The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Screed

Greetings, friends,
Was it only ninety years ago that our great-grandfathers were dying in the trenches?  Everybody's talking about how far America has come (and how far it hasn't.)  Let's pause to accept a timid pat on the back on behalf of the whole world.  We are way too sophisticated to repeat the awesome carnage of World War I.  Now we are all about disease, poverty, drought, and if it comes to world war again, burning the Earth to a cinder instead of prolonged trench slaughter.  Phew.

With that unpleasant thought aside, can we celebrate for real?  Can we just lay it aside and pop a cork?  That's right, friends...the biggest event of 2008...I'd like to declare TOTAL VICTORY OVER THE ZEN!  Okay, okay, just kidding, but it's one struggle for 66 million people to elect President Obama (and say that aloud...don't you like the sound of it?  Even if we now sound like one of those fake countries from "Mission Impossible".)  It's another more personal struggle for a few dozen dedicated patriots to go head to head with the illegal nightclub down on the corner and, after seven years, bring them DOWN.  Those among you who've tried to find parking at my apartment on a Saturday night know.  WE WON!  My landlord is very happy.  And that's not all...

Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress

I suspected that, at least in 2008, the forces of good might prevail...maybe it was after Shawn Johnson proudly sported her peace sign earrings, and nobody gave her shit for it.  Not that a lot of evil crap hasn't gone down, but yeah, we lived through something special...the worm definitely does turn.

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

That's right, folks.
After Four Decades, Finally, the Beginning of the End
The nation's capital came alive after 11 PM on election eve, as thousands poured into the streets to celebrate a victory that everyone was calling historic. Car horns blaring, whooping and shouting, high fives all around, multi-racial crowds celebrating joyously. Historic it is, most obviously in the election of an African-American president, in a country where millions of black people could not even vote when the new president-elect was born.
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Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.  The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis - a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama's call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country.
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The Jubilant Birth of the Obama Era
Citizenship is a passionate joy at times, and this is one of those times. You can feel it. Tuesday the world changed. It was a great day. Monday it rained hard for the first time this season and on Election Day, everything in San Francisco was washed clean. I went on a long run past several polling places up in the hills around my home and saw lines of working people waiting to vote and contented-looking citizens walking around with their "I Voted" stickers in the sun and mud.
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Generation X, our generation, is finally taking over...not a moment to lose!

I'm Officially Old

The baby on the cover of Nirvana's album "Nevermind" is 17 years old!!

Good timing:
House of Representatives Issues Formal Apology for Slavery
Washington - The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.  "Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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I completely missed all the excitement.  I put on a tie to go vote, I was so pleased, but by the time I came home, I was collapsing under the vicious cold going around.  I just got over it a few days ago, skipping all the celebrations and the protests.  Well, that's how it goes.  Here are just a few of the awesome headlines that swirled around the world while I sucked back a whole package of "Ricolas" (thanks, Dr. Brad):
Obama all over
http://obama2008.s3.amazonaws.com/headlines.html

I'm glad that we've gotten our global "self-respect" back, though I'd say the world, like most of us, is running off the fumes of hope at this point.
What Obama's Election Means Abroad
Barack Obama's victory was met with euphoria in many nations by those who see him as restoring their faith in American ideals.
As Wednesday dawned rainy and gray on the Champs- Élysées, a Parisian waiter spontaneously gave a fist pump and shouted, "Obamamania! Yeah!"
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At least the election was relatively smooth.
Zimbabwe election: The stolen ballots
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jul/04/election.zimbabwe

