Soaring costs leave military’s fuel-saving campaign reeling
By Julian E. Barnes | Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - Across the oil-thirsty U.S. military, commanders are scrambling for ways to offset the ever-rising cost of fuel. But their best efforts so far have fallen short.

The military services have found ways to save millions of dollars through conservation, but the price of oil has outpaced the cost-cutting efforts. The Navy, for example, estimates it is saving $300 million a year through conservation. That sounds impressive, until the oil price spike weighs in.

“From July through Sept. 30, we will see a $400 million increase in our fuel bill,” said Navy Capt. Arthur Cotton, the Fleet Training and Readiness Reporting branch head. “So all of those energy savings we have done are wiped out, and then some, just over the period of 90 days.”
(more…)

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer, August 14, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, “dead zones” with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world’s oceans.

“We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem,” said Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “It is a global problem and it has severe consequences for ecosystems.”

“It’s getting to be a problem of such a magnitude that it is starting to affect the resources that we pull out of the sea to feed ourselves,” he added.

Diaz and co-author Rutger Rosenberg report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science that there are now more than 400 dead zones around the world, double what the United Nations reported just two years ago.

“If we screw up the energy flow within our systems we could end up with no crabs, no shrimp, no fish. That is where these dead zones are heading unless we stop their growth,” Diaz said in a telephone interview. (more…)

Tuesday, 8-5-2008
By Mark Kinver  Science and nature reporter, BBC News

A global review of the world’s primates says 48% of species face extinction, an outlook described as “depressing” by conservationists.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70% of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds.

The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth’s mammals, which will be published in October. (more…)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens told lawmakers that a switch to American-produced energy resources within the next 10 years is necessary to end the nation’s crippling $700 billion dependence on foreign oil.

Pickens, who revealed his alternative energy plan earlier this month through a series of television ads and the Internet, told the U.S. Senate Homeland and Security and Government Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the United States should be able to produce 22 percent of its electrical energy needs using wind-powered electricity, based on Department of Energy estimates. (more…)

Today’s economic troubles, “were caused in part by insufficient regulation and lack of transparency regarding the latest financial instruments”. And who bears some responsibility for that? Phil Gramm.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008
As McCain Disavows Gramm, a Top Aide Implies Gramm Partly To Blame for the Economy meltdown

Phil Gramm is in the headlines today, July 9th, — being slammed by Democrats and disavowed by the McCain campaign — for complaining to The Washington Times that “we have sort of become a nation of whiners.” Gramm, who chairs John McCain’s campaign and who advises the presumptive Republican nominee on economic matters, pooh-poohed talk of a recession: “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession.” The former Republican Senator and current vice president of Swiss bank UBS dismissed talk of US economic woes and declared, “We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today. We have benefited greatly” from globalization.

Predictably, liberal bloggers and Democrats blasted Gramm for being out of touch with the real world. The McCain camp initially stood by their man but then distanced itself from Gramm’s remarks, with a McCain spokesman saying, “Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views.” But as this tempest was under way, another Gramm story went little noticed: a top McCain aide implicated Gramm in the current economic mess. (more…)

Surprise - McCain doesn’t have one. And how does that compare to Barack Obama?
By Jonathan Stein, July 7, 2008

Political observers have made much of John McCain’s admission that he cannot use a computer without assistance. However, “I don’t give a damn if McCain ever turns on a computer or not,” Michael Arrington, coeditor of the blog TechCrunch wrote in January. “I just want a president who has the right top-down polices to support the information economy.”

And where is McCain on tech policy? Not so shockingly, the computer-free senator’s campaign is not as plugged in as his rival’s. In fact, his campaign website fails to address America’s lagging performance on broadband access or affordability, the technological capabilities of the federal bureaucracy, or the Internet’s ability to increase government transparency. “There are red flags,” says Brian Reich, author of the book Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience and the former editor of Campaign Web Review, a blog that tracked the use of the Internet by candidates, campaigns, and activists.

CONVERSELY:
Barack Obama high-tech leaders hail Barack Obama’s comprehensive tech policies. Last fall, Obama went to Google headquarters to unveil his proposals related to information technology. He covered the waterfront: broadband access, federal funding for the sciences, using the Internet as a tool to increase government accountability, and more. He promised to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer, a high-level staffer who will make sure that every federal agency has “best-in-class technologies” and uses best practices.

