skippy the bush kangaroo

big joe turner - if you remember

big joe is da man! and here's he's live at the apollo from 1955...

Labels: skippy's music club

at fire sale prices

interior department to hold alaska oil lease sale

the interior department said friday it is moving forward with an oil and gas lease sale covering nearly 4 million acres in alaska's national petroleum reserve.

the government says the lease area could hold 3 billion barrels of oil.

...the national petroleum reserve-alaska sits on federal land that is part of alaska's north slope, lying just west of the arctic national wildlife refuge.- ap

Labels: alaska, environment, oil

zones of death are spreading in oceans due to global warming. marine dead zones, where fish and other sea life can suffocate from lack of oxygen, are spreading across the world’s tropical oceans, a study has warned. - london times

dead water. too much nitrogen being washed into the sea is causing dead zones to spread alarmingly. - economist.

biotech companies rush to patent plant genes. biotech seed companies are behind a wave of patent claims on dozens of 'climate-ready' genes. - nature.

plans for new coal plants under fire. protesters are to launch one of the hardest-hitting environmental campaigns for more than a decade over plans to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the uk. london observer

inupiat sue to fend off danger of offshore oil. as mayor of alaska's wealthy north slope borough, edward itta is keenly attuned to the importance of oil, but his enthusiasm for the industry plummets when conversation shifts to offshore extraction. -ap.

chinese flee flood threat from quake. thousands of earthquake survivors fled tent camps and villages in sw china after the government warned that several lakes and rivers were getting dangerously close to overflowing because landslides have blocked water flow. the official death toll is now nearly 29,000. - new york times

water adds to worries in china's quake-hit sichuan. there is water everywhere in china's quake-ravaged sichuan province, where rain is hampering rescue efforts and reservoirs are pressing against weakened dams. but for some people there is not a drop to drink. - reuters.

effects of tce still a haunting mystery. a subterranean chemical plume -- thought to be latent under layers of dirt, asphalt and cement -- was found to be pushing toxic gases through the foundations of hundreds of buildings south of the ibm campus in the heart of the village. binghamton press & sun-bulletin

world’s poor pay price as crop research is cut. damage from the brown plant hopper, threatening the diets of many poor people and occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. researchers say budget cuts prevented them from doing so. - new york times.

one country’s table scraps, another country’s meal. americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study. it works out to about a pound of food every day for every american. - new york times.

how secure is our food supply? the price of rice is rising. wheat is in short supply. bees are dying. what's next? vancouver sun

Labels: china, environment, food supply, oil

jane's addiction - been caught stealing

Labels: skippy's music club

let's hope he roars some more...

senator edward m. kennedy was rushed to a hospital this morning in cape cod, where he was treated for a serious – but unknown – illness.

the boston globe reported that mr. kennedy had suffered stroke-like symptoms and was transported by helicopter to massachusetts general hospital in boston. the cape cod times published a photograph on its web site of mr. kennedy on a stretcher as it was being loaded onto a medical transport helicopter. - nytimes

Labels: kennedy

devotchka - till the end of time

from little miss sunshine

Labels: skippy's music club

huckabee jokes about obama ducking a gunman

Labels: huckabee, nra, obama

for someone who claims to hate "earmarks", mcbush certain knows how to use them for friends financial gain.

sen. john mccain secured millions in federal funds for a land acquisition program that provided a windfall for an arizona developer whose executives were major campaign donors, public records show.

mccain, who has made fighting special-interest projects a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, inserted $14.3 million in a 2003 defense bill to buy land around luke air force base in a provision sought by suncor development, the largest of about 50 landowners near the base. suncor representatives, upset with a state law that restricted development around luke, met with mccain's staff to lobby for funding, according to john ogden, suncor's president at the time.

the air force later paid suncor $3 million for 122 acres near the base. it was the highest single land transaction of the private lots purchased by the government — three times the county's assessed value and twice the military's estimated value. suncor also donated another 122 acres. alan bunnell, a spokesman for suncor's parent company, pinnacle west capital, said the donation was meant to minimize the company's tax bill and enhance the value of adjacent property it owns. - ustoady

perhaps they should change the name of the company to suncor(ruption)

Labels: lobbyists, mccain

tine thing helseth - trumpet concerto, third movement by franz joseph haydn

she's pretty hot for a baroque trumpet player. but then again, she's scandanavian, from oslo, norway, winnger of the norwegian grammy in 2007 for "newcomer of the year"...

Labels: skippy's music club

mad kane, that is!

Labels: aWol, mad kane

speaks.

"we have a protocol, sort of a custom, informally around here that we don't criticize the president when he is on foreign soil. one would think that that would apply to the president that he would not criticize americans when he is on foreign soil."

"i think what the president said in that regard is beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in israel." - reuters

the dixie chicks should write a song about this.

Labels: aWol, pelosi

i mean sludge....

raking through sludge exposes a stink. a former us epa scientist is suing the agency's officials and researchers at the university of georgia in athens, alleging that they manufactured and published false data to support the use of potentially harmful sewage sludges as fertilizers.- nature.

stuck in the mud. the environmental protection agency must gather data on the toxicity of spreading sewage sludge. - nature

environmentalists battle burlington over human waste fertilizer. environmentalists and homeowners are protesting a request to use human and household waste to fertilize local farmland. - greensboro wfmy tv

treated sludge has prompted health concerns. scientists, neighbors and the courts continue to raise questions about whether treated sewage sludge is dangerous, even as the federal government continues to promote spreading it on farms. - macon telegraph

Labels: environment, epa, farmers, science, toxins

says karl in the wsj:

republicans received a hard shot in mississippi. greg davis (for whom I campaigned and who was a well-qualified candidate) narrowly lost a special congressional election in a district president george w. bush carried four years ago with 62% of the vote.

unapologetic deceitfulness appears to be the goal

With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the vote was 54 percent for Mr. Childers to 46 percent for Mr. Davis (nyt).

unless, to be fair, when you're creating you're own reality, 8% is a narrow loss.

kimya dawson - loose lips

from the juno soundtrack, this video is a montage of stills from the film and various shots of stars ellen page and michael cera.

Labels: skippy's music club

edwards finally endorses...obama

edwards, who received a thunderous ovation when obama introduced him to a crowd of several thousand, said, "brothers and sisters, we must come together as democrats" to defeat mccain. "we are here tonight because the democratic voters have made their choice, and so have i." - ap

Labels: john edwards, obama

it isn't for our "freedoms"

the u.s. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged. - wapo

Labels: aWol, drug war

"wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

us foreclosure filings surge 65 percent in april

....one in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in april. foreclosure filings increased from a year earlier in all but eight states. - ap

Labels: foreclosure