Even North Carolina, which hasn't voted for a Democrat in 32 years (and a Yankee...well, I guess George W. Bush counts as a Yankee in some circles) came through for PRESIDENT OBAMA (say it out loud.)
Obama Adds Symbolic North Carolina Victory to White House Win
Raleigh, North Carolina - President-elect Obama won North Carolina on Thursday, a symbolic triumph that underscored his political strength as he turned nine states that President Bush won in 2004 to Democratic blue.  The Associated Press declared Obama the winner after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots. That survey found that there are not enough remaining ballots for Republican John McCain to close a 13,693-vote deficit.
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And now all the "domestic terrorists" can breathe again, and speak:
Bill Ayers | What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
Bill Ayers looks back on a surreal campaign season.
Whew! What was all that mess? I'm still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.  Pass the Vitamin C.  For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing.
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The rest of us "domestic terrorists" should be ready to use our voices to remind President Obama of his roots...but I don't think he'll forget.  At the beginning of this campaign, taking on Hillary Clinton and then the Republican smear machine, Obama was indeed arrogant...messianic...and why not?  But after months and months of travelling the country and seeing the great suffering of so many people, it is apparent that if not cynically believing his own spin, he's made the same transformation as Jack Kennedy did in 1960...he feels deeply responsible, and has become his message.
How Will President Obama Deploy His Internet Army?
Washington - A powerful new lobbying force is coming to town: Barack Obama's triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers.  In a mass e-mail thanking them, written moments before his Grant Park victory speech, Obama put them on notice. "We have a lot to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next," he wrote.
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We don't know if the Democratic Party can keep up...
Hillary Clinton Resumes Attacking Obama

Just kidding...maybe.  We may not know the future, but in the meantime, we can enjoy the spectacle on the right:
Right Tears Itself Apart in Pinning Blame for McCain's Defeat
As the implosion of the defeated Republican campaign continued yesterday, the landscape of American conservatism was dotted with signs that these were very strange times indeed.  Rush Limbaugh, behemoth of rightwing radio, took to the airwaves to declare war on two enemies:  Barack Obama and the Republican party.
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Don't get too comfy, though...these monsters will be hammering at us with every weapon in their arsenal, from words to bullets.
http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2008/11/americans-must-fight-democrat-party.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/05/it-begins-palin-didnt-know-africa-was-a-continent-claims-fox-news/
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/11/09/media-academe-historical-illiterates-du-jour

And their new anointed leader is the worst we've ever seen:
Flirting her way to victory
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Michelle Goldberg
guardian.co.uk
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/03/sarah.palin.debate.feminism
Palin Blamed for Death Threats Against Obama
Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
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Not much you can say about a state like Alaska, which is poised to reelect a felon:
Ted Stevens Holds Lead; Still Too Close to Call
Anchorage, Alaska - Alaska's race for US Senate is still too close to call, although Sen. Ted Stevens is creeping farther ahead of Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in his bid for a seventh term. With 72 percent of the vote counted Tuesday night, Stevens has captured 48.42 percent of the vote to Begich's 46.06.  But the race for Alaska's lone congressional seat appears over. Rep. Don Young appears headed toward a 19th term with a comfortable lead over his Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz.
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Strange times we're living in, certainly...
Jackson 5 To Reunite

It's always two steps forward and one back, right?  (Or in the last decade, one forward and three back...)  We now have President Obama (say it aloud.)  In this Great State of California, we will have a high-speed train at last, although I will be 65 when it is completed...oh well.  Malin will only be 43, the age I am now.  Enjoy!  We will also have free range eggs and tender veal that wasn't locked in a box.  On the flip side, the oppression of homosexuals is now enshrined in our State Constitution, to my personal consternation.  I hope my Aunt Nona can forgive us...I gave as much money against this cause as I could afford, and preached to my friends.  But it's something going up against the Mormons.  And the repercussions will continue ad nauseum.
 