On his campaign website, Obama provides plenty of data on his information-technology stances: (more…)

NASA engineers work secretly on new moon rocket; team says design would be cheaper, safer

By JAY REEVES | Associated Press Writer
4:14 PM EDT, July 14, 2008

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) _ By day, the engineers work on NASA’s new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design. These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.

They call their project Jupiter, and like Ares, it’s a brainchild of engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and other NASA facilities. The engineers involved are doing the work on their own time and mostly anonymously, with the help of retirees and other space enthusiasts.

A spokesman for the competing effort, Ross Tierney, said concerned engineers at NASA and some contractors want a review of the Ares plans but can’t speak out for fear of being demoted, transferred or fired.
(more…)

The health of thousands of Americans compromised to protect the EPA administrator’s corporate “friends”; (confirmed by EPA’s inspector general)* “far more contaminated than many Superfund sites, where respirators and moon suits are mandatory”
Worse, this proves to be Bush’s universal mission - carried out by all his appointees, all his administration and starting in late June 2008, he is dragging McCain into it!

from Crimes Against Nature, a book by Robert F. Kennedy

At the time of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, I had just opened an office at 115 Broadway, catty-corner to the World Trade Center. When my partner Kevin Madonna returned to the office in Novemmber, he suffered a burning throat, nausea, and a headache that was still pounding 24 hours after he left the site. Despite the EPA’s claims that the air was safe, Kevin refused to return, and we closed the office. Many workers did not have that option; their employers relied on the numerous EPA press releases beetween September 15 and December reassuring the public about downtown Manhattan’s wholesome air quality. On September 18, none other than EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman proclaimed, “I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is safe to breathe. ” Not everyone bought the party line. New York’s Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district encompasses the World Trade Center site, asked the EPA’s ombudsman office to look into the matter. 5 (more…)

from “Tesla’s wild ride”
By Michael V. Copeland, senior writer, FORTUNE MAGAZINE, July 9, 2008

You need to be a little nuts to start a car company. And by most accounts Martin Eberhard always was. In his early career, he launched a series of startups, including an electronic-book company he co-founded called NuvoMedia, which he sold to Gemstar in a deal valued at $187 million in 2000. By 2003 he was looking for his next project. Driving the streets of Palo Alto that year, he began to notice that the same driveways that held a Prius (or “dork mobile,” as he liked to call it) often also had a Porsche 911 or other luxury sports car.

“It was clear that people weren’t buying a Prius to save money on gas - gas was selling close to inflation-adjusted all-time lows,” says Eberhard, a tall, thin man with a mop of graying hair and a nervous, foot-tapping energy. “They were buying them to make a statement about the environment.” So why not, he reasoned, allow this deep-pocketed clientele to make that statement driving a car that exceeded the performance of a Porsche?

Eberhard, who has an undergraduate degree in computer engineering and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, spent almost a year doing an analysis of what energy source was most efficient for his imagined eco-supercar. He examined and dismissed hydrogen fuel cells, natural-gas-powered cars, hybrid technologies, and diesel. The energy source that offered the highest efficiency and performance, he concluded, was pure electric. (more…)

One morning in Kyoto, we won a round in the battle against global warming. Then special interests and pseudoscience snatched the truth away. What happened?

By Bill McKibben, May/June 2005 Issue

It was around eight in the morning in the vast convention hall in Kyoto. The negotiations over a worldwide treaty to limit global warming gases, which were supposed to have ended the evening before, had gone on through the night. Drifts of paper—treaty drafts, industry talking points, environmentalist press releases—overflowed every wastebasket. Delegates in suits and ties were passed out on couches, noisily mouth breathing. And polite squadrons of workers were shooing people out of the hall so that some trade show—tool and die makers, I think—could set up its displays.

Finally, from behind the closed doors, word emerged that we had a treaty. The greens all cheered, halfheartedly—since it wasn’t as though the agreement would go anywhere near far enough to arrest global warming—but firm in their conviction that the tide on the issue had finally turned. After a decade of resistance, the oil companies and the car companies and all the other deniers of global warming had seen their power matched.

