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Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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Best water line of the day so far, "Conservative government destroys Atlanta like Gen. Sherman never could: The colossal mismanagement of water in Georgia has produced an urban crisis with no clear solution other than a return to smart government." -- Rick Perlstein (via AlterNet).
"2008 pres"
6:02:58 PM 
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Digby spots an interesting use of government surveillance technology and writes, "To all appearances this appears to be a sort of crude data-mining operation, similar to what the federal government insists it needs to use to catch terrorists. And, who can object to it? I'm sure many people believe that child pornographers, like terrorists, are the worst of the worst and allowing the authorities to 'survey' online activity and phone calls is a small price to pay to rid the world of their evil.
"But what are the rules here? Can they do 'surveys' looking for other information? Can they use other information they find in these 'surveys?' What happens to the 'survey' information? Is it stored for future reference? Who are the people who are doing these 'surveys?'
"I realize that if you're innocent you've got nothing to worry about and all that, but there is a long history, including in the US in my lifetime, of the authorities using private information for personal, political or criminal reasons. Nothing is fool proof, but being forced to show a judge the basis for some specific suspicion is at least something."
"2008 pres"
5:47:32 PM
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Political Wire: "A new Rasmussen Reports survey in Pennsylvania shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain, 46% to 42%."
Andrew Sullivan: "The LATimes/Bloomberg poll gives Obama a 12 point lead. Bush's approval is at a staggering 23 percent."
"2008 pres"
5:37:43 PM
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From The World Meteorological Organization: "La Niña conditions prevailed throughout May 2008, but the event gradually weakened from its peak in February. The recent weeks have seen a more rapid decay, indicating a possible conclusion to the event. Near-neutral conditions are considered the most likely outcome for the middle part of the year and shortly thereafter. For the second half of the year, the chance of an El Niño developing is small, but it cannot be ruled out. In such circumstances, near-neutral conditions should be considered the most likely outcome for the second half of 2008."
"colorado water"
5:36:40 PM
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From TheStar.com: "Already, [James Hansen] said, the world's safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been exceeded. Yet, in the 20 years since he first testified, no major U.S. law restricting greenhouse gas emissions has been passed, 21 new coal-fired generating units have been built at power plants in this country and total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have climbed by about 18 per cent."
More from the article:
Yesterday, Hansen warned of greater forest fire risk in Canada, the extinction of polar and alpine species, danger to the coral reefs and the ocean life that depends on them because of carbon dioxide in the oceans, and refugees from melting ice sheets in Greenland and the western Antarctic. He called for a phase-out of all coal-burning power plants by 2030 except those in which carbon dioxide is captured and buried and he called for a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas. The tax, he said, should be returned in full to the public - not used by government - in equal amounts for each adult and a half-share for children, deposited directly into bank accounts or credited to debit cards. Such a non-regressive tax, Hansen says, will spur low and middle-income people to limit their tax while profligate users will pay for their excesses. He also accused corporate America of a "greenwash" in which their environmentally friendly words are not backed by actions and he supported criminal charges against CEOs of corporations such as ExxonMobil who are smart enough to know the situation but are intent on continuing their fossil fuel ways. "When their descendants look back on them, they should not to be able to pretend that they didn't know,'" Hansen said. "They do know."
"cc"
5:19:39 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 2:33:31 PM.
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