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Thursday, July 19, 2007 |
WashingtonPost: "At 10 a.m. on April 4, 2001, representatives of 13 environmental groups were brought into the Old Executive Office Building for a long-anticipated meeting. Since late January, a task force headed by Vice President Cheney had been busy drawing up a new national energy policy, and the groups were getting their one chance to be heard.
Cheney was not there, but so many environmentalists were in the room that introductions took up 'about half the meeting', recalled Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth. Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Group said, 'It was clear to us that they were just being nice to us.'
A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.
Some key proposals, such as opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, have never won congressional approval, but some measures to encourage oil and gas production, coal output, and the development of biofuels and nuclear power have been included in Bush's budgets and in the 2005 energy bill."
1:00:06 PM 
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TheNewshoggers: "The level of violence in Iraq is extraordinarily high and this immense level of violence has provided a skewed reflection of progress when measured against previous levels of violence that were sufficient to bring about complete US and Iraqi government strategic mission failure."
WashingtonPost: "The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has been able to deflect criticism of his counterterrorism policy by repeatedly noting the absence of any new domestic attacks and by citing the continuing threat that terrorists in Iraq pose to U.S. interests.
But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda 'has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability' by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able 'to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks', by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary."
12:53:27 PM
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Wowsy mowsy! This is something!
Kuro5hin: "The story is about a boy who lives in a cupboard (i.e. 'in the closet'). His Aunt and Uncle are ashamed of him because his parents were quite eccentric (i.e. 'flaming') and they are deeply concerned and afraid that he will turn out just like them. On his 11th birthday (i.e. roughly at the onset of puberty), the boy discovers that he is actually a 'wizard', different in both style and substance from normal people, or 'muggles' (i.e. 'breeders'). The boy is groomed into his new existence by a large, hairy bear of a man who shows Harry a hidden underground community of 'wizards' living right under the noses of the general population (i.e. the gay subculture). Harry's first trip to this subculture involves traveling through 'Diagon Alley', a play on the word diagonally (i.e. not straight)."
12:50:29 PM
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© Copyright 2008.
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