is why we did so well in the midterm elections..."

Rove laughed. It was coming together - it was as if the President had caught a strong wind, his sails now filled. Another massive tax cut proposal was ahead. "So, we should accelerate the rate cuts and not tax dividends twice?..." Rove said.

Then, it was just the two of them, talking to each other. Bush was emboldened. "I can figure this out! We did well in the elections because the economy isn't so bad. What are the optics of this? How specific do we need to be on this proposal?"


>> Paul O'Neill and Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty, pgs 302-05

paging doctor plato zorba, doctor plato zorba

The Thirteen Ghosts of Global Warming.

friday doctor who blogging

A Doctor past looks in on the Doctor current, and Season Four rumors get awesomer and awesomer.


Apologies for the light posting this week - I've been trying to squeeze as much thesis as I can out of what's left of the summer. Things'll be a little more simpatico in about another week or so. Promise promise promise.

ill rendition

David Maisel's unaltered aerial photographs of blasted, polluted, and subjugated landscapes, "Black Maps."



Lake Project #3.





Ray, Arizona #1




The Tilos Cut, Maine, #5/12



Lake Project #20

"you're breaking my heart, anakin!"

We're all Padmes now.

DN!:

MARJORIE COHN: Well, there were several Democrats -- sixteen Democrats in the Senate, forty-one Democrats in the House -- this could not have been passed without the Democrats. And so, in essence, this congress is very -- there’s very little difference between this congress and the congress that gave Bush the PATRIOT Act without reading it, gave Bush the authorization for the Iraq war, gave Bush the Military Commissions Act. They have rolled over consistently, and they even rolled over on the Iraq spending bill after Bush vetoed it, instead of saying, “Look, Bush is the one who isn't supporting the troops, because he vetoed our spending bill, even though it had timetables.” They said, “Oh, we don't want to be perceived as not supporting the troops.” This has been a congress that has remained terrorized by the Bush administration since 9/11.


The trick now is to find a way to blame Ralph Nader.

friday doctor who blogging

The return of...Mickey Smith?

in the year 2000

Above: Dex as he will appear in the Year 2000.

In the future, we will all drink uranium instead of water.

get yr kucinich on

Hero of The Lab Dennis Kucinich talks to Grist today about the environment, being an eagle, and "The Gulley."