Puppies, Flowers, Rainbows and Kittens

Companies get OK to annoy polar bears (AP)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004477335_appolarbearsoil.html
Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.
The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection [...]

the democratic primary in 8 minutes

Wow, this op-ed from Frank Rich really summed up this point in the race for me and crystallized some vague thoughts around the race. Definitely worth a read
Op-Ed Columnist - Frank Rich - One Historic Night, Two Americas - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
WHEN Barack Obama achieved his historic victory on Tuesday night, the battle was [...]

(thanks Nate!)

Official’s Journey Ends in a Swirl of Accusations - New York Times
In 2004, less than two months after his confirmation as housing secretary, Mr. Jackson told a House panel that he believed poverty “is a state of mind, not a condition,” provoking strong criticism. Two years later, he said in a speech that he had [...]

As usual Maureen Dowd sums it up quite nicely.
Soft Shoe in Hard Times - New York Times
“You know, I guess the best way to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car in a rough patch,” he said. “If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full [...]

From the Seattle Times
Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures.
The gaps — 473 days over 20 months — are cited in a chart [...]

Reid thwarts recess appointments (Seattletimes.com)
Reid employed a rarely used parliamentary tactic of scheduling “pro forma” sessions twice a week until early December, when Congress returns for three weeks. Under that plan, a few senators, perhaps one Democrat and one Republican, will briefly open the chamber for debate on any topic during the next two weeks.
The [...]

Story in the Seattle Times

In an interview this week, he alleged that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the help of AT&T and without obtaining a court order. Contrary to the government’s depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists, Klein said, [...]

Far more veteran air traffic controllers than the government expected have retired since the Bush administration imposed a contract on their union on Labor Day 2006, new data show.While veteran controllers bail out in unprecedented numbers and air travelers experience record delays, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a series of all-is-well pronouncements about [...]