Or so it seemed. I was standing next to a top industry lobbyist, a man who had spent the last week engineering opposition to the treaty, huddling with Exxon lawyers and Saudi delegates, detailing the Venezuelans to change this word, the Kuwaitis to soften that number. Right now he looked just plain tired. “I can’t wait to get back to Washington,” he said. “In Washington we’ll get this under control again.” (more…)

Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil.

By Chris Mooney, May/June 2005 Issue

WHEN NOVELIST MICHAEL CRICHTON took the stage before a lunchtime crowd in Washington, D.C., one Friday in late January, the event might have seemed, at first, like one more unremarkable appearance by a popular author with a book to sell. Indeed, Crichton had just such a book, his new thriller, State of Fear. But the content of the novel, the setting of the talk, and the audience who came to listen transformed the Crichton event into something closer to a hybrid of campaign rally and undergraduate seminar. State of Fear is an anti-environmentalist page-turner in which shady ecoterrorists plot catastrophic weather disruptions to stoke unfounded fears about global climate change. However fantastical the book’s story line, its author was received as an expert by the sharply dressed policy wonks crowding into the plush Wohlstetter Conference Center of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). In his introduction, AEI president and former Reagan budget official Christopher DeMuth praised the author for conveying “serious science with a sense of drama to a popular audience.” The title of the lecture was “Science Policy in the 21st Century.” (more…)

 There are 1.5 million more unemployed people now than a year ago.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, The Associated Press, July 3, 2008

WASHINGTON - The nation lost jobs for a sixth month in a row in June, a storm of pink slips drenching this year’s July Fourth holiday for more than 60,000 Americans and leaving thousands more worried about the future. Weighed down by energy prices and the housing crisis, employers laid off workers in stores, factories and forsaken building sites.

With more job cuts expected in coming months, there’s growing concern that many people will pull back on their spending later this year when the bracing effect of the tax rebates fades, dealing a dangerous setback to the shaky economy. These worries are rekindling recession fears.

In June alone, employers got rid of 62,000 jobs, bringing total losses so far this year close to a staggering half-million — 438,000, according to the Labor Department’s report released Thursday. The economy needs to generate more than 100,000 new jobs a month for employment to remain stable.The jobless rate held steady at 5.5 percent after jumping in May by the most in two decades. Still, June’s jobless rate was considerably higher than the 4.6 percent of a year ago. The unemployment rate is expected to climb through the rest of this year and top 6 percent early next year.

Just in the past few days, Chrysler LLC said it would close a plant and Starbucks Corp. said it would shut some 600 stores in the next year, meaning more lost jobs ahead. American Airlines recently said it may cut flight attendant jobs. (more…)

American’s planned job cuts follow announcements of similar reductions at other U.S. carriers — 4,000 at Delta Air Lines Inc., 3,000 at Continental Airlines Inc., 2,550 at UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, and 1,700 at US Airways Group Inc.

By David Koenig | The Associated Press, July 3, 2008

DALLAS - Many more job cuts, likely totaling more than 6,800, are likely at American Airlines as the nation’s biggest airline hunkers down and tries to survive record high fuel costs.

American notified its flight attendants union on Wednesday that it will cut up to 900 jobs starting Aug. 31, but that appears to be the tip of the iceberg. (more…)

July 02, 2008

Four “e-jeepneys” began to serve two routes in Makati City the financial district of Manila, the Philippines’ capital. This comes one year after the electric minibuses were launched as part of an initiative called the Climate Friendly Cities Project. “In Makati, we have started with the electric jeepneys in the hope that when it becomes commercially viable it will address the problems of rising fuel costs, promote the use of alternative fuels and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming,” Mayor Jejomar Binay said.

Last week, Greenpeace, GRIPP (Green Renewable Independent Power Producers), and the Makati City government, launched the first batch of Electric Jeepneys in the Philippines. The e-jeepneys, the first public transport system of its kind in Southeast Asia, made a historic test drive in this city, the country’s financial capital.

“Philippine renewable energy firm Solar Electric Company designed the two E-Jeepneys. The vehicles will undergo technical and commercial tests for 6 months in Makati City and eventually in key areas in the province of Negros Occidental.” - www.greencarcongress.com (more…)

Bush helps GOP take in $750,000 at VA fundraiser

By Associated Press
5:57 PM EDT, June 24, 2008

McLEAN, Va. - President Bush’s appearance at a Republican National Committee reception Tuesday boosted his fundraising total for the year to $66 million.

