A short exchange between President Bush and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond that referenced some individuals in the crowd yesterday who were heckling the president was removed from the official White House transcript. The White House described the disruption as “applause.”
Top NASA scientist James Hansen explained why he did not attend a recent House committee hearing on global warming. “I would get out of my sickbed to testify to Congress on global warming, if they were ready to deal responsibly with the matter,” Hansen wrote. “But obviously they are still in denial, inviting contrarians to ‘balance’ the science of global warming.”
A federal judge did not buy the administration’s argument that a lawsuit challenging the NSA domestic wiretapping program would endanger national security. The ruling yesterday marked “the first time a judge has ruled on the government’s claim of a ‘state secrets privilege.’”
Scientists say earth is losing species “faster than at any time since 65 million years ago” as a result of human activity.
Senior CIA officials pushing to produce a new National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, in part to answer questions over whether a civil war has begun, “have been stonewalled” by intel czar John Negroponte, “who knows that any honest take on the situation would produce an NIE even more pessimistic than the 2004 version.” Read more
