Howard is First, and I'm on the road.

Traveling mercies.

xox
puddle

How about some Governor Dean videos from last night?  He was great.  He loved the You Tube questions.

http://dnc.org/a/2007/07/governor_dean_m_1.php

And in case you missed his previous video in response to Bush's inane remarks.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1382

Well, these videos are great fun.  But, even people who have computers may not have the bandwidth to download them or stream them.

Please, try to contact a few people every day and keep them updated on what's going on.  You know, the water-cooler thing.  We did it during DeanforAmerica.  Don't keep what you learn on the net a secret. 

Is there any broth Darth Cheney's bloody spoon isn't in?

Two different government entities are investigating decisions by Bush administration officials related to species recovery. In one, the US Interior Department is reviewing the scientific integrity of decisions under the law made by a political appointee, who recently resigned under fire. At the same time, Congress is investigating evidence that Vice President Dick Cheney interfered with decisions involving water in California and Oregon that resulted in the killing of tens of thousands of Klamath River salmon, some of which were listed as "threatened" species.....

Following a critical report by the inspector general of the Interior Department in March, Julie MacDonald – the official in charge of fish and wildlife, including those listed under the ESA – resigned.

Fish and Wildlife Service employees complained that Ms. MacDonald had "bullied, insulted, and harassed the professional staff … to change documents and alter biological reporting," according to the report.

"We confirmed that MacDonald has been heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping the endangered species program's scientific reports from the field," the inspector general wrote, also noting that "she has no formal educational background in natural sciences, such as biology."

The Interior Department inspector general also found that MacDonald had "disclosed nonpublic information to private sector sources" – special interests that had a financial stake in species listing and protection – including the California Farm Bureau Federation and the Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm that specializes in property rights advocacy and litigation.

Government officials moved quickly to fix the political damage.

Last week, the director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (the Interior Department agency in charge of endangered species programs) announced that eight decisions MacDonald had made under the ESA would be examined for scientific and legal discrepancies.......

"The real culprit here is not a renegade political appointee," says Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) scientific integrity program. "The real culprit is a process where decisions are made behind closed doors."

In 2005, UCS surveyed about 450 Fish and Wildlife Service scientists. Two-thirds said they knew of cases where Interior Department political appointees had interfered with scientific reports and decisions, and 84 said they had been ordered to remove or change technical information from scientific documents.

Political pressure is alleged to have taken place during a summer drought in 2002 when Klamath River water was allowed to irrigate farmers' fields rather than provide adequate passage for salmon headed upstream to spawn as government scientists had recommended.

As reported in detail recently by The Washington Post, Vice President Cheney intervened in decisions involving a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River basin, siding with farmers and ranchers over environmental considerations. Courts later termed that plan "arbitrary and capricious and in violation of the Endangered Species Act."

As a result of the low water flows that summer, which make the water warmer and the fish more prone to disease, some 70,000 salmon died. Since then, fish runs have remained low, causing economic hardship for Indian tribes as well as commercial and sport-fishing businesses along the West Coast.

The House Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a hearing next week to investigate "political influence … on agency science and decisionmaking." Cheney has been invited to testify, but he is not expected to attend the hearing.

this frickin blog is loading the whole series of videos on my dial-up with every re-fresh

I'm locked out on the other-side of the high speed divide.

see you on the next thread?

Sorry if this was posted already but haven't read the past threads...the fairness still sucks in the debates!

I'll try that again...

You want to change the way the CM operates?

Stop griping about  their garbage and stop watching it instead. Ratings are their only concern.

5.

Phil Specht
Tue, 07/24/07
6:56 pm

Reply to this

this frickin blog is loading the whole series of videos on my dial-up with every re-fresh
===========================

I know. I have 256 dsl, but sometimes I do a dial-up when my daughter's using the high-speed computer. Qwest is pretty good that way, they give you a free dial-up with their DSL, so we don't need the router headaches.

I imagine people with wireless hook-ups run slower too.

HQ should give us a description of the video with a link, or some kind of graphic that doesn't take so long to load, instead.

Your complaints have been duly noted and there is a new thread.