More than 100 people attended the evening fundraiser, which raised $750,000 for the RNC.

The event in McLean, an upscale Washington suburb, was closed to reporters. {as before}

According to the RNC, Bush has appeared at 28 fundraising events so far this year, raising $65,966,000 for Republican candidates. (more…)

By JOHN DUNBAR, The Associated Press, June 23, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday said as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders, largely the cause, for the skyrocketing price of oil.

The Democratic candidate’s campaign singled out the so-called “Enron loophole” for allowing speculators to run up the cost of fuel by operating outside federal regulation. [and in cooperation with the Bush administration! more…] Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday — almost double the price a year ago.

“My plan fully closes the Enron loophole and restores common-sense regulation as part of my broader plan to ease the burden for struggling families today while investing in a better future,” Obama said in a campaign statement. (more…)

By SETH BORENSTEIN,  AP Science Writer,  June 23, 2008

WASHINGTON - Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world’s only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the “dangerous” level for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth’s atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.
(more…)

By JOHN DUNBAR - Associated Press Writer, June 22, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday said as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil.

The Democratic candidate’s campaign singled out the so-called “Enron loophole” for allowing speculators to run up the cost of fuel by operating outside federal regulation. Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday — almost double the price a year ago.

Obama’s campaign blamed the loophole on former Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican who serves as Republican candidate Sen. John McCain’s co-chairman and economic adviser. The Obama campaign accused Gramm of inserting a provision into a bill in late 2000 “at the behest of Enron lobbyists” that exempted some energy traders from government oversight.
(more…)

By JIM STRATTON - Orlando Sentinel, June 21, 2008

JACKSONVILLE - Betting that Floridians don’t want oil rigs off their coast, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hit at Republican John McCain on Friday, saying that McCain’s proposal to lift a ban on offshore drilling would do nothing to ease the crushing price of gas.  Obama said McCain was simply trying to score political points when he dropped his previous support for the 27-year-old moratorium.
“Offshore drilling would not lower gas prices today; it would not lower prices tomorrow; it would not lower gas prices this year; it would not lower gas prices five years from now,” Obama said.

“In fact, President Bush’s own Energy Department says we would not see a drop of offshore oil … until 2017.  . . . And John McCain knows that.”  McCain and many Republicans — including President Bush — now sense that gas prices have spiked so high that residents may be willing to reconsider previous opposition to drilling. This week, Gov. Charlie Crist reversed his opposition.
(more…)

Democrats fall nine votes short of passing a levy on ‘unreasonable’ earnings
By H. JOSEF HEBERT | The Associated Press, June 11, 2008

“The rich get richer, the rest of us don’t”

WASHINGTON - Big oil companies saved by Senate Republicans, dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming. GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won’t do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High gas prices are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
(more…)

By Jason Daley Posted 6.11.08

The Risky Ocean Drill

Here’s a brilliant idea to solve our energy solution: Drill into the unmapped ocean floor, and release a substance that could potentially destroy life as we know it. That’s what Japanese, American and Canadian researchers interested in methane hydrate could potentially do as they drill the seabed off the coast of Japan looking for frozen natural gas. The frozen crystals, also known as “flammable ice,” could help the island nation reduce its natural-gas imports. But deep-ocean drilling, an untested technology, could also trigger landslides or unintended hydrate releases. It’s thought that methane hydrate releases helped hasten warming periods during the time of the dinosaurs.

The Giant Coal Plant

Wind energy, tidal energy, solar—the world is embracing large-scale green power. Oh wait, maybe we spoke too soon. Tata Mundra, the largest coal-fired energy plant built in decades, is going up in India with the help of a $450-million loan from the World Bank. The 4,000-megawatt coal plant will use relatively modern, efficient technologies to produce enough juice to help out 16 million people, but in the end, coal is coal—at full capacity, the plant will emit only 13 percent less carbon than a conventional coal-fired facility. On top of that, experts predict that up to 20 percent of the power generated will be lost to India’s poorly maintained electricity grid, negating any benefits of the plant’s technology and making it just another mammoth fossil-fuel incinerator.