Of course, the only people benefiting from the passage of Proposition 8, for now, are the lawyers.  Since same-sex marriage is now banned in several states, and permitted in several others (not counting Canada and several countries in Europe), expect the lawsuits to begin shortly.  The argument in California will be that since denying someone a civil right is a drastic action, it cannot be done by amending the Constitution (which is a majority vote) but is a revision of the Constitution (a two-thirds vote.)  Two steps forward, one step back.
Gay-Marriage Ban Sets Up Host of Battles
California's Proposition 8 is challenged in state court; what happens to previously wed couples?
California voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 8, which adds to the state constitution the following sentence: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
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New York to Back Same-Sex Unions From Elsewhere
Albany - Governor David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.  In a directive issued on May 14, the governor's legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere "should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union."
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Federal Court Rules Against Military Gays Policy
Seattle - The military cannot automatically discharge people because they're gay, a federal appeals court ruled in the case of a decorated flight nurse who sued the Air Force over her dismissal.  The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not strike down the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But they reinstated Maj. Margaret Witt's lawsuit, saying the Air Force must prove that her dismissal furthered the military's goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.
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Connecticut Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage
The Connecticut Supreme Court Friday issued a 4-3 decision in favor of eight gay couples who were the plaintiffs in Kerrigan and Mock v. the Connecticut Department of Public Health, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. Connecticut will now become the third state in the country behind Massachusetts and California where gay couples are allowed equal access to marriage. As in California and Massachusetts, out-of-state couples will be eligible to marry in Connecticut.
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I'll say this much:  my gloves are now off with Christians and Mormons.  I tolerated them before...barely.  Now I want to do everything I can to oppress them, and at every opportunity.  This is my new mantra.  Down with Christianity and Judaism and Islam and all their sects!  Come blow me and my fucking new house up, you God-flailing trash.  Religion is worse than the opium of the masses; it's a viper sinking its poisonous fangs into our future.  If you thought I was pissed off at the City of Los Angeles, now I'm fightin' mad.
 
There was a lot more going on in this vital election.  Most important to your Catty Librarian personally was the passage of Measure UUT in the local city of Inglewood, which got a whopping 84% of the vote in that city...of course, the phrasing was a little shady ("We'll reduce your phone tax from 10% to 8%!  Did we mention that the tax was actually not legal until you approved it?")  Nevertheless, when I read this letter, it meant, in all likelihood, I am once more gainfully employed after 2 1/2 years, with the City of Inglewood.  I'll let you all know the details, but I'm back in the 'hood, and LOVING it.  I'm already shopping for my foreclosure in Ladera Heights, with a view of LAX and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
 
Anyway, I've never really noticed the results of the local voting for Superior Court judges before, probably because I recycle my sample ballot.  This year I'm hanging onto it as a memento, so I checked those results.  Every single person I voted for lost - every single criminal prosecutor won.  It had nothing to do with ethnicity or the order of the names...if a person was a criminal prosecutor, they are now a judge by mandate of the people.  Kind of scary...all I can say it, if you break the law in LA, don't get caught.  That's it.
 
In Los Angeles, Measure A, which had to pass by two-thirds, is losing by just over 1% - that's just under 10000 votes out of a million, of which I'm proud to be one.  It would have charged each property owner $36 for "gang prevention programs", which the City of LA has demonstrated itself incapable of handling:
http://www.laweekly.com/2006-12-14/news/broken-bridges/
http://www.laweekly.com/2007-06-07/news/did-city-hall-fund-a-gun-runner/

Measure R passed by an even slimmer margin...I cancelled out Mr. Lightwood's vote in this respect.  I sided with the hipsters and the blacks, while he sided with the Latinos and the suburbanites.  We will now have the highest sales tax in the state (8.75%), but perhaps in a few decades our kids will only have to wait 30 minutes for a bus or a train instead of an hour.  This tax goes to rail, bus and road improvements for the next 30 years (!)  If you live in LA County, read all about it here:
http://www.metro.net/measurer/default.asp

The city of Honolulu, incidentally, also approved a train.
http://www.honolulutransit.org/

Measure H in Beverly Hills passed by less than 20 votes.  This measure allows redevelopment of the Beverly Hilton at Wilshire and Santa Monica.  I'm a little nonplussed about this victory...I'm furious that they closed Trader Vic's without even letting us order one last Zombie, but now that this measure has won, what now?  Do we get Trader Vic's back in some fake form?  In any case, I miss Trader Vic's like too many things, and I'll also miss the Hilton, a bright yellow 60s tower that signalled, for so many years, that you'd reached the end of Beverly Hills and were that much closer to the beach.
 
Of course, I can't think of poor Trader Vic's without hearing Warren Zevon in my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6hQUFGsVf4

Speaking of the beach, Proposition T failed in Santa Monica, so start looking for more high-rises along the coast!  Woo hoo!

