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Author of Rolling Stone piece gets all bloggy.

Speaking of great stuff on blogs:

Yesterday in Daily Grist, we pointed to a story in Rolling Stone about Bush's effort (hidden in his massive budget bill) to create a "Sunset Commission" that would have the power to eliminate government programs and whole agencies (say, the EPA) that were deemed "non-productive" (by the standards of the industry lobbyists that would populate the commission). It's a pretty brazen effort to accomplish by fiat what the right can't accomplish through public persuasion and legislation.

Anyway, the story was summarized, along with some supplemental material from OMBWatch and elsewhere, in a diary at DailyKos, which was followed -- as usual on DKos -- by a lively discussion. The author of the piece, Osha Gray Davidson, responded to lots of those comments on a blog called Booman Tribune, which in turn was reprinted and further discussed in another DKos diary.

So, if you found the story interesting, read all that stuff for some great follow-up. Vive les blogs!

An extraordinary diary on DailyKos about the coal industry.

Thanks to this comment from Chris (proprietor of the excellent OrganicMatter blog), I came across this diary over at DailyKos, which is one of the best I've ever read.

It's about coal, and it's written by a guy who grew up around coal mining and has been involved in the industry his whole life (and still is). Quit reading this and go read it instead.

USDA recommends mercury as part of a healthy diet.

Seems there's a bit of a snafu in that fancy new food pyramid the USDA recently unveiled.

[Swordfish and king mackerel] are among [the fish] most contaminated with mercury, a pollutant released from coal-fired power plants -- which the Bush administration has failed to crack down on. According to E.P.A. research, some 600,000 U.S. newborns, each year, are at risk for learning disorders and behavioral problems because of their exposure to the neurotoxin in the womb.

The USDA's new Web site ignores all these mercury warnings, recommending the very fish most likely to contain high levels of mercury. "Not only does the new food pyramid shirk away from telling the public which unhealthy foods to avoid," said David Wallinga, director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Food and Health Program in Minneapolis, "it actually tells people to eat fish that other federal agencies warn are too contaminated with mercury to eat."

Oops!

Invisible satire

Judging from the letters we got about it, nobody -- and I mean nobody -- got this joke.

So, if your satire is so subtle that nobody gets it, does that make it really, really good, or really, really bad? I suspect the latter ...

President cozies up to Saudi dictator, begging for lower oil prices.

Our overreliance on oil makes us do things that are economically stifling, ecologically destructive, and geopolitically self-defeating.

And then sometimes it just makes us look pathetic.

I refer, of course, to Bush's man date with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, during which he begged the repressive dictator to lower oil prices, something the repressive dictator couldn't do even if he wanted, which he doesn't particularly. All this took place, of course, on the holy ground of Bush's increasingly brush-free ranch in Crawford, where Bush and his repressive dictator buddy strolled, hand in hand, appearing for all the world like star-crossed lovers.

Matt Welch is grossed out, and so is Justin Logan, and so am I.

Via Matt Yglesias, who adds this:

[The price of oil] may go up or down a bit thanks to this or that gambit (Bush's Saudi ploy, the Democrats' hackneyed Strategic Petroleum Reserve proposal) but fundamentally it's something we need to start dealing with, rather than whining about. If cars were more fuel efficient, then high oil prices wouldn't be so bad, and over time prices might start to fall. If we stopped relying on oil for electricity generation, that, too, would improve the situation.

You could say that.

Guppy Love

Young urban professionals hip to green-building scene The trend now has a name. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Guppys: Green urban professionals who are young. (Yeah, we didn’t say it was a clever name.) Portland, Ore., has become the epicenter of a movement by the storied “creative class” to find, build, or remodel eco-friendly […]

What’s the Time? It’s Time to Get Iliamna

Proposed Alaskan mine may threaten salmon wonderland Near the shores of vast Lake Iliamna in southern Alaska, locals are worried that a huge proposed open-pit mine at the region’s headwaters could imperil legendary salmon runs. The story is familiar enough: an economically depressed, mineral-rich area gets courted by slick mining-company officials promising jobs and little-to-no […]

Iceland of Make-Believe

Fascinating facts about a country you could win a trip to You know, ever since we got into the business of shilling Iceland in order to promote our sweepstakes, we’ve learned an awful lot of fascinating stuff. And now we’ve moved past shilling — we just want to share! Guess how many people in Iceland […]

Next: Clay Aiken Draws a Line In the Sands of Tuvalu

Hollywood celebs travel to Arctic to raise global-warming awareness Matt Petersen of Global Green spends his time pondering this weighty question: “[I]n an age and culture that’s celebrity-obsessed, how do you in a smart and savvy way use the celebrity to shine the light on the science, on the facts, and on the solution?” When […]

Little-known facts from a country on the edge of your consciousness

293,966 — population of Iceland3 4,117,827 — population of Kentucky2 10 — percentage of Icelanders who believe elves “definitely” exist4 0 — number of successful elf surveys conducted in Kentucky 11.5 — percentage of Iceland that is covered by glaciers1 3,240 — square miles covered by the largest glacier, Vatnajökull1 2 — tectonic plates visible […]