Fishing

According to a study released last year, almost all our commercial fishing stocks will crash by 2048. That means cod, tuna and even anchovies will be luxury items if the fishing industry doesn’t police itself better. Domestically, the U.S. is doing a decent job—we’ve helped halt the decline of species like haddock and black bass in our coastal waters and put into effect a full ban on salmon fishing on the West Coast earlier this year. But in international waters, the U.S., along with mostly unregulated foreign trawlers, indiscriminately catch and kill everything from sea turtles to dolphins, pushing species like bluefin tuna, toothfish and cod close to the point of no return.

Gold Mining

You probably don’t live anywhere near a gold mine, but chances are you own some gold jewelry or electronics that have bits of gold inside. Gold mining, which often takes place in developing nations often uses huge pools of cyanide to leach gold from the earth. Occasionally these pools burst, destroying rivers. Illegal miners collect mercury-laced gold, separate the two, and leave the concentrated mercury to pollute rivers. What can you do? It’s difficult to know where your gold is coming from, but buying vintage jewelry—the ultimate in recycling—won’t increase demand for more mining.

By CHARLES BABINGTON - Associated Press Writer, June 9, 2008

RALEIGH, N.C. - Democrat Barack Obama on Monday seized on heightened concerns about the economy, tying John McCain to the Bush administration’s recent record of soaring gasoline prices and slumping employment.

Launching a two-week economics tour in a state the GOP usually considers safe, Obama warned that McCain’s policies on taxes, spending and energy would continue the nation’s slump, which some fear is already a recession. He called for new taxes on oil companies and wealthy individuals, along with $1,000 tax cuts for most working families.

With the presidential general election now fully engaged, McCain pushed back, saying Obama’s bid to end the administration’s tax cuts for upper-income earners would only worsen the economy [as under Bush, the rich will keep getting richer and the rest will get poorer] . He is airing TV ads in key states on the Iraq war, which he sees as a better issue this fall. But he took questions on the economy from donors in Virginia on Monday, and planned a speech Tuesday to small-business owners in Washington.
(more…)

Though global climate change is breaking out all around us, the U.S. news media has remained silent.

By Ross Gelbspan, May/June 2005 Issue

WHEN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA was inundated by a foot of rain, several feet of snow, and lethal mudslides earlier this year, the news reports made no mention of climate change—even though virtually all climate scientists agree that the first consequence of a warmer atmosphere is a marked increase in extreme weather events. When four hurricanes of extraordinary strength tore through Florida last fall, there was little media attention paid to the fact that hurricanes are made more intense by warming ocean surface waters. And when one storm dumped five feet of water on southern Haiti in 48 hours last spring, no coverage mentioned that an early manifestation of a warming atmosphere is a significant rise in severe downpours.

Though global climate change is breaking out all around us, the U.S. news media has remained silent. Not because climate change is a bad story—to the contrary: Conflict is the lifeblood of journalism, and the climate issue is riven with conflict. Global warming policy pits the United States against most of the countries of the world. It’s a source of tension between the Bush administration and 29 states, nearly 100 cities, and scores of activist groups working to reduce emissions. And it has generated significant and acrimonious splits within the oil, auto, and insurance industries. These stories are begging to be written.

And they are being written—everywhere else in the world. One academic thesis completed in 2000 compared climate coverage in major U.S. and British newspapers and found that the issue received about three times as much play in the United Kingdom. Britain’s Guardian, to pick an obviously liberal example, accorded three times more coverage to the climate story than the Washington Post, more than twice that of the New York Times, and nearly five times that of the Los Angeles Times. In this country, the only consistent reporting on this issue comes from the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin, whose excellent stories are generally consigned to the paper’s Science Times section, and the Weather Channel—which at the beginning of 2004 started including references to climate change in its projections, and even hired an on-air climate expert.
(more…)

By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer, June 6, 2008

NEW YORK - Oil prices made their biggest single-day leap ever Friday, dragging the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 400 points, the biggest drop in more than 15 months in both percentage and points terms, and raising the once-unthinkable prospect of $150 oil and more record gas prices by the Fourth of July. That means no end in sight for spiraling gas prices, already above $4 per gallon in much of the country.