And speaking of Warren Zevon, I note with sadness the passing of one of my favorite singers, the Bird Woman of the Andes, Yma Sumac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-C7jZfAQ34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KprLT-JxPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGw1wFsvBfI
 
Hmm...I'm feeling a screed coming on.  Either my friends are completely starry-eyed about President Obama (say it out loud loud), or they're already screaming, "Rahm Emanuel!  War pig!  Lawrence Summers!  Corporate tool!"  Good grief, is that a tinge of nostalgia for hating George Bush I feel?
Bush: 'Can I Stop Being President Now?'

I know that Misty May and Kerri Walsh will miss him.

Don't forget, Mr. Bush will be President for more than two months.  Plenty of time to do damage.

Plenty of time to appoint more right-wing judges:
Appeals Courts Pushed to Right by Bush Choices
Washington - After a group of doctors challenged a South Dakota law forcing them to inform women that abortions "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being" - using exactly that language - President Bush's appointees to the federal appeals courts took control.  A federal trial judge, stating that whether a fetus is human life is a matter of debate, had blocked the state from enforcing the 2005 law as a likely violation of doctors' First Amendment rights.
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Plenty of time to pass dozens of regulations and destroy even more of the planet:
Bush Officials Plan to Dial Back Environmental Protections
Washington - In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to relax environmental-protection rules on power plants near national parks, uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and more mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.  The administration is widely expected to try to get some of the rules into final form by the week before Thanksgiving because, in some cases, there's a 60-day delay before new regulations take effect.
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The Midnight Deregulation Express
http://www.truthout.org/111108S
Matthew Blake, The Washington Independent: "It's something of a tradition - administrations using their final weeks in power to ram through a slew of federal regulations. With the election grabbing the headlines, outgoing federal bureaucrats quietly propose and finalize rules that can affect the health and safety of millions."
Bush's Continued Assault on Scientific Integrity
For eight long years, the Bush administration has trashed and politicized the government's science agencies. How to kick out the hacks and flat-Earthers and let the nerds reign.
If the Bush administration had consciously plotted to leave office with one last jab at American scientists, it could hardly have done better than the North Atlantic right whale incident.
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Bureau Proposes Opening Up Utah Wilderness to Drilling
The federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving plans to sell oil and gas leases in pristine wilderness areas in eastern Utah that have long been protected from development, according to a notice posted this week on the agency's Web site.  The proposed sale, which includes famous areas in the Nine Mile Canyon region, would take place Dec. 19, a month before President Bush leaves office.
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Feeding the Beast: Federal Agencies in Shambles
In order to weaken federal agencies, the Bush administration has expanded them to the point of collapse.
When President Bush exits the White House in January, he will leave behind a federal government in shambles.
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And let me SHOUT this out:  ALL PARTIES are to blame.
House GOP Threatens Shutdown Over Drilling
House Republicans signaled Monday that they are ready to cut off government spending over the issue of offshore drilling, though the party's Senate leader said he hopes to reach an energy deal and avoid a shutdown.  House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, called a Democratic energy proposal to allow limited offshore drilling inadequate. Boehner said House Republicans would vote against a spending resolution needed to keep the government running when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1 unless restrictions on offshore drilling are dropped from it.
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Democrats Look to More Drilling
Washington - With public opinion shifting toward offshore drilling, Democrats are looking to defuse the volatile election issue by allowing oil companies for the first time to explore off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Virginia to Florida - but only if they foot the bill for new alternative energy programs.
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Democrats to Let Offshore Drilling Ban Expire
Washington - Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an month-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.
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It's like a crazy car chase in some awful 70s movie, except that crashing sound at the end is the world going up.
Global warming pollution increases 3 percent
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/ap-09-25-2008.html
The Methane Time Bomb
Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
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The Methane Time Bomb
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/independent-09-23-2008.html

For the first time, a major coastal city has evaluated their weaknesses, and the rest of us should look on with temerity:
Sea-Level Rise Threatens Sydney Coast
Sydney's iconic beaches, coastal houses, commercial property and roads will be threatened by rising sea levels by 2050, while the city's temperature is expected to rise by at least 2 degrees, a new scientific study, launched by the Premier, Nathan Rees, reveals.  "Today, the science is in for Sydney," Mr Rees said yesterday as he proclaimed the influence of the climate sceptic and former treasurer Michael Costa at an end in NSW.
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Poor Aussies...they're so on edge as it is:
Pub row erupts after feces found in ice cream
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081029/od_nm/us_icecream

But they are always ready for the end...

