News & Comment

First Draft on the Bush administration's EPA, and also with a post on how economic indicators fell for the 3rd straight month.

Go to Off The Kuff to find out everything you wanted to know about the DeLay fundraising investigation and local reaction to it. Kuffner has a thorough review of Texas media coverage, as well as a closing summary of the charges and timeline.

Iranian bloggers protest government news crackdowns. Now there's a group of people fighting the good fight.

From Talk Left, Alabama's attorney general convinced the parole board to reverse a parole grant for a prisoner whose prison record is clean, and is in jail for killing the husband who beat her and regularly sodomized her children.

Left Coaster: Parallels between Brazil and Iran regarding nuclear inspections, though no one is darkly hinting that Brazil should now be invaded. Contrary to what you might have been drilled on in government class, there is a fourth branch of Constitutional government.

Also thanks to the Left Coaster, a link to a post by Tristero on how closely (and I'm turning into a nutbar conspiracy theorist as I type this) the recent Republican agenda matches that of the John Birch society on five major points.

Highest icefields will not last 100 years, study finds. This Chinese study finds that the icefields in that country, approximately 15% of global ice pack, are fast disappearing. The likely consequences are initial flooding, followed by drought and desertification.

Millions Blocked From Voting In U.S. Elections:

..."There are individuals and officials who are actively trying to stop people from voting who they think will vote against their party and that nearly always means stopping black people from voting Democratic," said Mary Frances Berry, head of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights.

Vicky Beasley, a field officer for People for the American Way, listed some of the ways voters have been "discouraged" from voting.

"In elections in Baltimore in 2002 and in Georgia last year, black voters were sent fliers saying anyone who hadn't paid utility bills or had outstanding parking tickets or were behind on their rent would be arrested at polling stations. It happens in every election cycle," she said. ...

Finally, go read today's Sideshow and keep reading down the archive until you come to a post you recognize. Avedon has great media deconstruction stories in her link collections as recently posted.