The meteoric rise of nearly $11 for the day piled atop an increase of almost $5.50 the day before, taking oil futures more than 13 percent higher in just two days, easily a record on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil settled at $138.54, a rise of more than 8 percent. The surged came after Morgan Stanley analyst Ole Slorer predicted strong demand in Asia and tight supplies in the Western Hemisphere could drive prices to $150 by Independence Day, when millions of Americans take to the roads.

And those weren’t the only stunning numbers of the day: The government also reported the nation’s unemployment rate zoomed to 5.5 percent in May, a monthly rise of half a percentage point, the biggest in 22 years. Besides the jump in the unemployment rate, the Labor Department said employers had cut 49,000 jobs in May, the fifth straight month of nationwide losses. Job losses for the year reached 324,000.

Even longtime market observers were shocked by the magnitude and speed of oil’s climb. (more…)

By PAMELA HESS | Associated Press Writer
11:08 PM EDT, June 5, 2008

WASHINGTON - A new Senate report gives a fresh shot of adrenaline to the debate over the Iraq war. President Bush and his top officials deliberately misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Bush administration concealed information that would have undermined the case for war. “We might have avoided this catastrophe.”
(more…)

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer, June 3, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Seven endangered California condors — about 20 percent of Southern California’s population — have been found with lead poisoning. The birds started turning up sick about a month ago during random trappings at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley. One of the birds died during treatment at the Los Angeles Zoo and four others are still being treated there. A chick and its mother were sent to the zoo to undergo treatment.

Officials don’t yet know the source of the contamination, but a U.S. Fish and Wildlife official said the birds were likely poisoned by eating the carcasses of animals that had been shot by hunters.  Lead poisoning is a known threat to the majestic birds and the main reason the state is about to ban hunting with lead bullets. Jesse Grantham, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife condor coordinator, called the poisonings alarming and said the agency was in “crisis mode.”

The California condor nearly went extinct in the 1980s, but a trapping and breeding program has helped restore the species. There are only about three dozen of the endangered birds in Southern California, and about 200 in the wild overall.

Experts believe lead poisoning is a major factor in preventing the species’ recovery.  Under a ban that takes effect July 1, it will be illegal for California hunters to possess or fire lead ammunition when they are in the birds’ habitat.

June 2, 2008 1:34 PM EDT

Under fire, the automotive giant unveils plan Tuesday for coping with $4-a-gallon gasoline.
By Alex Taylor III, senior editor

Embattled GM (GM, Fortune 500) chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will explain to shareholders just how the automaker plans to survive the changes sweeping the industry. On Tuesday morning, Wagoner gave a hint of what’s to come during a press conference preceding the start of the annual meeting: a big push into crossover cars, plans to close four GM plants and the possible sale of its Hummer sport utility vehicle division. (more…)

“What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”
Bush and his administration lied to his Press Secretary
JENNIFER LOVEN and CONNIE CASS, Associated Press Writers
May 28, 2008

WASHINGTON - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive “political propaganda campaign” instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush’s presidency “terribly off course.’

The Bush White House made “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed” — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”

He was ordered to say from the press room podium that White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby were not involved in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to the press. Later a criminal investigation revealed that they were.

The very ideologues who derided Bill Clinton as a liar have institutionalized dishonesty and made it the reigning culture of America’s federal agencies. - Robert F.Kennedy Jr.

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue “almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.” “It was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage,” McClellan writes.

“The Iraq war was not necessary,” he concludes. “Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake.” He also blames the media whose questions he fielded, calling them “complicit enablers” in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward the need for war.
(more…)

By Thomas H. Maugh II and Marla Cone | Los Angeles Times
May 28, 2008

The first study to follow lead-exposed children from before birth into adulthood has shown that even relatively low levels of lead permanently damage the brain and are linked to higher numbers of arrests, particularly for violent crime.

Previous studies linking lead to such problems have used indirect measures of both lead and criminality, and critics have argued that socioeconomic and other factors may be responsible for the observed effects.

