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The antagonism is mutual

I’m now in one of the marquee panels of the weekend: blogs vs. MSM! In attendance are Mike Allen of Politico, Jill from Feministe, Jay Carney from Time, and Glenn Greenwald. Those of you who follow blogs know that Greenwald’s attacks on and contempt for the mainstream media — particularly Allen and Carney — are […]

YearlyKos: Hertzberg has a blog

Hendrick Hertzberg of the New Yorker — who’s about the smartest guy and the best writer you’re likely to meet in this lifetime — has a blog (I surrender!). To introduce yourself to it, check out this post on how oddly … normal the crowd at YearlyKos is.

Man, the Arctic is Hot

Russia plants flag under North Pole, India launches its first Arctic expedition Earlier this week, we reported that Russia was planning to stake a claim on the North Pole. Or, rather, the seabed deep underneath. Yesterday, two mini-submarines planted a titanium national flag on the sea floor, causing celebration in Moscow and consternation in Canada, […]

Hi from YearlyKos

Got in last night — had a wonderful dinner at Green Zebra (a runner up on our list of green restaurants). Now I’m in the convention center, listening to Steve Clemons and Peter Beinart talk about progressive foreign policy. I’ve never seen so many laptops in one room. It’s a little maddening to be out […]

New study links biodiversity loss to economic inequality

It's increasingly well documented that income inequality matters for a variety of reasons: among them, it has negative effects on public health and social capital. So it was interesting to read a recent study from researchers at McGill University in Quebec. They found that income inequality is also linked to biodiversity loss.

The most trusted name in news

Eric Boehlert wonders why, when anchors and hosts with better ratings get fired for … poor ratings, CNN continues to promote Glenn Beck, who has, among other things, spoken glowingly of the John Birch Society and compared Al Gore to Hitler.

Come catch the hotness!

As you may or may not know, this weekend the progressive website Daily Kos is holding its annual convention — YearlyKos — in Chicago. According to noted advocate of moderation and compassion Bill O’Reilly, Daily Kos — which has over 50,000 registered members and on the order of 600,000 visits a day — is a […]

Spaghetti Midwestern

Citizens, politicians, EPA face off over BP refinery discharges Good old-fashioned fury continues to build over Indiana’s decision to grant oil giant BP permission to increase discharges of ammonia and sludge into Lake Michigan. A group of eight shoreline mayors has formed a task force to fight the plan. Tens of thousands of residents have […]

One Swamp Forward, Two Swamps Back

Everglades, stripped of U.N. endangered status, may see federal funding The Florida Everglades may get a budgetary boost from the U.S. government, a month after being removed from the U.N. World Heritage Committee’s list of endangered sites. The nearly $2 billion is part of a $21 billion national water bill expected to be passed by […]

Get the facts, dispel the myths

Did you know you're more likely to die from a falling coconut than a shark bite? It's true.

Sharks kill an average of five people annually, which is unfortunate to say the least. But when you think about the tens of millions of sharks that are killed each year for their fins, meat, liver oil, and hides, it's easy to see people are a bigger threat to sharks than sharks are to people.

All this week the Discovery Channel will broadcast special programming about these misunderstood masters of the underwater universe. Some of the footage is extraordinarily compelling. Viewers should remember that they need more protection from us than the reverse.