Seriously, here's some very, very good news...a simple adaptation that improves the efficiency of solar panels by 30%.  Good timing!
"Near Perfect" Absorption of Sunlight, From All Angles
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy.
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If you are considering adding solar panels to your home, you can use this site to calculate the power you can produce...not including this new bonus:
Calculate your solar power
http://www.roofray.com/

And there have also been recent innovations in fuel cells that might make electrical pylons and power plants of all stripes outdated:
Warm Welcome for House Powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cell
From the outside, the house at the bottom of Stocking Street looks no different from any other in the cul-de-sac. But step around the back and a purpose-built shed hums with the latest in green technology - a state of the art hydrogen fuel cell.  Today the house in Lye, near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, will be opened as the first permanent hydrogen-powered home connected to the national grid.
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Even a new way of making concrete that entombs extra carbon dioxide:
Green Cement May Set CO2 Fate in Concrete
Call him cement man.  Back when Stanford Professor Brent Constantz was 27, he created a high-tech cement that revolutionized bone fracture repair in hospitals worldwide. People who might have died from the complications of breaking their hips lived.
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Just in time...as our environment is being degraded in so many other ways:
We Pay the Price for Decades of Relentless Dam Building
Decades ago, three new dams were started every day. But the debts of temporary prosperity are all coming due and payable today.
Between 1950 and 1970, three new dam projects were started every single day in the world. Today, primarily in China, Turkey, Brazil, Japan and India, one new dam project begins daily with an average completion date of four years. Fifteen hundred dams are currently under construction worldwide.  Dams fragment, divert and subjugate the world's rivers.
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Taken for Granite

Warning about some granite countertops emitting radon and radiation.
Marines eye 400,000 acres for training expansion at Twentynine Palms
By David Danelski
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/press-enterprise-09-18-2008.html

And not surprisingly, when "national security" is the issue, animals will suffer before rednecks!
SB County supervisor wants Marines to expand into wilderness areas, not off-roading site
By David Danelski
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/press-enterprise-11-02-2008.html

Not the adorable kangaroo rat!
Habitat protections scaled back for San Bernardino kangaroo rat
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/press-enterprise-10-17-2008.html

At least some living things might recover...
Peregrine Falcon Acting Pretty Cocky Since Being Taken Off Endangered Species List

Really, though, creatures everywhere are cheering for President Obama (say it ALOUD.)  They have little time to lose.  Not in warm places:
Climate change 'threatens biodiversity in tropics'
By Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/independent-10-10-2008.html

Or cold ones:
WILDLIFE: Warming could devastate South Pole penguins, scientists find
Lauren Morello, ClimateWire reporter
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/climatewire-10-13-2008.html
US Cold-War Waste Irks Greenland
Pentagon refuses to clean up toxic military bases, saying it would set a bad precedent.
Kangerlussuaq, Greenland - The former Sondrestrom US Air Force Base is now a busy community of 500, a midsized town by Greenland standards.  Runways built for heavy bombers and transports now accommodate wide- bodied jetliners, which disgorge passengers connecting to Greenland's many small airstrips.
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Not cute ones:
Scientists urged protection for W.Va. flying squirrel
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/charleston-gazette-08-26-2008.html

Or famous cartoon ones:
Tasmanian Devils Could Be Gone in 20 Years
By Robin Lloyd
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/fox-news-11-04-2008.html

Or very big ones:
Supreme Court Shows Little Sympathy for Whales Beset by Sonar
Washington - Whales may simply have to pay the price as the Navy prepares for war, Supreme Court justices suggested Wednesday.  In a closely watched environmental case, justices Wednesday morning repeatedly sounded sympathetic to Pentagon officials who want to run large-scale Navy exercises off the Southern California coast.
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For some whales, fortunately, it's Cetaceans 1, Alaskans 0:
Alaska Whales Protected Over Palin's Objections
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/washington-post-10-18-2008.html