But by measuring blood levels of lead before birth and during the first seven years of life, then correlating the levels with arrest records and brain size, Cincinnati researchers have produced the strongest evidence yet that lead plays a major role in crime. (more…)

Bush administration has not kept the agency funded that investigates corruption and fraud
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer,  May 27, 2008

WASHINGTON - Pentagon auditors say billions of dollars in military spending is going unchecked because they are having trouble keeping pace with the ever-expanding defense budget and combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a recent report, the Defense Department inspector general estimates that nearly half of the military’s $316 billion weapons budget went unchecked last year because the IG’s office lacked the manpower. Whereas 10 years ago when a single auditor would have reviewed some $642 million in defense contracts, individual investigators are now charged with auditing more than $2 billion in spending.
(more…)

BBC  Friday, 23 May 2008

An audit of some $8billion (£4bn) paid to US and Iraqi contractors has found that almost every payment failed to comply with US laws aimed at preventing fraud.  In one instance, $11m was paid to a US company without any record of what goods or services were provided, the US defence department audit said.  US spending of another $1.8bn in seized Iraqi assets was also poorly handled.
“The Bush administration has relied too heavily on contractors to run the Iraq war and paid too little attention to problems of corruption and fraud.”
(more…)

BBC  Friday, 23 May 2008

The BBC’s correspondent in Washington, James Coomarasamy, says that the senator had actively courted the pastor’s support, in order to improve his standing within the evangelical community. In a sermon, Rev Hagee said the Nazi leader was carrying out a divine plan to gather Jews into the Holy Land.

The Republican candidate described the comments as “crazy and unacceptable”. Senator McCain had been criticised for seeking the endorsement of the controversial minister. But while Senator McCain condemned those comments, he had not rejected Rev Hagee’s endorsement until Thursday, when an audio recording of the preacher saying that God sent Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land was published on the Huffington Post website.

Rev Hagee has also described the Roman Catholic Church as “the great whore” and a “false cult system”, as well as suggesting that Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution for homosexual sin. After the rejection of his endorsement, Rev Hagee withdrew it anyway, saying he had been misrepresented and did not want to figure in the presidential campaign.

By Samanthi Dissanayake, BBC News

Driving through a watery wasteland handing out food to desolate storm survivors is something Win will never forget.
Local Burmese people were the first on the scene after Cyclone Nargis brought destruction to the fertile landscape of the Irrawaddy Delta.
Win was one of those who filled up a car with food and blankets and made the journey down south.
“People in that area need everything. They have no shelter. They stand by the road like beggars asking for food,” Win told the BBC News website. “I’ll go down there again,” he said. “But there are many difficulties.”
It was not just the lashing rain but a fear of the ruling junta that impeded his progress.
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“Apparently it’s not appeasement when your side does it”.
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
May 15, 2008
Indeed, that includes prominent Republicans such as Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Bush family adviser and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Their point is that the U.S. gains nothing by freezing out distasteful government that might give Washington something it wants, and that one need not compromise moral authority in the process. The Bush administration has even moved away from it in the past two years by holding limited talks with Syria and Iran and striking a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea.

WASHINGTON - While President Bush was ruffling the presidential contest with a warning about the “foolish delusion” of negotiating with terrorists, one of his few Middle East friends was doing just that. The Bush administration’s attempt to find something nice to say about the capitulation in Lebanon demonstrates the limitations of Bush’s democracy agenda in the Middle East.
Challenged to explain why the United States does not consider Saniora’s move appeasement, McCormack got indignant. (more…)

Smart fortwo ranks high in crash tests  and  30,000 already pre-sold
By KEN THOMAS,  The Associated Press, May 13, 2008

WASHINGTON - Unlike most cars on the road, the pint-sized 2008 smart fortwo evokes a simple question at first glance: “How safe is it?”  The micro car, the smallest car for sale in the U.S. market, offers a good level of safety, according to new crash tests conducted by the insurance industry.  The 8-foot, 8-inch vehicle received the highest rating of good in front-end and side-impact testing by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, helping address some concerns that consumers may be more vulnerable in the tiny two-seater.
“Among the smallest cars, the engineers of the smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package,” Lund said.

The institute’s frontal crash test simulates a 40 mph crash with a similar vehicle. The side crash simulates what would happen if the vehicle was struck in the side by a sport utility vehicle at 31 mph. In a test that assessed the vehicle’s protection in rear crashes, the fortwo received the second-highest rating of acceptable.

Smart, a division of Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz brand, has received more than 30,000 reservations for the vehicle.

