Leave No Trees Behind

"Managers of the nation's 155 national forests will have more discretion to approve logging and other commercial projects without lengthy environmental reviews under a new Bush administration initiative."

Read more about it in

• San Francisco Chronicle
• NPR

Or use this Google search phrase:

national forest lengthy environmental reviews

U.S. Cutting Food Aid Aimed at Self-Sufficiency

Another Screw-the-Poor move by the right wing extremists

An email alert from TrueMajority:

It turns out that while the number of the world's people who go hungry is rising for the first time in years, the Bush administration can find no better way to reduce spending than to cut $600 million from global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.

That belt-tightening of $600 million doesn't make much of a dent in a federal discretionary budget of $965 BILLION (it's 0.0001 percent), but in the developing world it's emergency food to prevent the starvation of millions, and long-term agricultural development to help people feed even more people themselves.

Read more about it in the New York Times. If that article has expired, use this archive.

Bush won't "negotiate with himself"

Now I understand why Dubya won't negotiate with anyone, he can't even negotiate with himself.

This UK Reuters story explains it all: Bush won't "negotiate with himself".

Pictures we have aren't the ones we want

"I wish every newspaper in America could have run the New England Journal of Medicine photos next to Rumsfeld's mug shot on the day he shot off his mouth. It would have ruined some breakfasts, yes. But when our soldiers are dying horrible deaths and surviving unspeakable wounds, the least we can do is bear witness." -- Joan Ryan, San Francisco Chronicle

• New England Journal of Medicine's photo essay: Caring for the Wounded in Iraq (not for the squeamish)
• Related article in NEJM: Casualties of War — Military Care for the Wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan
• Rest of Joan Ryan's SF Chronicle article

Economy not the only Challange [sic] for Dubya

While he's gutting Social Security, Dubya does it again:

• 'Challenges' Prove Too Much for White House
• A Spelling Challange

A comment on the second link: "It fits right in with Bush’s faith based budgeting process. He can’t add, he can’t spell, but it don’t matter because the Rapture is just around the corner anyway…"

We got the Wine & Cheese!!!

Passed on from my friend Shea regarding Nov 2nd:

Not to worry. With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the world's fresh water, over 90% of our pineapples and lettuce, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America's export-quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, most of the US' low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy League and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, CalTech and MIT. We can live simply but well.

The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care cost spike), 92% of all US mosquitoes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. A high price to pay for controlling the presidency.