In order to get Obama Administration support for a federal “shield law” for journalists, the Senate has greatly diluted the House version. The worst part? Unpublished notes, etc. will not be protected. Any federal prosecutor with brains can figure out who talked to you, from that, in many cases.
And, once again, this should not surprise you about Team Obama!
October 31, 2009
‘Too big to fail’ is not acceptable
The New York Times has a great editorial, on why the financial regulatory bill that came out of Barney Frank’s House Banking Committee (remember, he generally supported the Glass-Steagall repeal in 1998) is flawed, flawed, flawed.
Remember, a Dem doesn't have to be a "Blue Dog" to have "issues."
Remember, a Dem doesn't have to be a "Blue Dog" to have "issues."
Multi-year Arctic ice gone? BAD news for polar bears
If this is the case, and I don’t doubt that it is, it’s a very direct refutation of global-warming denialists.
The assertion was made by David Barber, Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba:
This is additional bad news for polar bears on two counts.
Not only does it mean they have little ice on which to hunt seals, the rush will now be on to “exploit the possibilities” of shipping not only across Canada’s fabled Northwest Passage, but, across the North Pole, to do the same with Russia’s Northeast Passage.
Canadian scientists are already familiar with how too much human presence can stress out isolated populations of grizzlies. I would guess shipping traffic would have similar effects on polar bears.
Of course, some will move south, and become year-round land animals — if they can hold off grizzlies moving north, and adapt their diets. A few of them, as we now know is possible, will interbreed, hastening the demise of polar bears as a separate species, while raising biological questions.
The assertion was made by David Barber, Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba:
“We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere,” he said in a presentation in Parliament.
Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought — and largely failed to find — a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk. Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called “rotten ice” — 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.
This is additional bad news for polar bears on two counts.
Not only does it mean they have little ice on which to hunt seals, the rush will now be on to “exploit the possibilities” of shipping not only across Canada’s fabled Northwest Passage, but, across the North Pole, to do the same with Russia’s Northeast Passage.
Canadian scientists are already familiar with how too much human presence can stress out isolated populations of grizzlies. I would guess shipping traffic would have similar effects on polar bears.
Of course, some will move south, and become year-round land animals — if they can hold off grizzlies moving north, and adapt their diets. A few of them, as we now know is possible, will interbreed, hastening the demise of polar bears as a separate species, while raising biological questions.
October 30, 2009
Doesn't Mark Sanford have more to do than Ayn Rand reviews?
And, couldn't Newsweek get someone a tad less hypocritical on the issue of integrity than the South Carolina governor to review the works of an author who, if nothing else, is theoretically all about integrity?
How will abstinence-oinly sex ed do on its own dime?
With the Obama Administration cutting off the federal gravy train (and wasn't that "socialism," you tea partiers and others?), it's a very good question. At the link, Newsweek discusses the issue further.
And, as usual, although George W. Bush gets all the blame, federal funding started with Triangulating Slick Willie, specifically as part of the 1996 welfare-reform bill. (Insert joke here.)
And, as usual, although George W. Bush gets all the blame, federal funding started with Triangulating Slick Willie, specifically as part of the 1996 welfare-reform bill. (Insert joke here.)
Honduras appears to have presidential solution - or does it?
The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti signed off on a deal to let exiled (ex)-President Manuel Zelaya back into power, but Honduras' Congress may not accept the deal. After all, it just has to run out the clock for four weeks until the country's Nov. 29 elections, then, as a combination of a consolation prize and a slap in the face, let Zelaya back in power then for the last month until the next president takes over.
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