October 2007 archive

Cross posted at the Daily Kos under betson08

Blog Action Day coincides with Wolf Awareness Week. So I thought I’d startle you into noticing an issue that has been really bothering me since I first heard about it a month ago, and diaried it over at the Daily Kos here.

There have been important recent developments, so I thought I’d take advantage of the environmental theme of Blog Action Day to pass them on.

Who in the world would go up in a small plane and slaughter these majestic creatures, and how can we stop this?

I stumbled onto this on the internets and didn’t see it diaried in the past few days

Clooney, DiCaprio to Make Howard Dean Movie

Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney are reported to be in early talks about teaming up for a movie, which The Hollywood Reporter is calling a “political thriller,” loosely based on Howard Dean’s innovative but ultimately unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

Mr. DiCaprio is expected to play the young, idealistic communications director who guides an unconventional candidate but is ultimately derailed by dirty politics as usual.  So, that means the heartthrob is playing the screen version of Joe Trippi. (Kind of like Robert Redford playing Bob Woodward in “All the President’s Men.”)

So, if you worked on the Dean Campaign in 2003-2004, I guess here’s your chance to be in the movie. 

That’s right!  Let’s see where the DD crowd is leaning today!

The project was described in the ATT sales division documents as calling for the construction of a facility to store and retain data gathered by the NSA from its domestic and foreign intelligence operations but was to be in actuality a duplicate ATT Network Operations Center for the use and possession of the NSA that would give the NSA direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access to all call information and internet and digital traffic on ATT’s long distance network. […]

  The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001 but had been called off; it was reinstated within 11 days of the entry into office of defendant George W. Bush.

http://blog.wired.co…

Light Emitting Pickle here to bring you the most recent open thread. First, a few words about Pickle Pony Parties:

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

Source
And yet, the poorest of people in all of America refuse to accept one single penny of the award.

Source

“All of our origin stories go back to this place. We have a spiritual connection to the Black Hills that can’t be sold. I don’t think I could face the Creator with an open heart if I ever took money for it.”

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1. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of reports coming from the speech of Hu Jintao, China’s president and the Communist party general secretary, opening the Communist Party’s 17th National Congress. The New York Times reports Communist Party’s 17th National Congress. “Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption during his second term as China’s top leader, but he all but ruled out more than cosmetic political reform… Mr. Hu spoke extensively about his ‘scientific view of development,’ a set of lofty, vague principles supporting harmonious economic, social and political development.” The NY Times think a shift in Hu’s rhetoric “suggests that Mr. Hu thinks the economy can outperform what he and his predecessors considered possible — or prudent — at the last party congress in 2002.”

   NPR focuses on Hu Making a peace overture to Taiwan. Hu “proposed talking with Taiwan about a formal peace accord, but included preconditions that Taiwanese officials previously found unacceptable. Hu stressed Beijing’s desire for a peaceful, negotiated settlement to the 58-year-old conflict with Taiwan. ‘We would like to make a solemn appeal: On the basis of the one-China principle, let us discuss a formal end to the state of hostility between the two sides, reach a peace agreement,'” Hu said. Taiwan’s has rejected Hu’s offer.

   The Guardian reports that Hu admits Communist shortcomings. “Hu Jintao promised a more open and sustainable model of development today in a speech that will set the policy of the nation for the next five years… Mr Hu acknowledged that the ruling party had failed to live up to the expectations of the people and proposed a series of modest reforms aimed at improving the skills, morals and accountability of cadres… The shift from quantity to quality in both party management and economic development underpins Mr Hu’s theory of ‘scientific development’, which will be written into the charter of a party that has moved from revolution to plutocracy.”

   Lastly, AFP reports China to go eco-friendly. “We will increase spending on energy and environmental conservation with the focus on intensifying prevention and control of water, air and soil pollution and improving the living environment for both urban and rural residents,” Hu said. “We will enhance our capacity to respond to climate change and make new contributions to protecting the global climate.” “Hu called the environmental effort ‘vital to the immediate interests of the people and the survival and development of the Chinese nation’. He said the government would seek to develop a ‘resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society’ and will ‘get every organisation and family to act accordingly,’ while offering no specific policy plans.” That last bit sounds almost Bushesque.

There’s more today including a story about how ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq is crippled’, today’s episode of “Guns of Greed”, and the discovery of an enormous dinosaur fossil found in Patagonia. So, step into the Lost World, below the fold.