Popularity of large vehicles was already in decline before fuel prices began to soar, and crossovers and subcompacts are the new kings of the road
Daniel Vasquez,  Consumer columnist    May 12, 2008

Gas prices are soaring and the mighty are falling.  Ford Expedition. Dodge Durango. Nissan Armada. The bad-boy SUVs with their rugged looks and ridiculously low fuel efficiency are increasingly out of favor among consumers now demanding smaller models with higher MPGs.
The eco-friendly trend may be the only upside to rising gas prices.
“The big hunker is dead and not coming back,” said Mike Jackson, CEO and chairman of Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation. “We have a consumer migration to fuel efficiency. And by the way, we need it.”

Recent car sales reveal buyers are no longer captivated by the hulking sport-utility vehicles and heavy-duty pickup trucks that have dominated the U.S. market for decades. Sales of full-sized, truck-based SUVs are down more than 25 percent so far this year. The Expedition was down 35 percent in April, compared with last year. The Durango was down 45 percent; the Armada down 57 percent.

Local dealers say record gas prices and diminished consumer confidence in the economy are driving many to visit dealerships across the state to dump an SUV for a more fuel-efficient car.  “Customers are trying to trade out of big trucks, SUVs and Hummers,” says Julio Cardoso, used-car manager at Maroone Nissan of Pembroke Pines.
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Ex-officials: Bush admin. ignored Iraq corruption
By ANNE FLAHERTY |  Associated Press Writer
11:42 PM EDT, May 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.
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Tuesday, 4 March 2008, 11:56 GMT

Confidential Ministry of Defence files on Unidentified Flying Objects are set to be made public.

Hundreds of documented sightings of UFOs across the UK will be released by the MoD to the National Archive in the coming weeks.  Detailed accounts of sightings in the Bonnybridge area are expected to be among the files.  The Stirlingshire town became famous in the 1990s after dozens of locals reported objects in the sky.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said the secret files date back more than 10 years.  He said: “The files contain information about UFO sightings by members of the public and include photographs that people have taken or drawings they have done.  “There is no scientific data included in the files just the public reports which may also include a comment from nearby RAF bases saying whether there was flight activity when the sightings took place.”  Earlier files released by the MoD have concluded that UFO sightings could be attributed to natural phenomena in the atmosphere.

Ongoing issue

Bonnybridge councillor Billy Buchanan, who said he had seen UFOs on many occasions, said the release of the files was good news.  He said: “The more information that comes out about the sightings the more it gives credibility to all those, including myself, who have been ridiculed by speaking out.  “On a number of occasions I have seen something that cannot be rationally defined.  “It’s an ongoing issue for Bonnybridge with many of the area’s elderly people getting concerned when they cannot explain something they’ve seen in the sky.”

By ERICA WERNER, The Associated Press; May 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - An EPA official said Tuesday there’s a “distinct possibility” the agency won’t take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country.

Senators called that unacceptable. They argued that states and local communities shouldn’t have to bear the huge expense of cleansing their drinking water of perchlorate, which has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states or the risk of not doing so.

The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses. Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency, told a Senate hearing that EPA is aware that perchlorate is widespread and poses health risks.

“EPA is trying to shunt the scientists to the back, put the [Defense Department] contractors to the front,” Boxer chided. “We want to see action by the scientists. We want to see a standard set.”

Grumbles told Boxer it was possible that instead of a regulation, EPA would issue a public health advisory, which would simply provide information. After the hearing he told reporters that a decision to regulate perchlorate was also still on the table.

Most perchlorate contamination resulted from Defense Department activities. The Pentagon could face huge cleanup costs if the EPA sets a national drinking water standard for the contaminant, and the Defense Department has tussled with the EPA over the issue, according to a report last week by congressional investigators.

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it’s been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River.

South Florida Democratic lawmakers critical of legislagive session
By Mark Hollis | South Florida Sun-sentinel May 7, 2008

From budget cuts for child abuse investigators and nursing home caregivers to huge reductions in education funding, the local Democratic lawmakers said the session made conditions worse for Florida’s sick, neglected and middle class.

Republicans, who control both the state House and Senate, took steps that will make things worse for many Floridians, including job layoffs for public employees. What’s worse, State Rep. Kelly Skidmore warned, is that many of the budget actions will be felt beyond the coming year and could dig into people’s lives even more deeply next year. As a result, she said, Florida is en route to becoming “the worst possible state in the nation” when it comes to how the state government treats people.
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