Earth Day Sunday
22 April 2007 12:58 am by Taylor Marsh
Earth Day Sunday updated
 |
| via Raw Story More pictures at the link. |
The sign was referring to NBC News’ Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press,
who testified in the recently concluded CIA leak trial that he had spoken
with Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, about a
CIA agent who was later outed. Libby told the special prosecutor in the case
that Russert was the first to tell him of the identity of CIA agent Valerie
Plame, but Russert denied that this was the case. – Raw
Story
This picture is worth a million words, if you ask me. Yeah, yeah,
I know the story, but you just can’t pay for this kind of sensational prodding of good old Timmy. It was taken outside of the White House Correspondents
Association dinner yesterday.
As for Rich
Little’s performance: Some in the crowd walked out in the middle of
the routine– far more than left during Colbert’s performance last year.
Most of you know this is Earth Day. But is
this a joke or what?
As we observe the 38th Earth Day this Sunday, we celebrate the rich blessings
of our Nation’s natural resources, and we renew our commitment to protecting
our environment so we leave our children and grandchildren a flourishing land.
By encouraging cooperative conservation, innovation, and new technologies,
my Administration has compiled a strong environmental record. This Earth Day,
harmful air pollutant levels are down more than ten percent since 2001. Millions
more Americans are drinking cleaner, safer water. We have removed hazardous
fuels from more than 19 million acres of federal land. We have created, restored,
or protected more than 2.5 million acres of wetlands, and we have conserved
almost 200 million of acres of habitat through Farm Bill conservation programs.
And we are taking positive steps to confront the important challenge of climate
change. Our work is not done. We also have a responsibility to pass on to
future generations our commitment to the environment.To do so, we must ensure that future generations have a strong connection
to nature. This will require working together to protect and conserve not
only nationally significant natural wonders but also local parks, ponds, and
working lands where parents and mentors can teach young people about the outdoors
through recreational activities such as fishing, hunting, biking and nature
watching. And we must also encourage Americans of all ages to get involved
in conservation-related volunteer activities.I call on all Americans to commemorate this Earth Day by recommitting to
being good stewards of our land and oceans. When we do so, we take an important
step forward to a more vibrant future for our country.
The above is from our president. If Bush had done one one-hundredth of the
environmental work during his two terms that he’s done on his Texas ranch maybe
I’d cut him some slack. As it is, this guy gets the world’s worst environmental
posturing award ever. Sheesh.
Let me know what’s being
talked about this morning, especially around the blogosphere. If you’ve got
a good post that’s important link it up in the comments. I’ll be doing some reading. Enjoy your morning.
UPDATE (12:30 p.m.): In the comments, Zandar offered a link to an article that is as pertinent on Gonzales as it is important. Thanks, zandar!
In the summer of 2005, Alberto Gonzales paid a visit to British Attorney General Peter Goldsmith. A British civil servant who attended told me “it was quite amazing really. Gonzales was obsessed with the Official Secrets Act. In particular, he wanted to know exactly how it was used to block newspapers and broadcasters from running news stories derived from official secrets and how it could be used to criminalise persons who had no formal duty to maintain secrets. He saw it as a panacea for his problems: silence the press. Then you can torture and abuse prisoners and what you will—without fear of political repercussions. It was the easy route to dealing with the Guantánamo dilemma. Don’t close down Guantánamo. Close down the press. We were appalled by it.” Appalled, he added, “but not surprised.” … .. … .. McNulty quickly concluded that the AIPAC case would provide the perfect opportunity for the Gonzales project—converting the Espionage Act into the equivalent of the British Official Secrets Act. The core of the extraordinary theory advanced by McNulty can be found in these words from one of its recent briefs:
The government respectfully submits that an ‘ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense’ [...] would know that foreign officials, journalists and other persons with no current affiliation with the United States government would not be entitled to receive information related to our national defense.
By this theory, any receipt by an unauthorized person of classified information and correspondence concerning it is converted into an act of espionage, and thus made prosecutable.
The object of this exercise has been broadly misunderstood by many who have followed it—and particularly by Iraq War critics who delight in a perceived slap-down of AIPAC. But this is tragically short-sighted. … ..