Maybe the Day of the Animals is coming...
Brave Mountain Lion Fends Off Group Of Hikers

But seriously, we are facing an extinction of not historic, but geologic proportions...worse than the end of the dinosaurs and, if we're not careful, a planetary cleansing like the terrible Permian Extinction, when 95% of all species disappeared.
Nearly a Quarter of World's Mammals Face Extinction, Annual "Red List" Reports
Nearly a quarter of the world's land mammal species are at risk of extinction, and many others may vanish before they are even known to science, according to a major annual survey of global wildlife.  At least 1,141 of the 5,487 known species of mammal are threatened, with 188 listed in the highest risk "critically endangered" category.
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If you own property, you can be part of the solution by maintaining your corner of the ecosystem:

PlantRight

"PlantRight is a voluntary, proactive program for the horticultural community to prevent invasive plant introductions [in California] through horticulture." Features background about invasive plants, regional guides to invasive and alternative plants in different California regions (using the Sunset Magazine zone system), and discussion about the benefits of planting right. Also includes a FAQ, news, bibliography, information about research activities, and links to related sites. From the California Horticultural Invasives Prevention (Cal-HIP) steering committee.
Unusual Things You Can Still Put in the Compost
http://www.ecosalon.com/title/30_Unexpected_and_Unusual_Things_You_Can_Still_Put_in_the_Compost

Soon, very soon, we will see President Obama kill the bad birds with one stone...hopefully.  Solve the economic crisis and the environmental disaster together:
Obama's Green Jobs Revolution
Democrat will lead effort to curb world's dependence on oil; plans to create five million new posts in clean energy projects.
San Francisco and Washington - Barack Obama is promising a $150bn "Apollo project" to bring jobs and energy security to the US through a new alternative energy economy, if his final push for votes brings victory in the presidential election on Tuesday.
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US Focus on Climate Could Ease Financial Crisis
Washington - If the United States focused on curbing climate change as soon as a new president took office - or sooner - it could help pull the world from the financial brink, environmental policy experts told Reuters.  "Skyrocketing energy prices and the financial crisis have been a wake-up call that something's got to change," said Cathy Zoi, chief executive officer of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which is chaired by former Vice President Al Gore.
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What the Economy Needs Now Are Good, Green Jobs
If a coalition of clean energy and social justice groups has its way, renewable energy will be something of a modern day gold rush, providing both clean energy and scores of stable living-wage jobs for urban and rural Americans. Climate change and declining fossil fuel deposits are igniting interest in renewable energy, and many see the possibility of an economic boom in the building and installation of wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal energy systems along with a blossoming industry in green buildings and retrofits.
Click here to read more on our site

We're ready!  Let's go!
Western States Pitch Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Emissions
Four Canadian provinces are also included in the initiative, which aims to cut regional emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels.
Seven Western states and four Canadian provinces proposed a sweeping regional crackdown on global warming emissions Tuesday in the face of continuing reluctance by the Bush administration and Congress to pass comprehensive climate legislation.
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Global Warming Law Will Boost California Economy, Study Finds
When California made global headlines two years ago for a landmark law requiring a 25 percent cut in industrial greenhouse gases by 2020, some critics said the environmental advantages would be symbolic and net job losses significant.  Now, two studies released this week by the California Air Resources Board, the state body charged with overseeing the project, claim to show that implementing the emission-cutting measures under the pioneering law would actually benefit California's economy and public health.
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Report: California Energy-Efficiency Policies Grow Jobs
Oakland - California's energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000, according to a study to be released Monday.
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Because we're living in a house of cards...

Bringing Down the House

Video shows a truck destroying the canopy over a bank's drive-through lane.

And guess what?  It's the eleventh hour...time for an armistice.  Because there isn't any alternative.
This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch
The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory.
This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what's coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.  As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by.
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Ring the bells and blow the horns!  Let's go!
Original Boneheads - Liberty Bell March
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLQqG_1B4Bs
Liberty Bell March
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j52ljq5PtAo

Vive le screed!