I’m totally non-outraged by the coaches selections, though obviously this Shaq business is absurd. You need to play in actual games to be having an All-Star quality year. But how come that ESPN.com writeup doesn’t list anyone as a backup center? I know nobody likes to admit to being a center these days, but Dwight Howard and Amare Stoudemire, at a minimum, play that position.
Cruising
Via Sacha Zimmerman at TNR, take a look at Government Exhibit 702 in the Scooter Libby case. The overwhelming majority of the documented has been redacted, but I’ve reproduced the relevant portion of the page below:
As you can see, someone has handwritten something about “Tom Cruise & Penelope Cruz at his office.” And something’s redacted! Has the government really classified something about Cruise & Cruz? What is it? Where are the leaks when we need them?
UPDATE: And here’s your answer.
Oil Lobby Offers $10,000 Payments To Global Warming Deniers To Push Back On Climate Study
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative group on global warming, will report on Friday that it is “very likely” that human activities were the main cause of warming in the past 50 years.
Prominent global warming deniers, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sen. James Inhofe, have already been downplaying the report and contravening the science. But the Guardian reports that there is a more orchestrated movement going on below the radar to confound the public about the IPCC’s report.
The oil lobby is so desperate to push back on the new climate change report that they have been offering to pay global warming skeptics to speak out:
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
[...]
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.
AEI has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil. The well-heeled oil lobby is a primary reason why doubt still exists in the general public about the cause of global warming.
As Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth pointed out, despite the fact that no peer-reviewed scientific articles published in recent years express any doubt that climate change is happening, more than 50 percent of news media coverage of the issue includes the oil industry’s position on the subject.
Changes.
With Peter Daou running Internet operations for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) presidential campaign, The Daou Report has become The Blog Report, edited by Carpetbagger’s Steve Benen. Also, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network — the premiere group fighting to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — has launched a brand new website (also check out their blog).
Mmm…Dinner
The New York Sun reports on Senators Clinton and Edwards appearing tonight at a dinner for The Lobby That Must Not Be Named.
Iraq Kabuki
Clearly, if you know my views on Iraq you’ll guess I’m not super thrilled about the wording of the Warner Resolution on Iraq. Certainly, I’m sympathetic to what Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are saying about it. Triple certainly, I was a fan of the Kerry-Feingold resolution back in the day, and were I in a position to influence actual White House policy, what I’d be doing is moving as swiftly as logistically feasible to the removal of American troops from Iraq. That said, I tend to agree with Ed Kilgore that it would be a mistake to jab the knives in the back of this resolution. At the moment, absolutely anything that congress says or does about Iraq is pure kabuki. In kabuki terms, this resolution counts as a repudiation of Bush by Democrats and many Republicans. As policy, from what I can tell this resolution is not-so-wonderful. As kabuki, though, it’s good kabuki.
Even if you disagree with that, what I’d urge everyone to do is keep their eyes on the real ball in the air at the moment: Iran. If Bush really bombs Iran and spineless Democrats back him ex post facto then the whole Iraq dynamic changes dramatically, and not for the better. If you want to hassle your member of congress on behalf of some peacenik cause this month, hassle him or her about Iran. The time to hassle your congressional leaders about Iraq will come, as I keep saying, when Bush needs to come ask congress for more money. Hold the line on Iran and hold the line on the supplemental request, and everything will be okay as it possibly can be. If, by contrast, Democrats bobble the Iran issue, then all the strongly-worded Chris Dodd bills in the world aren’t going to save us.
Senate passes minimum wage hike.
“Just moments ago, by a resounding vote of 94-3, the United States Senate passed legislation raising the Federal Minimum Wage for the first time in a decade.” Bob Geiger has details on where the legislation goes from here.
Concerns over Iran bombing grow.
U.S. News: “Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly concerned that President Bush will order air strikes against targets in Iran in the next few months or even weeks. … [T]hey suspect Bush will order the bombing of Iranian supply routes, camps, training facilities, and other sites that Administration officials say contribute to American losses in Iraq. Under this scenario, Bush would not invade Iran with ground forces or zero in on Iranian nuclear facilities. But under the limited-bombing scenario, Bush could ask for a congressional vote of support…which many Democrats would feel obliged to endorse or risk looking like they weren’t supportive of the troops.”
IPCC: Humans “VERY LIKELY” causing global warming
A quick report from Paris:
The most authoritative report on climate change is using the strongest wording ever on the source of global warming, saying it is “very likely” caused by humans and already is leading to killer heat waves and stronger hurricanes, delegates who have seen the report said Thursday….
That means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans.
We are the cause, which means we are the solution. The time to act is now!
Gone Fishing: Cheney Set To Visit Global Warming Hotspot
Vice President Cheney’s determination to ignore global warming will soon be put to the test.
The White House has announced that Cheney will travel to Australia and Japan this month “to discuss issues of mutual interest including Asian security and the global war on terror.” The Washington tip sheet The Nelson Report reported this tidbit about his schedule:
The Vice President and Mrs. Cheney will visit Japan as part of an Asian tour which will take them to Tasmania for fly fishing, sources confirm.
Cheney’s fishing trip will show him the impact of climate change first-hand.
The warming of Tasmania’s waters has led to “exceptionally rare” development of coral reefs and “the invasion of about 30 species of fish from warmer areas.” In December, arid lands fueled the worst wildfires in years, 15 of which raged across state forests and burned more than 280,000 hectares. And extreme weather patterns have turned the country into a “freak show“:
Every month [in 2006] but September saw a long-term monthly rainfall or temperature record broken. May saw the lowest temperature for the month ever recorded. June experienced the lowest total rainfall. October set records for the hottest day, coldest night, warmest night and lowest rainfall.
Hopefully Cheney will use his fishing trip to learn something about the global climate crisis he now seems content to ignore.
